Red Sky in the Morning

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Luckily, they weren’t buried very deep, but we’d better get on looking for the rest . . .’

  ‘Oh no! You’re doing no more. You take this pair back to the cottage and . . .’

  Her face was suddenly mutinous. She shook her head. ‘Not until we’ve found the others.’

  The man and the young girl stared at each other, whilst the boy looked from one to the other, watching the battle of wills between them.

  ‘You need my help,’ Anna said, her expression softening. ‘Let me repay you for your kindness when I can. Please?’

  He sighed. She was right. He did need her help, but he was worried about her. Even in the short time he had known her, her belly had swelled. She couldn’t have much longer to go, he thought.

  ‘Well,’ he said still doubtful, but weakening. ‘All right, but promise if you feel tired you’ll stop.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll promise you that.’

  ‘Right. Tony, you take these two down to the cottage . . .’ Eddie said and Anna added, ‘In through the front door and into the other room. The one to the left.’

  Eddie stared at her. ‘You’ve got some inside?’

  She nodded. ‘The ones that were sheltering at the back of the cottage.’ She laughed. ‘They’re guests in my front parlour now.’

  They worked – the three of them – until late afternoon, until all but one sheep had been accounted for.

  ‘We’ll have to leave it at that. I’ll take these down to the yard if they can make it through the snow. Mebbe she’ll turn up.’ Eddie’s thoughts were still with his one lost sheep. ‘Mebbe she’s wandered off and found her own shelter somewhere.’ But his tone was not convincing.

  ‘I wanted to find them all,’ Anna murmured, her gaze still roaming the hillsides, but in the gathering dusk she could no longer see very far.

  ‘We’ve found more than I dared to hope thanks to you, lass,’ Eddie said. ‘Can you manage with those twelve? I really can’t get any more into the barn.’

  ‘It’s a bit crowded, but yes. They’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’ll bring some feed for them, but now into the cottage with you and get yourself dry and warm.’

  ‘I will, but first . . .’ Letting her crook fall, Anna bent and scooped up a handful of snow. Then she moulded it into a ball. ‘Let’s have snowball fight.’ And she lobbed the ball of snow at Tony, catching him full in the chest.

  For a brief moment, the man and the boy stared at her in amazement. Then, with a whoop they began to fling snow at her and at each other until a blizzard of snowballs was flying through the air and their laughter was echoing through the dusk and the gently falling snowflakes.

  At last, breathless, they stopped, bending over to catch their breath. As she straightened up, Anna’s laughter turned into a cry as pain stabbed at her stomach and she fell to her knees in the snow.

  ‘What is it?’

  She was bending double, crouching in the snow and groaning. ‘It – hurts,’ she gasped.

  ‘Let’s get you inside. Then I’ll have to fetch the midwife from the village. I reckon it’s your bairn coming, lass.’

  She clutched his arm and looked up at him with terrified eyes. ‘No – no. I don’t want anyone else here. And I don’t want the baby.’ Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch as she gripped Eddie’s arm with an intensity that frightened him. ‘I won’t have it. I won’t.’

  Eight

  They helped her back to the cottage. The man was worried and the young boy’s eyes were wide and fearful. All Tony wanted to do was to run as far away as possible.

  ‘Let’s get you into the warm and lying down,’ Eddie said, aware of how inadequate warmth and comfort were in the snowbound, isolated cottage.

  ‘Shall I go and get Mam?’ Tony asked.

  ‘No,’ the girl cried. ‘No. I don’t want anyone.’

  As another spasm of pain gripped her, she grasped Eddie. ‘I don’t want anyone else. Promise me. I don’t want anyone to know I’m even here.’

  He didn’t answer her, but pushed open the door and half carried her inside the cottage. ‘Lie down,’ he commanded. His voice was gentle, but there was a note of firmness in his tone. ‘Now, look here, lass. I respect your feelings. Whatever reason you’ve got, I know you don’t want other folks around. But this is different. I can’t manage on me own . . .’

  ‘Why not? You know about sheep – about lambing . . . aah . . .’ Her words ended in a cry of pain and she held her stomach.

  Eddie could not help a wry smile. ‘This is a bit different, love, than helping a few lambs into the world.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ she panted, as the contraction faded.

  Eddie shook his head. ‘I’m going to the village to fetch the midwife. I’ll ask her not to say owt. Pat Jessop’s a good sort.’ His face sobered. ‘I’d never forgive mesen, if owt happened to you – or to the bairn.’

  Anna closed her eyes as she whispered dully, ‘It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter to anyone. Maybe it’d be for the best.’

  Eddie took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Don’t say things like that, lass. It’d matter to me. To both of us.’ He turned and looked at his son. ‘Wouldn’t it, Tony?’

  The boy nodded. He was still frightened. He’d seen lambs and calves born all his young life. But, like his dad said, this was very different. At his father’s next words his fears increased.

  ‘Now, son, you stay here with Anna while I go back to the farm and fetch the tractor. I’m going to tell your mam that I’ve got to stay up here with the sheep. Then I’ll go to the village and fetch Mrs Jessop and when I get back with her, you can go home.’

  Seeing the boy’s terror, Eddie put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. ‘Don’t leave her, lad. I’m counting on you. I won’t be long.’

  The boy’s voice trembled as he asked, ‘What if Mam comes looking for me?’ He put out his hand to fondle his dog’s head. Rip had come to sit beside his young master, his attention divided between Tony and the boisterous puppy. Buster was leaping around him, giving excited little yelps, inviting the older dog to play. But Rip sat obediently to heel.

  ‘She won’t,’ Eddie replied, trying to sound more confident than he felt. Bertha would never venture out to look for her husband, but Tony was a different matter. She just might be worried enough about him to brave the weather.

  ‘Please, oh please, don’t go,’ Anna moaned, but Eddie was adamant. ‘I have to, lass.’

  ‘But it’s coming. It’s coming.’ Her voice rose in anguish.

  ‘No, it isn’t. If I know owt about these things, you’re going to be a while yet. Specially . . .’ He had been going to add ‘with your first’, but he thought better of it. Instead, he patted her hand encouragingly and turned away. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  He trudged back through the snow to the farmhouse.

  ‘Where’s Tony?’ was Bertha’s first question.

  ‘He’s all right.’ Eddie managed to sound convincing and, as much as he could, he determined to keep to the truth. His lies would sound more convincing. ‘We’ve got all the remaining sheep into the cottage, bar one. And one or two of them look as if they’re going to start.’ If only she knew just who it was that was ‘lambing’, he thought wryly. ‘I’ll have to stay up there for a bit, love. I’ve come for the tractor. I – I need some bits and pieces from the village. Anything you want while I’m going?’ he added swiftly, hoping to divert her from asking too many questions about what was happening in the fields.

  ‘No, no, I don’t think so,’ Bertha said abstractedly, then, returning to her main cause for concern, she added, ‘You’re not to keep Tony up there all night.’

  ‘No, no, love, of course not. I’ll make sure he comes home well before dark. But,’ he added, with more truth than she could ever know, ‘I know he’s only young, but he’s a great help to me.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ Bertha said and there was pride in her tone. For a moment she softened. ‘You get off to the village a
nd I’ll pack you some food up now and you can call for it on your way back.’

  Eddie swallowed, feeling trapped. He hadn’t planned on coming back this way, but on taking Mrs Jessop further along the lane and in by the track round the far side of the woods to reach the cottage. He couldn’t risk Bertha seeing Pat Jessop riding on his tractor complete with her midwife’s bag. But all he could say was, ‘Righto, love. That’d be grand.’

  As he rode into town on his tractor, Eddie worked out a plan. I’ll take Pat straight to the cottage, then double back round by the lane and into the farmyard. That way I can collect what she’s packed up for me and then go back up the track from the farm to the cottage. It was lucky, he thought, that the lane was not visible from the farmhouse. Bertha wouldn’t be able to see him going past the gate and then coming back again. Not unless she was out in the yard near the gate. And he very much doubted she would be. Not in this weather! He smiled to himself, beginning to enjoy the intrigue.

  ‘Who’d have thought it?’ he muttered aloud. ‘Quiet old Eddie Appleyard having a bit of excitement in his life.’

  Left in the cottage with Anna and the two dogs and with twelve sheep now huddled in the next room, Tony was mentally counting the seconds from the moment his father left.

  ‘Can I – get you anything?’ he asked tentatively.

  Anna, lying quietly for the moment, with her eyes closed, shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘that you’re having to see this. You shouldn’t be here.’

  Tony shrugged, suddenly feeling important. ‘S’all right. I’ve seen lambs and calves an’ that born. I know all about it.’

  Anna smiled weakly. Did he? Did he really know the whole process? How a lamb, a calf, a child was conceived? Perhaps he did, she thought. He lived on a farm. Had done all his young life. He must have seen the ram in the fields with the sheep, the bull with the cows and maybe Eddie even allowed him to watch when the boar visited. For an intelligent boy it wouldn’t be too great a step to imagine what happened between a man and a woman . . .

  Anna groaned and covered her face with her hands, trying to keep the memories at bay.

  ‘Is it hurting again?’ Tony asked.

  She let out a deep sigh and tried to relax her body. ‘Not just now.’

  But only a minute later she was doubled up again and thrashing about the bed in agony. Tony backed away from her, standing pressed against the far wall, wanting to run, but knowing that he could not, must not, leave her.

  He had promised his dad.

  Rip whined and pressed against the boy’s legs. Even the puppy’s lively scampering was quietened. Giving little whimpering cries, he nestled between Rip’s paws.

  If only, Tony agonized, she would stop crying out in pain.

  Eddie banged loudly on the door of the village midwife’s little cottage. Wintersby village was lucky to have a trained district nurse cum midwife living there. Not all villages had one and a trip to the market town of Ludthorpe would have been impossibly slow in this weather, even on the tractor.

  The door was flung open and the tall, buxom figure of Pat Jessop stood there.

  ‘Eddie.’ She smiled in welcome. ‘What brings you here? Something wrong, ducky?’

  ‘I need your help, Pat.’ At her gesture of invitation, he knocked the snow from his boots and stepped inside the door. As she closed it, he pulled off his cap.

  ‘Slip your boots off and come into the kitchen. Tell me all about it,’ she said leading the way.

  Eddie and Pat Jessop, Pat Anderson as she had been then, had attended the village school at the same time. They had played together as children and Pat had loved nothing better than visiting Cackle Hill Farm and helping with the harvest or, as she had grown older, lambing time. She always said it had been that experience that had led her into nursing. Yet, because she had gone to train in the hospital on the hill in Ludthorpe and had lived in the nurses’ home there, the tender romance that might have blossomed between her and Eddie had withered. Pat had fallen in love with a handsome night porter on the hospital staff and, eventually, Eddie had married Bertha. Pat’s husband had been killed in the recent war and sadly there had been no child from the union for Pat to love and cherish in his memory. Her loving nature could now only find fulfilment in the care of her patients and nothing gave her greater joy than bringing a child safely into the world.

  ‘I’ve a bit of trouble on, Pat.’ Eddie stood awkwardly in the tiny kitchen, turning his cap through restless fingers.

  ‘Sit down, Eddie, and have a cup of tea.’

  ‘I’d love to, Pat, but I can’t stay. I need your help.’

  Swiftly, he explained how he had met Anna and taken her home with him. ‘Bertha doesn’t know she’s staying in me cottage. And,’ he added pointedly, ‘she mustn’t.’

  ‘Oh, Eddie,’ she murmured, shaking her head at him in gentle admonishment, ‘you and that big heart of yours. It’ll get you into real trouble one of these days.’

  With wry humour, Eddie ran his hand through his hair. ‘I think it already has, Pat.’

  Pat pulled a face. ‘I have heard the tittle-tattle in the village. Not that I take any notice of it,’ she added swiftly, ‘or repeat it.’

  ‘I know you wouldn’t, Pat,’ Eddie said softly.

  ‘Anyway, right now we must think about this girl. You think she’s gone into labour, Eddie?’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Just give me five minutes to put me warmest clothes on and get a few things together and I’ll be with you.’

  It had begun to snow again as they started on the journey back to the farm, which lay about a mile outside the village. Pat, muffled in a mackintosh, scarves and wellingtons, sat on the mudguard over the huge back wheel of the tractor. She had dispensed with her official district nurse’s uniform in favour of slacks and jumpers. She knew just how long this night might be.

  Dusk was closing in as they reached the cottage, to see Tony standing in the doorway. There were tears running down the boy’s face and as soon as the tractor stopped and Eddie and Pat climbed down, he ran towards them and flung himself against his father.

  ‘Come quick. She’s screaming and screaming all the time now and – and there’s water and blood too—’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Eddie muttered, but already Pat was hurrying into the cottage.

  ‘Now, ducky, here I am. You’ll be all right. Let’s have a look at you.’

  The man and the boy stood in the shadows, feeling helpless but unable to tear themselves away.

  Anna was bathed in sweat and clutching the sides of the mattress. She was crying out and writhing in agony.

  ‘Now, now, calm down. I’m here now and everything will be all right,’ Pat was saying, soothing the terrified, pain-racked young girl. Pat examined her swiftly and looked up, smiling. ‘It’s only your waters broken, ducky. Everything’s just fine. Baby will be fine. Now, when’s your due date?’

  The girl’s head moved from side to side.

  ‘When did the doctor tell you your baby would come, ducky?’ Pat persisted gently.

  ‘Never – seen – a doctor,’ Anna gasped. ‘I don’t want it.’ Her voice rose. ‘I don’t want it.’

  Briefly, Pat left Anna’s side and crossed the small room to Eddie.

  ‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ she whispered. ‘She’s fighting it. Send the boy home, but you’ll have to stay, Eddie. I’ll need you. Get that fire built up. Plenty of hot water and—’ Her eyes fell on the two dogs in the corner. She pointed in horror. ‘And get them out of here this minute.’ At that moment bleating came from the next room and Pat’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, Eddie, don’t tell me! You’ve got sheep in there, haven’t you?’

  Eddie nodded.

  Pat sighed and shook her head. ‘Eddie Appleyard, what am I to do with you? This is hardly the ideal place anyway for the lass to give birth, but with animals a few feet away . . . I don’t want her getting an infection. So,’ she went on, rolling up her sleeves, ‘get me a bowl of
hot water and the first thing we’ll do is wash in disinfectant. Both of us. Where’s my bag? Ah, there it is.’ As she turned she added, ‘You still here, Tony? Off you go and take those dogs with you.’

  Tony cast a wide-eyed glance at his father. ‘I can’t take Buster home. What’ll Mam say?’

  ‘Put him in with Duke. She never goes in there.’

  Tony picked up the puppy. Like his father, he knew that Bertha never went anywhere near the pony unless it was safely harnessed between the shafts of the trap. Buster made little yelping noises and licked the boy’s face, ecstatic to be fussed.

  ‘Have I time to take the tractor back and pick up some food? Bertha was packing summat up for me. I – I don’t want her to wonder why I haven’t gone back.’

  Pat could only guess at the full story from the brief outline Eddie had given her, but, knowing his wife, she realized the importance of Eddie’s request. ‘Yes, go on, but be as quick as you can.’

  Eddie put his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘You run on home, son, but not a word to your mam.’

  The boy nodded and turned towards the door, but before he left he gave one last glance at the girl on the bed. Then he was out of the door and wading through the snow as fast as he could. As he went, he heard Anna’s last, despairing cry. ‘I don’t want it. Let me die. Just let me die.’

  Nine

  The birth itself was straightforward enough. The baby was small, a little early, Pat thought, but it was the girl’s attitude that concerned her. Anna screamed and writhed, fighting the pain.

  ‘When you get a contraction, you’ve got to push,’ Pat told her, but irrationally Anna would only shout, ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want it.’

  Kindly, but firmly, Pat said, ‘Well, you can’t leave it in there, ducky.’

  Eddie kept the fire built up and soon the room was hot and stifling. He fetched and carried to Pat’s commands and, as she brought the child, kicking and screaming, into the world, he was standing beside her, holding Anna’s hand and mopping the girl’s brow gently.