The Victory Garden(49)

The apple picking was pleasant enough, although the weather was turning colder. They wore jerseys under their tunics. The jerseys were made of coarse wool and itched terribly, but it was better than being cold.

“What wouldn’t I give for a nice soft silk blouse or a good fine-wool jumper,” Mrs Anson confided to Emily as they worked together, putting apples into baskets carefully without bruising them.

Emily glanced at her. “How long had you been married when your husband died?” she asked.

“Sixteen years,” she replied.

“You had no children?”

“We were not blessed with any, I’m afraid, although I should have loved a big family. I was an only child.”

Emily paused, then asked, “How long did it take you to get over—”

“My husband’s death?” She shook her head. “One never gets over it, my dear. There will always be a hole in my heart where he used to be, but one comes to terms with it. You tell yourself that you are just one of many. So many other wives and mothers and sweethearts are feeling the same pain. You just have to get on with life and hope that eventually the pain will dull a little. And it does. I can think of my husband quite fondly now, remembering good times. Time is the only healer.”

Emily nodded and went back to work.

The weather brightened, and the apple picking became a pleasant occupation. After the best apples had been selected, the ones with bruises or defects were also put into baskets to be made into cider. When the last tree was stripped, Emily felt a shiver of fear that they would be told they were no longer needed. And then what? What would she do when the land girls were disbanded? Where would she go? Clarissa had said that women would need to take over men’s jobs when the war ended. If she went to a big city—Bristol or even London—would she find a job and be able to support herself? The idea was alarming, but at the same time exciting.

I’m an educated girl, she thought. Her teachers had urged her to go on to university, but then the war had come and Freddie had died, so university had become impossible. But a job in an office, or even teaching in a small school. They would be possible, surely?

But the apple picking was not their last assignment. Miss Foster-Blake looked stern when she addressed them at supper that night. “I’m afraid I have a real challenge ahead for you. A nearby farmer is readying his fields to plant winter crops, mainly onion sets, but also cabbages and beetroots. The fields will need to be ploughed first.”

There was a collective groan. None of them had had much success with ploughing.

“Will he supervise?” Mrs Anson asked. “Does he have a tractor?”

“He has a team of horses, but he can no longer do the ploughing himself as he has come home from the front with compromised lungs. He will advise.”

“A fat lot of good that is,” Alice said. “That ruddy plough was almost as big as me.”

“Perhaps this one will be easier,” Emily said.

“I don’t mind doing the ploughing,” Maud said. “I’m the biggest one here, and the strongest, too.”

“Good for you, Maud,” Miss Fraser-Blake said.

The girl looked absurdly pleased, as if nobody had ever told her she was good at anything before.

They set out for the farm. It was close to the edge of Dartmoor, in a bleak and treeless situation. The women were silent as they climbed out of the back of the van. Wind swept down from the heights.

“I wish we’d remembered to wear our mackintoshes,” Mrs Anson muttered to Emily. “This wind goes straight through the tunic, doesn’t it?”

“It’s certainly cold for September,” Emily agreed. “But as soon as we try pushing that plough and planting onions, I imagine we’re going to be warm enough.”

The farmer met them and led them to a team of massive Clydesdales, standing impatiently in front of a plough. He was a big-boned countryman, a Clydesdale himself rather than a thoroughbred, but his face betrayed that he was in pain, and he wheezed when he spoke to them.

“Good of you to come, ladies,” he said. “I were worried we’d never get the fields planted this year and we’d all starve come spring. I’ve got four little ’uns at home, and I hate to be letting my family down.”

“We’ll do our best for you,” Mrs Anson said. “But we have to warn you that we’re not all farm girls. We’ve had little training and experience.”

“Don’t you worry, my lovey,” he said in his rich Devon accent. “You get them onions and cabbages in the ground and I’ll be happy as a sandboy.”

He led the plough out to a fallow field. Maud took one handle. Emily looked around at the others. “I suppose I’m the tallest,” she said. “I should take the other handle.”

They set off. The horses were doing the pulling of the old cast-iron plough, but it was still hard to steer it and keep a straight furrow. Emily’s heart was thumping and she gasped for breath. Why did I volunteer to do this? she asked herself. It’s really too much for me.

“Are you all right?” Maud asked when they came to the end of the first furrow and stopped to take a breather. “You look a funny colour.”

“I’m not feeling too well,” Emily said. “I think that rabbit stew last night upset my stomach.”