‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ Edie asked.
‘Not now.’
‘Do you know what it’s about?’
That was definitely far too forward, but Edie couldn’t help wanting to know more. She was sure Tilly hadn’t been telling the complete truth when she told her that story about wanting to buy a rabbit. Who wrote letters about game purchases on scented purple notepaper?
‘Yes,’ Sam said. ‘I know.’
And without another word he strode off ahead, leaving Edie and the sheepdogs bringing up the rear.
Edie watched him as he made for the henhouse: broad and erect; firm muscles, forged through a lifetime of hard work, shifting under his clothes; shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows to expose a pair of powerful forearms lightly dusted with fair hair. Tilly had called him charming. Edie didn’t know about that, but he was certainly strong and vigorous, and not unpleasant to look at either, especially when his scowl lifted. Sam Nicholson was hardly what you’d call a ladies’ man, but some women preferred that sort, didn’t they – the strong, silent type? Yes, Edie could see how Sam might have the capacity to charm. She could imagine a woman susceptible to that charm even finding herself falling in love with him.
Her brow furrowed in a frown. An idea had started to form, and it wasn’t one she cared for at all.
Chapter 13
The henhouse was a small barn with a fenced paddock to the back. There were around a dozen fat brown biddies and one very cocky cockerel strutting around it when Edie and Sam arrived.
‘How many hens do you keep?’ she asked.
‘Twenty, plus the cock. I’d like more – plenty of demand for eggs, and meat too – but I don’t have time to tend to them and the sheep.’
Edie noticed how he became more animated when he discussed his work, and his seemingly immovable frown lifted. Farm life was hard, but it was obvious he loved it.
‘Prue Hewitt is in the market for some hens,’ Edie said. ‘She wants to sell fresh eggs down in the village.’
‘I wouldn’t mind the competition. There’s more demand in Applefield than I can supply. Tell her I’ll put by a couple of chicks for her from the next lot, no charge, and she can see how she gets along with them.’
‘Thank you, she’ll appreciate that.’
All the time he was talking his eyes were roving over the hens, counting them.
‘Fourteen,’ he said. ‘Let’s check inside.’
In the henhouse, five hens sat roosting in their hen boxes. The sixth, though, lay on the floor in a mess of blood and feathers, stone dead. Edie hastily averted her eyes.
Sam shook his head, scowling.
‘That’s rats, that is,’ he muttered. ‘I knew they were in here. I’ve been finding broken eggs for weeks.’
‘Do they eat them?’
‘Aye, suck out the insides. I emptied the traps of three of the little buggers last week, but it’s taken more than a few to do this. There’s a nest somewhere.’
He picked the dead hen up by the neck, its lifeless head lolling pathetically, and threw it on to a shelf.
‘You can take that home if you want, boil the giblets for soup,’ Sam said. ‘Wouldn’t eat the flesh if I were you though, not after the vermin have had their teeth in it.’
Edie didn’t particularly relish the idea of cycling home with the victim of a brutal poultrycide in her bike basket, but waste not, want not, she supposed. Plus it was off the ration, a little extra to supplement their meagre meat allowance. Chicken wasn’t rationed but it was scarce, and when you could find it you could expect to pay a king’s ransom for it.
Sam was feeling generous to the residents of Applefield Manor today. Fleetingly, Edie wondered why. Guilty conscience perhaps?
‘Thank you.’ She glanced around the dimly lit barn and gave a slight shudder. ‘I suppose we ought to get looking for the rats.’
‘Let’s get these girls outside first.’ Sam felt under the roosting hens to check for eggs. ‘Nothing again today, thanks to our scurrying friends putting them off laying. All right, ladies, wake up. Shoo, shoo, go on! Out in the run.’
When the henhouse was empty, Sam closed the hatch leading outside and opened the door for Shep and Sadie.
‘Rats can get anywhere,’ Sam told Edie. ‘In the rafters, under the straw. They’re devious little sods. The dogs should be able to sniff them out though. See where these two go, then have a dig around. Here.’ He tossed Edie a pair of heavy leather gloves and started pulling on a pair of his own. ‘You don’t want to get bit.’
Sam bent down to tuck his trousers into his socks as Edie pulled on the gloves.
‘Stops the buggers running up the legs,’ he explained when he noticed her watching. ‘Don’t want them digging their teeth into anything tender up there, do I?’
Edie found herself blushing again. She crouched down to make sure her own breeches were tightly secured inside her standard-issue Land Army socks, glad of an excuse to hide her face. That earthy northern bluntness was going to take a bit of getting used to where some things were concerned.
The dogs began digging around in the straw, looking for the bloodthirsty intruders. Humans and canines had been searching for a good half-hour when Edie pulled out one of the nest boxes and clamped her hand over her mouth to suppress a squeal. A pair of big black eyes stared up at her, before the enormous rat bared its teeth and scurried away in a flash of brown.
‘Shep! Sadie! Go to it!’ Sam commanded, grabbing Edie’s arm to pull her back. Unconsciously she sagged against him, dizzy from the shock.
The dogs didn’t need telling twice. With a delighted yelp, Shep leaped into the shadows. A second later he had the rat in his mouth, growling as he shook the life out of it. The thing was dead almost as soon as the dog’s jaws closed on its throat, and its plump body fell, lifeless, to the floor.
‘Sam, there’s a nest, like you said,’ Edie whispered. ‘Under the boxes. Loads of them … babies. That must’ve been the mother.’
‘Best thing is to turn them out, let the dogs deal with them. Sounds cruel, I know, but it’s more humane than gas or poison.’
‘Is it –’
She stopped herself. ‘Is it really necessary?’, she’d been about to ask, but of course she knew it was. And yet the little things had looked so helpless, even though they were vermin. She wished there was another way.
Her friend Alfie had had a pet rat when he was a boy, a little white chap with pink eyes named Merlin. He’d been tame enough to carry in Alfie’s pocket, and clever as anything. Alfie had taught him to do tricks: to roll on his back, and beg for his food just like a dog. It had broken his heart when Merlin had finally died at the age of three.
Edie turned her face away from the dead rat on the floor, trying not to think about Merlin. How had she thought she was prepared for this? To learn about it in theory was one thing; in practice it was quite another.
‘Are you all right, London? You’ve gone very pale.’
There was a softer note to Sam’s voice than she’d heard there before. Edie realised she was still resting her weight against him, and he’d placed one hand on her hip for support. Hastily she moved away.
‘I’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘It was a shock, that was all.’
‘Hmm.’ He looked into her face. ‘Perhaps you ought to go outside. You’re right, it’s a nasty business. I don’t like it myself, but …’
‘But it has to be done. I know.’ She pulled herself up straight. ‘No. I want to see it through. It’s my job.’
‘I won’t think any less of you, Edie.’
She looked down at the rat on the floor and closed her eyes.
‘Let’s just get it over with,’ she said.
After the rats had been dealt with, Edie and Sam took the bodies to the midden where all the farm’s rubbish was dumped, then they mucked out and sluiced down the henhouse before setting baited traps for any vermin who might have escaped the bloodbath. At quarter to twelve Sam told her she was free to go
.
‘You’ve been quiet this morning,’ he observed as he walked back with her to the farmhouse. ‘Normally I can’t shut you up.’
It was true. After the upsetting incident with Jack Graham last night, and then the massacre in the henhouse, Edie hadn’t felt much like chatting.
But it wasn’t only that. The idea that had formed this morning was still there, getting stronger and more fleshed out as she remembered the hints and whispers she’d been hearing both at the farm and Applefield Manor. She couldn’t put it out of her mind.
‘Sorry,’ she said to Sam. ‘I didn’t sleep too well last night either.’
‘Hmm. Well, be sure you’re fresh when you’re back here next Thursday. I want to –’
He broke off, scowling at something white on the farmhouse door.
‘What is it?’ Edie asked, but Sam didn’t answer.
He strode off ahead, and as they got closer Edie saw that it was an envelope, pinned to the wood. There was no name, no address: just one word scrawled on the front in a childlike hand.
COWARD.
‘Where could it have come from?’ Edie asked as he tore it open.
‘Some kind-hearted neighbour,’ Sam muttered. ‘Must’ve heard my eiderdown needs restuffing.’
He tossed it to her so she could take a look too. Inside were three white feathers.
‘What does it mean, Sam?’
‘It means Applefield still isn’t ready to award me that gallantry medal.’ He frowned as angry shouts came from the big barn they called the infirmary. ‘What the hell is going on in there?’
Too curious not to find out what the fuss was about, Edie stuffed the envelope into her breeches pocket and followed Sam to the barn.
It was quite a sight that met their eyes when he flung open the door. Davy was bent double, struggling to get out of a headlock Luca was holding him in. Marco had the boy’s hands pinned behind his back, but as they watched he managed to get one free and started raining punches into Luca’s side. The young Italian, Edie noticed, had a very sore-looking black eye. Barbara and Vinnie stood by, looking bewildered.
Edie went to join her fellow Land Girls.
‘What happened?’ she whispered.
‘Davy started it,’ Barbara said. ‘He just flew into a rage.’
Vinnie bowed her head. ‘It’s his brother. The family got the telegram last night – MIA. Poor lad’s been primed to go off all day.’
‘What the devil is going on here?’ Sam thundered, marching into the fray. ‘Good God, Luca, let him go! You’ll strangle him to death, man.’
Panting, Luca released Davy from the headlock. The boy made to lunge at him again, but Sam grabbed him and pinned him against the wall by his shoulders.
‘Does somebody want to tell me how this started?’ he demanded.
Davy made another bid for freedom, but Sam held him firmly.
Luca shook his head. ‘I cannot understand it. There was nothing. We were cleaning out the pens, and I began to sing an old air from back home. Marco joined me, and the next thing the boy had flown at me. I tried to restrain him without hurting him.’ He touched his bruised eye gingerly. ‘I was not very successful preventing him from hurting me, as you can see. That’s a good strong punch you have, Davy.’
‘If you calm down and keep those fists to yourself I’ll let you go,’ Sam told Davy.
The boy glowered for a moment, then, seeing he wasn’t going to be allowed his freedom unless he agreed, gave a reluctant nod. Sam released him.
‘Why did you attack him?’ he demanded.
‘There’s a war on, isn’t there?’ Davy muttered. ‘I’m on one side and he’s on the other. You might not think that’s how it is, but it is.’
‘The war isn’t happening on this farm. We’re all on the same side here.’
‘You would say that, you bloody … wop-lover,’ Davy shot back angrily. ‘If we lost you wouldn’t give a damn. Hell, I bet you want us to lose.’ He glared at Luca and spat on the ground. ‘Our people are disappearing and dying every damn day, we’re losing the bloody war, and he’s here mocking us with his filthy foreign songs like it’s a game.’ He sneered. ‘Let’s all have a singsong, eh, Luca? Why not?’
‘I don’t want to be your enemy, Davy,’ Luca said quietly.
‘But I want to be yours. Swaggering around acting like we’re all friends, making love to our women, like your people and mine aren’t out there killing each other.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I’m glad I blacked your eye,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘I’ll do worse when they let me out there, just bloody wait and see if I don’t.’
The boy was white with grief and impotent rage. His hands, thrust into his pockets now, were still balled into fists.
‘Right. I told you this morning that this was your last chance,’ Sam said in a low voice. ‘Come to the farmhouse and get your week’s pay, lad. You’re not coming back.’
‘Hey,’ Luca said, resting a hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘There’s no need for that, Sam.’
‘And the envelope on the door, that was you as well, wasn’t it?’ Sam demanded, ignoring Luca.
‘What envelope?’ Davy said.
‘I doubt you need me to answer that.’ He cast a look over his shoulder. ‘Luca, let me settle up with young Mr Braithwaite here then we’ll get a bit of something on that shiner. I haven’t got any steak so you’ll have to make do with liver. Davy, since you can’t stay off politics, you can fetch your money and go. I’ll pay you for the full day, but I won’t have bad blood on my farm.’
Edie went to fetch her bicycle, following a little way behind Sam and Davy as they headed to the farmhouse. She swung one leg over the crossbar, paused, then dismounted again.
Eventually she heard the door click open and peered around the wall. As she’d hoped it was Davy, alone. He had his hands stuck in his pockets and his face was flushed, like a child struggling to suppress tears. Knowing how embarrassed he’d be if he knew she’d seen him blub, Edie called out to him.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked when she’d approached him.
‘Fine. I didn’t want to work in this rotten place any road.’ He tossed a filthy glance in the direction of the infirmary. ‘Don’t like the company you have to keep.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that, Davy. Luca didn’t mean any harm. The Italians always sing while they work.’
‘He’s one of them. Course he means harm. How many of ours did he kill before he got shot down? You ever thought of asking him that?’
‘Do you really think everyone who fights for the other side is a monster?’
He stared at the ground. ‘All I know is, our Geordie’s gone and they’re to blame. Them and all their kind.’
Edie felt for the boy. Being eighteen was hard enough whenever it happened to you, and now Davy had the war to contend with on top of everything that went with growing from a child to a man. All the propaganda, the fear of losing loved ones and of ultimately losing the war, and knowing that any moment King and Country would be calling to tell you your childhood was over no matter how unready you felt to leave it behind. And now his older brother was missing in action. No wonder the lad had been smouldering like a primed grenade.
Edie laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry about Geordie.’
He shrugged, not meeting her eye. ‘It happens. Happens to lots of people.’
‘But it never happened to you before, did it?’ She gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘It’s OK to feel angry,’ she said softly. ‘But you didn’t have to take it out on Luca. He’s lost people too.’
‘Not our people.’
‘No, his people. You think that doesn’t hurt, because he isn’t English? I know it’s war, but it doesn’t have to be personal.’
‘What, so you think I should say sorry? To him?’
‘Why not? I’m sure he’d put a good word in with Sam. He never wanted you to be sacked.’
‘I’m not crawling to any damn wop. Let him say sorry.’
Ed
ie sighed and removed her hand, sensing she was fighting a losing battle. The prejudice Davy had been exposed to at home had done its work, and nothing she could say was going to undo that.
‘Hey,’ she said as he made to go. ‘Was it you?’
‘What?’
She took out the envelope with the feathers in it and held it up so he could see that word, COWARD, on the front. ‘Sam found it pinned to the farmhouse door.’
Davy shook his head. ‘Never seen it before. What’s it say?’
She frowned. ‘Can’t you read it?’
‘Some words I can read, the ones I need. My name and that. Don’t know that one.’
So Davy was illiterate. Then it couldn’t have been him who …
‘What’s it say, Miss?’ he asked.
‘Oh … nothing. Nothing important.’ She put the envelope away again. ‘Think about that apology, Davy. This doesn’t have to cost you your job.’
‘Who cares about the job? I’d not have been here much longer. Sam only hired me for the lambing, and I’ll probably be called up before that’s done anyhow.’
‘You don’t know that. Some lads end up waiting months and months for their call-up. You want to stay in work while you’re waiting, don’t you? I suppose you need money to live on, the same as we all do. Go on, Davy, apologise.’
‘I tell you, I won’t!’ he said with boyish belligerence, digging his fists further into his pockets. ‘Not to him.’
He slouched off, eyes wet with unshed tears.
Chapter 14
‘I felt so sorry for him,’ Edie told Tilly as they walked into Applefield that afternoon. Each of the girls had a shopping basket hooked over one arm, with their free arms linked together like old friends. ‘I don’t think he’s a bad kid. Just angry at the way things are.’
‘I know the Braithwaites,’ Tilly said. ‘Davy’s dad Fred is our village butcher. His eldest Geordie is my age.’
‘What’s Fred like?’
‘Hard, very hard. A real bully-boy, if you want the truth. He took the two lads out of school when their mum died; that’s where Davy’s problems started. Fred said his boys had no need of book-learning for good, honest work.’ Tilly curled her lip. ‘That’s the sort of thing he likes to say. Makes him feel like a man.’
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