Land Girls (38 page)

‘Case of post-natal depression over there,’ said Stella. ‘Had to rescue this one. The mother was about to butt it.’

‘Good timing, at least.’ Joe put the empty syringe into his pocket. The upper half of his body was in shadow: she could scarcely see his face, but knew it was grave. Shadows flickered in the pen. Only a small stretch of straw bedding was illuminated by a nearby lantern. ‘Hang on to it, for a moment,’ Joe said, ‘while I deal with this.’

Stella leaned up against the pen to watch the process of adoption. Joe knelt down, patted the tired ewe, then picked up her dead lamb. He took a knife lying beside him in the straw, tilted back the rigid little head with its unlit eyes. Carefully he dug the tip of the blade into the skin, began to pull down towards the chest. Then, very fast, the knife travelled this way and that, its blood-laced blade giving an occasional muted flash in the dim light. With a surgeon’s skill, Joe began to ease the skin from the body and limbs. It came away all of a piece in his hands, a dishevelled old jersey, leaving a naked lamb behind. The small body, Stella could see, was an extraordinary blue – the blue of wild flowers, bluebells, forget-me-nots: the flesh iridescent between patterns of tiny veins. She burrowed her own icy hands into the warmth of the living lamb in her arms.

Joe picked up the corpse, slung it into a sack.

‘Now, give me yours.’

He took the animal from Stella. Again, fascinated, she watched as he struggled to fit the dead lamb’s skin over the orphan lamb. In a few moments he had succeeded. The creature stood beside its foster mother, bemused and shaky in its new ill-fitting clothes. The ewe, nostrils twitching, heaved herself up on spindly legs. She began to sniff the lamb, who stood patient, curious, wobbly. Then, with sudden confidence, it pushed and nuzzled towards the udder. Moments later it was sucking, a whispery, rubbery sound. Its tail wavered from side to side. The ewe, ears back, eyes half shut, did not move.

‘Worked,’ said Joe. ‘Usually does. Thank God for that.’ He threw the sack containing the dead lamb towards the door, glanced round the shed. Ratty had gone. The bleating had died down. ‘All calm for the moment. I’d better hang on, though. There should be a couple of others by the morning. Thanks very much for your help.’ From his side of the pen he patted Stella’s shoulder. ‘You’ll have to clean up your coat,’ he said, swinging a leg over the fold. ‘And you should go back to bed. But let’s sit down just for a moment.’

They sat on a pile of hay between two pens. Joe picked up a clump of straw from the ground, began to wipe the mess from his arm. Then he pulled down his sleeve, fastened the cuff, dragged a thick jersey over his head.

‘I suppose it’s freezing,’ he said, ‘but I stopped feeling the cold some time ago.
You
must be …’

He turned to Stella, whose hands lay flat on her corduroy knees. Like his, they were smeared with blood. Joe put a hand on top of one of Stella’s, covering it. Then he snatched it away. The touch was as transitory as a V in water after a bird has passed. The coldness of its imprint, on Stella’s own chilled skin, she could not feel.

‘There. I knew it.’

‘I’m all right.’

‘It’s a hard time, lambing.’ Joe now ran both hands randomly round his face. Stella could hear the squeak of flesh as he rubbed his eyes. She felt him shudder.

‘Stella?’ he said, after a while.

‘Yes?’

They listened to the stirrings of the animals in the dark straw. The weak mewing of the lambs indicated they were well-fed, sleepy. Outside, an owl hooted. Candles in the lanterns were low. The small patches of light they made were murky as cloud. Stella wanted to go on sitting there, sitting there.

‘I think it’s time you went back to bed,’ said Joe, at last.

‘I could stay and help,’ said Stella.

‘No,’ said Joe.

The unexpected appearance of Stella, followed by the cold night hours in the shed while lambs were born, dead and alive, very nearly blasted Joe’s resolve. After the brief, foolish touch of her hand, he felt he could keep his silence no longer. In the few minutes that they sat – tired, bloodied, cold – listening to the sounds of new life among the sheep, a thousand good reasons for telling her how he felt dazzled his weary senses. She would never know the effort he summoned to say, instead, in a normal voice, that it was time for her to go. She further confused him with her offer to stay and help. Almost more than he could bear. He prayed that she would go quickly – which she did – before weakness overcame him.

Left alone, he remained sitting staring at the moonless sky outside the shed. The darkness had that peculiar density, known to those who are up before dawn, before the first cracks of light, subtle as the camouflage of tiger skin, indicate the new day. Recent pictures of Stella shuffled across his mind: the anxiety on her face when he told her to deal with a ewe, the maternal relief as she stood by the pen holding the lamb. As he skinned the dead lamb her eyes, he knew, never left his knife’s journey. Then, as he fitted the skin on to her orphan lamb, he saw a look of – wonder, was it? Admiration? Or, in the poor light, was he merely seeing what he hoped to see? In a state of acute love, misinterpretation is so easy. Most probably all that had been in her eyes was the normal fascination anyone would have on witnessing an
operation
they had not seen before.

Since Stella’s accusation of unfriendliness, Joe had been doing his best to act as he had before his revelation and yet, for his own preservation, to avoid her as much as possible. For some reason, in the urgency of the moment, it had not crossed his mind she might be the one to answer his night call for help. And for all his concentration on the sheep, Stella’s very presence in the shed, followed by the terrible proximity on the hay, had caused him new agitation. Wearied by a week of broken nights with the sheep, he had little energy to fight the feeling. He found himself succumbing to an idea that raced suddenly from nowhere. He knew, however unwise, there was no holding back from his next plan.

Long hours later, he walked into the attic bedroom without knocking, holding a mug of tea. He allowed himself a moment to look down on the sleeping figure of Stella, hair awash on the pillow, one shoulder showing above the sheet. He called her.

Stella woke quickly, struggling through shards of dream to focus on reality. There was still a knife in the air, skinning a lamb: there was a silvery-blue corpse on bloody straw, there was Joe’s cold and bloody hand on hers. When the remnants of the dream dissolved and she saw the real Joe, tired eyes, small smile, mug of tea stretched out, Stella gave a cry.

‘Joe? Whatever …? What time is it?’

‘Seven.’ He passed the mug, stretching his arm rather than moving nearer.

‘Oh my God. I’m
sorry
. I’ve never overslept before.’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘Where are the others?’

‘Milking.’

‘They should’ve woken me.’

The sheet slipped down her shoulder as two hands cupped the mug. There was a glimpse of low-necked white nightdress. The slight humping of one breast as the arm she leaned on squeezed her side.

‘I told them not to.’

‘I’m sorry, I really am.’ She shook her head. Hair surged about in natural waves.

‘I’ve said. It doesn’t matter a bit.’

‘What about you?’

‘There were two more lambs. Both fine.’

‘So you’ve not been to bed all night?’

Joe shook his head. ‘I’ll get a couple of hours now. Would you mind doing Sly?’

‘’Course not. Where’s Mrs Lawrence?’

‘Gone to the village with the eggs.’

In the cold air of the room Stella and her bed were an island that smelt of warm sleep. Joe wanted to kneel on the floor beside her, tell her of his certainty. He held on to the doorpost.

‘I won’t be long. Down in time for lunch.’

And what about all this luxury?’ Stella lifted the mug. ‘I don’t deserve this.’ She smiled at him. ‘Thanks. I won’t be a moment.’

She sipped her tea. Hair parted over shoulder. Eyelids, cast down, the colour of iris petals, blue-veined. Joe would have liked to watch her drinking tea for ever.

Stella quickly pulled on her breeches and thick jumpers. She ran across the yard to fetch a pitchfork from the lambing shed. Her special lamb, still wearing its adopted coat, was asleep beside its foster mother. Late, guilty, she did not linger to see the rest of the newborn lambs, but hurried to the pigsty. There she found Sly, in the last stages of her last pregnancy, in an irritable mood. First she refused to move from the bedding that had to be discarded, then she butted Stella’s side with a complaining snout. Stella’s usual patience was frayed. She wished she could swap jobs with Prue. Sly and Prue had a special relationship the others would never acquire. She did her best, flinging sodden straw into a barrow in the yard, to be moved later. While she tossed down the sweet-smelling new stuff, a wayward thought came to her: simply, she looked forward to lunch-time. She looked forward to Joe’s being there.

Engaged in this small reflection, it was some moments before she realized Prue was leaning over the sty wall, a critical eye on her work.

‘What’s going on?’ Prue asked.

‘Joe said would I—’

‘Sly’s my special job.’

‘None of us has special jobs, really, do we?’ Stella paused in her work, leaned on the pitchfork. Prue, she saw, looked unaccountably put out. ‘I’m sorry. I overslept.’

‘We have special things we’re good at,’ Prue snapped back. ‘Hedging and hens and the fruit for Ag. You’re good at milking and Noble and the cows. I’m the plougher and the pig lady.’

Stella had never seen Prue so petulant. ‘That’s probably so. But we all swap about without making a fuss, don’t we?’

‘Don’t you understand? Sly’s about to give birth and
I
wanted to look after her till it’s all over,’ Prue suddenly shouted. ‘I don’t want
you
interfering, taking my job, thanks very much.’

‘Calm
down
, Prue—’

‘I’m not calm, I’m furious.’

‘I can see that. Here.’ Stella handed over the pitchfork. ‘You take over. I’ll finish off the cows with Ag.’

Prue’s outburst was quickly demolished by Stella’s gesture. She entered the sty as Stella left it, ostentatiously rearranged the already well-tossed straw, gave Sly a proprietorial scratch behind one ear. Then she turned to Stella with an apologetic smile.

‘If you think about it, there’s not many hairdressers who fall in love with pigs.’ They both laughed. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. Everything’s got on top of me. Nightmares about Barry. A letter this morning from his friend Jamie with details of how he died … Too many late nights with Robert. My nerves seem to have gone all to pieces.’

‘You could do with a good night’s sleep,’ said Stella.

‘You sound like my mum,’ said Prue.

It was the first squabble Stella could remember in their six months at Hallows Farm. That, she reflected on her way to the cowshed, was an amazing fact that perhaps the war could account for. Civilians, horrified by the fighting, instinctively wanted to live in extra peace at home. And, in any case, they were too busy to indulge in petty quarrels.

At four o’clock that afternoon the girls, in clean jerseys and breeches, sat round the kitchen table with Mrs Lawrence and the district commissioner, a Mrs Poodle. There was an air of a children’s tea party. The girls had brushed their hair: Prue, for the first time, for Mrs Lawrence’s sake, had left off a bow. They had washed every trace of mud from their hands and nails, laid a cloth on the table, and arranged a lardy cake and two sorts of sandwiches. Beside each of the girls’ plates lay three red half-diamonds, rewards for six months’ satisfactory service, which they were now allowed to sew on to the sleeves of their jerseys and coats.

‘The badges are usually just sent through the post,’ explained Mrs Poodle, ‘but I wanted to come and see how you’re getting on in this remote spot.’ She smiled round merrily.

‘We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, would we?’ said Prue. ‘Stella and Ag and me.’ Overcome by her badge, the first prize of any kind she had ever received in her life, Prue was close to speech-day tears. She fingered the half diamonds in disbelief, shuffling them together to make whole ones. ‘My mum’ll not believe this.’

‘It’s curious that the Land Army is the only one of the services in which there’s no promotion,’ Mrs Poodle went on. ‘Seems very unfair to me. But at least the badges are some recognition of your loyal service. If you keep up the good work you’ll be entitled to a special armlet in eighteen months’ time, and a special
scarlet
one after four years. Think of that!’

‘Good God,’ said Prue, tear-bright eyes flicking to the ceiling, ‘surely we’re not going to be needed that long. Surely the bloody war’s not going on for another bloody—’

‘
Prue
,’ said Mrs Lawrence.

‘Sorry.’

‘No one can say how long you’ll be needed.’ Mrs Poodle, unused to such feasts, was enjoying her third piece of lardy cake. She had cut it up into tiny morsels to prolong the treat. In return for such hospitality, she felt, her knowledge of how the WLA fared beyond Hallows Farm would be bound to interest. ‘But enrolment is galloping ahead,’ she said. ‘In Dorset alone, by the end of last year, three hundred and nineteen land girls had signed up. I reckon there’ll be twice that many by the end of this year.’

Mrs Poodle shook hands with each one of them, before she left, and wished them well in their long and hard service to their country that lay ahead. She, like Prue’s mother, found the famous words of Winston Churchill invaluable when it came, as it often did in her job, to encouragement on formal occasions. ‘
We are moving through a period of great hope,
as our great leader put it,
when every virtue of our race will be tested and all that we have and honour will be at stake
.’ Her eyes dimmed at the poignancy of her own rendering of the great man’s words. She pulled on a pair of black kid gloves, adjusted her hat. ‘
It is no time for doubt
… Good luck, girls. And congratulations.’