Roland Moore - Christmas on the Home Front

She was reading the rest of the letter, when a chicken burst out from behind the end stable, squawking loudly with a hysteria that spooked Joyce. She dropped the letters and fell backwards against the gate, catching her right wrist on the latch. She felt a stab of pain in her arm and noticed a cut to her wrist. Soon a rivulet of blood snaked its way down to her elbow.

‘Damn and blast,’ Joyce muttered. She scooped up the letters and raised her injured arm and ran as fast as she could back to the farmhouse.

Inside the farm kitchen, Joyce let cold water run over the cut. Despite the amount of blood, it wasn’t a deep cut and the water soon ran clear as the wound clotted. Joyce bound her wrist with the makeshift bandage of a tea towel and looked under the sink for Esther’s first aid supplies.

Twenty-three minutes later, Joyce carefully picked up the hot kettle from the stove with her bandaged hand and poured the water into a tea pot. She was dressed in her Women’s Land Army uniform of trousers, shirt and jumper, her boots laced securely on her feet. She stirred the pot, thinking about the mystery of the deserted farm. It had never been so silent in all the time she had been working here. The small farmhouse was normally alive with chatter and the odd argument, the sounds of Esther berating Finch for his slovenly behaviour. Where was Finch? Esther? Connie? Dolores? Frank?

Of course – Frank!

Joyce remembered that Frank Tucker, Finch’s erstwhile game keeper, would be found only one and a half miles away at Shallow Brook Farm next door. The plan had been for him to take over with Iris and Martin while John was away.

Her brewing tea forgotten, Joyce got to her feet, marched across the yard, out the gate and made her way to Shallow Brook Farm.

When she got there, she was out of breath and the cold air was catching on the back of her throat.

‘Frank?’ Joyce called, her voice sounding croaky. ‘Frank?’ She tried again and this time her voice didn’t fail her.

The darkened windows of the farmhouse resembled blank eyes covered with the cataracts of dirty net curtains. The place had an undercurrent of melancholy and despair about it, forgotten and unloved, unlike the picturesque Pasture Farm. Joyce tolerated being here when John was staying, but when he wasn’t around, the sadness and silence of the place made her feel uneasy.

At first, Joyce thought that this farm too was empty and deserted. She called again for Frank, hearing the shrillness of nerves developing with each unanswered call.

‘Frank?’

‘Yeah?’

A reply came from a side-building and Frank Tucker ambled out, wiping oil from his hands on an old rag. He was a wiry man with thinning grey hair, eyes that didn’t quite go in the same direction and a face that had a lived-in expression. But there was kindness in his craggy face and his hazel eyes burned with an unexpected intelligence. This was the man who had taught Iris Dawson to read and who had preferred negotiation to violence when he was goaded into a fight with Vernon Storey all those months ago.

Joyce composed herself. The truth was she had assumed she wouldn’t get a response and she hadn’t thought about what to say if she did.

‘Where is everyone?’ She managed.

Frank scratched his chin, inadvertently leaving a smudge of oil on it. His eyes looked serious, his face grave.

‘Haven’t you heard?’

‘Heard what?’

Frank swallowed hard. Joyce had seen that type of expression before.

She guessed that he was about to tell her bad news.

There was a gnawing feeling in his belly that Siegfried Weber didn’t like. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was down to hunger or whether fear was driving his stomach into knots as well. Nervously his eyes scanned the woodland around him. He was cowering in a ditch, on a bed of the fallen leaves of autumn, his shirt getting wet from the cold ground. He gripped the dagger in his hand. The tape around the handle was fraying and Siegfried felt that it was slippery and hard to hold. He stared at the rabbit in front of him, tantalisingly twelve or so feet away to his left. He moved his free arm, using it to propel himself slowly and steadily across the ditch. Nearer and nearer to the rabbit. Siegfried paused, allowing the rabbit to sniff its surroundings. He didn’t want to alert it to any danger and he didn’t want to spook it. When the rabbit ducked its head, seemingly less concerned about any imminent threat, he decided that it would be prudent to move forward, edging ever closer, knife in hand.

He thought about Emory. His captain was hungry too and waiting for Siegfried to come good on the hunting skills he blithely promised that he had. He didn’t want to let the older man down, and he wanted to keep his spirits buoyed, but the fact of the matter was that the only rabbit he’d ever got close to was the pet of the farmer at Coswig. And he’d never dared to hunt and catch that.

He pulled forward, feeling a twig snag in his shirt. Anticipating that it might break off noisily if he continued, Siegfried reached slowly down and gently broke it off. The rabbit looked up again. How sharp their hearing was! Siegfried waited patiently for it to relax and after a few agonising moments it returned to sniffing the ground.

He edged slightly closer, scarcely daring to breathe. He was close enough to see the individual hairs on the rabbit’s chest, the light shining in its big, brown eyes, its cheeks continually inflating and deflating as it sniffed the air. Siegfried brought his knife up on the rabbit’s blind side. Then he realised that he needed to be a little bit closer to avoid making it a stretch when he brought the blade down. That would diminish his chances of landing a blow that stopped the creature in its tracks. Siegfried moved on his belly, his shirt sodden now from the damp. He stopped, motionless for a second. This was the moment of truth.

Siegfried whipped out his free hand to grasp the rabbit as he brought the knife hand down. But as his fingers connected with the rabbit’s fur, it bolted for freedom. Siegfried brought the knife down, but plunged it uselessly into the mulch. His free hand managed to feel the pads of the rabbit’s feet as it propelled itself into the shrubs and away.

Siegfried felt disappointment welling up inside him, his throat burning with the need to cry in frustration. He lay on the woodland floor for a few moments before finding the strength to pull himself up. He looked around as he pushed the knife back into his belt. He knew he couldn’t go back empty-handed, but he couldn’t rely on catching anything for dinner. And as his hunger and fatigue intensified, he knew that what paltry ability he had as a hunter would also diminish. He had to find food, and soon.

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.