Land Girls (42 page)

‘Who are you?’ Prue felt foolish in her breathlessness. ‘I could have sworn it was Barry, come back to haunt me.’

‘I’m his friend, Jamie Morton. I came to say thank you for your letters, and I thought it was time we met. Talked about Barry, you know.’

Prue studied Barry’s friend with curious eyes. By now used to the light, she could see that the likeness was superficial: this Jamie figure was larger, clumsier, with high-coloured cheeks and brown eyes. Only the short blond hair, scarcely visible under the cap, was the same. He had a friendly grin: rather sweet, she thought.

‘Goodness: you didn’t half scare me!’

‘Sorry. Cigarette?’ He took a packet of Players from his pocket. ‘Someone down in the farmyard told me I might find you up here. Big man.’

‘Joe.’

They both inhaled. Smoke, sharp-edged, trailed into the air. Its smell mingled with the scent of bluebells that were strewn at Prue’s feet.

‘Quite a ride, I must say.’

Jamie’s eyes travelled up and down Prue like a blowlamp, appraising. She dabbed at her bow, the red spots, by chance: always Barry’s favourite. She put a hand on one hip, smiled just enough to power the dimples.

‘Want to come up to the farmhouse for a cup of tea, or what? Before you go back. I’m sure Mrs Lawrence wouldn’t mind. Barry sometimes came in.’

Jamie looked at his watch. ‘Thanks, but I mustn’t. I’ll be late if I don’t go now. Took some time finding you.’ The grin again: nice, fat teeth. ‘We could make another time, if you’d like that. I could come another afternoon. Or we could meet in Blandford: cup of tea or a drink.’

Prue narrowed her eyes, made a great show of deep thinking. ‘Personally,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t want to miss a moment of this fine weather in a tea-shop. It’s my first spring in the country: could well be my last. Why don’t we meet right here, this time next week? Two o’clock?’

‘Fine by me.’ Jamie swung a leg over the bike, turned it.

‘I’ll walk back up the road with you,’ said Prue.

‘What about all those flowers you dropped?’

Prue shrugged. The surprise jug for Mrs Lawrence had lost some of its importance. ‘I’ll come back later: don’t want to hold you up.’ Her heart was still beating fast, but no longer from fear.

With the coming of the fine weather, Ag and Stella, too, chose to spend their half-days quietly at the farm, reading, sleeping, walking. With the increase of work – harrowing, sowing, rolling, couching – they had little energy, in their scant time off, for taking the erratic bus to shops of little attraction. Most half-days, now, they chose to go their own ways, each feeling the need for a few hours of solitude in the busy week.

On the afternoon that Jamie had made his ghostly introduction to Prue, Ag made her way to the orchard with a rug and a book. It was her favourite place. Each tree was by now familiar to her, having spent so many hours picking fruit. She had sprayed almost every branch, laid potash round the roots. Now, they were in full blossom, the part of the cycle she had not seen last year. Ag spread the rug on the ground. She lay down. Her back ached badly. Last week, the automatic potato-planter had broken down. For two days, while it was being repaired, they had had to plant by hand. Bent over the furrows for hours on end, placing the potatoes at regular intervals – the view nothing but earth, earth – was the most physically exhausting task any of them had encountered since their arrival. Ag’s back still had not recovered, still felt as if the muscles were pulled taut as Victorian lacing. She lay flat, feeling the relief of solid ground beneath her. The rug smelt musty. Above her was an arcade of blossom, and beyond it the wider arcade of clear blue sky. It would be easy to sleep, she thought, one hand on her books. Perchance to dream. Where was Desmond, now?

Stella, her ears always attuned to Joe’s plans these days, had discovered that he was to drive to a farm some miles away to inspect a tractor which Mr Lawrence wanted to buy. To turn the farm over to arable land fast and as efficiently as possible, more machinery was essential. Stella calculated that Joe would be returning from his inspection at about three o’clock. She would therefore take a short walk – she, too, was suffering from a strained back – ending at Lower Pasture, where the cows were spending their last few days. She would sit on the gate, enjoying the sun. Joe would drive along the lane, see her. Stop, perhaps, for a few inconsequential words about the tractor or the cows. Oh, how devious is love, she thought.

Her wait turned out to be a long one, but Stella did not mind. She sat listening to birds, busy in the thorn hedge. A drowsy bee flew back and forth, indeterminate, as if waiting for some outer force to decide on its next action. The cows, gathered in the far corner of the field not far from the only rick of last year’s hay, were lying down. Unsympathetic creatures, really, thought Stella. She enjoyed milking them, but felt no affection for them. Their sameness was dull. Cows, she thought, could never compare with horses (she was very fond of the surly Noble) or even pigs: Sly’s eccentricity had great charm. No: she wouldn’t miss the cows – only the sight of them, the personification of peace in a green field.

Stella looked at her watch. A Red Admiral flew past her, further confusing the bee. She did not care how long she waited in the warm silence of the afternoon.

Then, from nowhere, came a horrendous scream of machinery: the silence, suddenly split, seemed itself to scream in agony as a hideous black plane scorched across the sky. As Stella fell from the gate, holding her ears, she saw a cluster of small silver incendiary bombs dropping from the plane’s belly. By the time they had hit the ground, the plane was out of sight. Its terrible noise lingered, reverberated in its wake. The grass flattened, cowered.

Stella listened to the blistering noise as the bombs landed. Magnesium flames immediately spurted up, a terrible beauty in their many colours. The rick was on fire. She saw the sleepy cows leap wildly to their feet with one mass shudder, like the shaking out of a black and white rug. Their bellows joined the fading sound of the plane. Tails lifted stiffly in the air, they began to gallop about, panicking.

In the split second that all this happened, only one thought persisted in the numbness of Stella’s mind: she must get the cows out of the field fast. They kept charging back to the rick, higher flames lapping at its base, now, and where one of their number lay, struggling on her side, stiff-legged, bleeding, roaring. There was no time to run for help. Stella had to act now.

As she was about to race across to the gate that led to the next-door clover field, she heard a squeal of wheels, saw the Wolseley rocking from side to side like a mad thing, and pull up with a great jerk. Joe was beside her, assessing the scene in a moment.

‘I’ll ring for the fire engine, be right back,’ he said. ‘Try to get them into the clover. Careful: they’re hysterical.’

He was gone.

Stella, even in the panic of the moment, was pleased to think her idea was the same as Joe’s.

She contemplated running round the edge of the field: in the shadow of the hedge she would be less conspicuous. But no: that would take too long. She set off straight across the field.

Immediately, two of the cows swerved towards her, heads down, ridiculous tails in the air. They followed her, screaming. Stella took a chance: she spun round, facing them, flapping wildly with white-shirted arms, shouting at them. Surprise penetrated their maddened state. They arced away, tipping sideways like clumsy boats in a wind. Stella registered a flash of wide black nostrils, four surprised eyes, before they careered off to join the rest of the herd, still bucking perilously close to the rick.

No cows followed Stella for the rest of her run to the gate. She struggled with it, back muscles an agony of protest, pushed it open: she had no idea whether all this had taken seconds or minutes. By chance, within feet of the gate, she saw a long stick, the kind Joe always broke off for himself when walking the land. She picked it up, turned.

By now she could see the rick was one dense mass of high flame. From it a shimmer of heat radiated among the jumping animals. They appeared to be a mirage of shattered glass, black and white skins flashing with sun and flames. Somewhere very near the flames Stella could see the figure of Ag, stick in hand, calling the cows’ names in a calm voice.

As Stella ran across to join Ag, she saw that Prue had appeared from somewhere, too. And Ratty, hunched and excited, was shouting inaudible instructions from the gate by the lane.

When they reached the cows from their different directions, Stella and Prue slowed to a walk. They could feel on their faces the intense heat from the flames. They could smell the sour smell of the alarmed cows’ excrement: shit-scared, Stella said to herself. They shimmered in each other’s vision.

‘Let’s try to get behind them,’ Ag called. She was scarlet in the face, but firm of voice.

The three girls, backs to the rick, waving their sticks and shouting encouragement, began to urge the cows towards the gate Stella had opened into the clover. They moved behind the animals towards the centre of the field, trying to avert their eyes from the bespattered corpse, black and white pieces fallen apart and gushing blood: Nancy, the old cow who was to have stayed.

Glad of any form of direction, the cows allowed themselves to be herded towards the opening. Every few moments one of them, in renewed panic, would spurt from the crowd, veer back towards the flames, and had to be chased by whoever was nearest.

The process of persuading the frightened but tiring cows towards the gate seemed endless. Ratty, shaking his stick from his safe distance, shouted more feebly. The girls were drenched in sweat, their faces red, hair sticky and flecked with ash. The cows, too, were dark with sweat. Slime ran from their nostrils. Their breath was hot, damp. Their wailing was a pitiful sound that echoed round the field.

At last they were all through the gate. They charged away through the long grass: relief in their antics, now. Their bellows petered out. Quiet returned over the landscape, but for the dull roar of the flaming rick.

‘Christ,’ said Prue, ‘nothing but a bomb could’ve stopped my thoughts in their tracks.’

Ag and Stella were too exhausted, and concerned about the raging fire, to ask what she meant. They walked back slowly towards the rick – useless to hurry. A slight breeze cooled their faces.

Joe reappeared. He and Ratty swung open wide the gate on to the lane, ready for the fire engine. Then Joe hurried towards them.

‘They’ll be too late,’ he said.

The rick was by now a fragile skeleton, pale among the crackling flames breaking off in large lumps that then burned on the ground. The heat was so great they could not stand too near. Ag thought of the autumn bonfire at the end of her first day’s hedging: the crowd of them at ease around the small flames in a cool evening. This fire was so different in its savagery. Stella observed Joe’s impenetrable face. She felt better now he was with them. Prue, now danger to the cows had passed, allowed herself the thought that
flame
red might be a possible alternative to bluebell blue … Scorning herself for such frivolity, it occurred to her this was the most dreadful, but most exciting, event she had ever witnessed. It would jolt them all out of any complacency about the war not touching their rural lives. Mr Lawrence, his wife not far behind him, was hurrying across to join the fire’s spectators. Each carried pitchforks and rakes.

Joe was right. By the time they heard the pathetic little bell of the fire engine rattling along the lane, the rick was no more than a black smouldering mound. Ratty, still in his position at the gate to the lane, waved in the fire engine with a gesture of great impatience, dignified in its superfluity. The scarlet machine lumbered across the field, bell still ringing. It reminded Stella of fire engines in children’s stories.

There was little the four firemen could do but hose down the scorched black earth with their limited supply of water. Wisps of smoke rose up from the bald patch and there was an acrid, powdery smell.

‘Bastards,’ said Mr Lawrence. ‘Probably returning from
bombing
somewhere in the west, dropping their stuff on the way home for the hell of it.’

‘Could have been worse,’ said his wife. ‘Could have been the house.’

‘Your mother and I’ll help rake this over: I’d like you to check the cows, Joe.’ Mr Lawrence turned towards the lane. Ratty was still at the gate, still waving his stick. ‘And I’d be grateful if two of you girls would escort Ratty back home. By the looks of things, he needs calming down.’

Ag and Prue immediately hurried towards Ratty. Stella offered to help Joe.

They crossed the field swiftly, in silence, climbed the gate into the clover. Hidden from sight by the thickness of the thorn hedge, Joe grabbed Stella’s hand. With one accord they fell into each other’s arms. Joe’s chin rested on the top of Stella’s head. Her hair smelt of smoke.

‘You all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘I was so terrified that you … all I cared about was your safety …’

Joe pushed Stella slightly back from him so he could see her face. It was as black-streaked as he imagined was his own. They stared at each other with the kind of wonder that comes from acknowledgement, at last, of something long concealed.

‘You must surely have known,’ said Joe. ‘You must surely have had your suspicions … I’ve tried so hard not to let you see. But you seem not to mind?’

Stella shook her head. Away from the heat, the sweat dried, she was suddenly, gloriously cold.

‘That’s good, because I’m going to kiss you, very briefly, very quickly, to show you that I love you, that I’ve been loving you to madness ever since Boxing Night.’

Their kiss was as brief as he promised. From the other side of the hedge they could hear miniature voices, the fire engine roaring its motor.

‘We must check the animals.’

‘Yes.’

‘No time to talk. Don’t let’s try to talk – there’s the whole summer to talk …’