The barmaid had red-rimmed eyes and kept dabbing at them with a handkerchief taken from her bosom. Winnie wondered if she was crying for all the missing Americans, or if she knew which bombers hadn’t come back and was crying for one. If she had the nerve and the chance, she might be able to ask her if she knew whether Sassy Sally had gone on the raid, and whether she had come
‘You’re very quiet, Winnie,’ the fitter said nastily. ‘You wondering about your Yank? I reckon he won’t be walking in here this evening. You’ll just have to make do with us.’
The rabbits were running out from the corn. Winnie, following after the binder round the ten-acre field and stooking the sheaves it dropped, could see them bolting from the circle left standing in the middle where they’d taken refuge as the corn was cut. Old Ebenezer Stannard’s two terriers were straining at their leashes and yapping excitedly. He stooped to release them and they streaked after the rabbits. One of them caught up with one near the edge of the field and there was a squealing and a snapping and then the squealing stopped abruptly. Winnie made another stook and then rested for a moment. The island of corn was growing steadily smaller as Dad went round and round on the Fordson, with Jack sitting on the binder behind. She knew he’d far sooner have been driving Prince and Smiler, but he wouldn’t let her do the job – not with other people watching.
She wiped her hand across her forehead and let the breeze cool her down a bit. They were lagging far behind with the sheaves but it couldn’t be helped, they were so shorthanded this harvest. Mr Stannard had hurt his back and couldn’t come over as he usually did and the labourer he’d sent was even older than Jack. The two boys from the village who were supposed to be helping her with the sheaves were playing about more than they were working. It was lucky she’d had some leave due or Dad wouldn’t have managed at all.
She chewed on a bit of straw, watching the binder’s sails turning. Gran had kept on and on about Virgil Gillies since she’d got home.
‘That thare Amurican . . . ’tis toime he came.’
‘I don’t know if he can, Gran.’
‘Whoi not?’ she’d demanded.
‘Well, lots of their bombers were lost on a big raid last week. He might have been in one of them.’
‘Doan’t sinnify . . . he moit not. Whoi doan’t yew go an’ ask, gal?’
But Winnie couldn’t bring herself to go up to the base and ask the American guards at the main gate whether or not Virgil Gillies was missing. She was too shy to do it. Nora might have known, because of Buzz, but she was away working on another farm and busy with the harvest too. Whenever a B17 went over low she tried to read the name on its nose and to see if it had a painting of a girl wearing nothing but a flower in her hair, like Nora had told her, but though several of them had girls looking rather like that, none of them was Sassy Sally. They had other names – Honey Girl, Calamity Jane, Delectable Duchess, Sleepy Time Gal, Red Hot Riding Hood . . .
‘He’ve good strong shoulders on ’m,’ Gran had muttered. ‘Puts me in moind o’ Gideon.’
She often boasted about how strong Grandad had been. How he could swing a scythe nine feet and pitch whole sacks of grain on a fork up over the wagon eaves to load them. But Gran thought they still cut the corn with scythes and threshed it with a flail in the barn, like in the old days, though Winnie had tried to explain that it was different now.
Gran could remember all sorts of other things from the past. She’d go on about the gibbet on the Common with its cage swinging in the wind, about tales of smugglers out on the marshes, about the mail coach passing through the village, sounding its horn, and the gentry’s carriages bowling by. She remembered when there had been a pig-pole in every cottage garden for the pig’s carcass and when folks used horn lanterns and rushlights. Grandad Gideon had worn a smock and a tall beaver hat shaped like a chimney pot, and she’d worn a bonnet and shawl and pattens on her feet for the mud.
Winnie went on chewing the straw and cooling down a bit. Gran believed in all kinds of strange old superstitions too – that it would rain if you killed a black beetle, that if you burned eggshells you’d bind the hens, that you could cure warts by rubbing them three times with a bean which you then buried. She’d cured Dad of a wart on his hand once like that. And she believed that toads could bite and that pigs could see the wind and horses see ghosts, and that if you put horse hairs into the river they’d turn into eels. And she could always tell by the way the fire burned and how the smoke went up the chimney what the weather was going to do. Mum said she was lucky they didn’t still burn witches.
There was only a small patch of corn left standing now – a little doddy bit, Gran would have called it – and all the rabbits had fled. But there were a whole lot of sheaves waiting to be stooked and she was aching with weariness already. She turned, shielding her eyes against the bright sun, as she heard someone shouting from across the field. There was a figure standing by the gate – a tall figure dressed in uniform. She blinked and went on staring as it vaulted over the gate and came striding along the edge of the field towards her. She waited, as though rooted to the spot.
‘Hi there, Winnie!’
Virgil came up to her, grinning, his jacket hooked by his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Came just like I said I would. Sorry I couldn’t make it sooner. I only just got leave.’
She was still staring. She didn’t know what to say to him. I thought you must be dead – we all did, except Gran . . . she couldn’t very well say that.
He looked down at her puzzled. ‘You OK, Winnie? Look like you’d seen a ghost . . .’ He took the straw slowly out of her mouth and dropped it on the ground. ‘Hey, I guess you thought you had. You figured I’d had it – like all those other guys . . . you hear about that?’
‘We weren’t sure,’ she said. ‘Gran kept asking about you. We didn’t know.’
‘Brought her some more Luckies. More scotch for your dad too. An’ more cans o’ fruit. Know you said like I shouldn’t but I just reckoned it’d come in handy – same as me.’ He looked around the ten-acre and whistled. ‘Sure seems like you could do with some help round here.’
He stripped off his tie and shirt and started work then and there, and they worked until the very last of the daylight had gone and the harvest moon was rising over the fields and shining down on all the stooks of corn.
Gran had waited up long past her bedtime. She received the carton of Lucky Strikes regally.
‘Took yar toime agin’.’
Virgil grinned at her. ‘Yeah, but like I told you before, ma’am, we’re worth waitin’ for.’
She gave him one of her fearsome smiles. ‘Yew moit jest be an’ all.’
Since there was no spare bedroom in the house he slept outside in the barn.
‘Don’t worry me none, ma’am,’ he told Winnie’s mother. ‘Straw makes a great bed . . .’
Winnie, in her attic room, watched the moonlight shining in through the little window onto the end of her bed, and thought of him there across the yard. She’d been so thankful when she’d seen it was him at the gate – and not just because of his helping with the harvest. She’d been happy that he was still alive and when he’d come striding over towards her, her heart had started beating faster, just like it did when she stood close by the runway watching the Lancs come in. And she’d kept on sneaking looks at him while he was working away in the field, stripped to the waist and lifting the corn sheaves as though they weighed nothing – like he’d lifted that blond girl at the dance. If Gran could have seen him she’d have started off about Grandad again. And if she, Winnie, wasn’t very careful she’d turn into one of those girls at the dance, going on about the Yanks the whole time. One Yank and they’re off . . . that’s what the fitter had said to her in his nasty way, and she’d known very well what he meant.
It was hot again the next day and she was up early to help Jack milk the cows. She looked out of the window and saw that Virgil was already up too and washing at the old pump in the yard, ducking his who
le head under the gush of water as he worked the handle. By the time she got to the milking parlour he was there, balanced on the one-legged stool, his wet head pressed against Tulip’s flank, the milk pinging steadily into the pail.
‘Mornin’, Winnie.’
At breakfast he put jam on his porridge and stirred it in with his spoon, and then he cut up all his bacon and eggs into pieces and set down his knife across the side of his plate to eat them just with his fork, and a slice of bread and jam at the same time too. Ruth and Laura watched him, wide-eyed, and when he winked at them they collapsed into giggles.
After breakfast Prince and Smiler were brought clip-clopping into the stackyard to be harnessed up to the wagon. Virgil was impressed.
‘Finest farm horses I ever seen,’ he said. ‘Biggest too. Never seen such hooves. Must be real strong.’
‘They’re Suffolk Punches,’ Winnie told him proudly. At last there was something bigger and better on the farm than he had in America, not counting the barn. In Grandad’s day the wagon’s paint would have been bright red and yellow, not all faded and peeling like it was now, but she thought that it still made a beautiful sight to see the two Suffolks pulling it out to the fields, their heads nodding and long tails swishing.
Near midday the workers rested in the shade and ate thick sandwiches. Virgil tried some of Jack’s home-brewed beer and said it was much better than the watery stuff in the pubs.
‘Gran used to brew ’fore she got old,’ Winnie said, chewing her spam sandwich. ‘But Mum won’t do that any more. She says Dad has enough beer down at the Pig ’n Whistle. She baked this bread, though, an’ made the butter. She churns every week on Tuesdays.’
‘It’s real good,’ Virgil said. ‘An’ those hens o’ yours lay good eggs. They ain’t heard o’ square ones. Ma bakes bread too, but she buys butter at the store. Guess it’s easier.’
‘Mmm. It’s hard to make the butter come sometimes when the weather’s hot. Mum has to churn early in the morning then, ’fore it gets warm. She makes barley wine, too. Have you ever drunk that?’
‘Nope. Maybe I’ll get to try some.’
‘It’s quite strong. Gran likes it a lot. We always drink some at Christmas.’
‘Christmas . . .’ he shook his head. ‘That’s a long ways off. Can’t think about that. Can’t even think ’bout Thanksgivin’.’
‘Thanksgivin’? What’s that?’
‘Gee, don’t tell me you ain’t never heard o’ Thanksgivin’?’
‘No. What is it?’
‘Gee,’ he said, shaking his head again. ‘I kinda thought you’d know all about that – seein’ how it’s to do with you folks. You know . . . those Puritan guys o’ yours back in history that crossed the Atlantic in that old tub . . . you musta heard of ’em?’
She frowned. ‘Oh, you mean the Pilgrim Fathers? I remember we were taught about them at school. They sailed from Plymouth, I think, ’cos they didn’t like the way things were in England, and went to America.’
‘Check! Called it the same name on our side when they finally made it over. Guess they couldn’t think of anythin’ else. Well, seems they had a hell’ve a time findin’ any food there to start with, an’ it was so damn cold their first winter that a whole bunch o’ them died. So when they had a good harvest the next year, I guess they thought it was really somethin’ to celebrate an’ they had a great big feast – turkey an’ cranberries an’ pumpkins, an’ all that stuff. See, the turkeys had been runnin’ around wild when they arrived an’ they started catchin’ ’em to eat. Then they grew all the rest. An’ they asked the local Indians round too, seein’ as they’d been real helpful givin’ ’em seeds an’ such like.’
‘They don’t seem very helpful in films.’
‘Well, that was ’fore they’d cottoned on we was goin’ to grab all their land. So, that was the first Thanksgivin’ an’ we have one regular every year now an’ eat the same kinda stuff those Pilgrim guys ate. Have it last Thursday in November – right around the time the snows come back home.’
‘You get snow?’ She was amazed. She’d imagined Ohio to have wonderful weather the whole year round – not like England. Endless sunshine and blue skies, like in Hollywood.
‘Sure do . . . boy, can it snow sometimes! In a bad winter it c’n stay right through March. Worse ’n anythin’ you’d get here, I reckon. An’ in summer it can get real hot, an’ we get big thunderstorms an’ tornados.’
‘Goodness . . . tornados! Like the one in The Wizard of Oz?’
‘Yeah. Just like that, ’cept we don’t get no witches flyin’ by. That was Kansas though. Ohio looks different. Where I live we’ve got rollin’ bits with woods and creeks. Real pretty in parts.’
She was curious about this far-off land of his. ‘What sort of wild animals do you have? Are there foxes?’
‘Sure there are. An’ skunks, an’ racoons, ’n chipmunks, ’n possums.’
‘We don’t have any of those,’ she said.
‘You’ve got rabbits same as us, though. We’ve got more rabbits ’n we know what to do with, ’cept shoot.’
‘Do you have the same sort of birds as us?’
He considered her question a moment. ‘Ain’t too sure ’bout that. Think I’ve seen some here look the same. We’ve starlin’s, an’ woodpeckers, an’ owls, an’ bluebirds –’
‘Bluebirds? Really blue?’
‘Sure. Real bright blue.’ He held out his hands several inches apart. ‘’Bout this big.’
‘We don’t have those. Least I don’t think so. Ken, my husband, had lots of bird books an’ I never saw one in those. It’s funny ’cos in that song Vera Lynn sings she goes on ’bout there bein’ bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover one day, an’ there couldn’t be.’
‘Well, I guess the guy who wrote it got that wrong.’
She remembered something Taffy had once said to her. ‘P’raps he just meant bluebirds of happiness, sort of thing. When the war’s over.’
‘Yeah. Guess so. That’d be it.’
Virgil lit a cigarette and lay back, staring up into the cloudless sky. ‘Sure is good to be down here for a bit, though, an’ not up there.’
‘That raid must’ve been a very bad one,’ Winnie said cautiously, seeing he must be thinking about it.
‘Oh boy . . .’ he moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘Guess we all knew we were in for it, soon as we got to the briefin’. This is goin’ to be a tough job, they said, and they sure weren’t kiddin’ us.’
He drew on the cigarette and went on staring up into the sky. She stole a look sideways at him. Gran had been right about the strong shoulders. They were burned brown now by the sun and his fair hair was dark with sweat from pitching the sheaves up onto the wagon.
‘I ain’t never seen so many Jerry fighters as on that mission,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Soon as our escorts’d turned back they showed up – dozens of ’em. MEs and FWs – even saw an old Dornier. Seemed like they’d put up everythin’ they could find to stop us. They lined up an’ they came in real fast, rollin’ as they fired.’ He turned his hand over. ‘I saw three ships go down just on one pass . . . An’ they kept on doin’ that to us all the way over. Chutes goin’ down all over the sky – theirs an’ ours together – an’ stuff sailin’ past us . . . doors ’n bits o’ wings, ’n worse . . . I was firin’ away, up to the ankles in empty cases, so was Matt – he’s the other waist gunner. Thought I got a couple, but it’s sure hard to tell sometimes. They can fool you – puff out smoke like they’re hit an’ goin’ down, then round they come again.’
The village boys were throwing clods of earth at each other and tumbling about. Jack had his hat over his eyes and was probably asleep. Prince and Smiler were swish-swishing the flies away with their tails. The sun glared down.
Virgil brushed a fly away absently. ‘They jumped us goin’ back too. Gave us hell again. I saw a coupla Forts just blown clean to pieces. No chutes then . . . An’ all the way back we could see the smoke ’n fl
ames from the wrecks down on the ground. Reckon we could’ve found our way home by them. Jeez, were we glad to see our fighter boys show up, and then the English coast! When we landed Buzz knelt down an’ kissed the ground. Know just how he felt. Nearly did the same myself.’
She looked at him again, troubled. ‘Will you have to go on more raids like that?’
‘Guess so. Gotta fly the mission.’
At the end of the day she tried to thank him for his help, for Dad wouldn’t, but he brushed her words aside.
‘Weren’t nothin’, Winnie. Only wish I could stay an’ help finish the job, but I gotta go back tomorrow.’
They were walking across the yard in the darkness. The moon looked like a huge orange hanging over the farmhouse. Rusty rattled his chain softly.
‘Before the war,’ she said, ‘we always used to have a supper in the barn when the harvest was over – horkey, we call it. It’s like a thank-you to everyone who helped gettin’ it in. A kind of feast.’
‘With turkey an’ that sort of thing?’
‘Oh, no, nothin’ like that. We’d have things like rabbit pie an’ those jellied pigs’ trotters I was tellin’ you about.’
‘Then I ain’t sorry I’m missin’ it.’
‘We don’t have it any more anyway, not since the war started. It was fun, though. Jack used to play the fiddle an’ people danced . . . not like your sort o’ dancin’, o’ course, more like hoppin’ about.’
‘Well, I guess that’s pretty much all we do too,’ he said. ‘Hop about.’ He stopped walking. ‘Remember that dance? I already told you, Winnie – moment I saw you standin’ there I knew you was the girl for me. You thought I was kiddin’, but I wasn’t. I’ve had all kinds o’ dreams an’ plans for you ’n me when the war’s over . . .’ He sighed. ‘But right now I figure there ain’t no sense in dreamin’ or plannin’ anythin’ no more. The way I see it, I ain’t got a prayer o’ gettin’ through this tour.’
Her mother’s voice called out sharply to her from the back door.
‘Guess she don’t trust me out here with you in the dark.’
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