As he rounded a bend in the track the familiar farmstead came into view and his heart beats quickened. More than ever now he longed to get back to Willowburn and the life he had loved. Judging by the signs of neglect he had seen they were badly in need of another pair of hands. His heart sank as he recalled the words of his Commanding Officer. Apparently they would be spending the next twelve months or more in Palestine. How was he going to break the news to his parents?
Outside the back door at Willowburn, the old pump was still working so he set his kitbag beside the door while he washed the remaining mucus and bloodstains off his hands and forearms before he crept into the house. His mother was bending over the fire stirring something in a cooking pot when he entered the kitchen.
‘Hello Mum,’ he greeted her softly and reached behind the door for the roller towel to dry himself. There was a lilt of laughter in his voice. As he had anticipated she swung round, spoon in hand, her face beaming in welcome, her eyes full of love. He was unaware of it but he had inherited his mother’s smiling blue eyes and expressive face, as well as her thick wavy hair, but he had his father’s square, determined jaw.
‘Oh Stevie it’s good to see ye, laddie!’ She hugged him tightly then stood back to examine him. ‘Surely ye canna be growing still! You must be head and shoulders taller than your father and Fred now.’
‘I’ve been taller than them for a while,’ he chuckled. ‘I expect I’m broadening out a bit more.’
‘Aye maybe that’s it. The bus must have been on time for once. Mind you, Joe Crosby’s son took over the driving this week. He’s home frae the war too. He doesna gossip to the passengers as much as his father. He doesna know them all yet.’
‘Mmm, I met him. He seems a pleasant fellow. There weren’t many other passengers on the bus today.’
‘There’ll be plenty on the afternoon bus. Standing room only I shouldn’t wonder. Friday is market day in Annan, in case ye’ve forgotten. The women will be in for their shopping. Mind you, the rationing is getting worse instead o’ better. We thought things would be easier once peace was declared but I suppose it will take time to have effect.’
‘It will take a long while before things are back to normal,’ Steven said gravely. ‘There’s so much destruction everywhere.’ He frowned. He would not spoil her pleasure yet with his news. ‘Rations or not something smells good.’ He sniffed appreciatively.
‘Mr Kerr saved me a nice wee piece o’ lamb to welcome ye back. After all that travelling you’ll be ready for a cup o’ tea. I’ll shove the kettle over the fire and it’ll be ready in a jiffy.”
A few minutes later they sat opposite each other at the scrubbed kitchen table with Hannah plying him with questions and Steven eager to hear what was happening on the farm. He noticed how the light died out of her eyes and for a moment he thought she might burst into tears the way her lips trembled, but she pressed a hand to her mouth then continued to chatter, almost feverishly, until they heard his father’s measured tread crossing the flagged floor of the back kitchen. Steven watched speculatively as his mother rose to her feet and reached for another cup and saucer for his father.
‘Eh you’re home at last, laddie. Na, na dinna get up.’ His father strode to his side and squeezed his shoulder. ‘It’s good to see you’re back safely,’ he said gruffly. Steven knew he ought to tell them he was not here to stay but the talk moved on. They both plied him with questions. He knew they were pleased to see him home, and yet he was certain there was an air of constraint.
‘The farm is all right, isn’t it?’ The words burst out of him.
‘Of course it is,’ his mother answered swiftly, ‘why shouldn’t it be?’
‘I- oh, I just wondered. I know I’ve been away but I do read the papers and we do hear things. I know the government have been pressing everybody to produce as much food as possible. One or two farmers near to where we were stationed have been moved out of their farms. Some of us were sent to help get the harvest in when we were back in camp.’ He couldn’t bring himself to tell them he knew the War Ag had threatened to take over Willowburn. It would distress his mother if she realised it was common knowledge down in the village, and no doubt all around the parish.
‘We’ve a grand litter o’ piglets,’ his father said. ‘They were born three days ago, twelve of them and all alive and suckling. D’ye remember the gilt we had the spring you had to go into the army.’
‘Yes, I do. We called her Sally.’
‘Well this sow was one of Sally’s first litter. They’re all good mothers.’
‘Speaking of mothers, there was a cow calving in Keeper’s Field. The calf was coming backwards. She looked as though she’d been calving for some time,’ He didn’t hear Fred come in. ‘I gave it a pull. Surprisingly the calf is alive but I wondered if the cow had hurt her back or if she was just exhausted. She didn’t get up while I was there so she’ll probably need a drink—’
‘Interfering already are ye!’ Fred growled angrily. He was still wearing his boots although they were thick with manure from the midden. ‘Have you told him?’ he demanded. There was no welcome home from Fred, Steven noticed, not even “Hello.”
‘Oh Fred, Steven has only just arrived, and look at your boots!’
‘Don’t nag,’ Fred glowered. ‘He’s been here nearly an hour. I saw him coming up the road.’
Home an hour after five years away, Hannah thought, and Fred resents even that.
‘What have you to tell me?’ Steven asked, looking round the three faces in turn.
‘Nothing,’ his mother said shortly, setting her mouth in a tight line. ‘It’s nearly dinner time. We can talk later.’ His father was silent, rubbing his forehead, his eyes fixed on the table top. Hannah had only given him an edited version of Fred’s threats but he still looked troubled. She knew how much he had always hated quarrels.
‘If you won’t tell him, I will.’ Fred jerked his head towards the door and Steven wondered how he could have forgotten his half brother’s sullen manner. He remembered how frustrated and angry he used to get when Fred failed to do his work and then blamed him. His mouth tightened but he rose and followed Fred outside. He was beginning to understand the reason for the tense atmosphere now. He guessed Fred was bent on making trouble of some kind, almost before he had put a foot in the door, but there was nothing new in that. He had no inkling of how much trouble though.
Three
Steven stood outside the door of the sturdy stone built farmhouse where he had been born and stared incredulously at his half-brother. He couldn’t believe Fred could dictate who should, or should not, live at Willowburn. Their father had followed them outside and he turned to look at him. His heart sank at the sight of his haggard face and the look of defeat in his eyes. He looked beyond them to the fields sloping upward towards the head of the glen. They were green and fresh after the city streets with their shells of burnt out homes and factories. How often he had dreamed of the Scottish hills and glens during the hellish years spent fighting for his country and for the freedom of people like Fred. It was the dream of returning to the farm and the home he loved which had sustained him in his darkest hours.
In the tense silence he could hear the familiar gurgle of the burn which ran by the stack-yard boundary, beyond the house. He had played there as a boy. He knew every inch of Willowburn Farm. He had spent the first eighteen years of his life here. As soon as he was fourteen he had worked in the fields and the farm steading. All that was before the war. It seemed like another life.
His eyes narrowed as Fred’s words echoed in his brain as clearly as they had five years earlier.
‘I’m not going to the army. I’m staying here. He’ll have to go.’
‘But Steven isn’t eighteen yet.’ He recalled his mother’s anguished protest.
‘I don’t care. He’ll be eighteen in two more weeks.’ Now he knew Fred had wanted rid of him even then. Steven had a mouth curved for laughter but his upper lip curled in contempt as he brought hi
s gaze back to Fred’s sullen face. Had his brother hoped he would perish in a foreign land as so many others had done - as his best friend Sam had done? He would never forget those last hours as they had lain side by side knowing Sam was dying. No medal on earth could replace a friend like Sam.
Anger began to burn in him. He drew himself to his full height, his chin jutting proudly. Fred’s piggy eyes narrowed warily and he took a step backwards. Steven raised an eyebrow. His blue eyes flashed.
‘Coward,’ he hissed between his teeth. ‘I suppose you always were, but I didn’t know that when you were bigger than me. Did you hope I’d be killed like Sam? Did you hope I’d never return home?’
‘So what if I did?’ Fred sneered. ‘There’s no place for you here. We don’t need you. Willowburn is my birthright—’
‘The farm still belongs to father, and he’s my father too, or had you forgotten?’ Steven looked at his parent, willing him to raise his eyes from contemplation of his boots. His father’s gaze remained lowered.
‘I’ve made him a partner in the farm,’ he muttered slowly. ‘I would have made you a partner too, laddie...’
Steven’s heart sank. Would have? What did his father mean by that? A shaft seemed to pierce his heart as he stared at his father’s bowed head. Willowburn was the place he had remembered when he wakened and before he went to sleep, the home he had fought for and dreamed about.
‘Father?’ he prompted with a note of desperation. Slowly his father raised his head, lifted his cap a little to scratch his forehead. It was a habit Steven remembered well. ‘Father?’ he repeated.
‘We-ell…’ Eddy Caraford cleared his throat. ‘I’ve told Fred we need ye lad. I’m not so young as I was. There’s more work than we can manage, especially now the land girls will all be going home. I expect Edna will be leaving now the war is over.’
‘No!’ Fred protested hotly. ‘I told you! I don’t need him here. There’s no place for him. We’ve got a tractor now. Anyway Edna is staying.’
‘None o’ the other girls stayed very long,’ his father reminded him sharply, ‘and they can’t do the work Steven can do.’ Fred flushed. He considered himself the boss and he was not used to his father disagreeing with him these days. He sensed his disapproval and his resentment of Steven increased.
‘If he’s so good at working he can get a job somewhere else, him and his medals and promotions,’ he jeered.
He talks as though I’m not here, Steven thought and guessed Fred had stated his opinions before.
‘We ought to be keeping more cows and an extra sow or two,’ Eddy said meeting his younger son’s direct blue gaze. ‘You were aye good with animals, Stevie. And I remember you learned to plough when you were only thirteen.’
‘We have the tractor for ploughing now,’ Fred exploded. ‘I’ve stayed here and worked while he was roaming about the world. Willowburn is mine. You said you’d tell the landlord to make me the tenant before he came back.’
‘I can’t tell the landlord anything, I can only ask. It’s out o’ my hands,’ his father said firmly. ‘When I mentioned having a joint tenancy, the land-agent said you needed to prove yourself. He preferred to wait until we knew whether Steven was coming back.’
‘It’s nothing to do with him! You could have persuaded him to put my name on the tenancy if you’d tried,’ Fred argued belligerently.
‘I made you a partner to encourage you to pull your weight, Fred. It hasna done much good so far,’ his father said wearily.
Steven’s gaze darted from one to the other. He saw the strain in his father’s face. His heart sank. Fred had always been a bully but he never thought he would try bullying their own father, even less that he would succeed. Thinking back, he knew Fred had always expected to get his own way, even when he was quite young. His mother reckoned it was because Fred had lost his own mother when he was a baby and his father had tried to compensate for the loss. Fred had played on that from an early age, manipulating their father to get what he wanted. If there was no place for him at Willowburn, what would he do when he was finally demobbed? Farming was the only thing he’d ever wanted to do. He could have attended Dumfries Academy and had an education as his mother had wanted him to do, but he had longed to work with his father, learning to plough and to sow, to shear the sheep and help with the lambing.
Even at school, Fred had been lazy and he had never been clever enough to pass for the Academy but he hadn’t wanted his younger brother to have the opportunity either. Steven allowed himself a glimmer of a smile as he remembered it was the one and only time he had welcomed Fred’s support. He grimaced at the memory now. Fred glared at him.
‘You needna smirk. Farming’s not the easy life you had here before the war,’ he said, ‘its bloody hard work and—’
‘Nay lad,’ their father protested, ‘farming was never easy and Stevie aye buckled to and got on with things. He was keener to farm.’
‘He knows nothing about the way things are now,’ Fred snapped, glaring at Steven. ‘There’s men in suits who come breathing down our necks, telling us what to do, ordering us to plough pasture that’s never been ploughed before and—’
‘My heart bleeds for you,’ Steven drawled with rare sarcasm. ‘I told you the first time I came on leave that the farmers all over the country were ploughing up pasture, and even ancient parkland, to grow more cereals because the country needs food, but you wouldna even keep an extra cow. It’s only the inefficient farmers who have visits from the War Ag. I heard they’d threatened to turn you off. You would never have bought a tractor or learned to plough if the government hadn’t made you grow cereals. It was only my mother and her poultry that saved you from being turned out of Willowburn.’ Steven regretted his outburst immediately when he glanced up and saw the colour had drained from his father’s face. He looked more like seventy nine than fifty nine. The war had not been easy for him. He guessed Fred still didn’t do his fair share of the work.
‘I suppose she told you that,’ Fred snarled furiously, jerking his head towards the kitchen.
‘No, Mother never mentioned it. She didn’t need to tell me. It’s the talk of the county. Even when I asked about it in my letters, she avoided answering. You should know she’s always been loyal even though.’
‘Loyal! She’d had one husband but she still poked her nose in where it wasna wanted as soon as she got a chance o’ trapping another fool into marriage.’ Steven saw his father wince but he jerked upright.
‘Nay, that’s not the way of it.’
But Fred ranted on.
‘She should have stayed a widow and got on with being a bloody housekeeper. That’s all she was good for but she wanted—’
‘Fred! That’s enough of such talk! You should be ashamed.’ Eddy Caraford’s face was chalky white now and he sagged back against the house wall, one hand clutched to his chest, but for once Steven was too incensed to pay attention to him. In the army he had earned respect for his self control, his handling of tricky situations. He rarely panicked or lost his temper but his half brother’s insults regarding his mother made his blood boil. Fred’s sneering smirk was the last straw. His fist struck at the thick lips almost before he realised what he had done.
‘Why you…!’ Fred wiped a hand across his split lip. He saw blood. Instantly he lowered his head. Just in time Steven remembered that nasty habit of old. He jumped aside, remembering how painful Fred’s head butts had been in his tender young stomach. Now he wanted to laugh as his brother sprawled heavily on the dusty yard. Only the anger still coiling in his stomach prevented his mirth.
‘Dinna fight. Aah lads there’s nae need to fight. Surely there’s been enough o’ that,’ their father said in genuine distress. He had never known Stevie strike his elder brother before.
‘You’re right, Father,’ Steven grimaced, ‘I’ve seen enough to last me a lifetime.’ He looked more closely at his father’s drawn face and saw the way his hand clutched his chest. ‘Are you all right Father?’ He frowned i
n concern.
‘Aye, I’ll be fine in a minute. Hush now laddie, don’t worry your mother.’
‘We-ell, if you’re sure you’ll be all right?’
‘Aye. We could do with ye back home, laddie, but I canna do with fighting. I’m too old for…’
‘Don’t worry Father. I haven’t had chance to tell you yet. We’ve been drafted to Palestine. We’ll be gone about a year to eighteen months I think, then…’
‘Good riddance!’ Fred muttered, glowering at him as he dusted himself down. Steven ignored him.
‘It will give us all time to decide what’s best, Father.’ He squeezed his father’s shoulder, grabbed his kaki haversack and slung it over his back. ‘I couldn’t promise we wouldn’t brawl again.’ He glanced at Fred in contempt, ‘but I dinna want to cause you a heart attack so I’ll not stay where I’m not wanted.’
‘Eh lad, ye canna leave. This is your home and your mother’s cooking ye a good roast dinner.’
‘It’s better if I go now, Dad. Tell Mother I’ll see her before I leave and I’ll explain about Palestine. I didna want to go there but now I see the way things are it will give me time to think about the future.’
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