The Victory Garden(22)

“It’s a nice place, this,” she said. “I can see that people would recover here.”

“I haven’t really had a chance to see the sea properly yet,” he said. “It’s a novelty to me, you know, having grown up so far inland. But I’ve enjoyed getting a good view of it from the air. Maybe later they’ll let me wander around and we can go to a headland or a beach.”

“That would be very nice,” she said. “I’m fond of the sea myself. We only live six miles from Torquay, but we rarely went to the seaside. My mother has an aversion to sand.”

“My word.” He laughed. “She wouldn’t do well where I come from. The wind blows red dust over everything. It’s quite a challenge to keep the place clean. My mum does a good job.”

“She must work very hard,” Emily said.

“Oh, she has a servant and a couple of Abo girls to help out.”

“Abos?”

“Aborigines. Native women, you know. They are good workers, our two. And their husbands are terrific stockmen.”

They stopped at a bench and sat there, side by side. Robbie slid his hand across and took hers.

“Robbie!” she exclaimed. “People might see.”

“I don’t care,” he replied. “You’re my girl, aren’t you?” He turned to look at her. “You are my girl?”

“Of course I am,” she said.

As she smiled at him, she felt a jolt of excitement. He had warned her not to get too fond of him. So what exactly did he mean by his question? That she was his girl for now, or was he suggesting something more? It didn’t matter, she thought. At this moment, she was sitting beside him, his hand holding hers, and that was good enough for now.

Emily managed to see Robbie the next two Sundays of her training. She noticed a vast improvement every time she visited, and realized with a sinking heart that the time would soon come when he would be sent away. As his strength returned, he was allowed to leave the hospital grounds, and he walked with Emily first through the town and then out to the headland, where they sat watching the navy ships entering the harbour. A stiff breeze blew in their faces, laden with the tang of salt. The sea beyond was dark blue, speckled with white breakers.

“This would be a perfect spot to build a house, wouldn’t it?” she asked, sighing with contentment. “Imagine pulling back the shutters to see that view every morning.”

Robbie was quiet as they walked home, and Emily realized she had not been tactful. He was going to go home to Australia, to a dusty farm far from the ocean, and she had to make up her mind whether she’d give all this up to follow him—if he asked her, that was.

The end of the training period was fast approaching. Some of the girls had learned to milk a cow successfully. Others were still unable to squeeze out a drop. The large Maud was so heavy-handed that the usually placid cow lashed out with a kick. Emily watched that back leg with trepidation when it was her turn, but to her delight, she ran her hand down the udder and was rewarded with a stream of milk shooting into the bucket.

“Well done, my dear,” said the old farmer who was instructing them on animal care. “You’ve got a nice, light touch. The cows appreciate that.”

She was less adept at steering a plough behind a team of Clydesdales. It required so much stretch to hold the shoulder-high handles that it was beyond most of the girls, especially the shorter ones.

“What wouldn’t I give for a long hot bath,” Maureen said as they sat outside the farmhouse on a warm evening. “Every bit of me aches after wrestling with that plough.”

“I’ve never had a long hot bath in my life,” Daisy said.

“Never had a bath?” Mrs Anson asked. She was the older middle-class woman who had grown vegetables and whose accountant husband had been called up to military service on his fortieth birthday. She didn’t seem at all bitter about this, nor that she had lost a safe and respectable way of life.

“We servants had to share bathwater,” Daisy said. “Being the lowest of the maids, it was always cold by the time it got to me.”

“How disgusting.” Mrs Anson wrinkled her nose. “I must say, I’d appreciate a good soak in a tub, too, Maureen.”

“You wait till we’re sent out to real farms,” Susie, the girl who had picked apples, said. “Now we’re just trying our hand at things. There, we’ll be working non-stop all day.”

“Trying to cheer us up, are you?” Maureen said. “You’re a proper ray of sunshine.”

Emily studied the group with interest. The work was hard and new for all of them, but nobody was really complaining. Ruby, the one who was attacked by the chickens, had never left home before. She missed her mum, and Emily had had to comfort her through a couple of tearful episodes. Maureen missed men, she said. She hoped there might be some strapping farm boys on the farm she was sent to.

“Don’t be silly,” Alice said. “There are no strapping lads any more. That’s why we are doing this. We’ll all just have to get used to there not being men around.”

“Bite your tongue! No men around? I’ll go bonkers,” Maureen said. “What would life be without a good kiss and cuddle?”

“I suppose it is something we’ll all have to face,” Mrs Anson said quietly. “How many thousands have died already? There certainly will not be enough men to go around.”