Abby got to her feet as an American officer, his uniform immaculate, appeared behind Rowena.
‘Good afternoon.’ A pair of very dark eyes set in a craggy face swept the room. ‘Is the little lady OK?’
His manner wasn’t at all presumptuous or loud as she had been half expecting, in fact it verged on the diffident, and Abby immediately warmed to him. ‘I think so,’ she said when it became clear Winnie was too astonished to say a word. ‘The baby’s only just been born though and there’s the cord and everything . . .’ She flapped her hand helplessly. ‘We’re not sure what to do.’
‘May I come in, ma’am?’ He spoke directly to Winnie now.
Her face coloured up before she said, ‘Aye, yes, of course.’
Rowena, Gladys and Clara disappeared into the scullery, ostensibly to soak the stained towels and sacking, leaving Abby to assist the doctor. By the time the cord had been cut and other necessities dealt with and the doctor had carried Winnie up the stairs to the bedroom - as if her friend was as light as a feather, Abby noticed with some admiration - they’d discovered their knight in shining armour was Captain Ike Wilmot, widower of some five years, no children and only recently landed in Britain.
‘You don’t look old enough to have been married,’ said Winnie as the captain deposited her on her bed. This was a lie because he most certainly did. Winnie had found her tongue, however, and was determined to ferret out everything she could about this softly spoken, craggily handsome American.
He stepped back from the bed, straightened his uniform and grinned. ‘I’m thirty-six, ma’am.’
‘Really?’ Winnie grinned back, quite unabashed. And then Abby placed the baby in her arms again and Winnie forgot everyone and everything else. ‘Isn’t she bonny?’ she breathed. The captain and Abby exchanged a smile. ‘I’m going to call her Joy because that’s what I want her life to be full of. Joy Abigail.’ She raised eyes glistening with sudden tears to look at Abby who had come to sit beside her. ‘She won’t look at me and see a stupid fat lump, she’ll just see her mam who loves her all the world.’
‘Oh, lass. No one looks at you and sees that. Put that lie out of your head,’ whispered Abby, swallowing hard. Neither of them noticed the captain’s silent and discreet exit.
Winnie put Joy to the breast and soon afterwards mother and child were both asleep, Joy tucked up in the old crib Farmer Tollett had made for his sons. When Abby went downstairs, she found the captain and another GI, who had presumably been waiting outside, just finishing a cup of tea. Gladys had obviously been crying again. The men’s faces were sober, and as they rose to leave, the captain placed his hand on Gladys’s arm and said softly, ‘Don’t you worry about a thing, ma’am. There’ll be some men along shortly to take care of what needs to be done. I’ll see to it immediately we get back. And I’ll return with them, if I may. I can check on mother and child again, but I’d like to bring you some medication which you should take for the next couple of weeks before you retire. It’ll help you sleep. Will you do that, ma’am?’
Gladys sniffed and nodded. ‘Thank you, lad,’ she said brokenly, the tears flowing.
Abby saw the Americans out, leaving Clara and Rowena with Gladys, and as they stepped outside into the warm air, the familiar smells of the farm carried the tinge of what was in the field below and she shivered.
‘How are you feeling?’ The captain’s voice was low. ‘You’ve had one heck of a day.’
She looked up into his tanned face. He was a tall man, very tall, broad-shouldered and with an authoritative air about him, but for all that he had a manner which was immensely reassuring. She supposed it was due to his being a doctor.
‘I don’t really know,’ she said truthfully. ‘I feel a bit odd.’
‘You’re doing just fine.’
‘Now that Winnie’s had the baby, now I know she’s all right, I keep remembering Farmer Tollett and how—’ She stopped, gulping, before carrying on, ‘And poor Gladys, to have seen it all.’
He nodded. He could have said here that there were more terrible sights than seeing someone blown away in a moment of time, even if it was a loved one. Some people left the earth screaming in an agony which had possessed them for months and months; cancer had done that to his Eleanor, and he had been unable to do anything for her. Him, a doctor. He forced his mind to the young woman at his side. ‘Mrs Tollett will be all right,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s the sort of person who will be able to grieve and that’s very important. Let her cry when she wants to, don’t think it’s bad for her. She’s fortunate to have you all here with her at a time like this. I presume you’ll try and keep the farm going?’
‘Oh yes, of course.’ She hadn’t considered anything else. ‘It’ll mean we’ll have to accept some prisoners of war working here, though. I can’t see anything else for it.’
He nodded. ‘I think you’ll find most of them are just lonely men who are a long way from home and missing their own wives and children. It’s the machinery of war which draws them into the arena, not any wish of theirs to be part of it.’
‘You think so?’ James had wanted to go to war, to fight the Germans.
She was unaware of the shadow in her eyes as she’d spoken, but the captain’s voice was even more gentle when he said, ‘Any idealistic notions are soon dealt with, believe me. Very quickly even the most staunch patriot realises they’ve been forced into a mayhem caused by just a very few evil men at the top. Hitler and his minions have to be stopped, of course, along with the Japanese, but there’s nothing fine about the procedure to accomplish it.’
‘Don’t get him started on this.’ The other American, a blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned man, dug his compatriot in the ribs and the captain acknowledged the friendly reproof with one of the slow easy smiles Abby rather thought might be habitual to him.
The two men made their goodbyes and climbed into the jeep. As they drove away, Abby stood staring after them for a while, until the vehicle disappeared from sight.
He hadn’t looked back or waved, she mused, but he would be returning soon with the medication for Gladys. And then she caught at the thought, startled by it. What did it matter if Captain Ike Wilmot returned or not? And she hadn’t got time to dilly-dally out here. There were a hundred and one things needing attention, and with all that had happened today the last thing she needed was to stand daydreaming. But it was another few moments before she turned and went back inside the farmhouse.
Gladys wouldn’t hear of going to lie down or even sitting with her feet up when Abby and Rowena tried to persuade her to take it easy for the rest of the day. ‘I’d rather be working as usual,’ she said stoutly, ‘but thanks all the same. I’ve never sat and twiddled me thumbs in me life and I don’t intend to start now. I’ll be all right. Anyway, with Winnie having had the babbie, someone’s got to see to things in the house and dairy, and Clara will help me. We’ll collect the eggs in a minute and a bit later, Clara, you can take a tray up to Winnie and see the baby.’
Clara nodded. She felt frightened. She wasn’t sure if it was more the fear that another bomb would fall, or that after what had happened to Farmer Tollett, Abby might not think it was safe to keep her here any more. She didn’t want to go back to her mam. As Abby put an arm round her and gave her a hug before she and Rowena left to sort and bag a recent crop of potatoes, she wanted to cling tightly to her sister and not let go. Instead she watched the two women disappear, her small white teeth worrying the quick of one finger.
She would run away if Abby sent her back to Sunderland, she
would
. She wished her aunty hadn’t written to say that there had been no more bombs dropped on the town since May and that they reckoned they’d seen the last of the air raids in the north-east. She’d rather face a hundred bombs here with Abby than go back.
By the time a platoon of Americans arrived, together with the local constable and parson from the village, Clara had worked herself up into a silent state of terror, convinced she was going to be despatched home forthwith. She watched the captain talk to Abby in the yard for a while after he had given Gladys some little blue pills, but immediately his Jeep pulled away her sister disappeared to help Rowena again and the chance to talk to her alone was lost.
The rest of the GIs left just as it was getting dark after seeing to everything. They even took Farmer Tollett to the undertakers after the parson had had a little talk with Gladys, telling her it was the best thing in the circumstances. The soldiers had stacked the remains of the barn in a pile in the corner of the field, repaired the stone wall as best they could and buried the cattle in a massive pit which they’d then filled in.
They’d been marvellous, Gladys kept repeating throughout the long afternoon and evening, tears rolling down her face as she went about her household duties and fussed round Winnie and the baby. Just marvellous. And they’d even said they’d come and help with the harvest when they were off duty, bless them.
Abby and Rowena only came into the house when it was too dark to see any more, and after they had eaten the meal Gladys had kept hot for them they sat in a stupor, too exhausted to get ready for bed. It was only when Gladys nearly fell off her chair that they realised she had already taken the little blue pill with her cocoa. They took her up to bed and helped her to undress. She was fast asleep when they left her. Winnie and the baby were sleeping soundly too when they checked on mother and child, but Clara was sitting bolt upright in her pallet bed, her staring eyes and white face giving Abby something of a shock.
‘I thought you were asleep.’ Abby spoke in a whisper as she walked over to her sister. ‘Come on now, snuggle down and close your eyes, hinny.’
‘I . . . I can’t sleep.’ Clara started crying again. ‘I told Mrs Gladys that but she still sent me to bed.’
Abby glanced over at Rowena who was standing in the doorway of the bedroom looking towards them. Rowena motioned with her hands to say she was going downstairs to have a wash, and Abby nodded. When she had gone and there was only the sleeping Winnie and the baby in her crib, Abby whispered, ‘I know it’s terrible about Farmer Tollett but try not to be too frightened. It wasn’t as if the bomb was actually meant for the farm, you do understand that? It was an accident in a way. Look, your aunty reckons it’s gone very quiet at home. Would you like to go and see Jed for a while?’
It was what Clara had dreaded. Her mind was still in turmoil from the events of the day and from the fear which had gripped her to the point where she had been sick twice in the privy, and she spoke with a touch of hysteria. ‘Don’t send me back, Abby, not to Mam. You don’t know what she’s like. She—’ She stopped as the sobs she was trying to stifle threatened to choke her.
‘Course I know what she’s like, dear,’ Abby said after a second of hesitation when an alarm bell somewhere in her head began to ring. Was there something Clara wasn’t telling her? Had their mam done something to her she hadn’t let on about?
‘No, you don’t, you don’t.’ Clara clutched hold of her, burying her face in Abby’s shoulder. ‘She knows I saw, and she said if I ever told anybody . . .’
Abby sat very still. What on earth was all this about? Whatever it was had happened before Clara came to the farm.
‘What did you see, hinny?’ she said very softly, taking the child’s shoulders and moving her back so she could look into her face. ‘Whatever it was, you can tell me and I promise you won’t get wrong from Mam, all right? I promise.’
‘You can’t.’ Clara buried into Abby again, holding on to her with a vice-like grip. ‘She’ll have me put away, she said so.’ And then, after a great intake of breath, the words came tumbling out. ‘She said no one would believe me if I said she pushed Da, that they would say I was wicked and making it up. But she did push him, I saw her. I did, Abby. I did.’
Oh no,
no
.
Not that. No!
Not even her mother . . . Abby’s lower jaw began to tremble and it transferred itself to her voice. ‘You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?’ She didn’t try to persuade the child she was wrong because suddenly lots of things made sense. Clara’s grief and terror when their father had died, the bed-wetting, the little girl’s fear of being left alone with their mother. She had put it all down to the shock of their da dying, but it had been more than that. Much more. Abby felt limp and the room began to swim, and it was only with a great effort that she forced the faintness away and took a grip on herself. ‘Clara?’ Her sister hadn’t answered and now she gave the child a gentle shake. ‘You definitely saw it? You couldn’t have been mistaken?’
‘She . . . she said I dreamed it, that I’d had a nightmare but I didn’t. I was on the landing and she pushed him right down the stairs. They’d been arguing and it woke me up and I was going to go downstairs for a drink of water . . .’