The Fleethaven Trilogy (52 page)

And although Kate strained her ears, it seemed as if her grandad made no reply to her mother’s puzzling statement.

‘K
ate. Kate, where are you?’

‘Here, Dad, in the wash-house.’

Jonathan Godfrey appeared in the doorway. ‘Samphire’s about to calve. Do you want to watch?’

‘Me mam’s set me to mash these ’tates for the little pigs. Then she said I’d to go to bed.’

‘Bed? This early?’ His blue eyes sparked with mischief, the tanned skin around them wrinkling with laughter-lines. He brushed back the lock of fair hair that fell in a gentle flick over his forehead. ‘What have you been doing to deserve such dire punishment?’

Kate breathed in the smell of steaming potatoes, just out of the copper in the corner of the wash-house. As she thumped the wooden masher down, splitting open the brown skins and releasing the creamy potato, her hair fell forward like a curtain, hiding her face. ‘I was late back from the beach,’ she muttered.

‘And?’ he prompted. ‘There’s got to be more than that.’

‘I forgot to feed the hens ’afore I went to play with Danny.’

‘Ah – with Danny.’ She thought she heard him sigh softly, but his eyes were twinkling at her as he added, teasing gently, ‘
And
forgetting the hens. Dear me, that explains it.’

She smiled ruefully and continued mashing the potatoes with a steady, easy motion.

‘Well,’ he was saying, ‘I could do with a little help . . .’

She tossed back her hair, her eyes shining. ‘Aw, thanks, Dad.’

He put his forefinger to his lips. ‘Not a word to your mother.’ He turned to go. ‘Samphire’s in the little barn, Kate. There’s more room there than in the cowshed.’

The girl nodded, understanding immediately. This particular cow out of their small herd of four was temperamental at the best of times. She had to be hoppled sometimes just to be milked; calving, she’d be even more difficult. They’d need plenty of space to avoid her kicking hooves.

A little later Kate crossed the yard to the small barn lying between the cowshed and the stables. As she stepped into the dim interior and pulled the door closed behind her, a rat scuttled along a rafter above her head. She glanced up and smiled briefly.

‘I ain’t time to be chasing you, Mester Rat. You’re safe from me big stick just now!’ she murmured, thinking of all the times she and Danny had made a game of chasing rats. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Kate moved softly across the thick carpet of straw towards where her stepfather stood beside the cow. Samphire was making a dreadful noise, bellowing and stamping. Suddenly she pushed sideways towards Jonathan Godfrey, pinning him against the brick wall.

‘Dad!’

‘Keep back, Kate,’ he gasped. ‘Don’t get near her back legs – whatever you do.’

With all his strength he shoved at the cow and, gaining a little space, moved swiftly out of the way.

‘You all right, Dad?’

‘She’s winded me a bit, that’s all,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘I can’t seem to pacify her, Kate. Your mother’s the only one who can quieten Samphire.’

After a moment’s hesitation, for it would mean she would be banished from the barn, the girl asked, ‘Shall I fetch me mam?’

‘You can’t. She’s gone to the Grange to see Squire Marshall. It’s rent day.’ He glanced down at her and for a moment the worried expression on his face lightened as they exchanged an amused glance.

Esther Godfrey was meticulous in money matters. Her quarterly rent for the tenancy of Brumbys’ Farm, which was solely in her name, must be paid exactly on the day it was due.

Turning back to watch the restless cow pulling at the rope which tethered her to the wall, Jonathan’s face sobered again as he said, ‘I’m rather afraid the calf is breech.’

‘Ya’ll have to turn it, Dad.’

She saw the beads of sweat standing out on his forehead. Again he swept his hand across his brow. He took a tentative step towards the cow and stopped. Kate watched him. It was obvious that her stepfather was unsure what he needed to do. After all, she thought, with sudden sympathy for him, he had only been involved in farmwork since marrying her mother four years earlier. His trade had been building traction engines in Lincoln.

Kate touched his arm. ‘Ya need to put yar arm inside her and . . .’

The sweat was running down the side of his face now at the mere thought.

‘I’ve watched your mother – but . . .’ His anxious glance flitted towards the cow and back again to Kate. His anxiety was becoming almost fear.

‘Wait, Dad, just wait here and watch her. Dun’t do anything . . .’ Kate turned and ran towards the door.

‘Kate – wait! Where . . .?’

But she was out of the door and running round the corner of the building and out of the yard gate.

Danny – she must fetch Danny. He would know what to do. In the lane she turned to the right and sped towards the Point. Arriving at the top of the steep incline, known as the Hump, over a natural bank in the road, she paused to catch her breath and survey the scene below her. To her right the setting sun slanted golden streaks across the fields harrowed smooth and flat after the recent spring sowing. The River Lynn meandered through the fields to the Point where it joined the sea. To her left was the pub and beyond it, the marsh and then the sea. Directly in front of her was a stretch of grass between the river bank and the line of four cottages where Danny lived.

The three Harris brothers, Peter, Luke and Georgie, were playing cricket on the grass, but Kate could not see Danny among them.

She plunged down the bank and, lifting her skirt to her knees, sprinted across the grass. ‘Georgie – Georgie! Where’s Danny?’

‘Hello, young Kate. Come to play cricket, ’ave ya?’

‘Dun’t let her play again, Georgie,’ shouted Peter, though he was grinning as he said it. ‘She batted our ball into the river last time,’ They were all older than Kate and Danny; fine, strapping young men with broad, muscular shoulders and faces tanned a healthy bronze from working out in all weathers. None of them had married as yet and still lived at home with their parents in the end cottage. ‘Can’t find a lass to match me mam’s cooking’ was their unanimous verdict, but if the snatches of conversation Kate overheard sometimes were true, they all three had ‘an eye for the lasses’ but preferred to stay fancy-free, at least for the present.

‘Where’s Danny?’ she demanded.

The young man clasped his hands over the place where he believed his heart to be and dropped to his knees on the grass. ‘Danny – always Danny! And here am I pining for one little kiss . . .’

‘George – me dad can’t manage Samphire. She’s calving.’

At once the young man stopped his teasing. ‘He’s up near the Point helping his dad mend the nets, I reckon . . .’

But she was gone like the wind, calling back over her shoulder, ‘Thanks, Georgie.’

She ran along the curving river bank until she came to the place where the river widened out into intertidal mudflats, channelling a wandering route to the sea. Moored on the river bank was Robert Eland’s fishing boat, and on the headland, the very Point itself, father and son bent their heads over the nets, examining them for holes.

‘Danny, Danny!’

The two men looked up and Danny waved. ‘Summat up, Katie?’ he asked as she reached them.

‘Hello, Mester Eland . . .’

The older man nodded briefly.

‘Can you come and help us, Danny? Me dad can’t manage Samphire. Her calf’s coming breech.’

‘Oh heck!’ Danny muttered and then glanced at his father. ‘Dad . . .?’

The older man was silent, threading the nets expertly through his fingers. His eyes were downcast and his mouth was completely hidden by a thick, grey-speckled beard and moustache, so that Kate had no way of reading any expression on his face. It was impossible to see if he ever smiled, and the visible part of his face was weather-beaten and lined, his forehead seeming to have a permanent frown. He was a quiet man who gave the impression of being dour, even moody. Though Robert Eland rarely came to Brumbys’ Farm – hardly ever did he help with the harvest for he preferred the sea to the land – Kate’s stepfather would often meet him in the Seagull to play dominoes over a pint or two. ‘He’s a good man when you get to know him,’ Jonathan would say, to which Esther would reply, ‘You never see bad in anyone’, and Kate’s gentle stepfather would smile fondly at his wife.

Danny thought the world of his father; he was forever saying, ‘Me dad ses’ or ‘It was summat me dad said’. And that – for Kate – was good enough.

‘Where’s yar mam?’ Mr Eland was asking Kate now.

‘Gone to the Grange. We don’t know how long she’ll be and the cow’s in a bad way . . .’

There was a moment’s pause before he said, ‘All right, then. Off ya go, lad.’

‘Thanks, mester,’ Kate called over her shoulder for already her feet were flying across the grass back the way she had come.

‘Wait for me,’ Danny called after her, but, as always, he arrived at Brumbys’ Farm hot and breathless and a minute or two after Kate.

‘Get me – some hot – soapy water, Katie,’ he commanded, still trying to regain his breath, but having summed up the situation in the barn at a glance. In a few moments Kate was back with hot water from the side boiler in the kitchen range and a scattering of soap flakes from the wash-house dissolving in it.

Danny had taken off his shirt. His braces hung loosely down the sides of his trousers. He looked very thin, his shoulder-blades and ribs sticking out, but Kate knew his slight physique belied a wiry strength. He might not be able to run as fast as she could but he could beat her at arm-wrestling any day of the week.

‘We’ll have to hopple her, Mester Godfrey,’ Danny was saying, ‘else she’ll kick me shins to bits!’

Kate reached for the leather thong from the wall and handed it to Danny.

‘Kate – we’ll need some thin rope. Plough line’d be best, if you can find any.’

Kate screwed up her mouth and wrinkled her smooth brow. Then her thoughtful expression cleared. ‘Wait a bit . . .’

In the stable next to the barn the two cart-horses tried to nuzzle Kate as she squeezed past them. ‘Move over, Boxer. No, I ain’t no sugar – not this time. I’m busy. Oh, move over, do – I need that plough line on the wall.’

She pushed at the huge horse’s flanks and obligingly the animal side-stepped and allowed the girl into his stall to reach the line. Giving him a swift pat on his nose, Kate said, ‘I’m sorry, old feller, I can’t stay. Poor old Samphire needs help.’

Closing the stable door, she ran back to the barn and, stepping inside, saw Danny standing on a box pushing his thin arm, made slippery with the soapy water, into the cow. Samphire lowed and tried to move but because of the thong looped around her back legs she could not kick. Sweat ran down Danny’s forehead and his face was contorted with pain.

‘There – ain’t much – room in here,’ he gasped. ‘If I can – just . . . aaah.’ As he spoke one small back leg of the unborn calf popped out.

‘Well done, Danny.’ Jonathan Godfrey moved forward as if to help, but as he did so the cow jerked her rump and knocked against Danny, causing him to lose his precarious footing on the box. He let out a gasp of pain as his arm, trapped deep within the cow, was twisted into an awkward position.

‘Get back, Dad,’ Kate hissed and darted forward to set the box straight and help Danny back on to it. ‘You okay?’ she said softly. Anxiously, she looked up into Danny’s brown eyes, full of pain. He bit his lip but nodded resolutely.

Again he was moving his hand deep inside the cow, trying to release the unborn calf’s other back leg. Danny took a deep breath and grunted with the effort. Slowly Kate moved closer to the cow. She began to murmur soothingly to the animal as she had heard her mother do so often. At the same time she ran her hands gently up and down the cow’s back. ‘There, there, old girl. We’re trying to help you. Soon be over.’

‘Aaah,’ Danny gave a gasp of pleasure and relief as the second tiny back leg appeared. Thankfully, the boy eased his arm out of the cow. As he did so, he grabbed the tiny, protruding legs.

‘Quick, Kate. Give us the line.’

Kate handed it to him and swiftly he tied one end round the calf’s legs and passed the other end to Kate.

‘Hold it taut, Kate, we don’t want him tucking ’em back in.’

Danny stepped down from the box. There were red pressure bruises all the way down his arm and he winced as he bent over the bucket of soapy water to wash away the blood and slime.

‘Have you hurt your arm, Danny?’ Jonathan Godfrey asked in concern.

‘It’ll be right, mester. Just twisted it a bit when I fell off the box.’

‘That was my fault,’ the man said with contrition.

Danny stood up and Kate could tell that the grin he gave was a little forced. ‘Right then, let’s have a go.’

All three of them grasped the line and, with one accord, pulled on it. As if sensing that they were trying to help her, Samphire appeared to pull in the opposite direction, though her lowing sounds became more frantic and high-pitched.

‘It’s no good,’ Jonathan Godfrey gasped as they paused for breath. ‘You’ll have to fetch the vet.’

The two youngsters looked up at him askance. ‘The vet?’ They both spoke at once, and Kate added, ‘Me mam’d have a double-duck fit if we was to waste money on a vet.’

The man gestured helplessly towards the cow, now looking round at them reproachfully. ‘But we can’t manage. We’ll lose calf
and
cow if we don’t get some expert help soon.’

‘Let’s give it just one more try, Mester,’ Danny urged. ‘Then I’ll go for the vet.’

‘Me mam’ll go mad!’ Kate muttered, grasping the rope and pulling with every ounce of her strength.

‘Come – on!’ she heard Danny gasp and echoed his entreaty in her mind.

Suddenly there was a loud sucking sound and the calf slithered out on to the mound of straw beneath the cow’s hind legs. The man and the two youngsters, still pulling hard, fell back together in a heap. They disentangled themselves and sat up. In front of them was the newborn calf lying in the straw. Samphire, her cries of pain stilled, looked round in surprise as if to say, ‘Where did that come from?’