by Ruby Jackson
Contents
Title Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
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Find out where the story began for Grace, Sally, Daisy and Rose…
Acknowledgements
About Ruby Jackson
Also by Ruby Jackson
Copyright
About the Publisher
ONE
Kent, February 1940
She had been right to do it, to pack up her few personal belongings and go without a word to anyone, even to those who had been so kind to her for many years. She regretted that: not the kindness, of course, but the manner of her leaving. How could she explain to them that she could no longer bear her present existence, the hostility of her own sister, the uncomfortable, unwelcoming damp little house that she and, she supposed, Megan called home? Even her job in the office of the Vickers munitions factory was unfulfilling. All that had brightened her life had been the friendship of the Brewer and Petrie families, the small garden that she and her friends had created, and daydreams of Sam. Winter frosts had killed the garden that had given her such pleasure, but Sam, who had seen war coming and had enlisted long before September 1939, was with his regiment – somewhere. Useless to daydream about Sam, though, not because she had no idea where he was or what was happening to him but because he loved Sally Brewer.
It was easy to picture Sally, with her long black hair and her glorious blue eyes. Sally, an aspiring actress, was almost as tall as any one of the three Petrie sons, and a perfect foil for Sam’s Nordic blondness. How could she, plain Grace Paterson, who did not even know who her parents were, be attractive to a man like Sam? Oh, he had been kind to her when she was a child but Sam, eldest in a large family, had been kind to everyone. What would he think of her when he heard some day that she had disappeared without a word?
Grace sobbed and buried her face in her pillow in case any of the other girls were to come in and hear her. Her conscience, however, kept pricking her and, eventually, she found that intolerable. You have to write, Grace, you owe them that much.
She got up, straightened the grey woollen blanket and thumped her lumpy pillow into shape. Right, I’m not going to lie here whimpering, she decided. I will write to everyone and then, when it’s off my mind, I’m going to try to be the best land girl in the whole of the Land Army.
She picked up the notebook she had bought in nearby Sevenoaks, and moved down the room between the long rows of iron bedsteads, each with its warm grey blankets, and here and there an old, much-loved toy brought from home for comfort. She reached the desk where, for once, no other girl was sitting and examined the lined jotter pages. Immediately, Grace worried that she ought to have spent a little more of her hard-earned money on buying proper writing paper. She shook her head and promised herself that she would do just that when her four weeks of training were completed and she had moved on to a working farm.
Mrs Petrie and Mrs Brewer won’t mind, she told herself.
When had she first met them? More than half a lifetime ago but, since she was not yet twenty, half a lifetime wasn’t long. Grace sighed. Ten, eleven Christmases spent at the home of her friend Sally Brewer. Ten birthdays either with the Brewers or with the Petries. But when she thought of the Petrie family, it was not kind, comfortable Mrs Petrie or even her school friends, the twins, Rose and Daisy, who immediately came vividly to life in her mind, but Sam. Sam, who, for all she knew, might be dead.
No, he could not be dead. God would not be so cruel. She closed her eyes and immediately saw him – tall, blond, blue-eyed Sam – chasing the bullies who had pushed her down in the playground. He had picked her up, dusted her down and handed her over to his twin sisters.
So many kindnesses, and she had repaid them by slinking away, like a cat in the night, without a word of explanation or thanks. Again, Grace turned her attention to the notebook and began to write:
Dear Mrs Petrie,
I’ve joined the Women’s Land Army and I’m learning all about cows.
That unpromising beginning was torn up. She started again:
Dear Mrs Petrie,
I am very sorry for not telling you that I applied to join the Women’s Land Army. I thought it would take some time and I could tell you but I went in and there were lots of women and eventually this posh lady asked me my age and did my mother know. I said I didn’t have a mother. You do know it’s jolly hard work? she said after she’d been thinking. I’ve never heard anyone say, jolly hard. Another lady said, See the doctor now. He was in the next room and I was a bit scared as I haven’t ever been seen by a doctor, not ever been ill, proper ill. The doctor looked at me and said, Have you ever been ill, or been in hospital? I wasn’t sure but I don’t think I have and so I said, No, sir, and he said, Why on earth do you want to join? It’s bloody awful work.
Grace stopped and thought hard. Was her simple little tale interesting? Would Mrs Petrie think it odd that the doctor had only asked a few questions and then told her that she would do, whatever that meant, and then had added something about being sure to drink milk?
And how could she explain why she had wanted to join, even knowing that it was ‘bloody awful work’?
It was working in the garden, growing the sprouts and things. It’s hard to explain but, although it was really hard work, I enjoyed it. I felt
She could not explain the pleasure or the satisfaction that growing things had given her and so that effort at a letter ended in the wastebasket, too. She tried to write to Mrs Brewer and four attempts ended beside the others. Grace stared in despair at the wall in front of her but, in her head, saw only the waiting room of the doctor’s surgery in Dartford.
There were several girls and women there, and from their clothes and, in some instances, their voices, Grace realised that they came from what Mr Brewer called ‘all walks of life’, though so far no one had her accent, which, Megan, her half-sister, always said was half-Scot, half-Kent. Grace waited quietly, head down, until she was called.
The doctor was quite old: he had to be older than either Mr Brewer or Mr Petrie and they would soon be fifty. Had all the young doctors been called up?
‘Some simple questions, first, Miss Paterson. Why do you want to join the Land Army?’
‘I like growing things.’
‘Any experience?’
‘I had a little vegetable garden.’
‘Splendid? Any illnesses?’
‘No, not real illness. Measles once.’ Grace had felt the words ‘in the convent’ forming on her lips. Why had she wanted to say that? She had never been in a convent, had she?
‘Height?’
Since the younger Petrie boys had tried stretching her every so often as they grew up, Grace knew exactly how tall she was, but behind her back she crossed her fingers against bad luck and added half an inch. ‘Five feet two and a half inches.’
He looked at her and she breathed in and tried to stretch her neck.
‘You’ll do,’ he said, heavy notes of doubt in his voice. ‘Shoe size?’
Stupid to fib here. ‘Four.’
‘Difficult. Best take all your old socks.’
; Grace smiled. Surely that sounded positive, even if her feet were too small to be of any use to the war effort.
‘Do you have varicose veins?’
She hadn’t the slightest idea what a varicose vein was but said, ‘Of course not.’ Her reply seemed both to please and surprise the doctor, who was busily making notes as Grace waited in something approaching terror for the physical examination.
The doctor closed the folder. ‘Thank you, Miss Paterson. Wait outside, please, and, Miss Paterson, be sure to drink all the milk they give you.’
No physical examination; he hadn’t even taken her pulse. If he were to take it now, he would feel it racing.
‘You’ll do. You’ll do.’ The loveliest words in the English language repeated themselves over and over in her head.
‘Still awake? Want some cocoa? We’re making it in the kitchen and they’ve left us some scones – with butter. Amazing how we’re able to squeeze more food in at bedtime just a few hours after a three-course tea.’
One of Grace’s roommates, Olive Turner, was standing in the doorway, and the appetising smell of a freshly baked, and therefore hot, scone wafted across the room.
Grace rose in some relief. ‘It’s hard work and fresh air does it,’ she said. ‘That smells heavenly.’
‘And it’s mine,’ Olive laughed, and together they ran down the three flights of uncarpeted stairs to the kitchen, where several of the other girls were crowded round the long wooden table. A plate, piled high with scones, several little pots of raspberry jam, each with a land girl’s name on it, and each girl’s own rationed pat of butter, were clustered together in the centre of the table.
‘Home sweet home,’ said Olive, as she and Grace found empty chairs.
‘My home was never like this,’ said another girl, Betty Goode, as she bit into her scone.
The others laughed and Grace smiled but said nothing. The trainee land girls drank their hot cocoa and ate scones filled with farm butter and raspberry jam until their supervisor came in to remind them that cows would be waiting to be milked at five o’clock next morning. Groaning, the girls finished their supper, washed up, and made their way back upstairs to bed.
Grace washed and undressed as quickly as possible. The house was large but the third floor, where the girls were housed, was cold.
‘Beds are nice and warm, girls,’ their supervisor had said, ‘and I’m sorry I can’t get any heat up here but the summer class’ll be wishing it was colder; hotter than a glasshouse, this place gets.’
The land girls had rather liked the idea of being in a lovely warm glasshouse, especially now, in February, when icy winds found every chink in the walls or the roof. Some had even perfected the art of dressing and undressing under their covers, not for modesty but for comfort. Grace, having been brought up in an almost dilapidated old house with one working fireplace, was used to discomfort, and dressed and undressed with well-practised speed.
‘Will we ever be warm again, Grace? My feet are like ice.’ Olive, in the next bed, issued her usual nightly complaint.
‘Keep your socks on, stupid,’ the other girls called, but soon, exhausted by their long day of punishing chores, they slept.
Grace appreciated the warm, woollen, knee-length stockings that had been issued to her with the rest of her uniform. She was not quite so fond of the Aertex shirt; it somehow didn’t fit properly and she was glad that, for the present, most of it was hidden under her green issue jumper. She took great care of these clothes. Thanks to Sally’s mother, and Daisy’s, she had had something brand-new every birthday, even if it was a cardigan that had been knitted from wool that had been used previously. The cardigan was made for her and therefore it did not matter that the wool was old. Women like Mrs Brewer and Mrs Petrie had become experts at ‘Make Do and Mend’ long before the government posters had come out asking the people of Britain to be economical.
Loud groans emanated from every bed several hours later as the trainees were awakened by the large metal alarm clock that stood in a tin basin so that it would make even more of a racket as it told the world that it was already four a.m.
‘My God, why didn’t I join the army or become a nurse?’ This question was asked daily.
‘The army never sleeps and bedpans are a great reason for not nursing.’
‘Please, it’s bad enough having to get up before the damn cockerel without having to listen to all the moans.’
Grace smiled. She loved the life; she enjoyed being with women who were all about the same age. If all the farms she would work on during this beastly war were like this one, she saw no reason to complain.
The word she heard most often from the dairyman was ‘cleanliness’. He wanted the girls clean, their white aprons spotless, and he inspected every girl’s hands each time they were in the dairy. The work was hard. The first cow she had encountered had terrified her. This large, warm brown-and-white animal with such lovely eyes had suddenly glared at her as she tried milking it in the way that had been explained and then demonstrated, and had deliberately kicked over her pail, spilling the precious milk, which ran down the drain. The instructor had glared.
‘Try to keep hold of the milk, Paterson; there’s a war on and we need every drop.’
Now at the end of a week of learning how to milk, Grace felt quite secure in her ability. She could manage to wash the rear end of the cow and its udders before starting either hand or machine milking and the workspace was warm. Cleaning out the parlour after milking was not such a pleasant job. The water was always ice cold and the smell of cow waste was, to Grace, unpleasant.
‘Rubbish,’ announced George, the head dairyman, his Scottish accent giving the word a fierce emphasis, when some of the girls complained. ‘Nowt wrong with a good, clean farmyard smell. Too dainty by half, some of you.’
But if George was difficult to please, he was also patient and fair, and the girls enjoyed his crustiness.
Milking was done and the cows had to be taken out to fields close to the farmhouse. There was still no sign of new growth and so Grace and Olive Turner were assigned to fork hay into large feeding troughs, back-breaking work but warming.
‘Hope they’ve left us some breakfast,’ moaned Olive, as the rumbling in her empty stomach reminded her of the time.
‘Warden’ll make sure we eat.’
‘Happen you’re right, Grace, here at the training centre, but I’m worried about postings. I’ve heard ever so many stories about how mean some farmers are. All they want is cheap labour, and the less they have to give in return the better.’
Grace had also heard scare stories but preferred not to believe them. Farmers were people and there were different types of people: mean ones like her sister, Megan, and decent, generous ones like the Petries and the Brewers. ‘Everything will be fine, Olive. Now let’s finish this and get back to the house.’
‘Wouldn’t it be terrific if Wellington boots had fur linings?’ Olive – who had just stepped into something that smelled terrible, looked awful, and was very wet and cold – stood on one wellingtoned leg and looked down at the one caught tight in the mire.
Grace helped her pull her boot out and it came with a rather horrid slurping sound. It was quite common to lose boots in farm muck and to be forced to dance around on one leg while trying not to put the bootless foot down. ‘Best idea I ever heard, Olive, love. In the meantime, wear more socks.’
‘I don’t have many pairs, and not thick ones.’
‘I’m sure I can lend you some. Brighten up; it’ll soon be spring – daffodils, primroses, little lambs. Now cheer up and smell your breakfast.’
They had arrived at the kitchen door and the smell of sizzling sausages came out to welcome them.
‘I hope there’s enough porridge left for the pair of you, but there are three sausages and so you may have one and a half each in a fresh-baked roll. Luckily for you, I came to make myself a fresh pot of tea,’ said Miss Ryland, the manager of the hostel.
Grace and Olive wa
shed their hands in the deep sink and sat down gratefully at the table with their plates of porridge.
‘Ambrosia,’ Olive said as she finished her bowl.
‘I never heard that word before. What’s it mean? I’d like to write it to my friend Daisy; she loves learning new words.’
Olive shrugged. ‘Dunno, really. Something special, I think. Just heard someone say it when something really tasted good.’
‘Ambrosia was a honey-flavoured food of the Greek gods, girls,’ said Miss Ryland. ‘And if it does for you two what it was supposed to do for the gods, you have years of cleaning out cowsheds ahead of you.’
The girls looked at her in astonishment.
‘Would you explain, Miss Ryland, please?’ Grace asked. ‘I don’t know about Olive, but I’ll happily clean cowsheds if it helps the war effort, but for how many years?’
‘Ambrosia promises immortality, Grace. You’ll live for ever, cleaning up cowpats.’
Olive looked as if she might burst into tears.
‘She’s joking,’ said Grace. ‘It’s only a story but, just in case, you’d better start knitting more warm socks.’
‘Enough chatter, finish your sausages and get on with your next cowshed.’
When they had finished the hearty breakfast, the land girls wrapped themselves up again and left the hostel.
‘What’s next?’ Olive was already shaking with cold. ‘When were we supposed to get the warm coats?’
‘I hope they’ll be sent to us here, but I think Miss Ryland is the type who won’t mind if we ask her about them.’ Grace looked at her companion, who was almost blue with cold. ‘You need to put on two jumpers, Olive, or at least a liberty bodice. Don’t you have one of those? If you don’t, I can let you have mine when we go back for our dinner.’ Grace remembered, all too clearly, how it felt not to have enough warm clothes. Her sister had not been the best provider, seeming to begrudge every penny that was spent on the little girl who, for reasons known only to her, Megan had promised to bring up.
‘I did have a nice liberty bodice,’ said Olive with a sneeze. ‘My mum said, “Take it with you and wear it over your vest,” but I’m not a child any more.’