Chapter Two #2
The clock chimed ten, yet nobody moved towards the stairs, except Mrs Postbridge, who went up briefly to check on her little girl. Mr Fisher, Alice’s dad, produced a deck of cards, and Joe brought out a book of matches, and they played a lively game of three-card brag for matchsticks.
Halfway through this epic game, Mrs Newton announced that she would open a bottle of her home-made sloe wine, since it was such a special occasion, and soon everyone had a small glass of the near-lethal concoction at their elbow.
Grace gasped and choked at her first mouthful of Mrs Newton’s famously potent sloe wine, while they all watched in expectant silence.
But the new Land Girl soon rallied, and even asked for a second helping, adding in a faint voice, ‘Only, make it a thimbleful this time, please,’ so that Joe gave a guffaw and Mr Fisher rocked back and forth, thumping the table in his mirth.
Eventually, this impromptu party was broken up by the overhead light going out abruptly. Everyone groaned. But Mrs Newton said it was for the best, as they would need to be up early as usual in the morning.
‘Is it a power cut?’ Grace asked in surprise as Mrs Postbridge brought out a handful of old candle stumps to light them to bed. ‘I thought it was only big towns that were getting blackouts.’
‘Bless you, no,’ Mrs Newton exclaimed, a shadowy figure at the foot of the stairs. ‘They’re worse out here in the sticks, love.’
‘They certainly are,’ Tilly agreed gloomily, pulling her cardigan close about her narrow shoulders.
‘Better get used to it, Grace. The cuts started off being once or twice a week, and only for an hour or two. Now they seem to be switching the power off after ten o’clock most evenings.
So if you’re not done reading by then, it’s lights out, like it or not. ’
‘Yes, like a curfew,’ Caroline added.
‘Saints alive!’ Grace had groped for all the glasses, crowding them together on a tray, and now carried this carefully to the draining board. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘It’s this new Labour government. Power cuts, fuel shortages … They need to get their act together,’ Mr Fisher muttered.
‘Is there any hot water left?’ Grace asked.
‘Yes, but leave ’em, love. I’ll wash those glasses up in the morning,’ Violet insisted, steering Grace towards the stairs. ‘That’s not your job.’
They all traipsed up to bed in the dark, clutching their candle stumps and trying not to get hot wax on their fingers.
Tilly and Caroline, who’d been sharing a room since Joan left to save on heating, reminded Grace where the washroom was, made sure the new girl had clean towels and matches to relight her candle if need be, and said goodnight.
‘I never thought Joe would manage to recruit another Land Girl. Not all the way out here,’ Caroline whispered through the dark as they huddled under the blankets, trying to get warm.
‘And Grace is very unusual.’ She could feel her heart thump loudly in the quiet, as though she’d been running.
Too much sloe wine, she thought. ‘Did you like her, by the way? What do you think of her?’
‘I think she’s smashing,’ Tilly whispered back. ‘You?’
Caroline, who for some time had been listening to the new girl tiptoeing cautiously about the attic room next door, no doubt hunting for slippers and nightclothes in an unfamiliar space, finally caught the creak of the mattress as she too got into bed.
‘Smashing,’ she agreed with a sigh, and turned over to face the wall. ‘Absolutely first-rate.’
Next day, the three Land Girls marched out into the cobbled farmyard where Joe was harnessing Barney, the shire horse, ready for turning the soil in one of the top fields.
Grace shocked them on first rising, emerging with her vast halo of hair puffed.
She had now ruthlessly tied back her locks and jammed her beret down on top.
Her uniform wasn’t new, as she had previously worked as a Land Girl in Devon, as she’d told them at dinner last night.
But the breeches and jersey were both clean and neatly ironed, and the only tear had been meticulously repaired.
Caroline thought she looked very smart indeed in her standard Land Army uniform of mustard breeches teamed with a green jersey, even the bulky taupe jacket suiting her height.
‘Not exactly warm today, is it?’ Grace remarked, peering up into partly cloudy skies, a faint sunshine filtering through occasionally. ‘I was told you don’t get snow in Cornwall. I hope that wasn’t a daydream.’
Caroline laughed. ‘Oh, we’ve had snow here in the winter.
But it doesn’t tend to stick, not this close to the sea.
At least, that’s what Joe says.’ She saw the farmer straighten from his work, frowning at the sound of his Christian name, and blushed.
‘Mr Postbridge, I mean.’ Joe was quite relaxed about most things, but he preferred the Land Girls to refer to him as Mr Postbridge.
Though she recalled it had been Mrs Postbridge, not the farmer, who’d instigated that rule after she and Joe had got married.
But no doubt she’d wanted to put as much distance as possible between her new husband and his young Land Girls.
‘Grace was just wondering whether it snows in Cornwall.’
Joe cracked a rare smile. ‘Not often enough to worry about.’ He banged his gloved hands together. ‘Still, it’s chilly today, I’ll grant you that. So you’d best get ploughing on the double. That’ll keep you warm.’
Grace had made a beeline for the horse and was stroking his soft, downy muzzle. She beamed when he nudged into her palm, snuffling noisily. ‘I love horses. So huge and yet so gentle.’
‘He’s just hoping you’ve brought him an apple or a bit o’ carrot,’ Joe told her with a wink and turned to shut the gate into Barney’s enclosure. ‘Never stops eating, that one.’
Tilly, buttoning up her jacket, muttered, ‘Gentle? Don’t stand behind him, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘Oh, Barney doesn’t kick. He’s a sweetheart.’ With an expert hand, Caroline slipped the halter over his head and checked it was secure, and caught Grace watching her with interest.
‘Do you ride?’ Grace asked promptly.
‘I used to ride,’ Caroline admitted shyly, ‘when I was much younger. My granddad had a pony on a bit of land behind his house in Ealing. But then he died and the pony was sold. It’s all built up around there now.
’ She paused, a wave of sadness crashing over her.
‘Goodness, I’ve not thought about Grandad in years.
I expect his house was bombed to smithereens in the Blitz.
It’ll be all rubble down that street now. ’
Nobody said anything for a moment, then Joe passed the lead rope to Caroline, instructing her gruffly to walk Barney up to the top field.
‘Plough’s already up there, harness too, and the guideposts are in place, to show you where to start and finish.
Caroline, you’re the most experienced, so I’m putting you in charge.
You remember how to harness him up and couple the plough to the harness? ’
‘Yes, Mr Postbridge,’ Caroline assured him.
‘I’ll be working on the tractor if you need me. Oh, and my wife would like a word when you get back. She’s looking for volunteers for a sing-song at the Harvest Supper.’
Tilly and Caroline looked at each other, silent and aghast.
‘I can sing,’ Grace announced, surprising them all.
‘Thank you, Grace. I’ll let Mrs Postbridge know when I see her.’ Pushing up the brim of his cloth cap, the farmer peered at them from under dark bushy brows. ‘Straight lines this time, ladies. No more of your wonky ones.’
Caroline and Tilly laughed nervously. Last time they’d been left to plough a field on their own, the lines had indeed ended up crooked, and Joe had nearly burst a gasket.
‘I’ll keep these girls on the straight and narrow, never you fear,’ Grace told him airily in her distinctive Liverpudlian accent, and linked arms with Tilly. ‘Eh, can you whistle? Do you know this one?’
They trudged up the narrow track that led to the top field, Tilly and Grace whistling an old sea shanty very imperfectly.
Once Joe had disappeared back into the barn, Caroline slowed her pace.
She always enjoying walking with the horse through green, rolling countryside, even uphill.
Although it was nippy, she’d stuffed her beret in one of her pockets, and a light breeze was lifting her blonde hair as they grew closer to the cliffs.
It was at times like these that she remembered why she’d chosen to join the Women’s Land Army in the first place.
For all the fresh air and sense of freedom that came from being in the open countryside.
It was so different from the town life she’d led in Ealing.
And although she missed her family from time to time, she didn’t regret coming to Cornwall, so far from London. Not one little bit.
‘Now, girls, isn’t this just the life?’ Grace declared, throwing Caroline a smile over her shoulder as though she had read her mind. ‘Look at the view … Aren’t we the luckiest creatures alive?’
‘Oh yes,’ Tilly agreed sarcastically. ‘But what a pity you missed the harvest a few weeks back. We had a wonderful time, to be sure. My hands are still sore from hours of bundling wheat into stacks. Then all that dust from the great noisy threshing machines kept getting under my eyelids, and Mrs Newton had to give me an eye bath, and it stung like billy-o. Oh, and we had to tie string around the bottoms of our trouser legs, to stop rats and mice climbing up them.’ She gave a melodramatic shudder.
‘Yes, sometimes I’m so glad to be a Land Girl. ’
‘It was quite dusty in the threshing barn,’ Caroline admitted, chuckling. ‘Even after I’d washed and washed, there was still dust on my bed sheets every morning. And you’re right about the eyes … They were so itchy, I hated it. Joe ought to give us goggles at harvest time.’
‘Goggles? Like the ones Spitfire pilots wear, you mean?’ Grace chuckled.
‘I can see it now … All us Land Girls stumbling about in goggles, unable to see a bleedin’ thing, grabbing men instead of wheat stalks and throwing them in the thresher.
’ She tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘What a shame that would be, eh? Those poor men.’
The three girls fell about, snorting with laughter.
Life on the farm was going to be very different with Grace there, Caroline decided, and then felt guilty.
She realised she hadn’t thought about Selina that morning.
Not once. Worse, the letter she’d started writing to her absent friend still lay unfinished.
But now she would have so many funny new anecdotes to tell Selina, wouldn’t she?
The letter would be worth the wait.