Читать книгу Whisper on the Wind - Elizabeth Elgin - Страница 7

It was not until the last of the milk had been delivered, the last empty bottle collected, that Roz said:

‘He’s flying again.’ The words came reluctantly, angrily. ‘After what happened two nights ago, Paul was on ops again last night.’

‘But I thought – didn’t you say their plane was a write-off? And surely they can’t fly without a gunner?’

‘They didn’t need to. Jock’s replacement arrived yesterday morning. As soon as Paul told me, I got a nasty feeling inside.’ And cold, frightening fingers tracing the length of her backbone. ‘Oh, K-King isn’t airworthy; they’ve already removed the engines and wings to make it easier to move. Then they’ll put the whole lot on a transporter and send it back to the factory that made it. It’ll be like a new plane when they’ve finished with it and nobody will ever know that Jock –’

‘Hush, now.’ Kath pulled on the reins, calling the pony to a stop. ‘You mustn’t get upset again. You said yourself that Paul is over his thirteenth op; the unlucky one’s behind him. He’ll be back, all right. Bet everything’s gone just fine. It’s nearly light; we’ll be hearing them soon.’

‘No. They didn’t leave till midnight. It’ll be an hour yet, at least. Unless it’s been France or the Low Countries, which I doubt.’ She shivered then dug her hands into her pockets, hunching into the upturned collar of her coat, holding herself tight against her anger. ‘I thought he’d be all right; when they came back all shot-up I thought at least they’d be given some kind of a break from flying. But no. A crew goes on leave so Paul’s lot take over their plane. Hell, but I’d like a few of those desk-wallahs to have a go. Just one sticky op so they’d know what it’s like. It was inhuman, sending them out again so soon after what happened.’

‘Steady on, Roz. Maybe they had a reason. You know what they say about falling off a horse – that you should get straight back up again? Perhaps that’s why they did it – so they won’t lose their nerve.’

‘Ha!’ Roz clicked her tongue and the pony walked on. ‘And as if that isn’t bad enough, he’s going on leave as soon as they’ve been to debriefing and I won’t see him before he goes, though he’s promised to ring me. Every night, he said, if he can manage to get through.’

‘Then what are you worrying about? Everything’s going to be fine. I heard them go last night, but I didn’t count. How many went?’

‘Nine. I stood at the window. It was a good sky; quite a bit of cloud-cover for them. Oh, Kath. I get sick, just to think about him …’

‘I know, love. I know. Do you want to take Polly’s milk, or shall I?’ Change the subject. Talk about anything but flying. ‘And tell me – why doesn’t the other gate lodge get milk from us? Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them.’

‘You wouldn’t. She keeps herself to herself. Doesn’t drink cow’s milk – she has her own goat. Bombed out in that first big raid on Manchester, I believe. She’s an artist – does illustrations for advertising, or something. Gran was glad to let her have the lodge. It had been empty for ages.’

‘She’s alone?’

‘Yes, but that isn’t unusual these days.’

‘Suppose not.’ Keep at it. Just don’t let her talk about Paul. ‘What’s she called?’

‘Don’t know, but Arnie calls her the Manchester lady.’

‘Arnie.’ Kath smiled. ‘He’s a great kid.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Polly’s going to miss him when the war’s over.’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s been –’ Kath stopped. She was getting nowhere. ‘Listen, Roz. Paul will be all right and you can’t go on like this, every time he’s flying. Worrying isn’t going to help him – unless there’s something else?’

‘What do you mean?’ Roz jerked out of her apathy. ‘Paul’s flying. Two nights ago they lost their gunner, then crash landed – isn’t that enough? And isn’t the prospect of not seeing him for ten days more than enough?’ she demanded.

So something else was bothering her. She’d been sure of it. All day yesterday Roz had hardly said a word and there had been a tenseness about her, a strangeness.

‘Roz. Are you and –’ None of her business, but somebody had to talk to her about it. ‘Are you and Paul lovers?’ There. She’d said it. She turned her head away, not wanting to see the truth of it in the young girl’s face; turned away from the anger she knew was to come.

‘What the hell has it got to do with you, Kath Allen? Mind your own business – right?’

‘Right!’

They walked in silence along Ridings drive, between the rows of shiny-black, dripping trees. They had almost reached Home Farm when Roz said:

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I know you were only trying to help. Kath – you can’t get pregnant, can you; not the first time?’

‘They say not, but I wouldn’t bank on it.’ Oh, the silly young thing; so innocent it just wasn’t true. She took a deep breath, trying hard to keep her voice even. ‘But best you don’t take chances, Roz, next time. Maybe when Paul comes back off leave you should have a talk with him about it? They tell men about things like that, I believe, in the Forces. He’ll see that nothing happens.’

‘Yes, I will. I must. Only at the time it seemed so – so right.’

‘I know. And nobody’s blaming you. It had to happen, I suppose, sooner or later. But be careful, Roz.’

Kath sent a jet of water bouncing over the cow-shed floor. ‘Cheer up, Roz. They’re all nine safely back. Aren’t you relieved that Paul has really broken his jinx, now?’

‘Of course I am. I was thinking that he’ll probably be on his way to the station by now. Wish I could have seen him, just for a second; even a wave as they drove past. I’d have settled for that. Wish he’d asked me to go home with him, though. I want so much to meet his family. Paul said his sister was trying to get some leave to be with him. They haven’t seen each other for a year. It must be hard for them, being apart. She and Paul are twins – did I tell you?’

‘You didn’t, but at least for the next ten days you can stop counting bombers; that should make a change.’

‘Yes, but it’s going to be a very long ten days, though heaven knows they deserve a break. And he’ll phone, if he can get through.’

‘Then you’ll just have to learn to live from phone-call to phone-call, won’t you?’ Kath rolled up the hosepipe and hung it on the wall. ‘But it wouldn’t be you, would it, without something to worry about?’

‘Sorry.’ Roz smiled briefly. ‘I do go on and on about me and Paul, don’t I? I’m selfish. I should spare a thought for you. Poor Kath. You don’t know when you’ll see Barney again; all you’ve got to look forward to is letters.’

Look forward? My, but that was a laugh, when recently she had come to almost dread the arrival of Barney’s next letter. But soon he would receive the one she wrote to him on Christmas Day; a letter full of love and reassurance. She had hoped he would come to realize that many a soldier serving overseas had left behind a wife in the armed forces, and was proud of her, too. She wished that Barney could come to be proud of a wife who was doing everything she could for the war effort; everything she could to help bring him safely home. And she wished with all her heart he would begin to understand, and to trust her.

‘Letters? Can’t say I’m looking forward, exactly, to the next one. Barney’s still mad at me for joining up. And he makes me feel guilty about what I’ve done because I know I shouldn’t be so happy. Wars aren’t meant to be happy, are they?’

‘I suppose not. And I don’t know why I’m going on about Paul asking me home with him. Can you imagine what Gran would say if I told her I was going off with a man she’s never even heard of – even if Mat would give me the time off. Why is my life in such a mess?’

‘Come on.’ Kath grinned. ‘You wouldn’t change one bit of it, and you know it. And if we don’t get this mucking-out finished we’ll miss drinkings. Y’know, I’m looking forward to the threshing on Monday, aren’t you?’

‘Not really.’ Roz frowned. ‘It’s a back-breaking, dirty job; I’ve had some. I helped out last time. Everybody turns-to; every farm hereabouts who can spare a man sends him along.

‘Grace has the time of her life, though she won’t admit it. How she’ll provide food for everyone who comes I don’t know, with rationing the way it is. But she will. She always does. Look, that’s Grace at the kitchen window, holding up a mug. Come on – looks as if we’re going to be lucky!’

Happy? Kath thought, washing her hands at the stand-pipe, drying them ponderously. Yes, she was happy. Indeed, she had never thought such happiness possible and it seemed wrong that Barney could not, would not, understand her need for this one, wonderful experience; wouldn’t give her his blessing and be proud of her. But he never would. She was certain of it, now.

‘Hang on, Roz! Wait for me!’

‘It isn’t fair, Aunt Poll, me having to go back to school the very day the threshing machine’s coming to the farm. I’ll miss it all, and I wanted to help.’

‘Well, you can’t. School’s more important than threshing day and anyway, you’re too young to help. The law says you’ve got to be fourteen.’

‘But I’m big enough.’ Arnie’s bottom lip trembled.

‘Aye, I’ll grant you that.’ A fine, strong lad he’d grown into. ‘But not old enough, so you’d best eat up your toast and be off with you. You’ve got to learn all you can if you’re to get that scholarship.’

A place at the grammar school; Polly wanted it for him more than she cared to admit. Arnie was a bright boy, his teacher said. Given to carelessness sometimes, though that was understandable in the young, and too eager to be out of the schoolroom and away into the fields. But bright, for all that. If he’d only take more pride in his handwriting and not cover his page with ink blots and smudges, then yes, he stood a very good chance of winning a scholarship.

He’d look grand in that uniform with the striped tie and the green cap, Polly thought proudly, though where she’d find the clothing coupons and money for such finery she wished someone would tell her. But she would manage. She always had.

‘Eat your toast, lad,’ she murmured, ‘and don’t be so free with that jam. That pot has to last us all month, remember.’

‘Yes, Aunt Poll.’ He eyed a strawberry sitting temptingly near the top of the jar and decided to leave it there for tomorrow. ‘I bet you’ll be helping with the threshing. I bet you’ll be able to get a good look at that engine.’ Nobody told grown-ups what to do. He couldn’t wait to be a grown-up.

‘No, I won’t. Doubt if I’ll see it at all, noisy, dirty old thing. I’ll be helping Mrs Ramsden feed all those people, though how she’ll find rations enough for seven extra is a mystery to me.’ Grace Ramsden was proud of Home Farm’s reputation as a good eating place, in spite of food rationing. Like as not there’d be rabbit pie and rice pudding; good farmhouse standbys. Rumours had been flying, since the Japanese came into the war. No more rice, people said, and if their armies got as far as India, no more tea. Now the rice, Polly considered, folk could do without if they had to, but tea was altogether another thing. ‘And anyway, who’s to say for sure that the team’ll be coming today? Mat will have to wait his turn. There’s a war on, lad, don’t forget.’

‘I know, Aunt Poll.’ People said there’s a war on all the time these days, as if a war was something terrible. Wars weren’t all that bad, Arnie considered. They’d be a whole lot of fun if it wasn’t for people getting killed. It would be awful when it was all over and he had to go home. He liked being with Aunt Poll, having regular meals and regular bath-nights, and living in the country was a whole lot better than living in Hull.

He liked Aunt Poll a lot; she was better, he had to admit, than his mother. Not that he was being unkind to his real mother; it was just that he had to try very hard, these days, to remember what she looked like.

‘Do you think,’ he frowned, taking his balaclava from the fire guard where it had been set to warm, ‘that Mam’s forgotten where I am?’

‘Now you know she hasn’t. Didn’t she send you a card at Christmas with a ten-shilling note inside it? Of course she hasn’t forgotten you.’

No indeed, though she wished she had, Polly mourned silently. What was more, an action like that gave rise to suspicion, especially when such generosity had previously been noticeable by its absence.

But at least Mrs Bagley’s visits had ceased after that first year, for now she was on war work; on nights, mostly, though night-work could cover many occupations, Polly brooded, especially when a woman bleached her hair with peroxide and plucked her eyebrows, somehow managing to get bright red nail varnish and lipstick when most other women hadn’t seen such things in the shops for months. My word, yes. There was night-work and night-work.

Arnie pulled on his knitted helmet and its matching gloves. He’d been delighted to open the soft, well-wrapped parcel on Christmas morning. He wouldn’t mind betting that when he got to school this morning, he’d be the only boy with a khaki balaclava and gloves; khaki, like the soldiers wore.

He called ‘So-long, Aunt Poll,’ then ran out quickly before she could attempt to kiss him; kissing was for girls. Whistling joyfully he squinted up at the Lancaster bomber that flew in low to land at RAF Peddles-bury.

Smashing, those Lancasters were. Great, frightening things, with four roaring engines and two guns and bomb-doors that opened at the press of a button. He wouldn’t mind flying a Lancaster. Pity he was only nine and a bit, though with luck the war would last long enough for him to be seventeen-and-a-half. He crossed his fingers, frowning. Grown-ups got all the fun.

Climbing the garden fence he made for the long, straight drive and the beeches and oaks that stood either side of it like unmoving, unspeaking sentries. This morning he was taking the ‘field’ way to school, cutting behind Ridings and the pasture at the back of Home Farm, to pick up the lane that led to the pub and the school nearby. This morning’s journey was longer and wetter underfoot and usually taken in spring and summer only, but Arnie felt cheated to be missing the dirt and din of a threshing day and was determined at least to see the monstrous, huffing, puffing engine; to close his eyes with delight as it clattered and clanked past him, making the most wonderful, hideous noises.

Instead, he saw Hester Fairchild. She was standing very still, gazing at the ploughed earth around her and she looked up, startled, as he approached.

‘Arnie! Hullo! Taking the long way to school this morning?’

He gave her a beam of delight. He liked Mrs Fairchild; not because Aunt Poll liked her but because Mrs Fairchild liked small boys. She was always pleased, really pleased, to see him. And she didn’t look at him as if he were a nuisance nor speak to him in the silly voice grown-ups used when they spoke to children.

‘I’ve come this way to see if the threshing team has got here. Are you going to see it, too?’

‘No, Arnie. I came to look at the ploughing – to see how they’re getting on.’ She had come, truth known, because she knew the ploughs would be idle today; because Mat and Jonty and the Italian would be busy all day in the stackyard and she wouldn’t have to acknowledge a man she would rather were anywhere than on her land. ‘Shall we walk together as far as the house?’

‘All right.’ Arnie liked Ridings, too; liked it because it was big and full of echoes and hollow noises. He liked the big, painted pictures on the walls; pictures of people with serious faces, dressed in old-fashioned clothes and whose eyes followed him as he walked past them.

He dug his hands into his trouser pockets and matched his step to that of his grown-up friend.

‘Did you know,’ he confided, ‘there’s a boy in the village whose dad is abroad in the Army and yesterday the postman brought him a big box of oranges, all the way from Cairo. Twenty-four, there were. Can you imagine having twenty-four oranges, all at once?’

‘I can’t, Arnie. I really can’t.’ Not for a long time had anyone been able to buy oranges – except perhaps one at a time and after queueing for it at the village shop. Nor could children like Arnie remember the joy of peeling a banana, for that particular fruit had disappeared completely at the very beginning of the war. ‘Twenty-four oranges, the lucky boy! Never mind, Arnie. Perhaps someone will send you oranges from abroad one day.’

‘Nah. Not me. Haven’t got a dad, see? Well, I have, but not an official one. Stands to reason, dunnit, when I’m called Bagley and Mam says me dad’s called Kellygodrottim. Glad I haven’t got a name like that. Think how they’d laugh at school if I was called Arnold William Kellygodrottim.’ He’d do without the oranges, thanks all the same.

‘Just think!’ Hester’s voice trembled on the edge of laughter. What a joy of a child this was. Small wonder Polly adored him. ‘But I’m afraid you won’t see the threshing team. The driver won’t set out with such a big machine until it’s properly light. It’ll be another half hour before it gets here.’

She reached the orchard gate then turned to watch him walk away, raising her hand to match his wave, thinking how cruel life could be when an unwanted, carelessly-conceived love child like Arnie could grow up so straight and strong and delightful.

And I couldn’t give you a boy, Martin; couldn’t give a living son to Ridings. Nor, when our babe died, could I try again.

I’m sorry, my love. Forgive me. I didn’t know. Believe me, I didn’t know …

The threshing team clanked into the yard on great, grinding, cast-iron wheels, spewing out coal-smoke, throwing mud in all directions.

‘Good grief,’ Kath gasped.

‘First time you’ve seen one?’ Jonty smiled.

It was. She stood still and wide-eyed, thinking so strange a contraption could only have come from an age that had known Stephenson’s Rocket. It was almost a steam-roller, yet with the look of an ancient steam train about it and it pulled a brightly painted contrivance behind it.

‘That’s the thresher,’ Jonty supplied, following her gaze. ‘They’ll back it up to the stack and the sheaves will be thrown down into it, into the drum.’

‘Y-yes.’ Kath frowned. ‘Does it work on electricity?’

‘Nothing quite so convenient.’ Jonty shrugged. ‘Look – see that big wheel on the engine beside the driver’s seat? It’s that wheel that connects by a belt to the thresher; and, roughly, is what drives it. And without blinding you with science,’ he laughed, ‘the straw comes out at one end, the wheat at the other and the chaff – the wheat husks, that is – drop down below it.’ He smiled again and his eyes, thick-lashed and blue, crinkled mischievously. ‘Got that?’

‘Yes. Well, I think so.’ My, but he was handsome. ‘You’ll let me down lightly, Jonty?’

‘I will. If you aren’t afraid of heights you can go on top of the stack with Marco. He’ll be feeding the sheaves down into the drum; you can keep them coming to him – okay?’

It wasn’t. All at once she was apprehensive, but she said she’d do her best – and thought how foolish she had been to worry about milking a cow, when, had she known about traction engines and threshing machines that day she volunteered for the Land Army, she’d have taken to her heels and run a mile!

‘We’ll be making a start soon, Kath. They’ve only to fix the belt, and then we’ll be away.’

‘What will Roz be doing?’

‘She’ll be seeing to the filling, most likely. There’s hooks at the back end of the thresher, for holding the wheat-sacks. Roz will watch them and tie them when they’re full; there’ll be a couple of big strong lads to hump them away.

‘Last time we threshed, Roz was on the chaff.’ Jonty grinned. ‘It’s a dirty job. The poor love was black all over by the end of the day. She didn’t speak to me for ages after.’

Kath laughed with him, biting back the words she longed to say; that if he truly cared for Roz, if he acknowledged what his eyes showed so plainly, then he would wait a while; be there if one day she should need him and the comfort of his safe, broad shoulders. She didn’t say them, though, because there was really no need, and anyway, it was no business of hers. But oh, if a man smiled at me the way Jonty smiled at Roz; if his eyes loved me the way his eyes loved her, Kath yearned, I’d be putty in his hands. If, she thought, dismissing such stupid thoughts, she were heart-whole and fancy-free. And not married to Barney, of course.

The thresher was belted-up to the traction engine, the drum rotated noisily. Beside it in the stackyard stood two carts; one for straw, the other to carry away the fat, full sacks of wheat. Roz stood to the rear, a pile of hessian sacks at her side and she waved to Kath who looked giddily down from the top of the stack.

‘Be careful,’ Marco warned. ‘Straw can be slippy. Be careful how you step.’

‘I will.’ Of course she would. ‘Tell me again? I just throw the wheat sheaves over to you and –’

‘That is so. And I shall cut the binding-twine, then throw them down, like so.’ Gravely, he mimed the operation. ‘It is nothing for worry. I show you how.’

The air was frosty and filled with scents of coal-smoke and dusty straw. Kath smiled at Flora Lyle who had come to help, and taken up her position beside Roz.

‘All right?’ Flora mouthed, and Kath lifted her hand in a reassuring wave.

‘Right!’ the engineer called. ‘Here she goes!’

Marco spat on his hands, rubbed them together, then lifted the first sheaf. Kath took a deep breath. This was better than working in a factory or on munitions. This was where she had always wanted to be; what she had always wanted to do.

She spat on her hands as Marco had done. This was it, then!

She was glad when eleven o’clock came for her arms ached and her mouth was dry with dust; already she had stripped off her pullover and unfastened the top button of her shirt. For the last thirty minutes she had been unable to think of anything but a glass of cool, clear water and the sight of Grace and Polly carrying jugs and a tray of mugs was more than welcome.

‘Slack off!’ came the cry. ‘Drinking time!’

‘Come.’ Marco held the ladder steady, indicating to Kath to climb down first.

‘Water, anybody?’ Grace called and Kath answered with a grateful ‘Please,’ closing her eyes, drinking deeply.

‘All right?’ Roz walked over, followed by Flora who carried mugs of tea.

‘Just about.’ Kath laughed.

‘You’ll be stiff in the morning,’ Flora warned. ‘A good hot bath is what we’ll all need tonight.’

‘Mmm.’ Kath nodded to Marco who stood a little apart, unsure amongst strangers. ‘Those sheaves get heavy, after a time. Marco works like a machine. It was hard going, keeping up with him.’

Not that she was complaining; far from it. She was part of a team; she was with friends. She belonged here. It felt right, and she never wanted to leave.

They settled into an easy rhythm again. Marco worked steadily, pausing only to mop his forehead or to glance briefly in Kath’s direction and smile encouragement. The height of the stack had already fallen by two feet and in time, by mid-afternoon perhaps, when the stack was lower still, the grain elevator would be pushed alongside and the sheaves fed on to it and carried up to the drum, just as people were carried up a moving staircase.

But that would not be yet, Kath knew, already hoping it would not be too long before they stopped to eat and could troop, aching and hungry, into Grace’s kitchen.

She looked briefly down. To her left, Roz and Flora tended the corn sacks and to her right, straw was being forked into a cart. She smiled across at Marco and in that instant she felt and saw a fat, black rat, its body soft against her ankle.

‘Aaaagh! No!’ She jumped back, startled, kicking out wildly at the straw beneath her feet. Then she let go a cry harsh with terror for the sheaves were shifting beneath her. She was falling!

She opened her mouth to cry out, but no sound came. She grabbed blindly at the straw, grasping it tightly, halting her fall only a little. The mass beneath her was still moving; she was rigid with panic and fear.

‘Kat!’ A hand caught her wrist with a grip of steel and the sliding and slipping stopped. ‘Your hand! Give to me your other hand!’

She lifted her arm slowly, felt his fingers grasp hers. The beater drum flailed and crashed below her, the belt slapped and snaked on and if she fell on it – oh, God! Why didn’t they stop the thing?

‘Hang on to her.’ It was Jonty’s voice, above her. ‘I’ve got you, Marco. Don’t let her go!’

‘Is all right, Kat.’ Marco’s voice was gentle and calm. ‘Be still. Not to struggle.’

Her body had turned to stone; her mouth was dry with terror. Hands tugged at her shirt. They were pulling her back.

‘Relax, Kath,’ Jonty called softly. ‘We’ve got you. Try not to struggle.’

The straw scratched her face and arms as inch by inch they dragged her back to them. The scream of the belt changed to a soft hum, then stopped; the drum juddered to a halt. Hands grasped the seat of her dungarees. With one grunting, groaning heave she was up and over, landing on top of the stack in a sprawl of arms and legs. For what seemed forever she lay there, shoulders heaving, trying to stop the jerking of her limbs.

‘Is all right, Katarina.’ Marco gathered her to him, holding her tightly, stroking her hair. ‘Is all over now.’

She clung to him and the sobs came; great, tearing sobs of relief. ‘Marco, oh, Marco …’

‘Here now, stop that noise! Come on, lassie; blow your nose!’ Flora was there, holding out a handkerchief. ‘What was it? What made you fall?’

‘A rat. There, at my feet!’

‘A rat, Katarina? A little frightened rat?’ Marco chided.

‘I thought it would crawl up my leg.’

‘Help her down,’ Jonty said gently. ‘I’ll take over up here with Marco.’

‘No! She stays.’ Flora’s voice was sharp. ‘If she doesn’t, she’ll never go on a stack again. Snap out of it, Kath! On your feet!’

‘I can’t. The rats. I’m sorry, but –’

‘We fix it, yes?’ Marco took two pieces of the discarded twine. ‘We fix those rats good. Stand up, Kat.’

Unsteadily she got to her feet, watching bewildered as Marco tied round the bottoms of her dungaree legs. ‘Is okay, now. No rats in trousers.’

He was smiling. Everybody was smiling. Kath sniffed loudly and pulled the back of her hand across her eyes.

‘I’m all right, now,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll stay.’

Grace Ramsden’s midday kitchen was warm and steamy, rich with the scents of cooking; a place of safeness and normality after the terror of the stackyard.

‘Feeling better now, lass?’ Grace asked as Kath hung her jacket on the door peg.

‘Fine, thanks. My word,’ she smiled shakily, ‘but I caused a bit of an upset, didn’t I? Marco caught me, you know; just grabbed my wrist. And Jonty was on top of that stack in a flash; held on to Marco’s belt with one hand and hung on to the roof beam with the other. Between them – oh, let’s just say I was lucky. I still don’t like to think what might have happened.’

‘Might have, but didn’t,’ Grace retorted, ‘so sit yourself down and let’s hear no more about it.’

‘But it was so stupid,’ Kath persisted. ‘And all because of a rat.’

‘I’m scared stiff of earwigs,’ Grace confided. ‘So away with your bother and find yourself somewhere to sit.’

Farms were not duty-bound to feed their workers on threshing days, but Home Farm had a reputation for good food, generously served, and even though now she was reduced to providing less than she would have liked, Grace Ramsden still saw to it that no one went without in her kitchen.

The stackyard workers arranged themselves around the table on chairs and benches, all of them hungry and glad of the break.

‘Sorry, Grace, but I don’t much feel like food.’ The familiar churning was inside Kath still, and if anyone else said one more word about it, even in fun, she would break down and weep again, she really would.

‘Then how about taking Marco his dinner? I’ll give him yours as well, shall I?’

‘You could do worse.’ Kath shrugged. ‘He did the work of two men this morning.’ Apart from saving her life, and holding her comfortingly afterwards, not telling her, either, that she was a silly woman who had no place on a farm if she went berserk at the sight of a rat. ‘Is this it?’ She picked up the tin tray.

‘Aye. Hurry along before it gets cold, there’s a good lass.’

Marco was sitting where he always sat and she settled the tray on his knees.

‘Here you are. It’s rabbit pie.’ She sat down beside him, chin on hands. ‘I want to thank you for saving my life, because you did, you know. I could have fallen into that machine and –’ She stopped, remembering the flailing, crashing thresher.

‘No. I would not have let you. You are not to think about it.’

‘But I must. I can’t forget what you did.’

‘Jonty was there. He help, also.’

‘Yes, and I shall thank him, too.’ She made a small, appealing gesture with her hands. ‘What can I say?’

‘Say you are no longer afraid of rats.’ He smiled.

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t. They’ll always frighten me, I think. But at least I know now how to stop them running up my trouser legs.’ She smiled, and the smile came more easily. ‘Well, I’d best be going, I suppose.’ She rose to her feet, then bending quickly, taking his face in her hands, she gently kissed his cheek. ‘Thanks, Marco …’

She turned then, and ran; back to Grace’s kitchen and the men and women who sat at her table. Pulling out the empty chair beside Roz she said, ‘All of a sudden I’m hungry. I don’t suppose there’s any of that pie left?’

Roz kicked off her wellingtons, called ‘Sorry I’m late!’ then kissed her grandmother’s cheek.

‘It’s almost dark. Did you manage to finish?’

‘We did. All over and done with till next year. God! I’m filthy! There wouldn’t be any hot water to spare, Gran? My hair’s thick with dust and I’ve got chaff down my shirt and it’s itching like mad. I need a bath.’

‘I thought you might; towels are on the fireguard. I held back supper till you came in. How did it go, darling?’

‘Fine. Well – up to a point, that is. Kath took a tumble over the side of the stack. She’s okay, but still a bit shaken. Marco grabbed her, just in time.’

‘The Italian?’

‘Yes, Gran. Marco. If it hadn’t been for him, there could’ve been a nasty accident.’

‘When am I going to meet your friend?’ The conversation took an abrupt about-turn. Not that she was not relieved, Hester acknowledged silently, that something awful hadn’t happened to the poor young woman, but it could not be discussed at Ridings if the credit must go to an Italian. ‘She seems nice. Ask her to tea sometime, and show her the house. You said she was interested to see it.’

‘Okay. Sunday’s her day off, same as mine. Maybe she’d like that.’

‘All settled, then. Perhaps Grace could spare me a couple of eggs for sandwiches,’ Hester murmured, ‘and there’s a little of the Christmas cake left.’ An almost fatless, almost fruitless, almost sugarless Christmas cake, she sighed, remembering the take-six-eggs-and-one-pound-of-butter recipe of pre-war days. ‘I’ll look forward to meeting her. Now upstairs with you. Supper’s at six sharp, so don’t lie there wallowing.’

‘All right now, Kath?’ asked Flora as they pedalled back to Peacock Hey. ‘Sorry I had to be a bit sharp this morning.’

‘I’m fine – you were right to make me stay up there. And one thing I’ve learned – not to go threshing again without tying my trouser bottoms. Did I make an awful fool of myself?’ she asked, frowning.

‘No more than I’d have made if it had happened to me. But farms are notorious places for accidents, Kath, so try to forget it. And we’d better get a move on, or there’ll be no hot water left.’

A letter was waiting at the hostel; Kath had sensed there would be one. It bore the Censor’s stamp and the handwriting on the envelope was Barney’s. She could have done without a letter from North Africa, she thought petulantly. Today of all days she needed Barney’s disapproval like she needed a rat up her trouser leg!

Lips set tightly, she returned it to the letter-rack. Right now she needed a hot bath more than anything else in the world. The letter must wait until after supper.

‘Ready for your supper?’ Grace asked of her son who sat in the fireside rocker.

The departure of the threshing team had not signalled the end of Jonty’s day; there had still been cows to feed and milk. Now he was so weary that if the house took a direct hit, he doubted he could get out of the chair.

‘Can you keep it warm till I’ve had a bath?’

‘I can. Kath offered to stay on and help with the milking, mind, but your dad sent her back with the Forewoman. She was badly shaken this morning, though she tried not to make a fuss. I like that girl, but just when I think I’ve got the measure of her and start treating her like I treat young Roz, then a barrier comes down, if you see what I mean?’

‘Sorry, Mum, no. Kath seems ordinary and normal to me, and for a towny she’s fitted in fine. What do you mean – a barrier?’

‘I don’t know; not exactly. But I’m right, I’m sure I am. Woman’s instinct, you could call it.’ Of course Jonty hadn’t sensed it; what man would? ‘And get yourself off your behind, lad. You’ll feel all the better when you’ve washed that muck off you.’ Oh, yes. It took a woman to know a woman. ‘And don’t forget to rinse out the bath when you’ve finished!’ she called as he slowly climbed the stairs.

There was something, Grace insisted, but she couldn’t pry – even in wartime, when people had grown kinder and closer, she couldn’t. Poor lass. Even in that hostel amongst all those girls, she’d still be alone, she wouldn’t mind betting; still holding back that last little bit of herself that no one would be allowed to see, or know.

‘Take care, Kath,’ she whispered, wondering how she was feeling and what she was doing. ‘Take care, lass.’

Kathleen Allen sat beside the common-room fire, a notepad on her knee. Only when she had bathed and eaten her supper had she returned to the letter-rack to pick out the blue air-mail envelope. And she had guessed right; Barney was still angry with her, though when he wrote he had not received the Christmas Day letter she hoped would make things right between them. Things would be better, when he did. When he read of her love; when he realized how she missed him and worried for his safety then perhaps he’d be the Barney she had cared for, and married. It stood to reason, she supposed, that a man should feel resentment when he was parted from all he cared for most.

She looked down at the pad.

Dearest Barney,

Tonight, when I got back to the hostel, your letter was waiting for me. It is very cold here, the skies are grey and darkness comes early. I tried to imagine you sitting there writing to me, with the sun beating down and you trying to keep cool.

She had not mentioned his annoyance in her letter, nor apologized again. By now, surely, he must be prepared to forgive and forget?

Today at Home Farm we all worked very hard, threshing the last of the wheat. Everyone who could be spared came along to lend a hand and we finished just a little before dusk.

She would not tell him about the rat, nor about what happened to her. It might only cause him to worry – or prompt him to say he’d told her so. To tell him was impossible, anyway, because he still didn’t know about Jonty who should have been in the Army, and she could never tell him about Marco.

Tomorrow things will be less hectic and Roz and I will be back to normal again. Roz isn’t very happy, at the moment. Her boyfriend has gone home on leave and she misses him, as I miss you, Barney.

Yes, she did miss him, but not with the tearing ache with which Roz missed Paul. Her eyes misted over. Roz and Paul had no secrets yet she, Kath, must measure every word she wrote to her husband and it was wrong, for he was all she had in the world. He had married her knowing what she was, and given her his name. And having that name, one which was really hers, was more important to her than ever she would admit.

Yet how could she tell him? How would he react if ever he was to discover that an Italian – a man who was his enemy – had today almost certainly saved her life? And how could she argue that it had been Marco who was there when she needed help; when she needed comfort?

‘Marco is your enemy, too,’ whispered her conscience. ‘His country is at war with your country.’

‘Think,’ demanded the voice of her reason, ‘that if Barney and Marco had faced each other in North Africa and each had carried a gun …’

She shivered with distaste. It was all so wrong. Wars were wrong. If women governed the world there’d be an end to war. Women would say, ‘No more sons; we will conceive no more children if every score of years you send them to war!’

She clucked angrily. She was being stupid, her with her grand thoughts. Women would never be anything but women. It was the way it was; the way it always would be unless – or until – women stood together and demanded to be as good as men. They’d done it before, hadn’t they; had chained themselves to railings and gone to prison, died even. And because of that, a woman could vote and need never tell her husband how she voted. Now women were at war, really at war. They wore the uniforms her husband detested and tried not to be afraid. They weren’t comforts for officers!

Barney was wrong. He had no right to such opinions and she could not go through life being grateful to him for making her his wife; for marrying a woman who’d been reared in an orphanage and knew neither who she was nor what she was.

She was Kath. She was like Grace and Roz and Flora. She could no more help being abandoned than Marco could help being born Italian. Heavens above, Roz hadn’t so much as raised an eyebrow when she’d found the courage to tell her. Roz hadn’t cared, so why was she so prickly about it? She could no more help being unwanted than Jonty could help being in a reserved occupation, or Paul being an airman. Barney had no right to be so angry when all she was doing was trying to help win the war.

All? But hadn’t this war given her the opportunity to do what she most wanted? Couldn’t she have helped win the war in a factory, in a shop, or by becoming a nurse? All right. So she’d wanted to be a landgirl and live in the country. Was it so wrong? Was every landgirl in Peacock Hey as racked with guilt as she was?

Defiance blazed briefly through her and she looked at the unfinished letter on her knee. Supposing she were to have a brainstorm? Just supposing she were to go completely mad and write, ‘Today, at threshing, I could have been killed. I slipped and fell and an Italian caught me and held me, and a young man who isn’t in the Army helped him save my life. And afterwards, Barney, I thanked that Italian, and I kissed him.’

Shame flushed her cheeks. Shaking her head as if to remove all such thoughts from it she wrote, I miss you, Barney. I want this war to be over so we can be together again. Take care of yourself, and come home safely.

Come home to me quickly, Barney, before I take leave of my senses.