Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Oh, this blasted rain … I thought spring was supposed to bring nicer weather?’ Washing up her lunch plate, Caroline peered out of the kitchen window at leaden skies.
She and the other two Land Girls had come back sodden and miserable, after a long, dreary morning spent digging out the remains of mushy potatoes that had rotted in the snows, and were facing more of the same that afternoon.
The telephone rang in the snug, answered promptly by Mrs Postbridge, and Caroline glanced round at Tilly and Grace in surprise. ‘Who on earth can that be?’
Mrs Postbridge came hurrying in a moment later, followed by Joe, both looking shocked. ‘That was my mum ringing from the village,’ she told the girls breathlessly. ‘She says the river’s burst its banks and poor Mr Carstairs’ cottage is already flooded.’
Joe was shrugging into his raincoat again. ‘I knew this would happen,’ he rumbled, slapping his wet cap back on too. ‘All that snow … It had to go somewhere after it melted. I’d best get straight down there, see what I can do to help.’
‘Mum says to take the tractor,’ his wife told him anxiously. ‘And any spare sacking you’ve got. They’re making sandbags.’
He nodded to the three Land Girls. ‘Follow me down to the village, quick as you can. We’ll need all hands on deck to shore up them old cottages along the riverbank.’
And with that, he hurried out of the farmhouse.
Caroline dragged her sodden wellies back on, uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. ‘That little stream? It’s hardly a river. How can it possibly flood the village?’
‘You heard Joe,’ Tilly muttered. ‘The snow must have melted, higher up the valley … I did notice it was looking swollen the other day. And it’s been raining hard for several days.’
Grace pulled on her coat and hat. ‘First all that snow, then rain, now floods … What’s next, eh?’ she demanded, shaking her head. ‘A plague of locusts?’
‘I’m sure it’s not as bad as it sounds.’ Caroline reached out to reassure her friend, but Grace flinched away before she could make contact. Bitter hurt flashed through her. What had gone wrong between them? She wished she understood Grace’s bewildering change of heart.
Joe and his tractor were already out of sight by the time they started off down the steep hill together, the track slippery and running with water, much of it still icy and laced with mud.
Down in the village, they found Mrs Newton bustling about outside the village shop in the rain, organising the filling of sacks with sandy grit.
A small group of village men were already engaged in this task when the Land Girls joined them.
Joe stopped to shake hands with a few of the villagers, former soldiers recently returned from Germany.
From what Caroline overheard, the farmer had employed them as labourers before the war, and was asking if they were in work yet.
Joe had once or twice mentioned intending to employ men about the farm.
But everything had stopped during the winter snows.
Now spring had come, he would soon swing back into tilling and planting again, with a thousand other jobs needing to be done about the farm before summer.
Caroline had been worrying that all three Land Girls would be ousted, replaced by male farmhands, and her eavesdropping did nothing to allay those fears.
It was a grim thought, and not least because so much remained unresolved between her and Grace.
She would hate to leave Postbridge Farm without ever discovering why her friend had turned cold after their one and only night together.
It was hard not to worry that, in her inexperience, Caroline had somehow done something dreadfully wrong …
‘Thank you for coming, girls,’ Mrs Newton called out huskily. ‘Now grab a spade and start shovelling!’
Using the spades Joe had brought down from the farm, the girls dutifully bent to the back-breaking work of shovelling sandy grit into sacks to act as a barrier against the floods.
‘Natural leader, isn’t she?’ Tilly remarked admiringly.
‘Who? Mrs Newton?’ Grace raised her brows. ‘You mean she’s a born bossyboots.’ But she was smiling.
‘No, she likes helping people, and sometimes the best way to achieve that is to take charge,’ Tilly insisted.
‘Don’t forget, Mrs Newton lost her eldest daughter in the Blitz, and probably still blames herself for not being there to help her.
If you ask me, that’s why she’s always first to muck in when there’s an emergency.
Not just to be helpful, but to … to make up for not being able to save her daughter,’ she ended in a rush.
Caroline glanced at Tilly, impressed by the younger girl’s logic.
‘I’d never thought of it like that,’ she admitted, leaning on her spade for a breather.
‘But you’re right, Mrs Newton is always first to help out.
And she does often mention having lost her daughter in the war.
Betsy, wasn’t it? Lily and Alice’s mum.’ She bent to her work again. ‘How did you figure that out?’
With a shy smile, Tilly whispered, ‘I’ve been reading a library book on psychology, about why people choose to do things a certain way … I can’t say I understand all of it. But it’s awfully fascinating.’
As though to prove a point, Mrs Newton came stomping towards them through the deep puddles and driving rain, her hat soggy and bedraggled.
‘Girls, you’re doing a grand job, but the men can finish them sandbags quicker.
Joe needs a hand near the river, where the flooding’s worse.
He’s taking planks down there on the tractor, and you’re to shore up the cottage doors with them. Can you manage that?’
‘Yes, Mrs Newton,’ the three girls chorused, wiping rain from their faces as they handed their spades to waiting village lads and trudged after Joe in his tractor.
Caroline grimaced, peering ahead as they waded through dirty water almost up to the tops of their wellies. ‘I wonder how much deeper it’s going to get.’
Tilly gave a little shriek. ‘Oh, crikey … The water’s gone in my boot.’
Grace said nothing, trudging along with her head bent, hands in her coat pockets.
Of course, the heavy rain was enough to make anyone miserable, Caroline thought, but watched her in concern, hoping she was okay.
Surely nothing could be so bad that they couldn’t even discuss it?
If only Grace would open up and talk to her …
Joe had deposited the planks on a wall beside the last few cottages. ‘Not sure how much good this will do,’ he shouted above the noise of rain drumming on the rooftops. ‘But maybe we can stop more water getting in.’
Briefly, he directed them to wedge the planks across the front doors of the cottages, using heavy stones and plant pots to hold them in place.
It was clear that some water had already entered the properties, but given how quickly the water seemed to be rising, Caroline agreed that it was worth trying to save them from worse flooding.
An old gent came hobbling out of his cottage, bent double over a walking stick. The bottoms of his trousers had been tied up with twine and tucked into wellies, but he still looked sodden. ‘My kitchen’s flooded,’ he told them unhappily.
Joe checked he was unhurt, and then helped him up onto the tractor. ‘I’m taking Mr Faragher back to the shop,’ he told Caroline. ‘He’s wet through and Mrs Newton has a good supply of dry clothes. You’d all best head back as soon as you’re done. I don’t like the look of this.’
Tilly and Grace were further down the lane, struggling to secure a plank across a doorway.
‘I’ll tell the others,’ Caroline promised him as he left, and then waded through muddy water to the last cottage.
‘Joe says we need to leave,’ she told the girls urgently.
But they were both staring in the opposite direction. ‘What is it?’
‘That’s Mrs Dymock’s dog!’ Tilly exclaimed, and now Caroline could see the familiar golden Labrador in the swollen river, swimming laboriously against the current. ‘Oh no, poor thing …’
Miraculously, the dog struggled to the bank and clambered out of the river on his own. Seeing the girls, he barked and splashed towards them, causing ripples in the knee-high flood.
‘There, there, soggy old dog. You’re safe now.’ Grace bent to pat the dog’s head, and squinted across the river to Mrs Dymock’s thatched, whitewashed cottage. ‘I don’t believe she would have left her dog behind to drown. Do you think she could still be in there?’
Anxiously, Caroline repeated what Joe had told her about them getting straight back to the shop.
‘Yes, but I bet he didn’t know Mrs Dymock might not have got out.’ Grace shook her head. ‘If there’s even a chance the old lady is still in that cottage, we have to rescue her.’
Tilly looked unenthusiastic but nodded. ‘We ought to check, at least.’
There was a footbridge further along the river.
But, to their dismay, the water was already in full flow over it.
The Labrador dug his heels, refusing to follow them any further.
Scrambling up onto a grassy bank instead, the dog stood there, merely wagging his tail apologetically when Caroline called him down.
‘Oh, leave him,’ Tilly said, shivering.
Thankfully, the water flooding the bridge wasn’t more than knee-high.
But the current was forceful. Tilly stumbled several times, getting thoroughly soaked, and Caroline was almost knocked off her feet too.
‘Honestly, we should go back and get Joe,’ she gasped, clutching Grace for support. ‘This isn’t safe.’
‘I know, but look!’ Grace nodded to the cottage, where Caroline could now see a face at an upstairs window. ‘I knew it … That’s Mrs Dymock. She must be cut off by the water. We haven’t got time to go back, Caro. Let’s get her out first.’
Caroline was anxious for the old lady. ‘Yes, all right. But how can we get her back across the bridge? She’s eighty, at least. We can’t ask her to wade through all this icy water.’