Whisper on the Wind. Elizabeth Elgin

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СКАЧАТЬ adored him. ‘But I’m afraid you won’t see the threshing team. The driver won’t set out with such a big machine until it’s properly light. It’ll be another half hour before it gets here.’

      She reached the orchard gate then turned to watch him walk away, raising her hand to match his wave, thinking how cruel life could be when an unwanted, carelessly-conceived love child like Arnie could grow up so straight and strong and delightful.

       And I couldn’t give you a boy, Martin; couldn’t give a living son to Ridings. Nor, when our babe died, could I try again.

      I’m sorry, my love. Forgive me. I didn’t know. Believe me, I didn’t know …

      The threshing team clanked into the yard on great, grinding, cast-iron wheels, spewing out coal-smoke, throwing mud in all directions.

      ‘Good grief,’ Kath gasped.

      ‘First time you’ve seen one?’ Jonty smiled.

      It was. She stood still and wide-eyed, thinking so strange a contraption could only have come from an age that had known Stephenson’s Rocket. It was almost a steam-roller, yet with the look of an ancient steam train about it and it pulled a brightly painted contrivance behind it.

      ‘That’s the thresher,’ Jonty supplied, following her gaze. ‘They’ll back it up to the stack and the sheaves will be thrown down into it, into the drum.’

      ‘Y-yes.’ Kath frowned. ‘Does it work on electricity?’

      ‘Nothing quite so convenient.’ Jonty shrugged. ‘Look – see that big wheel on the engine beside the driver’s seat? It’s that wheel that connects by a belt to the thresher; and, roughly, is what drives it. And without blinding you with science,’ he laughed, ‘the straw comes out at one end, the wheat at the other and the chaff – the wheat husks, that is – drop down below it.’ He smiled again and his eyes, thick-lashed and blue, crinkled mischievously. ‘Got that?’

      ‘Yes. Well, I think so.’ My, but he was handsome. ‘You’ll let me down lightly, Jonty?’

      ‘I will. If you aren’t afraid of heights you can go on top of the stack with Marco. He’ll be feeding the sheaves down into the drum; you can keep them coming to him – okay?’

      It wasn’t. All at once she was apprehensive, but she said she’d do her best – and thought how foolish she had been to worry about milking a cow, when, had she known about traction engines and threshing machines that day she volunteered for the Land Army, she’d have taken to her heels and run a mile!

      ‘We’ll be making a start soon, Kath. They’ve only to fix the belt, and then we’ll be away.’

      ‘What will Roz be doing?’

      ‘She’ll be seeing to the filling, most likely. There’s hooks at the back end of the thresher, for holding the wheat-sacks. Roz will watch them and tie them when they’re full; there’ll be a couple of big strong lads to hump them away.

      ‘Last time we threshed, Roz was on the chaff.’ Jonty grinned. ‘It’s a dirty job. The poor love was black all over by the end of the day. She didn’t speak to me for ages after.’

      Kath laughed with him, biting back the words she longed to say; that if he truly cared for Roz, if he acknowledged what his eyes showed so plainly, then he would wait a while; be there if one day she should need him and the comfort of his safe, broad shoulders. She didn’t say them, though, because there was really no need, and anyway, it was no business of hers. But oh, if a man smiled at me the way Jonty smiled at Roz; if his eyes loved me the way his eyes loved her, Kath yearned, I’d be putty in his hands. If, she thought, dismissing such stupid thoughts, she were heart-whole and fancy-free. And not married to Barney, of course.

      The thresher was belted-up to the traction engine, the drum rotated noisily. Beside it in the stackyard stood two carts; one for straw, the other to carry away the fat, full sacks of wheat. Roz stood to the rear, a pile of hessian sacks at her side and she waved to Kath who looked giddily down from the top of the stack.

      ‘Be careful,’ Marco warned. ‘Straw can be slippy. Be careful how you step.’

      ‘I will.’ Of course she would. ‘Tell me again? I just throw the wheat sheaves over to you and –’

      ‘That is so. And I shall cut the binding-twine, then throw them down, like so.’ Gravely, he mimed the operation. ‘It is nothing for worry. I show you how.’

      The air was frosty and filled with scents of coal-smoke and dusty straw. Kath smiled at Flora Lyle who had come to help, and taken up her position beside Roz.

      ‘All right?’ Flora mouthed, and Kath lifted her hand in a reassuring wave.

      ‘Right!’ the engineer called. ‘Here she goes!’

      Marco spat on his hands, rubbed them together, then lifted the first sheaf. Kath took a deep breath. This was better than working in a factory or on munitions. This was where she had always wanted to be; what she had always wanted to do.

      She spat on her hands as Marco had done. This was it, then!

      She was glad when eleven o’clock came for her arms ached and her mouth was dry with dust; already she had stripped off her pullover and unfastened the top button of her shirt. For the last thirty minutes she had been unable to think of anything but a glass of cool, clear water and the sight of Grace and Polly carrying jugs and a tray of mugs was more than welcome.

      ‘Slack off!’ came the cry. ‘Drinking time!’

      ‘Come.’ Marco held the ladder steady, indicating to Kath to climb down first.

      ‘Water, anybody?’ Grace called and Kath answered with a grateful ‘Please,’ closing her eyes, drinking deeply.

      ‘All right?’ Roz walked over, followed by Flora who carried mugs of tea.

      ‘Just about.’ Kath laughed.

      ‘You’ll be stiff in the morning,’ Flora warned. ‘A good hot bath is what we’ll all need tonight.’

      ‘Mmm.’ Kath nodded to Marco who stood a little apart, unsure amongst strangers. ‘Those sheaves get heavy, after a time. Marco works like a machine. It was hard going, keeping up with him.’

      Not that she was complaining; far from it. She was part of a team; she was with friends. She belonged here. It felt right, and she never wanted to leave.

      They settled into an easy rhythm again. Marco worked steadily, pausing only to mop his forehead or to glance briefly in Kath’s direction and smile encouragement. The height of the stack had already fallen by two feet and in time, by mid-afternoon perhaps, when the stack was lower still, the grain elevator would be pushed alongside and the sheaves fed on to it and carried up to the drum, just as people were carried up a moving staircase.

      But that would not be yet, Kath knew, already hoping it would not be too long before they stopped to eat and could troop, aching and hungry, into Grace’s kitchen.

      She looked briefly down. To her left, Roz and Flora tended the corn sacks and to her right, straw was being forked into a cart. She smiled across at Marco and in that instant she felt and СКАЧАТЬ