Land Girls: The Homecoming: A moving and heartwarming wartime saga. Roland Moore

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      “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: СКАЧАТЬ