Christmas on the Home Front

For now though, he had to improvise. As Siegfried ambled away, he looked for anything that might sustain him and Emory. As he reached the clearing of the woods, salvation arrived in the form of a dead crow near a tree root. Its feathers were sticking out at crazy angles as if a child had constructed it in nursery. Siegfried tapped it with his boot. There was no telling how long it had been dead, but he estimated it hadn’t been long. He scooped up the body in his hands and wrapped it in the knapsack that hung around his neck. It would be another culinary delight after the raw cauliflower. But nevertheless, dinner would be served.

Hoxley Manor was a flurry of activity. Some American soldiers were parading on the front lawn, against the express instructions from Lady Hoxley. She tolerated the soldiers’ presence and the fact that a large part of her house had been requisitioned by the War Office for use as a military hospital, but she appreciated it if they could keep as low a profile as possible. Parading on her front lawn, where any visitor could see them simply wasn’t on.

Joyce rushed along the driveway, the shouted instructions from the army lieutenant to his men washing over her like the distant barking of a dog. She pushed past a nurse who was smoking a cigarette in the doorway and went into the hallway. It was cooler inside than out, but Joyce was hot from running.

She rushed past the grand staircase where Nancy Morrell had first met Lord Hoxley two summers ago and made her way to the military hospital wing. Slowing to a brisk walk, and regaining her breath, Joyce passed bed after bed of injured servicemen, their bandages telling tales of their woes. Some of them called out to her, others moaned in pain. Joyce kept focussed and walked on. Reaching a room on its own, Joyce knocked on the door. The small room had once been Lord Hoxley’s reading room, a circular space of curved bookshelves, a leather armchair and a view out onto the back terrace. Now it had a single bed squeezed into the space.

A single bed occupied by Connie Carter.

Joyce moved to her friend’s bedside, feeling the heavy concerned looks from Esther, Finch, and Esther’s son, Martin on her. They had all assembled some time earlier. Doctor Richard Channing glanced up from his clipboard where he was reviewing some observations on his patient. He was a distinguished man whose handsome face was tempered by an easy look of disdain that often crossed his features. Connie’s husband, Henry Jameson was seated on the windowsill, looking gravely at the floor. He was the local vicar, a mild-mannered good-hearted man who would always worry about consequences. Whereas Connie would dive in and have fun, Henry was always pondering whether they should dive in and have fun.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ Joyce mumbled. ‘I had no idea.’

Esther put a consoling hand on her shoulder.

Connie looked so pale making her smudged lipstick look even more vibrantly red, like a smear of jam across her face. Her eyelids were closed and her usually immaculately neat black hair was like a bird’s nest. A white bandage was wrapped tidily around her forehead, making the unruly hair look like it was trying to escape from above and below.

‘You weren’t to know, lovey.’ Esther removed her comforting hand from Joyce’s shoulder and gently encouraged her to move closer.

‘Can she hear us?’ Joyce asked.

‘Don’t think so.’ Finch looked downcast. ‘At least she hasn’t responded to anything I’ve said to her. Mind you, she doesn’t respond to anything I say when she’s awake.’

He offered a nervous chuckle, but no one felt like laughing.

‘What happened?’ Joyce stared at her friend.

Esther explained that Connie had rode her bicycle to Gorley Woods to deliver a magazine to one of Henry’s parishioners. She was found on a dirt track, unconscious, her bicycle by her side.

‘Did she fall off then?’ Joyce asked.

No one volunteered an answer. Had they all asked the same question already? Doctor Channing shrugged, suggesting that he wasn’t about to indulge in pure conjecture.

‘She had a blow to the head. That’s all we know.’

‘Did she hit a branch on her bike? You know, going under a low tree or something?’ Joyce could sense Henry shifting uncomfortably on his window ledge. All this talk about his wife was clearly getting to him. Maybe no one was worrying about how it had happened, just about whether Connie would ever wake up again.

‘The blow was on the back of the head,’ Channing remarked, his manner getting tetchy.

‘So someone hit her?’

Channing shrugged. Joyce looked at the other faces for an answer. And if not an answer, she wanted to hear what their theories were. Surely, they wanted to know?

‘She might have fallen off her bicycle and hit the back of her head when she went down,’ Esther offered, filling the void when no one immediately volunteered an answer. Joyce guessed she said it more to shut her up than because she wanted to enter into a discussion.

Joyce wanted to ask more, but Henry’s agitated shuffling stopped her broaching the subject. It could all wait until later when they were away from here. Joyce assumed that Henry felt uneasy not just because he loved Connie but because he may have felt guilty at sending her on the errand in the first place.

‘The problem is also that she may have been there for some time,’ Henry spoke, his voice wavering with emotion. ‘In the cold, lying there.’

His voice broke and Henry squeezed the bridge of his nose to stop himself from crying. Finch patted him on the shoulder like someone petting an unfamiliar dog. The gesture seemed to help Henry pull himself together. Joyce guessed he didn’t want to make a scene in front of these people.

‘I suggest you all go back to the farm. Await news.’ Doctor Channing surveyed their faces and then glanced down at Henry.

‘Apart from you, Reverend. You can, of course, stay if you want to.’ The offer conveyed the barest hint that Channing would be irked if the Reverend wanted to stay for too long, getting under his feet while there was important medical work to be done. Joyce knew that Channing preferred uncluttered wards. When she did her volunteer shifts, she would hear him lecturing nursing staff on the importance of minimalism in a hospital environment. And that minimalism extended to visitors. He viewed them with the same warmth that he viewed unemptied bins or clutter.

Henry nodded at the half-offer and stared forlornly at his wife, her face motionless, her eyes closed. Joyce dutifully filed out with Martin, Finch and Esther and they stood in shocked silence in the corridor for a few moments wondering what would happen to their friend. Joyce glanced back a final time as Channing shut the door on her. Connie looked so peaceful and at rest. The thought chilled Joyce. She tried to shake it out of her mind. She didn’t want to see Connie at rest. Connie was never at rest. She wanted the mouthy, passionate, talking-ten-to-the-dozen, vibrant Connie back.

She wanted her friend to live.

The meat was tough and chewy and Siegfried worried that they hadn’t cooked the bird enough. But it stopped the ferocious rumbling in his stomach for a moment, so that was good. It had taken him nearly an hour to pluck the thing and then Emory had rigged up a makeshift spit roast from twigs to suspend it above a small fire. Emory was grouchy. His arm was sore and blistering. He was cold and the shelter they had found – an old storage hut on the edge of an abandoned farm near Gorley Woods – wasn’t a secure base for them to wait in. Emory feared they would be found eventually. He wanted to make contact with some sympathisers who might be able to help them escape this country and get back to Germany. Would it be easier to give up? But Siegfried didn’t dare voice that opinion; especially when Emory was in such a bad mood.

Emory checked his luger pistol for what seemed like the hundredth time. Siegfried told him that it would have made his hunting easier to have had the gun. But Emory thought they couldn’t attract attention to themselves by firing off rounds in the woods.

‘What do we do?’ Siegfried asked, chewing on a bit of gristle and trying to make it go down.

‘Kein Englisch sprechen!’ Emory snapped.

‘We should speak English! And we should get rid of these clothes. We should try to fit in.’

‘You are right. I do not think straight,’ Emory sighed, wincing at the pain in his arm. ‘We should go to find some clothes. Steal them off a washing line or something. Maybe go back to the cottage where that man was. His clothes would fit us.’

‘It’s too risky to go back somewhere we’ve been already.’

Emory nodded, conceding Siegfried’s point. He got up and stamped out the remnants of the fire outside their hut.

‘We’ll find somewhere else with clothes,’ Siegfried replied. He wanted to talk about the other thing. But he feared that any mention might antagonise his captain. But he knew that their future might depend on it. After all, they had already attracted attention to themselves.

‘What do you think happened to the girl?’ Siegfried asked.

Emory scowled at him. Siegfried had been right. He hadn’t wanted to talk about that.

‘Who knows?’ Emory spat out a piece of gristle. ‘Who cares?’

After an afternoon silently working the frozen earth of the North Field, Joyce submerged her numb hands in Esther’s warm sink, her nerves unable to tell if it was hot or cold. Her fingers tingled in protest and Joyce could picture her mother warning her about the danger of chilblains, but it felt so good. After a moment, she pulled her hands out, steam coming off her fingers, the skin a lucid angry pink, and wiped them on a tea towel. Esther was busying herself with a stew. Finch was reading The Helmstead Herald at the table, unaware that his arms were pushing the cutlery of the carefully laid-out places into an untidy mess in the centre.

‘It’s got to be a mistake. No one would sell a pig that cheap.’ Finch scrutinised the advert in the paper as if it was a rare Egyptian hieroglyph.

‘Maybe it’s only got three legs?’ Esther smirked.

Finch shook his head, not registering the joke. Joyce assumed that his brain was busy navigating the fine line of whether this was a bargain or a scam. The man had a talent for that borne out of his own attempts to pull the wool over the eyes of the gullible bargain-seeker. It would irk him if someone else was doing the conning and he turned out to be the victim.

‘It’s got four legs and working snout, according to this.’ Finch weighed up the advert and Esther added more seasoning to her cooking.

‘Have you heard any more from the hospital?’ Joyce asked.

‘Nothing,’ Esther shook her head.

‘No,’ Finch closed the newspaper.

‘I guess there’s no change then?’

‘Maybe they’re trying to get rid of it for Christmas?’

‘What?’ Esther was confused.

‘The pig!’ Finch was already back on his own topic of conversation. ‘Here, I could take it to Leicester for Bea and Annie!’

‘Don’t go on about the flaming pig. Besides they won’t want a pig turning up!’ Esther snatched the newspaper from the table and put it on the draining board in the hope it might end the matter.

Despite her concern about Connie, Joyce couldn’t help but laugh. Finch’s hurt reaction, his face showing confusion at Esther’s words, was a picture. Obviously, it seemed eminently reasonable to him to take a pig on a train as a gift. He grumbled and turned the page. Joyce sat down for the evening meal, rearranging the pile of cutlery into rudimentary place settings.

The three of them ate in silence aside from Finch returning unbidden to the topic of the bargain pig. By the end of the meal, Joyce would have been happy never to have heard another word about it. But then Finch said something that piqued her interest.

‘Here, maybe I’ll drive over there tomorrow and have a look at the pig. If I take the van, I could pop it in the back. It’s only at a place called Hobson’s Farm on the other side of Gorley Woods.’

‘Gorley Woods?’ Joyce’s mind was racing.

‘Yes, why?’

‘Could I come with you?’

‘Why would you want to do that?’ Finch looked suspicious.

‘Thought it might be useful to perhaps see where Connie came a cropper. Find out if there was any reason for it.’

‘’Ere do you think you’re Agatha Christie, Joyce?’

‘It’s just nobody has had a chance to look at where it happened, have they?’

‘All right.’ Finch shrugged, ‘As long as Esther can spare you for an hour that is.’

‘I’ll start an hour earlier,’ Joyce ventured before Esther had time to voice an objection. But despite the appeasement, Esther still managed a scowl.

Henry Jameson was dimly aware of a low creaking noise, rhythmic and close. It took him a while to realise it came from his own chair as he rocked gently back and forth as he sat watching Connie’s face. He’d been holding her hand for what seemed like ages, gently manipulating it with his fingers as if the sensation might bring Connie back to him.

He didn’t know if she could hear him, but Henry spoke to her anyway. Mindful of the other patients outside their room and the lateness of the hour, he spoke quietly, barely more than a whisper. He gave prayers, made jokes and told Connie how much he loved her. Despite their differences, this unlikely couple had made their marriage work. Connie’s headstrong and bawdy nature, against all odds, segued with Henry’s sensible and empathetic traits. He assumed that Connie felt safe in the relationship, knowing that Henry would act as a steadying influence to her wilder traits. For his part, Connie’s unpredictability was both liberating and infuriating. But she was the spark in his life.

He looked forlornly at his wife, unmoving except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. What dreams was she having? Henry regretted the small argument they’d had. And it had all been about that blasted magazine. The thing that caused this.

‘I don’t have time to play postman!’ Connie had shouted when Henry had suggested she take the magazine while he finished the evening work at the village hall.

‘But it won’t take long,’ Henry had protested.

‘But it will take long.’

‘You don’t have to stay with him for any length of time.’

‘He’s a chatterbox. I’ve waited hours for you to come back from your visits there!’

‘Please, Connie,’ Henry had pleaded. And his wife had conceded with a sparky flash of her deep brown eyes. All right, she’d do it, but he’d better make this up to her when they’re both at home. Connie had taken the magazine and Henry had watched her ride off away from the village hall. That was the last time he’d seen her until finding her in a hospital bed.

What had happened in the time in-between?

Henry’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Doctor Channing. He gave a cursory knock on the doorframe and entered without waiting for permission. He seemed somewhat irked to see Henry sitting there.

‘It may be best for you to get some rest.’

Henry didn’t need it spelling out what Channing was saying. He nodded and collected his coat and hat, before kissing his wife on the cheek and leaving. Channing watched him leave. Then he moved towards his patient, checking the clipboard at the end of her bed.

‘What happened to you, Connie Carter?’ Channing mumbled to himself.

He took her pulse, timing it against the small fob watch that dangled from his waistcoat. He made a note of the reading and then took a mercury thermometer from his pocket. He gave it a shake to zero it and was about to put it in Connie’s mouth, when she opened her eyes with a start.

‘Where am I?’ She asked, pulling herself up.

‘You’re at Hoxley Manor. You had a bump on the head,’ Channing tried to gently push her back onto the bed. ‘It’s important you rest.’

‘No, you don’t understand,’ Connie’s eyes were darting around the room. She clutched her head suddenly, an excruciating pain forcing her to squeeze her eyes tightly shut.

‘Easy, it’s all right.’

‘No, they attacked me,’ Connie broke off to wince in pain, her mouth open in silent anguish as if making a noise would hurt her further.

‘Who? Who attacked you?’

Connie’s brown eyes widened in fear.

‘Who was it?’

‘German airmen!’ Connie forced the words out amid the pain. And with that, she collapsed back onto the bed, her hand lolling listlessly over the edge. Channing tried to gently rouse her and then he shouted for assistance.

‘Nurse! I need some help here!’

He looked worried, but there was something in his eyes that indicated it might not be just concern for the well-being of his latest patient.

Chapter 4

Five days to Christmas.

Joyce was dimly aware of a clanging sound in the distance as it forced its way into her attention and woke her from her sleep. She fumbled for the alarm clock and stopped the clapper from vibrating against the bells. Sitting up in bed, she struggled to open her sleepy eyes. It was four o’clock in the morning.

She slid her legs out of bed and got dressed, being careful not to wake the rest of the house. Her eyelids felt heavy, her eyes scratchy and it was difficult to coordinate her fingers as she slipped her boots on. In lieu of having time to do anything with her hair, she tied a headscarf around it and bunched it tight at the back. Then she made her way to the kitchen on weary legs, yawning so widely that she feared her jaw might lock. She made a pot of tea, poured some and sipped at a mugful before it was neither steeped nor cool enough to drink. But she wanted to get some work done before Finch headed off on his pig chase.

Joyce pulled her long coat around her, clutched her tea in one hand and slipped the latch on the back door. She imagined John, still fast asleep on his brother’s sofa. The thought warmed her more than the tea. As she went outside, her breath formed candyfloss in the air, and she felt the mug cooling in her hands. It was a bitter morning, icy with the promise of snow. There had been snow earlier in the month, but the wireless was issuing reports that indicated it wouldn’t be a white Christmas. The ground and the sky seemed the same colour, slate grey but for the hint of a rising orange sun in the distance. But even that felt diminished this morning, burning without its usual confidence. Somewhere in the distance a fox let out an anguished cry. Joyce made her way to the tool barn and collected a solid-handled shovel. After so long here, she knew it was the best shovel on the farm and she felt a curious mix of satisfaction and sadness at knowing this fact. A young woman ought to have more going on in her life than worrying about which farm tool was best, but as always, Joyce contented herself with the comforting caveat that there was a war on. This wasn’t a normal time. Thousands of men and women were missing out on their twenties for the greater good – and any small victory was worth celebrating. Joyce walked into the North Field, feeling its eerie stillness for the first time. Usually she entered its cavernous space with a group of women, chatting and laughing about the small victories of living on a farm in wartime. She’d never noticed the bleakness of it before, four sides of churned brown soil stretching to horizons of darkened trees. In the dawn light, Joyce spooked herself by imagining movement in the spindly trees, some of them holding on to the last of their autumn leaves. She put such thoughts out of her head, found the spot where she had been working yesterday and concentrated on the trench in front of her. Some of the row was a darker colour, the fine soil having been turned and broken up. Joyce pushed the shovel into the ground and heaved it out with a thick wedge of clay soil on it. She flipped it over as if it was a pancake and battered it down into the trench, breaking it up as best she could. With the exertion, Joyce let out a small sigh and managed to spook herself again. Did she imagine a twig snapping in the corner of the field?

She wedged her shovel into the ground and peered into the distance. The edge of the field was thirty or forty feet away and she couldn’t make out the trunks of the trees clearly in the gloomy morning light. But did something glint?

‘Hello?’ Joyce asked, quietly, hoping that there wouldn’t be an answer. No sound came back, and nothing moved. She realised that she had unwittingly tipped off that she suspected someone was there.

Joyce planted her spade in the ground and took a hesitant step towards the trees. Then, deciding it might be prudent to have a weapon, she went back for the spade and carried it with her to the edge of the field.

‘Who’s there?’ Joyce shouted.

No reply.

Her eyes scanned the sparse foliage and the criss-crossing maze of branches for any movement. She didn’t dare blink, fearful that she might miss something. After what seemed like an age, she decided that there was nothing there. She turned round to head back to her work – and found a man standing in front of her.

Joyce went to scream, but then realised it was only Finch.

‘What are you doing, creeping up on me?’ She fumed, letting out her pent-up feelings on the hapless farmer.

‘Who’s creeping? I wasn’t creeping,’ Finch protested.

‘You gave me a start!’

‘I only came to say I was heading off now, if you want to come.’

‘All right.’ Joyce’s anger was subsiding into mild annoyance. Maybe she had stressed herself out. And as she stared at his bewildered face, she felt a little foolish for snapping at him. ‘You can help me take the tools back and then we can head off.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Finch gave her a mock salute.

‘That’s the wrong hand.’ Joyce smiled.

‘Is it? Maybe I’ve been watching them do it from behind.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Their voices trailed off as they walked away from the trees, collecting tools as they went. Their playful bickering continued to the gate of the field, and when they disappeared, Siegfried Weber felt it was safe to breathe again. He let out a lungful of air and looked around him. There was no one around. He moved along the edge of the field until he could see through the gate at the end.

In the distance was a farmhouse. The woman and the farmer were heading towards it. Siegfried waited for them to leave the area and then he waited a few moments more to be sure that they wouldn’t come back. Deciding what to do, he disappeared back into the undergrowth and scurried back to report what he had seen to his captain.

By the time they drove to the edge of Gorley Woods, Joyce was regretting not having more to eat for breakfast. A gnawing hunger threatened to distract her from her task, as she tried to look for clues on the dirt track where Connie had been found.

‘Are you sure this is the right spot?’ Finch checked his pocket watch. He was keen to see a man about a pig and wasn’t worried about disguising his impatience.

‘Esther said it happened at the fork of the main track and the path that leads to the woods.’ Joyce scanned the ground in an attempt to find a clue. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she knew that something hadn’t been right about what had happened to Connie. She was hoping that something would leap out at her.

‘There’s nothing here, is there?’

‘There might be something.’ Joyce wasn’t going to be rushed. She was determined not to give up before she’d started. A scuffed area of ground gave a possible place where Connie had fallen, but Joyce couldn’t be certain. But then she saw something that piqued her interest. A section of branch, sturdy and broken, lay on the ground near the disturbed area. Joyce picked it up and examined it.

‘Look.’

‘It’s a branch.’ Finch smiled, pleased with himself.

‘I know it’s a branch. It might be what knocked Connie off her bicycle. She might have hit it with enough force to break it off the tree.’

Along one edge was a section where the bark was missing, revealing the young beige wood beneath. Could it have been damaged when Connie whacked her head on it? The section looked slightly red. Could it be blood?