Land Girls: The Homecoming: A moving and heartwarming wartime saga

“Hello, ladies,” he wheezed. “I’m Roger Curran from The Helmstead Herald.”

“About time someone told us what was going on,” Connie replied. “Why did the train come off the tracks like that, then?”

Roger was slightly wrong-footed. “No, I was hoping to ask you some questions.”

“Well I don’t know nothing,” Connie said.

Margaret, with a mouthful of cheese, stifled a giggle at their exchange.

“They think there was an explosive on the line,” Roger said in a hushed voice, hoping that the explanation might enable him to get on with his line of questioning.

“What, the Germans?”

Roger didn’t know. The bomb could have been planted by Nazi sympathisers or communists or any group allied with the German cause. There had been several instances of terrorism in Helmstead and the surrounding areas in the last few months. The air base at Brinford had been bombed mercilessly in a raid by German bombers, and while that action wasn’t terrorism, most locals thought someone had tipped off the secret location of the base to the enemy. And a sympathiser had even been shot dead at Hoxley Manor when Lady Ellen Hoxley had discovered him transmitting secret messages from the stables. The enemy was closer than anyone wanted …

Roger Curran explained that an explosive had been detonated as the train engine went across the track. The bomb must have been on a timer. It would have been common knowledge that, due to its proximity to the air base, the evening Brinford train would have had a large number of military personnel on board.

Connie hid her shock. Part of her had hoped the crash had been the result of a random accident. A rock on the line or something. It was terrifying to think that someone, or some group, was behind it. Terrifying that it was an act of war.

“Anyway, tell me what happened to you,” Roger said, pulling out a small notebook. He licked the end of his pencil and poised it over the page to write. Connie didn’t understand why people licked pencils. What was the point of that?

Connie wasn’t sure she wanted to tell the story, playing down any suggestion that she had been heroic. But, despite her efforts at modesty, Margaret piped up:

“She saved my life. She saved the lives of everyone in our compartment. She was brilliant.”

Connie blushed. She tried to downplay it, but was reluctantly forced to reveal that this was more or less the truth. She related the tale of what happened and Roger took a few pages of notes, his smiles of encouragement becoming more frequent. He sensed this was a good story for his paper. It might even give him his first front page since the Land Girls’ Tractor Race. He ended by asking Connie where she lived. Proudly Connie told him that she lived at the vicarage with her husband.

“This will be a lovely piece for the paper. ‘Vicar’s Wife Saves Lives’,” Roger said. Then he turned to the young girl. “And where do you live?”

“I don’t know if I should say,” Margaret replied, offering a worried glance in the direction of where the middle-aged woman was.

“It’s all right,” Connie encouraged.

“Jessop’s Cottage,” Margaret admitted, hesitantly.

As Roger tried to place it, Margaret informed him that it was in the middle of a valley, miles from anywhere. The nearest landmark was Panmere Lake and Helmstead was the nearest town. Roger couldn’t place it.

“Don’t worry. Nobody knows it. Nobody comes there.”

“Not even your friends?” Connie asked.

Margaret shook her head quickly, keen to close down all these intrusive questions.

As Connie mulled this over, Roger unhooked his camera from around his neck and started to frame a shot of Connie and Margaret.

“Perhaps, if you don’t mind getting closer …?” Roger said, wafting his hand for them to scrunch together.

Connie and Margaret shuffled closer over the grass – Margaret still wrapped in her blanket. They smiled weary smiles for the camera.

Roger clicked the trigger. “Cheese!”

He let the camera bounce back onto his ample stomach.

“Thank you, ladies.”

And then he tipped his hat and moved to another group. Even though he knew their story would take some topping. “Excuse me, I’m Roger Curran from The Helmstead Herald.”

Connie turned to Margaret. “How you feeling?”

Margaret looked subdued and thoughtful. Connie tried to cheer her up. “Here, I let him take my photograph and I was covered in soot.”

“It’s all right. So was I.” Margaret laughed. A nurse came over and helped Margaret to her feet.

“Your mum is being taken to the hospital. She’ll be fine. But we need you to come as well,” the nurse said.

Margaret looked back at Connie. The unhappy look had returned to the young girl’s face. Connie felt concerned. What was she going back to? Why did no one ever go to the little girl’s house?

“Thanks again,” Margaret said.

“Take care.” Connie watched the young girl as she was marshalled away. And then she was aware of Finch waving at her to get a move on. He wanted to leave now. Tipping the last remnants of her tea away, Connie picked herself up and scurried up the bank towards the waiting tractor.

When she reached it, the trailer was nearly full and people were shivering as dusk turned to night. As she hauled herself up, Connie was surprised to see John Fisher sitting next to Joyce. It turned out he had been on the train after all, squeezed into a carriage further down, just as Joyce had predicted. John had become a navigator for the RAF until he was shot down in France. The experience had been traumatic and he had left active duty soon after his recovery. Now he worked at Brinford Air Base as a clerk, his flying days over (to Joyce’s immense relief).

“I saw Finch before I saw Joyce,” he admitted.

“Flaming cheek,” Joyce joked.

“He probably blocked her out. Like one of them eclipse things,” Connie said.

Finch, at the front of the tractor with a starting handle, popped his head up. “’Ere! You can walk if there’s any more of that.”

Connie sat with Joyce and John as Finch cranked up the tractor.

It spluttered to life.

“Right, anyone not got a ticket? It’s tuppence each for the ride.” He chuckled, knowing full well that he was going to get a barracking for his cheek. But you couldn’t blame a man for trying.

“With your driving, you should be paying us!” Connie replied.

“One more insult and you’re out, Connie Carter!”

Everyone laughed, enjoying the catharsis of letting it out after the trauma they had faced. This was the Blitz spirit. You could bomb these people, derail their trains, take their homes, but they would still end up laughing, somehow.

The tractor set off on its bumpy and languorous journey back to Helmstead. And while others were looking back at the wreckage of the train as it faded into the distance, Connie was thinking about the young girl she had saved and hoping that she would be all right.

Connie strode through the village square as starlings swooped like Spitfires in the darkening sky. Her feet had gone numb from her heavy boots, but she dreaded taking them off in case she couldn’t put them on again. She had visions of her feet swelling up like barrage balloons as soon as she unstrapped them from their straining prisons.

There was light and laughter coming from the Bottle and Glass pub as she passed it. Two GIs were hanging around outside, smoking and drinking in the late-evening air. One of them gave Connie an approving glance, but Connie wasn’t in the mood for any harmless flirty chit-chat. Not tonight. After what she’d been through, she just wanted to get home.

The church stood on the horizon at the end of the village. And next to it was the small white cottage that she called home. Getting used to married life hadn’t been as easy as she’d hoped. Their courtship had been a whirlwind of fun and romance; Connie enjoying how Henry would get tongue-tied and embarrassed at her antics. But those playful differences that seemed attractively engaging during the carefree stages of their relationship, now were weighed down by the seriousness of her wedding vows. Couldn’t she be more responsible? Couldn’t he just loosen up a little? And one month in, they were still finding their roles in that marriage; both desperate to make it work, but both feeling out of their depth. Connie had no idea how a marriage was supposed to work. She was fumbling for the answers as she went along, while trying to fit into the new order. The regimentation of living with someone, respecting their routine. It was all new. Well, it was all new in that it mattered this time. She’d lived with a man before, but that was different. It was something she didn’t want to think about. It felt like sullying what she had with Henry to even think about that.

Added to this difficult process of discovery was the hardship of wartime. It was tough having to wake up and go to work before her new husband was even awake. Most days Connie would get out of bed at five, kiss her slumbering, groggy husband goodbye and then tip toe across the cold floorboards into the bathroom to change into her WLA uniform. She’d put on her shirt, strap her braces over her shoulders as she hauled her heavy britches up – all the while hoping she wouldn’t wake Henry. Then she’d grab something to eat and go out into the crisp dewy air, staring at the new day’s clouds and walk to Pasture Farm – the place she had lived with the other Land Girls before she got married.

But that would be tomorrow morning. For now, Connie had reached the front door of the cottage. The place she called home.

She pushed it open.

Henry Jameson was standing in the corridor. A young man with a flicked fringe, dog collar and a permanent air of endearing bewilderment. Henry looked surprised to see her. But he didn’t have any time for questions as Connie pressed him to the wall, sending a small engraving of Our Lord clattering off its hook to the floor in the process, and planted a smacker right on his lips.

“Gawd, I’ve missed you, ‘Enry,” she said. “Thought I’d never see you again.”

She was about to kiss him again when she noticed that three old women were also standing in the corridor. In their neat floral dresses, they looked shocked at the sight they were witnessing. All three clutched their handbags like protective talismans.

“I was just showing the ladies from the WI out,” Henry stammered.

Connie mustered up a smile that would befit her status as a vicar’s wife. “I ain’t seen him all day,” she muttered by way of explanation.

Henry opened the front door for Mrs Arbuthnott, Mrs Fisk and Mrs Hewson to make their way out. They left in constrained silence. Connie and Henry waved a cheery goodbye wave and when it was socially acceptable, Henry quickly closed the door.

And then Connie burst out laughing. The sound caught in her throat when she realised that she was laughing alone. Henry frowned and walked into the living room.

In a stilted atmosphere, Connie related the events of the train disaster as she chased the last remnants of sausage and cabbage from her plate. Henry ate his dinner and replied that he’d heard nothing about the crash, but then he had been trapped most of the evening with Mrs Arbuthnott, Mrs Fisk and Mrs Hewson discussing the morality of rationing. The two of them ate by candlelight, as they always did, the meal complimented by conversation about their days. But tonight, she felt like a scolded child.

For Connie, the evening meal was usually the highlight of her day: a chance to talk about their working days and share a laugh together, before going upstairs for a bath and bed. Neither of them had the energy to stay up late so normally they’d be wrapped in each other’s arms by nine or ten at the latest. But tonight, it was already half-ten because of the extraordinary events of the train crash.

And there was an awkwardness, a sombre reflective air in the room.

Connie couldn’t take any more. Feeling contrite for showing up Henry in the eyes in of his parishioners, she was also annoyed she was being put through this.

“I thought you’d be more pleased I wasn’t dead,” she said bluntly.

“Of course I am. Don’t even joke about that.”

“Well, why does it feel like I’m doing thirteen Hail Marys instead of enjoying my food?”

“There are ways of behaving,” Henry said through tight lips. He didn’t like confrontation. He just wished that his brash wife knew how to behave sometimes. “Couldn’t you be more cautious when you come in?”

“Perhaps you’d like me to make an appointment beforehand.” Connie got up, clanking her cutlery onto the plate.

Henry grabbed her wrist. She’d been grabbed by other men, forced back into her seat. But this was different. He wasn’t holding her tightly, just enough to stop her in her tracks. He looked up at her with imploring eyes.

“Sorry,” he said quietly. “Sometimes I don’t focus on what’s important. You’re alive and I should be thanking God for that.”

Connie sat back down and cleared her throat.

Despite their differences, she was grateful that this was her reward: a caring, handsome man who adored her – for the most part. It was her reward for all the cold, lonely nights she’d spent growing up in the orphanage, wondering where her mother was. Not that she would have recognised her because Connie never knew her mother, having been abandoned in the porch of a Stepney church at the age of three months. Being brought up in the orphanage wasn’t unpleasant, but its rigid discipline and work ethic made Connie yearn to break the rules and express herself. Mr and Mrs Palmer, who ran the place for the Borough of Tower Hamlets, never beat any of the children. Instead extra chores were given by way of punishment. It wasn’t a bad place, but with thirty-two children in one large house, Connie missed the warmth of a family’s love. Now she was the sole focus of Henry’s attention and didn’t have to compete with anyone.

“Good sausages,” Henry commented, finishing his dinner.

Connie couldn’t help but laugh. The relief of something trivial and light after a day of turmoil. She told him that Farmer Finch had given them to her. In fact, they got most of their meat and eggs from the farm, with Freddie Finch ensuring that all his girls were well-fed and watered, ‘top ups’ to their government-approved rations.

“I wonder if we should be making such liberal use of the farm, though,” Henry finished.

Connie would have suspected that Henry’s discussion about the morality of rationing with the three old witches might have prompted this, but the truth was she had heard rumbles of this argument before. Should they be given special treatment in the form of extra food when the majority of people adhered to strict rationing? Henry was a fair-minded man who believed in equal treatment during times of war and this preferential treatment clearly made him feel uncomfortable. Especially when some of his sermons were rallying cries to abandon the black market and make do with what you were given.

“Perk of working on a farm, innit?” Connie said, eager to close the conversation down. She was too tired to have this debate tonight. Too tired for any more friction. The last thing she wanted was to be talking about sausages after what she’d been through.

“I know, but-” Henry squirmed slightly. “And don’t think I’m not grateful, but I just think that any extra we get, we should perhaps get by our own means.”

Connie asked what he meant by that. “What, hunt for sausages ourselves? You do know they don’t roam around like that in the wild.”

Henry laughed, despite himself.

“I just meant that if we, say, caught a rabbit ourselves then it’s an extra bounty from the Lord. I wouldn’t feel guilty about that.”

“I ain’t got time to catch any rabbits, what with digging ditches all day,” Connie said, clearing the plates. “And you wouldn’t have the first idea what to do.”

“You don’t think I could catch one?” Henry asked.

Connie regretted saying it. It had slipped out before she could stop it. The perils of having an easy mouth and a tired brain. And now, he was glaring at her again. Well done, Connie. First she’d shown him up in the community and now she was emasculating him. Just when things had quietened down again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“You jolly well did. But I could indeed.”

Henry simmered. He could catch a rabbit! He knew he could. Couldn’t he? He wondered if Connie really thought he was clueless in the ways of hunting and fishing. Didn’t she think he could do proper manly pursuits? He stared with sudden loathing at his neatly ironed cuffs and the genteel surroundings of doilies and oil paintings. And Henry Jameson made a silent vow to himself. He’d prove that Connie was wrong. He’d show her.

Margaret Sawyer had received an even rockier homecoming. Instead of showing relief that Vera and Margaret were all right after their ordeal, Michael Sawyer vented fury and frustration at how stupid they had been to take the train. Vera usually got a bus from Brinford to near Jessop’s Cottage. How could they put themselves at risk by getting on a train packed with servicemen? Margaret had often seen Michael angry, but this tirade was a new benchmark in furious indignation. Even Vera had been taken aback. Margaret assumed that Michael didn’t know how to show he cared, so he shouted to let out his feelings. She wished he didn’t shout all the time.

Now, after Vera had gone for a lie-down, Margaret was the sole focus for his still considerable anger.

She was being scolded by him for taking the cheese from the woman at the train crash. Michael was grey-haired and tall, with gaunt features and a stick-like appearance. A bitter and shrill man, Michael Sawyer liked things done a certain way. His dinner had to be ready at a certain time every day. Bath days would be Tuesday and Friday. Margaret knew that something was wrong with him, some illness of the mind, although she didn’t know what. It meant that he rarely strayed far from the house, making his wife responsible for running errands and going to the town. He also seemed very suspicious of outsiders, always talking of people being ‘out to get him’. Margaret knew the word ‘recluse’ and knew that that was what Michael Sawyer was, but she didn’t know the full extent of his mental problems. Michael would spend his days in his shed or working their plot of land for vegetables. He didn’t seem to have any friends or outside interests.

As he raged, Margaret knew from bitter experience that it was quicker and easier not to argue; just let him pour it all out and burn himself out.

His face was close to Margaret’s and she could smell his bad breath as he spat his anger at her. He’d stopped talking about taking cheese from a stranger and was focusing his anger on the brazen woman who had given it to her. According to the reports from his wife, Connie was some sort of trollop.

“You don’t take extra. You don’t know where it came from. Your mother said she had lipstick like a tart.”

“She was just being nice,” Margaret stammered.

“Your mother said she poked her nose in!”

“She saved our lives.”

“Your mother would have looked after you!”

Margaret couldn’t take any more. She desperately wanted to snap and shout: ‘Stop calling her my mother. She’s not my mother and you’re not my father!’ But she knew she’d regret such a spectacular outburst and it would just prolong the punishment that was inevitably coming. Far better to just get it over with, go through the motions.

Let him burn himself out.

“Go to the place!” he fumed, brandishing his hand as if he was about to strike her. Margaret knew that it wasn’t the right time to make a stand, so she obediently scurried to the ‘place’. This was what they called the cupboard under the stairs. And it was somewhere where Margaret spent a lot of time. She’d be locked in there, in the dark, to ‘think about what she’d done’ sometimes for hours at a time. She’d eaten meals in the cupboard, tried to read a book by candle-light in there. The screws on the woodwork of the door had become as familiar as the things in her bedroom.

Margaret went into the cupboard. Michael closed the door behind her and he slipped the bolt across. “Stay there and think about it,” he thundered through the door as he stomped away back to the dining table to finish his meal.

Margaret sat in the dark, cramped and lonely. She stared at the door, the missing section of skirting board on the floor, the collection of coats hanging from the hooks. It was usually a time of resigned sadness and usually it would overwhelm Margaret Sawyer with tears. But this time she didn’t cry.

Because this time she was thinking about Connie Carter.

Chapter 4

“Ah, doesn’t she look like Betty Grable?”

Finch giggled as he looked at the picture of Connie in The Helmstead Herald. Connie winced in embarrassment. The photograph showed her with the girl Margaret Sawyer, Connie’s soot-smeared smile a mix of bemusement and shock at the events that had just occurred. A streak of dirt ran down the side of Connie’s face. Margaret was looking sullenly at the camera, wrapped in her blanket, clearly not quite registering what was happening.

“I think I’ll pin this up in the kitchen to inspire the rest of you lot,” Finch announced to the room. Connie and Joyce were drinking tea, waiting for lunch, along with their fellow Land Girls young Iris Dawson and new arrival Dolores O’Malley. The kind-hearted warden, Esther Reeves, was standing at the stove stirring a huge pan of parsnip soup.

“No, you blinking won’t,” Esther stormed.

“Why not? It’s my kitchen,” Finch replied.

“’Cos it’s me what spends most time in here. No offence, Connie, love. It’s just I don’t want to be reminded about that awful crash all the time.”

Connie couldn’t blame her. The train crash had resulted in four casualties – including the young soldier who’d been trying to roll a cigarette. And over twenty other people had ended up in hospital with various injuries. Connie didn’t want to be reminded of it either.

“I’ll put it away, then,” Finch grumbled. “Still who’d have thought? She might get the George Cross for this, you know.”

“You’re making me cross,” Esther said, throwing him a look. Finch knew when it was best to let things drop. He pulled himself out of his chair at the head of the farmhouse table, took the newspaper and left the room.

“Also he’s brought seven copies of the thing,” Esther whispered to the girls. “He’s more proud of what you’ve done, Connie, than anything his own son ever did. Tragic, really.”

Connie felt awkward. She broke the tension by asking when the soup would be ready. Esther checked the taste one final time, indicated her approval and asked for Joyce to pass her the bowls. She ladled out the hot soup and handed it around. Dolores gave everyone a chunk of potato bread for dipping and everyone sat eating in hungry and appreciative silence. It would fill their bellies for the afternoon of digging ahead.

Connie had had enough of the photograph and the article to last her a lifetime. The newspaper had only come out yesterday but already Henry had talked about getting it framed and putting it on the wall somewhere in the vicarage. He was trying to patch things up after their recent arguments and she was touched by his efforts. Especially as she’d seen the way he’d grimaced when he’d read that she’d used her maiden name in the article.

“I just said it out of habit,” she offered weakly. It was some relief that Henry didn’t want to talk about it. With tight lips, he said it didn’t matter, when it obviously did. Connie wanted to explain. But what could she say? She used her maiden name out of habit? Because it felt more comfortable? Because she was subconsciously wondering if one day she’d go back to it?

Instead he’d busied himself with celebrating his wife’s heroism. But then he’d let slip something that perhaps made everything worse again –

“This will convince people you’re not just out for yourself,” he’d idly said.