The Girls They Left Behind (31 page)

Joy gazed at her. ‘Mum . .

‘Everyone tells me to be brave. Everyone says we don’t know for certain he’s been killed, he could still turn up, stranger things have happened. D’you know something, Joy? I wish we did know for certain. I’d rather — I’d rather know he’s been drowned than go through this — not knowing, wondering every day whether I might get a telegram, whether he might even walk through the door.’ She dropped her pencil on the heap of papers and burst into tears. ‘I just can’t stand much more of it! I can’t stand it. .

‘Mum,’ Joy repeated helplessly, but Alice pushed past her and ran through the door to the back room. A moment later, Joy heard her feet on the stairs.

She stood for a moment, struggling with her own tears. A few dropped on to the newspapers and smudged the print.

Alice would not come downstairs again that day, she knew. She would lie on her bed and Joy would hear her sobbing. She would refuse anything to eat and if joy took her a cup of tea it was as likely to go cold as to be drunk. And there didn’t seem to be anything anyone could do for her.

And meanwhile there would be people coming in for their

papers, the delivery boys would want their satchels filled and the shop would have to be kept open until six o’clock.

Joy brushed her hand across her eyes and picked up the

pencil.

I wonder that Dennis has got the nerve to show his face when my Geoffrey comes here,’ Erica said one day after they had waved the little sports car down the lane. ‘I don’t know how he can stand there, knowing they’re risking their lives to save his Fellow skin.’

‘It’s not easy being a CO,’ Betty said. ‘He’s had to go to prison, you know.’

‘Good thing too. Pity they ever let him out.’

The atmosphere on the farm was strained. Mr and Mrs Spencer had accepted Dennis for what he was, and provided he did his job well took the view that his principles were none of their business. Yvonne treated him, as she did everyone, with casual friendliness. But Erica made no secret of her contempt and loathing, and Mrs Spencer’s sister Iris, who was married to an army captain, sided with Erica and did her best to pretend that Dennis did not exist.

‘He’s smarmy,’ she said. ‘He knows when he’s well off! It’s wrong, employing men like him when there’s good patriotic farmworkers being called up.’

‘We’ve got to get the work done,’ Mrs Spencer said mildly. Dennis is a good worker.’

`Conchie-petting!’ Iris Blake said disgustedly. ‘Do you know, they get paid when they go for their interview?And get a luncheon for three-and-six. I read it in the paper. And then they get a nice soft life on a farm when my husband and Erica’s fiancé are risking their lives fighting for their country.’ ;he gave her brother-in-law a defiant look. ‘There’s plenty of f’armers who’d refuse to take ‘em.’

‘Look,’ Mr Spencer said with some force, ‘I’m not a politician, I don’t know the rights and wrongs of all this, I’m just a farmer trying to do my job. I’m producing food for my country, which I love just as much as anyone else, and I’ll take what labour I can get to help me do it. Aye, prisoners of war if it comes to it. Why not? And Ada’s right, Dennis is a good worker and he’s no trouble about the place. As far as I’m concerned, his reasons are his own affair.’

‘They ought to be ours as well ‘

‘No!’ Mr Spencer thumped his fist on the table. ‘The man’s been to a tribunal, he’s been to prison. He’s proved himself, and that’s good enough for me. I thought this country believed in free speech. I thought that was what this war was all about, letting people live the way they want to live and believe the things they want to believe. And that’s the way it’ll be on this farm and in this house.’ He glowered at his sister-in-law. ‘And anyone who doesn’t like that can always find themselves somewhere else to live.’

The two stared at each other and then Iris Blake got up and flounced out of the room. There was a small, embarrassed pause and then Mr Spencer glanced at his wife.

‘I’m sorry, Ada, but it had to be said. We can’t have her making trouble. You know what she’s like once she takes against someone.’

‘Oh, I know. Our Iris always did set herself a cut above the rest of us. But this is our place, and if she wants to sit at our table she has to put up with our ways.’

‘And that goes for us too,’ Yvonne said later, as the three girls walked across the yard to the milking shed. ‘No more snide remarks about Dennis, see, Erica? Mr and Mrs Spencer don’t like it.’

Erica tossed her head.

‘I’ll say what I like. Free speech counts all ways. And I think Mrs Blake’s right - he is smarmy.’

However, there was little time for the situation to develop any further, for there was more than enough work to do and the girls found themselves up at six every morning in order to get it all finished during the diminishing hours of daylight. By the evening, they were usually too exhausted to do anything other than flop on the sagging sofas in the untidy living-room, or on their beds in the narrow attic.

‘I’m growing out of all my clothes,’ Betty wailed one day as she went through her chest of drawers. She had been home for the weekend to collect her winter skirts and jumpers.

‘Everything’s too tight.’

‘Mine too,’ Yvonne said. ‘My mum says I’m getting fat, but I don’t see how we can be, working the way we do.’

‘It’s muscle. We’re getting stronger, that’s what it is.’

Erica gave a shriek. ‘Muscle} But I don’t want to get muscles. Girls don’t have muscles.’

‘Land Girls do,’ Betty said, and rolled up her sleeve to look at her arm. It was smooth and firm. ‘I couldn’t have lifted a bale of hay when we came here and now I can shift ‘em all day without noticing. I don’t mind getting strong, if it makes the work easier.’ She looked out of the attic window. Autumn was beginning to tint the trees with red and brown, and the recently harvested fields were a carpet of golden stubble. The cows were grazing peacefully and she could see Dennis walking across one of the meadows to look at the sheep.

What was he thinking? He was always friendly and goodhumoured, but mostly fairly quiet, keeping his thoughts to himself. He must know what people like Erica and Mrs Blake thought of him. Did he care?

She thought of the day the aeroplane had crashed. He hadn’t behaved like a coward then. But neither had he shown any hatred for the German pilot and crew. It seemed that, to him, they were just people. Young men like himself, caught up in someone else’s war.

The sky was a soft haze, half blue and half gold, fading towards a pearly horizon. A creamy mist drifted between the trees. And as she watched she saw, appearing out of a glow of apricot, a formation of aircraft flying steadily north from the coast.

‘Look,’ she whispered, and the other two girls came over and knelt beside her, staring out.

‘They’re Jerries,’ Yvonne said in a low voice. ‘They’re heading for London.’

The planes came nearer. Their shapes were clearly

discernible now. They were like a menacing cloud in the golden sky, like a dark cloak which grew larger with every second and would soon be thrown over the shimmering landscape.

‘Oh, no …’ Betty breathed. ‘Oh, no …’

The planes were almost overhead. Dennis, walking in the meadow, was standing quite still, watching them. The cows were restless, showing signs of alarm, tossing their heads and flicking their tails. The sheep had huddled together, bleating.

And then, from high in the sky, there was a sudden swoop of smaller aircraft, like wasps buzzing around the relentless advance, and the girls saw the spattering of the guns and the little bursts of fire, only seconds before they heard the sounds.

In another moment the formation had broken up and the battle was on. The girls ran downstairs and out into the yard, ignoring all the advice they had ever been given to find places of safety while such fights were taking place. They stood staring up at the turmoil, watching the Spitfires dart like mosquitoes around the marauders, watching the more ponderous Hurricanes as they marked their victim and went in for the kill.

Betty lifted her hand to her mouth, biting her knuckles.

She saw the flash of fire as one of the German planes was hit.

For a second or two it seemed to hesitate, hanging in the sky, and then the flames burst all around it, enveloping it in a brilliant sheet of orange light and thick, billowing black smoke as it spiralled towards the earth.

Betty gasped and shut her eyes tightly. When she opened them again, the plane had gone, but there were others filling the space where it had been, RAF and Luftwaffe all mixed up together, swooping and darting about the sky, the air streaked with flame as more aircraft were hit, some to follow the first to earth, others to lurch away in an effort to escape. And, here and there, the white puffing umbrella of a parachute as the airmen baled out.

Yvonne screamed and turned to clutch Betty’s arm and bury her head in her shoulder. They clung together, staring at the sky, half crying, half laughing as the planes of the RAF

finally routed the invaders, and sent them scattering and making for the coast from where they had come.

‘Hurray!’ Erica cried, leaping up and down in her dungarees.

‘That gave ‘em what for! That taught ‘em a lesson!

They won’t come over here again in a hurry.’ She caught Betty’s hands and danced her round the yard. ‘I bet that was my Geoffrey up there. I bet he scored some hits. He sent them home with a flea in their ears!’

Betty laughed with her, but there was a feeling of unease in her heart. Some of those planes had been shot down, and some of them had been British planes. Suppose Geoff’s had been one of them? So far he seemed to have led a charmed life, but how long could anyone’s luck last?

She saw Dennis come into the yard. His face was sober, his eyes veiled. He looked at the dancing girls, and for a moment she thought he was about to say something. And then he seemed to change his mind. He walked slowly past, without speaking, and went into the house.

Betty felt a sudden chill, as if another shadow had passed across the sky. She withdrew her hands from Erica’s and moved away. Suddenly, laughter and dancing seemed out of place.

They were sitting round the table in the farmhouse kitchen having their meal later that evening when they heard the sound of the little car buzzing down the lane like a bee. Erica jumped up, her eyes alight. She ran out into the yard, but when she returned a few moments later the light had died from her eyes and she looked pale and frightened.

‘It’s Duff and Sandy,’ she said, and then stopped as if her voice had stuck. She opened her mouth but nothing emerged but a queer strangling sound. She reached out blindly and gripped the back of a chair.

‘They - they say -‘ She shook her head, and tried again.

‘They’

Betty stared at her. Her face was paper-white, her blue eyes enormous. Her whole body was quivering.

The two young men were standing miserably behind her.

Betty sought Sandy’s eyes but they were downcast. She felt horror brush cold across her skin and spread like a chill web over her body.

Mrs Spencer came swiftly to her feet. She put her hand on Erica’s arm and looked at the two airmen.

‘Geoff?’ All the questions that needed to be asked were in that one syllable. Betty wanted to turn her head away; she didn’t want to hear the answer. But her eyes were riveted on Erica’s white face.

‘Was Geoff-is he -?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She shook her own head and tried again. ‘Sandy?’

‘His plane was shot down this afternoon,’ Sandy said in a dull, flat voice. ‘I saw it go. He didn’t bale out.’

Erica’s knees buckled suddenly. Her tears burst from her in great sobs and she collapsed against the chair. Sandy caught her in his arms and held her against him, then carried her through to the sofa in the living room. He laid her down and knelt beside her, stroking her hair. The others followed, Mrs Spencer settling the cushions around her and covering her with a crochet rug, Mr Spencer going straight to the cupboard where he kept a small stock of bottles. Betty and Yvonne knelt beside Sandy, stroking Erica’s hands, and Duff hovered uneasily in the background. Even the Blake children were momentarily silenced, their mother’s mouth a thin bitter line, while Dennis stood grim-faced beside the door.

‘Here, girl, sip this.’ Mr Spencer poured some brandy into a glass and held it to Erica’s lips. She turned her head away.

‘Come on, it’ll do you good. You’ve had a bad shock.’

Erica sipped and coughed. ‘I don’t want it.’

‘Another sip. Come on.’

‘I don’t want it, I tell you. I want Geoff-my Geoff’ She stared up at them. Her eyes were like black pits in her white face. ‘Get my Geoff for me. Get him! I want him, I want him now?

Mrs Spencer spoke soothingly, her voice dry with pity. ‘Oh, my poor lamb, we can’t get Geoff for you. He - he’s ‘

‘He’s not!’ she cried before Mrs Spencer could utter the dreadful words. ‘He’s not, he’s not. He can’t be. He’s my Geoff. It’s all a horrible lie, it’s a joke.’ She turned her desperate eyes on the other two young airmen. ‘That’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s a joke. You’ve cooked it up between you, the

three of you, and Geoff’s outside now. He’ll come in any minute and tell me it’s all a joke. He will.’ She paused, staring from face to face while they all gazed unhappily back at her, not knowing what to say. ‘He will, won’t he?’ she whispered, and her voice sounded very thin and small and lonely in the silent room.

‘Oh, Erica,’ Betty said, and pushed past Sandy to pull the other girl against her. ‘Oh, poor, poor Erica.’

Geoff, shot down. Geoff, killed. Was it his plane they had seen, spiralling towards the earth with smoke and flame billowing from the cockpit? Had they actually seen Geoff’s last moments, had he looked down and seen them, staring up towards him, known that they were there?

Her own tears were flowing fast now. They ran down her cheeks and into Erica’s hair. The fair girl felt their wetness against her neck and drew back her head.