by Pam Weaver
‘Firm up!’ yelled Reggie, not amused. ‘Get that bugger out of the way!’ The giggles had got hold of her and she was all over the place, seeing Jack clowning around.
‘Now look what you’ve made me do!’ she yelled at the dashing young soldier. ‘Just wait till I see you proper. Don’t you know there’s a war on…?’
She wasn’t going to stop, even for him. This was her war work and she mustn’t shirk. He’d ruined her line but there was always the next.
Jack always made her laugh and her heart flutter. Mad Jack, the demon biker who drove Florrie wild when he brought his engines into the kitchen and spread them all over the floor, who roared round the narrow lanes as if it were Brooklands race track. He never seemed to take anything seriously. Uncle Tom had hoped he’d take to farming but not a chance.
‘What do you expect?’ Granny sniffed. ‘Florrie was a Kerr before she wed Wilf Sowerby Kerrs don’t make good farmers, not bred in the bone. He’ll do fine for hisself as long as he keeps moving. They like to wander, do Kerrs, allus have and allus will.’
So how come Florrie had stayed put with Uncle Tom? Mirren thought. She was always good for a laugh and could bake better than any Yewell.
Jack had stayed on at the boys’ grammar school, as she had at the girls’. He’d even been abroad to France on a school trip. He could speak real French while she struggled with Latin and German.
Now he was training down London way, something to do with mines. He’d always looked out for her like a big brother should but they weren’t related in any way. The girls had drooled over him when he met her off the school bus and gave her a lift. How could she admit to them how much she looked forward to having him to herself? The sun came out when he came around.
It was something to do with him rescuing her when she was little, laughing her out of her sulks with his antics. You never knew what Jack would do next, and he was a great ballroom dancer, lifting her off her feet at the end of a dance. Sometimes he looked at her and made her blush.
‘You’re special, Mirren. Don’t you forget it. I shall have to keep my eye on you.’
Sometimes he took her out to the cinema and held her hand, other times he just left her alone. Lately he’d made her feel a right country bumpkin and she wondered if he was mooning over some flighty London piece with lipstick and kiss curls. If Lorna or Hilda ever tried flirting with him she felt jealousy flash through her body. That’s when she knew she was smitten. He made them all feel so girly and giggly, with his dancing black eyes. Cragside wasn’t the same when he went away. Florrie took her aside once when she saw how upset she was getting.
‘I can see how you feel about our Jack but don’t let him see it too much. He’s like my dad and doesn’t like to be cornered. Leave him be and he’ll come to. He’s not one for settling down, love, but if ever he did, you’d be the one. He’s got a tender spot for you.’
Mirren blushed at the warning so kindly given. She’d been in love with Jack Sowerby since she was nine. It was too late to change any of it now.
She rushed through the rest of the ploughing and got on with her other chores. There’d be just time to wash and change before she set off to Uncle Tom’s at Scar Head to hear all Jack’s news.
In the months that followed the ploughing, everything was sown and prepared but the winter of 1940 was grim and they were fast in with blizzards and snowdrifts. Windebank waited for war to begin in earnest and waited on. The evacuees went back south to Leeds and Hull, disgruntled and frozen. The Women’s Institute pickled, preserved, jammed and salvaged. The Services Comforts Fund ran concerts, raffles, bazaars, anything to coax cash out of the farmers’ tight pockets. Letters came from far-flung places and sad telegrams that no one wanted to read were delivered to a few unfortunate families. Bert was on flying operations and Ben was worried.
Then at the beginning of June came the news of the miracle of Dunkirk and the evacuation of the beaches at terrible cost. Jack was one of the last to be evacuated, busy laying mines in the Channel and getting strafed and wounded in the process.
He returned one night, exhausted, his uniform in tatters, having landed at Liverpool. He slept for almost three days without waking and then ate Auntie Florrie out of house and home. Then he was posted somewhere in the south-west on special training.
On his last night of leave, Mirren hoped they’d go to the pictures but he still looked grey and weary, and spent the evening in The Fleece with Tom and Ben, enthralling everyone with tales of his escapades on the beaches, taking free pints from any who offered until he was half-cut. Then he sauntered up to Cragside, happy to wander round checking the crops with her.
As they feared, the oat stalks were leggy and the heads were small and weak. They walked on up to World’s End and stood staring down at the valley below as the sun was setting pink behind the moors.
‘I take back all I said about up here…Never take this for granted, Mirren. This is paradise to where I’ve been.’ This was a sober sad side to Jack she’d never seen before. He was always Jack-the-lad in company, full of jokes and quips, fooling around, acting daft. Now he looked ten years older somehow. She just wanted to hug him and take the pain out of his eyes; pain and anger that hadn’t been there before.
‘Was it that bad?’ she asked.
‘Our lads never stood a chance wading into the water. Sitting ducks, they were, and no bloody planes to defend us…Still we live to fight again and I don’t want Herr Hitler to get his hands on all this. If we don’t stand firm now, it’ll be the end of everything we’ve ever known.’ There were tears in his eyes. There was a soft side to Jack, despite all his joking. She grasped his hand, wanting to hold him to her but he shrugged off his mood.
‘No time like the present, girl. Make the most of life while you’ve got it. I hear Freddy Dinsdale’s copped it. His mam must be gutted. We were in the same class. Not much of a lifetime, was it, for him?’ He stared out across the fields and down into the valley, lost in his own world. ‘Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!’
‘Don’t say that,’ she snapped, thinking of poor Lorna’s brother, lost over the Channel.
‘You ought to join up proper and come and join me,’ he replied, not listening.
‘I am joined up, or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘The Land Army…well, you must know what the lads call you lot…backs to the land.’ He paused, seeing her look puzzled. He dropped to the ground and opened his legs.
‘That’s horrible.’ She blushed and turned from him.
‘Don’t take on, only joking. You need to lighten up a bit. Don’t take everything so seriously. There’s not much of a war up here, now is there?’
‘Oh, no? Then why are my tyres bald with biking, my hands blistered with hoeing and mucking out and then doing a shift down in Scarperton? I’ve never been so tired in all my life. It’s up to us to keep everyone fuelled up with milk and crops and meat and eggs. We’re growing everything we can. Just ’cos there’s no bombs or fighting. I’m doing my best here,’ she snapped. He was spoiling their last evening together, making them argue.
‘I know you are, sweetheart, but you’ve got to have some fun too. It’s nice to know I’ve got a girl hard at it in muck and soil who stands for everything worth fighting for,’ he smiled, his dark eyes flashing at her.
‘Am I your girl?’ she asked, her heart thudding.
‘Course you are, always have been.’ He plonked a kiss on her forehead. ‘And I expect letters every week with all the gossip from Windybags but no farm talk: how Lanky Ben’s landed a cushy little number on the farm with his reserved occupation…’
‘I don’t think he sees it like that. He’s helping us out and has joined the Local Defence Volunteers.’
‘The Look, Duck and Vanish Brigade, very nice,’ Jack laughed. ‘Fat lot of good they’ll do if Jerry ever lands. Throw a few potatoes at them? There’s not a decent gun between them. They spend most of their time in the pub.’
‘Oh, come on! They d
o a full day’s work and then stay up all night guarding the railway line, making defences. We hardly see Ben. I hate it when you’re mean,’ she said.
‘You’re mighty quick to his defence. Is there something I should know?’ Jack’s mood could turn on a sixpence.
‘Don’t be daft. Ben’s my cousin, my big brother. He’s not like that.’
‘All men’re like that, given half a chance. You just watch it with all these uniforms about. You’re my girl now!’ He pulled her to him roughly and kissed her on the lips. ‘That’ll do for starters,’ he laughed. ‘But there’ll be more where that came from when I’m back again.’
With that he jumped on his motor bike and roared off, leaving her in a total spin. Her very first kiss from Jack, such a special moment and over so quickly. Did he love her? Was she his girlfriend now? It was so confusing: all her romantic dreams were coming true. How she had imagined this coming-together on a windswept moor, but somehow it was all so rushed and tense and matter of fact. Where was the courting, the roses, the billets-doux, those passionate embraces they showed at the pictures like Heathcliff and Cathy?
Don’t be daft, she thought, grinning from ear to ear. A kiss is a kiss. This is Jack we’re talking about and he was always impulsive. If only he wasn’t so far away now. She didn’t know when she’d see him again. This war was spoiling everything but nothing was going to spoil this long-awaited exciting romance.
Jack’s leave ended and, eventually, so did summer.
There was a humdinger of a September storm one night, only to be expected at the back end of summer, but Mirren thought the roof was going to lift off and sail away. The rain splattered on the windows, battering its way through the cracks. The gale drowned out any chance of sleep. She thought she heard the drone of Junkers in the night on the way to Liverpool or Manchester and pitied the poor sods manning the gun battery out on the moors.
There were alerts on the news bulletins every night to be vigilant against parachutists and enemy agents but she felt safe in their eyrie. Jack’s letters were by her bedside, full of cheery jokey escapades. She was finding it hard to make her replies relate anything other than the usual drudgery but now she must get up to prepare the milk parlour when she just wanted to bury her head in the bolster and sleep on.
Taking a deep breath, she darted out of the bed and pulled on her breeches, her jumper and dungarees, man’s socks, shoving her hair in a turbaned scarf. If she was quick there was time for a brew. There wasn’t much morning light but the storm had abated outside, which was a mercy.
She opened the door to let the house dog out and noticed a strange shadow in the far corner of the near field where the old ash tree rose high. With horror she saw a flying ship, a Zeppelin, a monster fish, hovering over her head.
One look and she shot back into the house, yelling, ‘They’ve landed! Jerry’s here in a flying ship! Everyone downstairs…Get the shotgun, Ben.’ He was sleeping in the attic. ‘Send for Uncle Tom!’
All her training went out of the door in her panic and shock. How could they send for help if parachutists were close by? What did the leaflet say: ‘IF THE INVADER COMES…’?
Stay calm, Mirren, stay put. Go about your business and tune into the wireless, she told herself. Well, that was easier said than done with just one precious battery working. The old folks must be put in the cellar and Daisy, the latest live-in helper, must be warned.
Everyone sat round the table looking grim, sipping stewed tea. Grandpa Joe’s face was drawn and pale. The shock was too much at his age.
‘I never thowt it’d come to this in my lifetime, Adeline,’ he whispered. ‘Creeping over our heads in the dead of night. What can we do but pray…?’
‘And keep milking. Hitler might have landed but the cows need seeing to,’ Mirren said, suddenly feeling stronger. ‘They’re not having our eggs either.’
Ben was fully dressed, carrying a rucksack. ‘I have to go!’ He made for the door.
‘What’s up, Reuben?’
‘I’ve got orders if…’ His words faded away as he shot out the door. Then there was a great roar of laughter from him. ‘Come outside, Mirren Gilchrist, and tell me what you can see.’
Everyone made for the door and gawped. ‘Don’t you know a barrage balloon when you see one?’ he roared. ‘It’s one of ours. Panic over, everybody.’
‘Then where did it come from in the dead of night, scaring me to death?’ Mirren felt stupid but she must defend her corner. He was right: it was a huge inflated balloon.
‘Who knows? The cables are entangled in the ash, see, and there’s a funny box dangling down. Nothing to worry about, Granddad. We live to fight another day.’
What a relief; it was nothing more sinister than one of the air defences to stop enemy aircraft flying low or dive-bombing into buildings. Mirren had seen them on the newsreel at the Majestic in Scarperton, but this one was huge. Where had it come from?
‘You’d better let someone know it’s arrived,’ smirked Ben, enjoying the red-faced flustering of his cousin. She could have slapped him one right there but wanted to hang on to the last shreds of her dignity.
There was always rivalry between them; both being town-bred children who had found their living in the country. They were always competing to be the best farm worker.
‘You can wipe that smile off your face, right now!’ she snapped. ‘I’ve got the milking to do and no time to go gallivanting, so you can just bike down to the phone box and get your Home Guard up here. I’m not having that thing hovering over us all day. It’s like the Angel of Death.’
Then it was back to the chores and the mucking-out, the milking and cleaning up, trying to catch the day until Arnie Blewitt came puffing up the lane with his cronies with their one gun slung over his shoulder. She hoped they’d shut the gates into the lane and not let the shorthorns out of the bottom field.
‘Now then, Arnie. You’ve come at last to see what’s up. Good job it wasn’t Jerry or we’d all be dead and gone by now,’ Mirren teased.
‘Orders are to guard it day and night, so that’s six teas, please,’ he replied, eyeing her up and down.
‘Get them yerself. I’m busy. That thing’s going nowhere. It doesn’t need a guard, or have you nothing better to do? I can find you a few jobs,’ she said.
‘The cables’re trapped. It don’t half look like a trapped whale. They’re sending for a winch to shift old Moby Dick here. I’ll go and see Joe and Adey. I bet they got a shock in the night.’
He disappeared into the kitchen and came out with a tray of mugs and large wedges of ginger parkin. No one took much notice of the overhead visitor but folk kept coming to the bottom of the lane to take a peek at Moby Dick. Even the school teacher brought the children up to draw the thing, and all the while Mirren was trying to get on with her chores.
Later in the afternoon a posse of lorries and trucks trundled up the lane. At last the cavalry has arrived, thought Mirren, as a brass hat jumped out of the cab and stormed across the yard.
‘What are all these civilians doing here? You were told to guard this with your life!’ he snapped as the Home Guard jumped to at the sight of a real soldier. ‘I want the premises evacuated now. Pack a suitcase and get out of here right now,’ he ordered as Grandpa Joe stood by, not taking in his words.
Ben came running up. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I want the place cleared at once,’ said the officer.
‘This is a farm and there’s stock to see to,’ Mirren replied.
‘And you are the Land Girl here?’ he said, looking down at her as if she was muck on his shoe.
‘This is our family farm. We can’t just upsticks and leave. There’re old folk inside,’ she argued.
‘All the more reason to get everyone out.’ The man was resolute and he had the troops to back him up on the back of the lorry.
‘But it’s only a balloon,’ said Ben, standing by her side.
‘This is not standard issue. It was ripped from its moor
ings. It has certain elements capable of destroying a Junker on contact. It’s primed for action. That’s all I’ll say,’ came the reply.
‘You mean there’s a bomb in it?’ said Ben.
‘I’m not at liberty to say…For everyone’s safety we must evacuate the premises forthwith.’
‘No one said anything about bombs,’ croaked Arnie, stepping back in alarm.
‘Stay where you are, man, and get on with the job. The sooner the farm is cleared, the sooner we can do what we have to.’
Mirren couldn’t believe what was happening. She slammed a few nightclothes in a suitcase for her grandparents, who were flustered and frightened at being hustled out the door and onto the cart with Daisy. Ben released the horses into the far field where the cows would soon be ready for afternoon milking.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll see to them somehow,’ he smiled. ‘You just get everyone up to Scar Head.’
‘I’m not leaving!’ said Joe, but when Ben explained that Adey and the girls were in danger, he got onto the cart with them.
‘I’ll come back as soon as they’re settled to gather up the sheep. If there’s an explosion—’
‘You stay put, Mirren, or you’ll have me to deal with,’ Ben said.
‘You and whose army? I’m in charge here,’ she snapped.
‘I’m bigger than you, so skedaddle!’ At six foot three there was no arguing with him on that score.
As they bumped across the fells, Mirren took one last glimpse at the rooftops of the old farm. This couldn’t be happening. How could one of their own defences rip apart centuries of Cragside just on the whim of the wind? She thought they were safe from war and now she knew how all those poor bombed-out people in London felt, their homes reduced to rubble, left with only the clothes they stood up in, and relying on the kindness of strangers.
She was clutching Dad’s tin box in her lap, and the portrait of Uncle George from the mantelpiece. It was funny what she’d rushed to save.
They’d heard the drone of bombers in the night, saw the glow in the distance of fires and destruction, but it was all so far away. There’d been a crash on the moors: young men on a training flight who’d hit the hills in the mist. There were a few bombs aimed at the railway line but nothing more to harass their peace of mind.