The Fleethaven Trilogy (73 page)

Into Kate’s mind came the words ‘you’d still have Lilian’ but they remained unspoken.

Already, Kate thought, she had said more than enough to hurt her mother.

Esther levered herself up from the table. ‘Well, I’spose ya’ll do what ya like, whatever I say. But ya’d best go in an’ tell ya grandad what you intend.’

‘Oh heck!’

The two women looked at each other and the comical expression upon Kate’s face at the thought of having to tell her grandfather what she intended, made them both burst out laughing.

‘G
randad?’ Kate opened the door of the front room quietly. Are you awake?’ she asked softly.

‘Aye, lass. Ah’m alius awake for you. Come in, come in, dun’t stand there dithering in the doorway. There’s a draught!’

Kate smiled, stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She sat on a footstool at her grandfather’s feet and smiled up at him.

Will Benson now lived at Brumbys’ Farm. In the winter of 1936 he had caught influenza and had developed severe bronchitis. Kate smiled as she remembered how it had happened. All the time Will had been really ill, Esther or Jonathan, often with Kate along too when she had been at home, had driven in the pony and trap every day to the village of Suddaby, some thirteen miles inland.

‘You’re too old to be going about on the front of that carrier’s cart any longer,’ Esther had railed. ‘You’re just a stubborn old man who won’t realize it’s more than time he retired.’

‘Shall you retire from the farm, girl, specially now you own it, just ’cos you get old?’

‘That’s different . . .’

‘No, it ain’t. What’ll I do shut up in me cottage all day with only Minnie Raby and her gossiping tongue for company?’

The next day Esther had returned hands on hips, ready to do battle. ‘Me and Jonathan have talked it over. You’re coming to live with us at Brumbys’ Farm. I’ll turn the front parlour into a bed-sitting room for ya. And dun’t think I’ll let you be idle, ’cos I shan’t. Ya can mek ya’sen useful about the farm. And I won’t have no argument, it’s only right you should come to us. We’re yar only family. I won’t tek no . . .’

She had stopped as she had heard Will Benson’s wheezy laughter. ‘I aren’t arguing, lass. It’s what I want to do.’

‘What? Well! Well – I never!’ Esther’s face had been a picture while Kate had clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. But it had gurgled out until she was leaning weakly against the wall. The crafty old devil, Kate had thought, he’d engineered that very cleverly.

So here he was now, installed in the front room that was scarcely ever used anyway; a single bed in one corner and an armchair set in front of the window overlooking the front garden and the flat fields stretching to the setting sun. He had his privacy, yet his family were only a step away, and a little work about the farm when he felt like it kept him feeling useful and needed.

Will Benson was a contented man, it was written on his face for all to see. Yet he was still a force to be reckoned with within the family, which was why Kate found herself sitting at his feet and taking a deep breath before telling him of her plans.

Before she could begin, he said, ‘You had us worried, girl. Whatever did you go off for like that with young Danny?’

Kate told him – in far more detail than she had described to her mother – all that had happened to her and Danny since they had set off from Fleethaven Point. She omitted nothing. She told him all about Gordon and the airman and how at the end of it all they’d lost Robert Eland’s boat.

When at last she fell silent, she felt Will Benson’s gnarled fingers touch her hair. With a catch in his voice he said, ‘I’m proud of you, girl. I wish I’d bin there mesen.’

She looked up at him again, holding his gaze with her steady green eyes. ‘Grandad, I’m thinking of – of joining up.’

His fingers, still against her hair, trembled slightly. ‘Aw, lass. Are ya sure?’

‘Oh, Grandad, if you’d seen it out there. Seen our soldiers coming back bedraggled and beaten. And yet,’ she added with the ghost of a smile as she thought about Gordon Stratford, ‘they didn’t act like they were beaten. They were still shaking their fists at the enemy planes and promising to go back.’

‘And you reckon you want to lend a hand, eh, lass?’

‘I want to “do my bit” as they say.’ She smiled up at him, trying to be light-hearted about it, but there was no deceiving the old man.

His face was sober as he asked quietly, ‘Danny going too, is he, lass?’

She looked squarely into the watery, faded old eyes. ‘I – think so, Grandad.’

Slowly, the old man nodded.

‘What did your dad say about the boat?’

‘He was very good about it,’ Danny answered her. He grinned at her. ‘Said he wished he’d been with us.’

She smiled back. ‘That’s just what me grandad said. Oh, but your dad’s so good. He never says much, does he? But he’s a wonderful person.’

‘Aye,’ Danny murmured. ‘An’ he’s been good to me.’ There was silence and Kate knew they were both thinking about the same thing; that he wasn’t really Danny’s father.

‘He loves your mam so much. You can see it in his eyes when he looks at her, even now, after all these years.’

‘Aye, an’ it can’t have been easy for him.’

‘But she loves him,’ Kate reassured him. ‘I know she does.’

‘Aye, well . . .’ They were getting into dangerous waters, touching on a subject that they had not openly discussed for years. Yet always it lay between them.

As if deliberately to change tack, Danny said, ‘By the way, can you have a word with Rosie?’

‘Rosie?’ Kate was surprised. ‘What about?’

‘She’ll be getting herself into trouble if she dun’t watch it.’ When Kate still looked puzzled, he went on, ‘It’s them Army lads that’s billeted with me grandad.’

Beth Eland’s father, Dan Hanley, was the coastguard at Fleethaven Point and, living alone, was the only one with room to spare for the soldiers who manned the gun emplacement on the dunes facing the North Sea.

‘Oh.’ Now Kate understood. ‘What about her mam or Grannie Harris? I’d have thought she could make young Rosie toe the line.’

‘She’s grown into such a pretty little thing,’ Danny murmured.

‘All those blonde curls and big blue eyes,’ Kate laughed. And Rosie’s figure too, she was thinking, all curvey in the right places.

‘She’s so innocent, though,’ Danny was saying. ‘Living here at the Point all her life, she ain’t had much to do with men. She just won’t know . . .’

Kate stifled a snort of laughter. It was Danny who was the innocent one, she thought. If what she had heard was true, then young Rosie Maine knew exactly what she was doing.

When Rosie had turned fifteen, she had found a job in Reynolds’ store in Lynthorpe. She was still the same bright chatterbox and, as Danny rightly said, had now blossomed into a very pretty young woman. She was always smiling and friendly and was liked by customers and the other staff as well. It was impossible not to like Rosie Maine, and strangely, even though she was so pretty, she did not seem to cause jealousy. Now, at nineteen, Rosie still had no steady boyfriend but seemed to run a string of them, carefully balancing the attentions of several, never deliberately hurting anyone. When she went dancing in the town on a Saturday night, she was never short of partners. And now her partners were in uniform.

‘I’ll have a word with her,’ Kate promised.

‘Aw, thanks, Kate,’ Danny said.

It was more than likely, Kate thought wryly, that young Rosie could teach her a thing or two instead of the other way round.

‘You’re getting yourself a bad name, our Rosie,’ Kate said, with some of her mother’s bluntness coming to the fore.

The girl fluffed her blonde hair and then smoothed down her skirt with the palms of her hands. ‘Oh, Kate, I’m only having a little fun. I’m not doing any harm.’

‘It’s the harm that might come to you, Rosie, that we’re worried about.’

Kate heard the girl draw in her breath sharply. Rosie whirled about to face her. ‘We? Who’s we?’ Suddenly, her eyes were shining with an extra brightness.

‘Danny and me.’

‘Danny? Danny said something about me? What did he say?’

‘He’s worried about you – and the soldiers billeted at the Point.’

‘Who – Taffy and Don? Don’t be daft, our Kate. I’m only friendly with them. They’re a nice couple of boys and a long way from home. They’re lonely.’

‘That’s the whole point, Rosie . . .’ Kate persisted.

‘What else did Danny say about me, Kate?’

‘Nothing – he just said he was worried about you. We both are.’

Rosie pulled a face and turned away. ‘Well, you’ve no need. I can tek care of mesen, ta. Tell Danny he – he’s no need to worry himself about me.’

If she hadn’t known her better, Kate could have sworn there was a tearful catch in Rosie’s voice.

When Kate reported her talk with Rosie to Danny, far from being reassured, he frowned. ‘She’s too flirty for her own good, Kate. I’ve tried having a word with her brothers, Mick and Jimmy, but all Mick can think about is joining up in December when he’s eighteen. Not even going to wait for his call-up papers, he ain’t.’

There was a deep silence between them as they walked side by side along the beach, close by the water’s edge.

‘Kate . . .’ Danny began, stopped and let out a deep sigh as if he had been holding his breath.

She linked her arm through his. ‘Come on, out with it.’

‘I – I’m going to volunteer.’

‘I know.’ She stopped and turned to face him. Checked by her hold on him, he too stopped. Slowly they turned to face each other. She smiled at him and was amused by the look of surprise on his face.

‘I guessed you would,’ she whispered.

‘You – you did?’

She nodded. ‘After Dunkirk – I guessed . . . No, that’s not quite right, I
knew
you’d want to go.’

His grin was sheepish. ‘I thought you’d throw a ducky fit.’

Kate laughed softly. ‘Not really, Danny, because I am going to join up too.’

They looked at each other and Danny said quietly, ‘Just like our dad did the last time, eh?’

Kate smiled and pressed his arm. Rarely did they speak of the father they shared, and yet now at this moment, it seemed right to think of him.

They walked on together in silence. A silence that was companionable and yet now held an added poignancy. Not for the first time, they were to be parted. But this time it might mean they never saw each other again. Hardly realizing it, Kate tightened her hold on Danny’s arm, and he placed his hand over hers.

At last he said, ‘Shall we go and join up – together?’

‘Of course – don’t you dare go without me!’ She aimed a playful punch at his shoulder. ‘Where is the nearest recruiting office, by the way? Is it Lincoln?’

‘I’m not sure – I’ll find out, though.’

‘Well, wherever it is, we’ll go together,’ she said, softly now.

‘I reckon it’d be only fair to get hay-making and the harvest over first. I owe the Squire that much. What d’you say?’

Kate nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. It looks like being a good one and we’re all short-handed as it is. We’ll go after harvest.’

They walked back across the marsh and stood on the top of the western dunes to watch the sun set behind Brumbys’ Farm, silhouetting the farmhouse and the buildings against the bright orange sky.

The peace of the place they both loved so much wrapped itself around them in its cloak of serenity.

It was difficult to believe at that moment that there was a war going on; that together they had already taken part in it and that in a few months’ time they would be caught up in it completely.

She felt an overwhelming sadness. With a certainty she could not explain, Kate knew in that moment that their lives would never be the same again.

B
y the end of August, even at Fleethaven Point, the newspaper headlines were beginning to dominate their lives, pushing even the long, exhausting days of harvest into second place.

‘Have you seen this?’ Danny waved the daily paper under Kate’s nose. ‘They’re getting closer; bombing Midlands towns now, though they’re still concentrating on the south-east.’

‘Really.’ Kate grabbed the paper and scanned the newsprint. She jabbed her finger at the picture of a crashed Heinkel on a British beach. ‘They’re not getting it all their own way, though.’

‘Far from it! The RAF are really coming into their own now.’ Danny rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘They reckon there are dog-fights going on over the Kentish coast most of the day.’ He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips in excitement. ‘I’ve made up my mind, Katie. It’s the RAF for me an’ no mistake.’

A picture of the injured airman they had pulled from the sea came into her mind. She shuddered inwardly at the thought that Danny could so easily end up like Philip Trent; baling out over enemy territory, injured and totally dependent on the good-will of complete strangers to rescue him. Resolutely, she pushed such morbid thoughts from her mind. No doubt Philip Trent was back in the air by now, maybe even involved in these dog-fights Danny spoke of. She wondered what had happened to him. Was he still alive?

She hoped so.

Aloud she said, ‘Good! Then it’s the WAAFs for me.’

‘Well, that’s it then. We’ve been an’ gone an’ done it now,’ Danny said as they emerged from the recruiting centre. ‘Me in the RAF and you in the WAAFs.’ He grinned saucily. ‘I hope they know what they’re letting themselves in for.’

Playfully, she punched his arm. She felt better now that it was done. There was no going back and her family would just have to accept it.

As if reading her thoughts, Danny said, ‘Still thinking about yar mam?’

Kate nodded.

‘She had a rough time in the last lot,’ he reminded her. ‘First Ernie Harris getting killed; yar mother thought a lot about him.’

‘I can’t remember him. Can you?’

Danny shook his head. ‘He was Grannie Harris’s eldest. Joined up when he was only sixteen.’

‘Me mam never talks about anything to do with the last war. It’s as if she wants to forget it all.’