A Girl Can Dream (38 page)

The pigs couldn’t be moved to their enclosure either, which again necessitated more cleaning out. In fact, the only ones who seemed delighted with the snow were the dogs, who burst from the barn with wag-tailed eagerness for what the day might bring, and then cavorted in the snow-covered fields with such wild enthusiasm they made Meg smile.

Still, most of the dank days were bitingly cold or were battered with wind-driven snow, or icy, sleety rain, and Meg was soon heartily sick of the winter. Easter was early too; 7 February was Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, when they had all decided to give up taking sugar in their tea, a logical choice because it was now being rationed. Eventually, as one day folded into another, the snow ceased to fall, the ground became less rock solid, the cows were able to return to the fields and the pigs to their enclosure, and life got a little easier. By Mothering Sunday, 3 March, everyone could feel the days loosening their icy grip.

Traditionally, Mothering Sunday – about halfway through Lent – was the day when the girls ‘in service’ would return home so that they could see their mothers and visit their mother church, and they would usually come with a simnel cake as the restrictions of Lent were relaxed for that day. So, as a surprise, Enid had also made a simnel cake, which she said was made possible by the saving of the sugar ration. After tasting the cake, they all agreed that sacrificing the sugar in their cuppas had been worth it.

‘I think even when Lent is over we should take less sugar,’ Will said. ‘It will do us no harm to be a bit more careful.’

‘And it won’t just be with sugar,’ Enid said. ‘Tea is supposed to be being rationed by the summer.’

‘Tea?’ Will cried in anguish.

‘Yes, Will, tea,’ Enid repeated. ‘Each person will be getting just two ounces – it said on the wireless.’

‘Two ounces?’ Will said. ‘That’s beyond the pale, that is.’

‘It’s another way of saving our ships,’ Enid told him. ‘’Cos the man on the wireless said most of our tea comes from Ceylon. Anyway, if that’s the ration then that’s the ration, and there’s nothing we can do to increase that. We will have to suffer it like everyone else.’

Will was still flabbergasted but said nothing further, though the disgruntled look on his face made the girls smile.

‘He’s not used to rationing affecting his life in any way,’ Joy said as they got ready for bed that night.

‘Well, to be fair, none of us is.’

‘I know, and I think it will be an eye opener for many of us – and not a pleasant one at that. But the rationing restrictions in January didn’t make even a dent in Will and Enid’s lives, did it?’

‘No,’ said Meg smiling. ‘But I do see what he means in a way, because there is nothing like a reviving cup of tea when you’re tired or cold – or just about any time, really.’

‘You’ll have to drink milk,’ said Joy. ‘Enid said that as long as they do their quota, they can have as much of the milk as they want for their own use.’

‘It’s not quite the same.’

‘Better than nothing, though,’ Joy said. ‘I reckon we’ll do a lot of making do in this war before we are finished.’

Just days after this conversation they started the spring planting, and were again out from dawn to dusk.

‘What’s your cousin at these days?’ Will asked, when they had been at it a week. ‘We could do with another pair of hands.’

‘Oh, I don’t think you’ll get Nicholas back here, for all he enjoyed himself so much,’ Meg said. ‘He thinks he’s far more use in Birmingham – just for now, anyway.’

‘Why? What’s he doing?’

‘Anything that needs doing, I think,’ Meg said. ‘Apparently he’s with a working party sort of preparing for war. They’ve dug more trenches and sawed the railings down from everywhere. You were right, Will – everyone seems to want scrap metal.’

‘Yes, well, I would say a great deal of metal is used to fight a war.’

‘Nicholas says they have taken iron railings from the edges of parks, private houses, and even surrounding ornamental gardens and fountains. He says wrought-iron gates are a thing of the past. At the moment, though, he’s busy erecting Anderson shelters for people who can’t do it for themselves. A hundred thousand were delivered to houses in Birmingham before Christmas. They’re for people who have gardens so it was no good for our lot. But he said you have to dig a pit and then put the erected shelter into it and pack earth and sandbags all around it and on top, so it’s sort of buried, and he said – especially now with the men away – lots of households need help.’

‘Oh, I can see that,’ Will said. ‘That’s valuable work all right,’

On the farm, though, little was happening to show there was a war on, Meg thought, and with the long hours spent working at the planting, and with the rest of the farm work to be done too, while she hadn’t forgotten about the war it wasn’t at the forefront of her mind every day. This changed one Tuesday evening in early April as they returned to the house to find Enid standing stock-still in front of the wireless.

‘What is it?’ Will asked.

‘It’s just come through,’ Enid said. ‘Hitler and his bloody armies have occupied Denmark and now Norway, and seemingly with minimal resistance, for even the commentator said neither country appeared to have put up much of a fight.’

Later, more details emerged. ‘The Royal Navy were there ready to go to Norway’s aid,’ Will said. ‘But they never asked for help and didn’t even bother to mine the fjords. I mean, how stupid can you get? Might as well have lined up on the shore and shook the invading Germans by the hand.’

Enid nodded in agreement. ‘People say he will go for Belgium and Holland next.’

‘I think he will, too, but things will not go all his own way there.’

‘Why not?’ Meg asked.

‘Well, Belgium and Holland are protected by the fortress that they say is impregnable and it guards three strategic bridges. If they were to fall into German hands, then those countries would be wide open.’

‘But this fortress will stop that happening?’

Will nodded. ‘That’s what they say.’

‘What about France?’ Joy asked.

‘They have got something called the Maginot Line, which was built to protect France after the Great War.’

‘What is it?’

‘A line of heavily manned forts that run from the Swiss border to the Ardennes forest,’ Will said. ‘And they stopped there because they say the forest is impassable.’

‘So we’re more or less safe then?’

‘As safe as anyone can be in a war of this magnitude,’ Will said. ‘And you are safer here than in Birmingham, so that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.’

Although Meg was concerned about her father and now Stephen, and Joy about her brother, they had been somewhat reassured by Will’s words. So when Meg turned seventeen just a few days later, they felt justified in having a little party tea for her. She was delighted by the bottle of California Poppy perfume that Joy gave her, and the silk stockings from Enid and Will, and she put both her presents away in the drawer to be used when she went to Mass. She also had cards, not only from those on the farm, but also from her aunts Rosie and Susan and Nicholas, and even Terry. She also got a beautiful one with a red silk heart on the front from Stephen. Enid lined all the cards up on the mantelpiece and the letters Meg put away for reading later.

The days grew warmer as April gave way to May. Meg often thought it was hard to think of fierce battles being enacted not far away and the only real concern for them was the lack of letters. Stephen used to write as regular as clockwork every week, and Meg’s father nearly as often but day after day slipped by with no letters. There had been nothing from Joy’s brother either, for her mother wrote that she had heard nothing for nearly three weeks and he had never gone so long without writing.

‘Maybe it’s just that it’s difficult for them to send letters where they are,’ Meg said.

‘Aye, that must be it,’ Enid said, but she went on with a sigh, ‘and they say no news is good news.’

‘Yes,’ said Meg. ‘So shall we try not to worry until we have something to worry about?’

‘We’ll do our best, young Meg,’ Enid said. ‘But worry is the one thing that’s very difficult to get rid of.’

‘I know,’ Meg said. ‘I find being busy helps.’

Just a couple of days later, news came through the wireless of an aerial attack on the Dutch airfields. The word
Blitzkrieg
meaning ‘Lightning War’ entered their vocabulary, and the Blitzkrieg visited on the airfield left the Dutch with only twelve operational planes. There was no defence against another savage Blitzkrieg against Rotterdam a few days later, leaving over 900 people dead. The report said that Allied troops were hampered trying to enter the city to help by the vast numbers of Dutch trying to get out of it. At the same time German paratroopers were dropped on top of the supposedly impregnable fortress. It was in German hands in twenty-four hours and the Low Countries lay open to invasion. The news was as bad as it could get. As Will said, ‘Holland and Belgium have surrendered, and really they were left with no option, but we only need France to fall now and our lads will be buggered because the bloody Germans will be able to cut them off.’

No one said anything because no one could think of anything to say, and the only sounds in the room were Will’s heavy, agitated breathing, the crackling of the fire in the range and the ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf.

The wireless was never off now, as daily the family waited for more news. Then, on the evening of 14 May, as they were just finishing their dinner, Anthony Eden, who was the Secretary of State for War, broadcast a message from the BBC.

Since the war began, we have received countless enquiries from all over the kingdom from men of all ages who are for one reason or another not at present engaged in military service, and who wish to do something for the defence of their country. Well, now is your opportunity. We want large numbers of such men in Great Britain, who are British subjects between the ages of seventeen and sixty-five, to come forward now and offer their services in order to make assurance doubly sure. The name of the new force which is now to be raised will be the Local Defence Volunteers … It must be understood that this is, so to speak, a spare-time job, so there will be no need for any volunteer to abandon his present occupation.

‘What’s all that about, do you imagine?’ Meg asked.

‘I think they’re worried about invasion,’ said Enid.

‘Stands to reason,’ Will said. ‘Look, I’m not trying to frighten you, but it is as well to be prepared. The point is, if France falls – and every other country in Europe has folded so far – then only a small stretch of water separates us.’

Will was so right. Suddenly no letters were arriving. The waiting was dreadful and every day the news worsened; now the Allies were in retreat. Will brought a map home from Penkridge the following Saturday and, after studying it said, ‘The way I see it, there isn’t anywhere to retreat to but the beaches.’

‘And then what?’ Enid asked fearfully.

‘What do you bloody think?’ Will snapped at Enid in a way he had never done before, because a knot of worry was tearing at his heart. When they heard the request that all owners of boats of all types, shapes and sizes capable of crossing the Channel should contact the navy, they didn’t see what use they could be. It was afterwards, when the veil of secrecy was lifted, that they discovered that the job of the smaller boats was ferrying the soldiers from the makeshift pier heads they had set up on the beaches to the naval ships anchored in deeper water. With the ships filled to capacity, the owners of the little boats would load them up with as many men as they could, before heading for home and, once there, go back and start all over again.

The picture in the papers that Will brought from Penkridge showed the boats bobbing about in the choppy waters as if they were at some jolly regatta. The reality was totally different, for these brave men were bombed and strafed with machine-gun fire just like the ones on the beaches and those on the big ships, and many perished, but they carried on regardless.

It was known as Operation Dynamo, and together the small boats and naval ships rescued 192,000 British and 140,000 French soldiers between 27 May and 4 June 1940. It was an amazing feat, despite the fact that many had been left behind on the beaches. Daily they all waited at the farm to see if their loved ones had been among the lucky ones who had arrived home in Blighty.

Just before Operation Dynamo was over, Joy received a telegram from her mother to say her brother was home but injured and in hospital. She sobbed in relief. Enid put her arms around her and wished that she’d had similar news. The Heppleswaites said she must go home for a few days and be a comfort to her mother and see her brother for herself, and that they would manage.

So Meg was on her own that first Saturday in June, for although Will and Enid had offered to take her into Penkridge with them, she had so many more jobs to do with Joy away that she’d decided to stay and make a start on those. She was weeding one of the potato fields when she saw an army truck stop at the head of the lane.

She strained her eyes to see better, but the two dogs who were with her suddenly took off. Though she tried to call them, they didn’t take a blind bit of notice of her.

A man got out of the truck, awkwardly because one leg was encased in plaster. ‘You’re sure you’ll be all right?’ the driver of the truck asked him, getting out to stand beside him. ‘That lane looks a bit dicey.’

As the man opened his mouth to reply, he was very nearly completely overbalanced by two dogs leaping up at him, wild with excitement. The blood seemed to stop in Meg’s body, for it was Stephen. Stephen, and he was alive! Oh God, he was alive!

She pelted up the lane towards him as the driver was saying with a laugh, ‘There’s two glad to see you home, at any rate.’

‘They’re not the only ones,’ Meg said, pushing the dogs out of the way and putting her arms around. Stephen. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she threw her arms around him, nearly overbalancing him again, ‘There are no words to tell you how pleased, oh and so relieved to see you,’ she cried. ‘Welcome home, my darling love.’