‘Tired but I expect I’ll survive,’ she said with a bashful smile. ‘How’s the farm, Sam?’
‘Seems I got off lightly. Old Ted Cromwell on the bordering heaf lost a score of his animals. Nine had their guts peppered with machine gun bullets, the rest just dropped of shock. And that’s not counting the unborn lambs that died in their mothers.’
‘Good God,’ Edie muttered.
‘What of our flock?’ Luca asked. ‘Did we lose many?’
‘Eleven,’ Sam said in a low voice. ‘Five yows and six lambs, and I don’t know how many abortions. It was a gruesome sight met me in the pens at sunrise.’
Edie tried not to imagine. The poor animals! No one thought how the war affected them.
‘Good thing it wasn’t earlier in the season,’ Sam said. ‘If this had happened in March we’d really be on our uppers. Unpredictable business at the best of times, lambing. One bad season can ruin you.’
Edie frowned as they took the road towards Kirkton.
‘This isn’t the way to the farm,’ she said. ‘Where are we going, Sam?’
‘Where we’re needed. Marco and Davy are going to have to manage on their own for a morning. I’m loaning us out to help with the clear-up at the Land Army hostel. They took a direct hit.’
‘Oh my God! Are they … Vinnie and Barbara, are they …’
‘Calm down, London,’ he said in a soothing voice. ‘No fatalities. Most of the girls were out at a dance, thank God. A couple who stayed behind suffered cuts and bruises, but nothing life-threatening. That’s the report I got with my milk this morning.’
Applefield had a highly efficient method of news transmission. Sally Constance, the spinster daughter of the couple who owned the local dairy farm, stopped at every house she delivered milk to on the pretext of giving her ancient carthorse Betty a rest, but in reality to pick up all the gossip she could. This was then passed on to the next householder, who exchanged it for any news they might have, and so on.
‘What of the village?’ Luca asked. ‘Was anyone hurt?’
‘A few burned and bruised bodies, nowt that won’t heal,’ Sam answered. ‘All the glass was blown out of Fred Braithwaite’s shop when a bomb landed in the churchyard. Braithwaite was in the pub so he’s all right, hangover aside.’
‘Anything else?’
‘There’s a telegraph pole down, which accounts for the phones being out. The church had the worst of it though. Most of the roof’s in.’
‘Oh, poor Andrew,’ Edie said feelingly. She couldn’t help feeling that Tilly’s kindly uncle really didn’t deserve to have his church blown up when he already had the misfortune of sharing a home with Patricia. ‘Is that all?’
‘All the major damage. The church, the hostel and Cromwell’s farm suffered most – the rest of the bombs fell in open country. We’ve been bloody lucky, considering.’
But it was hard to feel lucky when they arrived at the hostel and witnessed the devastation that had been wrought there. Edie’s heart sank when she saw the mess of rafters and rubble where the dining room had once been, remembering how she’d enjoyed her first taste of grown-up flirtation right on this spot with Rob, so suave and handsome in his uniform.
Rob, too, was gone now. He’d been shot down on a mission the week before; Vinnie had broken the news the previous Saturday, the day after Sam had been probing Edie about her relationship with him. Edie, who had known the young flight lieutenant only fleetingly, had nevertheless shed many hot tears for a life so cruelly cut short – nothing, of course, to the tears of his parents and loved ones.
This bloody war, where a few seconds could change someone’s whole life – or take it from them. Dear God, would it ever end?
Two outbuildings that housed the girls’ sleeping quarters looked to be mostly undamaged, although the glass in the windows had been shattered. But the farmhouse where they had eaten their meals and enjoyed their innocent revels was a mere shell now, destroyed by a crew who probably never spared a thought for the lives they might take when they dropped their bombs at random over the English countryside.
Gangs of Land Girls and villagers were picking through the detritus and putting out the small fires that still blazed in places, while members of the WVS served sandwiches and tea. Vinnie and Barbara, spotting Sam’s truck, came to greet them.
‘Oh good, it’s you three.’ Vinnie clapped Sam on the back. ‘Thanks, boss, it was decent of you to spare us some manpower. We need all the help we can get here.’
‘This is a rum do, isn’t it, folks?’ Barbara said with her usual unflappable good humour. ‘I’ve just been hunting through the rubble for my last pair of silk stockings. I left them drying on the kitchen stove.’
‘You girls all right, are you?’ Sam asked in his gruff way, but Edie knew him well enough by now to sense the concern under his briskness.
‘Yes, we always muddle through,’ Vinnie said, with a fond look at Barbara.
Edie gave them each a hug. ‘You must’ve been terrified.’
‘We were at a dance in Kirkton with the other girls, but we came rushing back when we saw the fire and realised we’d been hit,’ Barbara said. ‘We’ve been lugging buckets of sand around all night.’
‘Poor Dotty had a rough time,’ Vinnie said. ‘She was in bed with a cold when all the windows blew in. Got a few nasty bits of glass in the face.’ She examined Edie. ‘Are you all right, Ede? You look worn out. All three of you do.’
‘Yes, it has been a busy night for us also,’ Luca said. ‘Matilda’s baby decided she would join us during the raid. A most inconsiderate child. The doctor being unavailable, Edie asked if I might help.’
‘The baby!’ Barbara said. ‘But it’s early, isn’t it? Is Tilly all right?’
‘She is, and the proud mother of a healthy baby girl,’ Edie said, smiling. ‘Samantha.’
Barbara raised an eyebrow at Vinnie. It had occurred to Edie that the gossipmongers in the village would assume Samantha had been named after her father, but there was little to be done about that.
The warden came hurrying over, wearing a very different expression to that of the benevolent piano-playing matron Edie knew from the dances she’d attended here. Now she was all bustling efficiency.
‘Ah, good. Men,’ she said, nodding to Sam and Luca. ‘I could do with a couple of those.’
Barbara sniggered, then hastily turned it into a cough.
‘You boys, come with me,’ the warden said. ‘There are some heavy rafters you can help me shift, for a start.’
She clapped her hands and marched off, with Sam and Luca following like slightly bewildered puppies.
Vinnie laughed. ‘Alison has quite an effect on men, doesn’t she? She’s a good sort. I hope they keep us all together when they find us another billet.’
‘So what do we need to do here?’ Edie asked.
‘See what we can salvage from the rubble. Try to get the mess into neat piles for the powers that be to cart away. Put out the fires.’ Barbara looked over the remains of the farmhouse and sighed. ‘It’s a shame, isn’t it? We were happy here.’
Vinnie hooked her arm through her friend’s. The two were silent for a moment, paying tribute to what they’d lost. Then they got to work.
After an hour’s sifting through the rubble, Edie had managed to salvage a pile of hardback books – some fire-damaged and unreadable, but others worthy of a second life – a couple of chairs, a washboard, two gas masks and a print of the Lusitania in a cracked frame, plus a sizeable pile of scrap metal. The three of them then moved on to inspect the shed that housed the hostel’s Austin Tilly, which had lost part of its roof.
‘Oh no,’ Barbara whispered when she went in.
‘What is it?’ Edie asked. The truck looked fine to her, other than a coating of thick dust from the fallen roof. But she soon spotted Barbara’s grisly discovery.
It was Princess. The poor cat was on the floor, in a curled position as if asleep, but Edie didn’t need to touch her to know she w
as dead. Her one eye was closed, never again to open.
‘So there was a casualty after all,’ Vinnie murmured.
Barbara knelt down by the dead cat and ran a hand gently over her fur.
‘She doesn’t look like she’s been injured. It must’ve been the fright,’ she whispered. ‘Poor Princess, she was such a loving little thing. Vin, we’ll have to bury her.’
Vinnie was standing by Edie, her head bowed. But she looked up as a strangled squeak emerged from somewhere.
‘What is it?’ Edie said. ‘Rats?’
‘I’m … not sure. Sounds like …’
Vinnie went to investigate the area behind the vehicle, poking about in the straw with the toe of her wellington.
‘Oh crumbs. I thought so,’ she said as another tiny squeak filled the air. ‘Girls, come and see.’
Edie and Barbara went to join her, and Edie gasped. It was a nest of kittens – four tiny kittens, no more than a few weeks old, the same tabby colour as Princess. One little chap looked up at her with his big eyes and let out another squeaking mew.
‘I thought Princess had been getting portly,’ Barbara said. ‘I assumed it was all the scraps she’d been scrounging.’
‘Seems not.’ Vinnie stretched out a finger to the crying kitten and he nibbled on the end, as if hoping it might produce milk. ‘They’re hungry. Whatever shall we do with them?’
‘Poor darlings,’ Edie murmured. ‘The war must have orphaned so many animals. Do you think Sam might take them? Cats are always useful on farms.’
Vinnie shook her head. ‘Too young. Their only chance of survival is regular bottle feeds, and Sam hasn’t got time to play mother to a litter of kittens.’
‘Could you take care of them?’
‘We’re getting moved on today,’ Barbara said. ‘They’re putting us in an old Nissen hut out in the middle of nowhere, until a better billet can be arranged. I doubt they’re going to let us bring pets.’
Edie looked at the kittens. They were old enough to have their eyes fully open and to stagger about on their drunken little legs, but they were really very tiny – four weeks at the most. So vulnerable and alone …
‘I’ll take them,’ she said. ‘We’ve got plenty of room at Applefield Manor.’
Barbara frowned. ‘Will your landlady agree to that? I thought she was really strict.’
‘I think I can talk her round,’ Edie said, dearly hoping she was right.
Chapter 28
After a morning helping the Land Girls tidy up the remnants of their home, Sam, Edie and Luca returned to the farm. Vinnie and Barbara had remained behind to help with the relocation to their temporary billet, but the kittens came with them in the truck, mewling in a straw-filled box at Edie’s feet.
‘I don’t know what you think you’re going to do with those, London,’ Sam said. ‘They’ve got precious little chance of surviving, you know.’
‘That’s what you said about Wilf but he’s still alive, isn’t he?’
Wilf was the lamb Edie had discovered after her first day of work. Now two months old, he was as hardy a fellow as any of his mates, bounding around the fields with no memory of his early fight for life. He was a friendly little soul, too, after being hand-reared by Sam in the farmhouse. He would follow the farmer around like another sheepdog, taking Sadie’s place at Sam’s heel while she nursed her new puppies. Much to Sam’s disapproval – or, as Edie suspected, his pretended disapproval – Edie had given the lamb a name, Wilfred, and the little chap’s winning ways had made him a firm favourite among the farmhands. Edie had a strong suspicion that whatever happened to the other lambs born at Larkstone that spring, Wilf, at least, was safe from the butcher’s block.
‘Aye, and bloody hard work it was pulling him through,’ Sam said gruffly. ‘Constant feeds, all through the day and night. Who’s going to do that for these noisy beggars? You?’
‘Well … we can cross that bridge when we come to it.’
They were turning down the road that led to the farm now, and Edie put a hand on Sam’s arm. As they were driving, a plan had been hatching – a plan to smuggle the orphaned kittens into Applefield Manor not only with Prue’s consent, but with her whole-hearted approval. To convince her, in fact, that it had been her idea …
‘Can you stop at the big house a moment?’ Edie said.
‘We’ve got work to do, in case you’ve forgotten, London,’ Sam grunted. ‘We’ve lost a morning already playing Good Samaritan, and we’re two men down on top of that.’
‘Please, I’ll only be five minutes. I want to take the kittens inside. I don’t suppose you want them at the farm, do you?’
Luca didn’t say anything, but his face had lit up at the mention of a stop at Applefield Manor.
Sam sighed. ‘All right, all right. If you’re both going to be fluttering your eyelashes at me.’
Luca rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Thank you, boss.’
‘I don’t know what’s up with me these days. Going soft in my old age.’ But he was half smiling as he stopped the truck in front of the house. ‘Hop out then, the pair of you. You’ve got five minutes to see to bairns, kittens and anything else, then it’s heigh-ho and off to work we go.’
Edie picked up the boxful of kittens and entered the house by the back porch which led to the kitchen, while Luca went in through the front.
As Edie had suspected, Prue was in the kitchen, baking the pancake-like things Luca had prepared for their lunch. They certainly smelled delicious while they cooked. The air was filled with the scent of baking bread, melting cheese and the aromatic tang of rosemary and ramsons, making Edie’s mouth water.
Prue blinked. ‘Edie. What are you doing home from work at this hour, child? I hope you’re not sick.’
‘No. I need to ask you for a favour.’
Prue eyed the box Edie was hugging suspiciously. ‘All right, would you care to tell me why that box is meowing?’
Edie approached to let her see. Prue peered in, and four pairs of eyes looked back at her.
‘Oh my goodness!’
‘I found them,’ Edie said. ‘This morning, when Sam, Luca and I were helping to clean up the mess at the Land Army hostel. Their mother was killed in the air raid, the poor darlings.’
Prue’s expression hardened as she deliberately turned her face away from the kittens and their little pleading eyes.
‘Edith, in the past two months Applefield Manor has gained a Land Girl, two children, a puppy and a baby, all seemingly with me having little say in the matter,’ she said. ‘I’m not running a home for strays and orphans. I’m sorry, but the kittens will have to go elsewhere.’
‘They will,’ Edie said, wishing she had one hand free so she could cross her fingers behind her back. ‘I just need someone to take care of them this afternoon. The Land Girls can’t, they’re moving to a new billet today, and I can’t take them to work.’
‘Edie –’
‘Please, Prue. They’ll die otherwise. Aggie and Jimmy can look after them, they’ll enjoy that, and tomorrow I’ll find new homes for them.’
Prue glanced into the box and Edie watched as her expression softened momentarily.
‘Just today?’ she said at last.
‘Tomorrow at the latest.’
‘And then they’ll go to new homes?’
Edie nodded solemnly. ‘Absolutely.’
Prue looked at the box of kittens in her arms, wondering how on earth she let herself be talked into these things.
When spring had arrived at Applefield Manor, all had been calm and serene: no outsiders, just herself, Jack and Matilda. Of course it wasn’t perfect – there was still the war, and Bertie in danger out at sea. But it had been her little world, filled with people she knew and liked.
And now, as the spring became summer, Prue found her home bursting with life. First Edie had arrived, quickly disarming Prue with her girlish optimism, innocent soul and good sense. Then the children, so alien and hard at first, and now so very dear,
although Prue hardly knew how to show it. Then last night the dog, and the new baby, and now …
One of the kittens, the tiniest one, met her eyes and let out a little mew. Prue absently tickled its ears.
The queer thing was, the unwelcome invasion was actually rather pleasant. The house had been full of joyous sounds this morning – the laughter of the children, the cries and gurgles of the baby, the playful yaps of Aggie’s puppy – and Prue was filled with a warm goodwill towards her fellow man that she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
The sound of the children playing reminded her of her own childhood here. She wouldn’t have called it a happy one, exactly – there had never been any love lost between herself and her mother, and to the ‘quality’, as Mam had called Albert’s parents, she was as good as invisible until the day their son had made his shocking announcement that he and Prue intended to be married. Nevertheless, her childhood had had its rays of sunshine. Albert … and Jack. What great friends they had been, and what adventures they’d had!
Prue remembered shinning to the top of the highest horse chestnut tree in the grounds the autumn Mam had first come to work here, shaking down conkers for the boys and teasing them for being too scared to follow. They’d had no time for her before that, a mere girl, but her guts and agility – not to mention the whipping she received for spoiling her dress and stockings – had earned their respect, and graciously they’d accepted her as a playmate. The three of them would spend hours together: taking turns to ride on Captain, Albert’s grey pony; trying to tame the mice that lived in the stables; collecting frogspawn and climbing trees; swimming in the lake; being given piggy-back rides by old Mr Graham the gardener, Jack’s father. The innocent, hardy fun of childhood, and the forging of an unbreakable friendship.
Prue could almost see the three of them as she looked out of the window across the grounds. In fact she thought for a moment she could see them. There was old Mr Graham, with little Albert riding on his shoulders and Prudence beside him, awaiting her turn. Then reality caught up with her and she realised it wasn’t old but young Mr Graham – Jack, with Jimmy on his back while Aggie played with Coco by his side.
Edie's Home for Orphans Page 24