Shelter Read online

  Beyond a line of stone cottages, so low they appeared to be crouching, there seemed to be a park. Or perhaps it was a bit of what they called a village green here. It was tricky to tell what was forest and what was green because none of it looked like Coventry or any street Connie had known. Even all the noises and smells were wrong; it had her right at sixes and sevens.

  The pub sign swinging in front of yet another grey stone building on the corner was the only thing she’d copped on to that looked like anything from home. Where were the buses, the people, the families giving each other hell in the street? Not that she’d be seeing her own family any time soon. She stared at the pub sign, blinking hard until she could move on up the street.

  Today they seemed to be trudging in a new direction, away from the cluster of cottages. The girls rounded the corner from the hostel and the narrow street gave way to a wider road – or wider by the standards here, at any rate. Sheep were wandering across the road like they had a death wish, but nobody was paying them any attention. Connie skirted round them – it wasn’t right, seeing animals all over the place like this – and concentrated on following the others up the hill.

  Now they really seemed to be into the forest. It was darker – no, that wasn’t it. The light was somehow rounder, like every part of it had absorbed the curve of the trees’ bark. Connie looked up. She turned around and already she couldn’t see the road. The trees had completely swallowed her up. She trembled. She needed to stick close to the others or she might never find her way out, left abandoned in the forest with nobody expecting her back and nobody to notice she was gone.

  Connie put her head down to get away from this weird, rounded light. The softening ground between the trees was a wild purple, and it smelled clean, like soap. They surely shouldn’t be walking on these delicate little things. Connie stopped still. The girl behind looked at her askance and pushed past. ‘Haven’t you ever seen bluebells in a wood before?’

  Connie bent down, let the other lumberjills stream past, her fear superseded by curiosity. Little purple flowers, hundreds of the things, all packed together around the trees. They stretched as far as she could see. She’d only usually see flowers outside in pots if somebody posh was coming to open a new bit of the factory, didn’t know they could please themselves like this, roam free. It was gobsmackingly gorgeous. Mam would love this.

  ‘Come on, lass, or you’ll be copping it again.’ Agnes, the cheery one from Derby, pulled her back into the line and she scrambled along, trying not to tread on any of the flowers.

  It was a relief when they stopped, not least because, there in front of them, was that Watkins bloke. She’d know him anywhere with that missing finger and a way of favouring his good leg that she’d clocked that first night. He’d have a story or two to tell. He stood beside what looked like a battalion’s worth of weird weapons.

  ‘Rightio, ladies. I’m Frank Watkins. There’s no standing on ceremony out here, mind, so you’re to call me Frank. Time to see what you can do, never mind that book learning.’ Connie perked up.

  ‘Line up – that’s it, get where you can see me.’ They shuffled into place, a bit too close to the sharp edges of the weapons for Connie’s liking.

  ‘These are your tools of the trade. Dangerous if you don’t use ’em right, and lethal in the wrong hands, so listen up.’ Frank walked along the row of tools. ‘Axes for butting. Cross-cutters to get ’im down. Spokeshaves for bark stripping. Loppers … well, them’s obvious. Fretsaw for snedding. Billhook, canthook, bushman, sledge, wedge.’

  Connie’s head hurt and her whole body was rigid. Birds were flittering about like butterflies, squawking away and making it hard to think about what Frank was telling them. She’d been wrong; this was so much worse than indoors. Screw it up with one of these baffling deathtraps and you’d be done for.

  Get a grip, Connie … An axe; she recognised that. That little triangular metal thing must be the wedge, and there were two saws, one with one handle and another one that had a handle on either end, so they must be the fretsaw and the cross-cutter – was that what Frank had called them? God only knows which was which, though. Could the loppers be those massive shears? This bloody Frank calling it obvious – it was all clear as mud to her. She sucked in air again, tried to look at one instrument of torture at a time. They hadn’t even made sense as words, never mind matching them to the various metal and wooden contraptions in front of her. She’d never ever keep any of it straight. Connie swallowed and swallowed again. She had to make this work.

  ‘Like every forest you’ll be assigned to, there’s a crew of men here, full-time timber workers, that you’ll be working alongside. Some of them have been here for years, but lots of our best men have been sent to the front now, same as them forests in Scotland and Yorkshire. We’ve got enough men for the real heavy work, more or less, and they’ll fell the trees for the most part. Up in Scotland they’ve brought over Canadians to help out. Only a very few of you will get the hang of tree felling, mind, but don’t you go fretting about that. There do be plenty other jobs to do in a forest. Once them trees are cut down you need to get rid of the branches with a billhook and then we burn ’em. Careful, mind; the dry weather’s round the corner and we don’t want nobody setting off a blaze with a forgotten fag end or getting any ideas about campfires in the woods.’

  Frank stooped forward, his expression more sombre than before. His voice was nothing like them at home and Connie leaned in to follow the curls of his sentences, looping up and down, in and out like these bloody tools in front of her were no doubt supposed to.

  ‘Now you listen to me, my girls. Don’t go thinking that forestry’s easy work, or that every tree’s the same. There’s a lot as goes into cultivating a woodland like this one; it’s been around for centuries and it’ll still be standing once this war’s over and we’re all dead and gone, whichever way things turn out. This is more than just war work. This forest do matter more than any of us.’

  There was fire in his words.

  ‘Those of you fit to be measurers, you’ll mark up the tree according to what it’s being used for and then the rest of you will cross-cut to the right lengths. When that’s all sorted you take the bark off with the stripper and load it ready for freight.’

  Connie shifted from foot to foot, trying to concentrate. Once she was actually doing the job it would surely all start to make sense. She’d never met anyone who knew their job so inside out as Frank, who cared about it as much as Frank seemed to, not even the farmer and his wife at the last place. At the factory, nobody had given a monkey’s, not really. It was a laugh, a way to get a wage packet at the end of the week.

  Frank paused, shifting his weight off his gammy leg. ‘We’ll be keeping an eye on you all these next couple of weeks and deciding which forest you’re best suited to. They do need lots of help up in Scotland at the moment on them pines, so most of you will be off there when you’re done here. But that’s nothing for you to be thinking about now.’

  Moving again? Connie pinched her eyes shut. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the time for more flitting around; the next few months mattered like nothing else if she wanted to get herself sorted. But before she had a chance to speak up, Frank came amongst them, dividing them into pairs. He looked Connie up and down, assessing her without speaking to her, then pointed at Annie, a lunky girl from Brum who always seemed to know her stuff.

  They were all right, the other lumberjills had seemed friendly enough except maybe those in her dorm who thought she was stuck up. But she couldn’t risk anything going wrong again after that fiasco on the farm, so she kept a bit of distance. Soon enough they’d followed her lead, somewhat to her dismay, and kept theirs too.

  ‘Right then, ladies. We’ll start with cross-cutting the spruce for these pit props; nothing too tricky.’ Frank led them across to row upon row of tree trunks lying on the grass like an obstacle course. ‘One of you either side of the timber … that’s it. Find the measurers’ mark and that’s where
you put the teeth.’ He stepped between the rows and pointed at a white cross. ‘One of the long ones you’ve got here, girls.’

  Connie squatted beside the log, one leg stretched in front for balance, and picked up her end of the saw. ‘Like the original see-saw, this is,’ she called across to Annie.

  You could feel the saw biting when it was in the right groove, and then it was a matter of pulling as strongly and steadily as you could, and pushing – well, you didn’t really push, you guided your part of the blade as your partner pulled it through. Easy, really, supposing neither of you cocked it up and you could find a decent rhythm.

  At the other end of the saw, Annie couldn’t get it though, not at all.

  ‘Here, let me show you, girl.’ Frank took her place, squatted into position and signalled to Connie. The blade flew away from her, swift and certain through the wood, then paused, like a swing flying through the air and stopping at the top for that secret, stomach-jolting second.

  This was her cue. She pulled down on the saw, not too deep, but deep enough that the weight of the wood came up her arm, flew into her. Up, up, up it came … there it was. Top of the swing again. The air filled with a sharp, clean smell, like furniture polish again.

  ‘See it now? Nice and steady, like; don’t want to rush it, you don’t.’ Annie nodded, but she looked like she might cry. Poor cow. No good being all book-smart if you couldn’t do this bit.

  Frank nodded across at Connie. ‘Nice work there.’ She looked around but he really did mean her. Nobody had ever praised her for work before! She puffed out, just a little.

  Frank came over to her side and watched a minute longer. Up close like this she could see how heavily he was leaning on his good leg.

  ‘You done any timberwork before?’ She shook her head, watching the blade, checking the line matched to the pressure coming through her knuckles.

  ‘Factory, then dairy farm.’ If she closed her eyes she could still smell the farm, the hay and manure mingling with the surprising sweetness of warm milk. No way she was going to close her eyes with a saw in her hand, though.

  ‘Is that right? Might have to try you on a softwood in a bit. No time to waste with the amount we’ve got to get down.’ He scrutinised her face, then moved away. ‘Another hour then dinner break, ladies. Make it count.’

  The girls huddled round the campfire, taking it in turns to fill up mugs from the billycan. Connie had got in quickly and now she leaned back against the stump of the old oak and stretched her legs out until they nearly touched the fire in front. She yawned and the bark dug into her back as it arched, cold and scratchy.

  Beside her, Hetty pulled a face at her tin mug. ‘It’s warm and wet but I still don’t know how they get away with calling it tea.’

  Connie laughed and reached behind her for the twist of sugar they’d all pooled their rations for. It was precious, this sugar; seemed like years since they’d been able to just spoon it in willy-nilly. But she was having a good day at last and chatting to Hetty kept the collywobbles at bay. Connie needed that more than she needed her sugar ration right now.

  ‘Here, put some of this in it. It’ll take the edge off.’ Who ever had proper tea any more? But in the couple of weeks she’d been in the Forest there’d been no mention of rations, not really, though the girls had all handed in their books at Horse Face’s command. All the same, the hostel barely seemed to run out of things, which was more than could have been said for back home. Was it just that these local types were better at making their own stuff? Those baskets from the hostel were full of hunks and hunks of fresh white doorstops with slabs of dead sharp cheese in them, and it didn’t half go down a treat after a morning’s hard graft. That didn’t explain the tea though; maybe the hostel’s cook bartered it with some of them foreign prisoners who didn’t believe in a cup of hot brew. Poor bastard Eyeties. It’d be bad enough to be actually out there, dodging bullets, not knowing if you’d live to see the next day, never mind getting stuck afterwards in a wire pen in the middle of a forest, with less freedom than even the sodding sheep seemed to get here. It’s not like they were the Jerries, after all. She was a bit hazy on the facts but the Eyeties hadn’t started anything, as far as she knew.

  Connie squirmed against the stump, picked up her mug and gulped. It was bitter without the sugar, but she tried not to mind.

  ‘What with the fire, the snap and now the sun, it’s a miracle I’m still awake. Better cop on quickly before Frank gets me out there with those leftover forestry blokes of his. There’s no way they’re better than me at getting trees down, that ragtag bunch of leftover soldiers. Half of them look older than the trees, and Frank reckons some of the trees are hundreds of years old.’

  Now it was Hetty’s turn to laugh. ‘As if being a bit dozy would cause you any hassle. You’re running rings round most of us already. I shrieked when you got that first tree down; couldn’t believe they’d let any of us do something like that on our first morning out.’

  Connie’s eyes lit up. ‘Nor did I! I think Frank was trying to prove a point to his men, tell you the truth, show them a girl can learn it too. I don’t care though; I love it. That feeling when the saw hooks in and you skip through the wood; and the point where it starts to tilt and you know you did the first cut just right, positioned the wedge at the perfect angle for the tree to fall right where you need it. You have to think it through and at the same time it’s just gut. It gave me a proper kick to get it right. Didn’t know I could like a job like I do this one.’ She took another swig of tea. It was less bitter this time.

  ‘I joined the factory in 1941, when I was fifteen, but it almost felt like more school, just with a bit more of a laugh at the end of the day. I’ve been itching to do something that feels like I’m properly helping, d’you know what I mean? What if this is it? Making munitions was all right, reckon a few of the parts I made might have ended up in a plane or two that knocked Jerry out of the sky, you know? But really I was just part of the line.’ She snorted. ‘And squeezing a cow’s teats to make sure the last of the milk came out? That was just peculiar. But when that tree came down earlier, I thought, that’s me. I did that. If I hadn’t been here, done that, that tree wouldn’t have come down. I could be helping out the navy, Hetty, with all this wood. Frank might say forestry’s not just about the war effort, but I’ve seen the war up close, not like he has down here, and I want it to be war effort. It can be whatever Frank needs it to be too, long as he keeps me out here.’

  Connie threw her arms wide. What a load of nonsense she was spouting. But finally she was doing something to help rather than just a series of cock-ups that took her further and further from any kind of decent life, war or no war.

  ‘I dare say I’d feel like that about it too if I was half as good as you.’ Hetty reached for the sugar again, tilted it so that the last grains ran from the twist of paper. She threw the paper onto the fire and it flamed blue from the residue.

  ‘Finished it. Sorry.’

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for.’ You took it where you got it; Connie couldn’t begrudge Hetty that sugar.

  Connie glanced across the clearing. Logs were arranged around the fire, and at the edges were great piles of leftover twigs and branches – brush, she was supposed to call it now – ready for burning or for taking to the sawmill to be turned to woodchip. Frank’s hut stood off to the left, flanked by two giant gnarled tree trunks, which must be what he called old-growth to judge by their size. She didn’t have the foggiest what kind of trees they were, though, just old ones.

  The hut looked to be made out of oddments that would otherwise have gone on the fire, and she was amazed that it didn’t fall down, all those planks seemingly just laid one against another. The door was propped open with still another bit of wood, one of the boughs from lopping that should be on the clearance pile, by the looks of things. Frank was at his table in the middle of the tiny room. He had his head down over a pile of papers and didn’t seem to be bothering with his food, even though C
onnie’s mouth watered just to look at it. She was starving all the time these days.

  Just then he stood up, stretched as if kip was a long way off yet, then stepped outside the hut and heaved the door-prop bough out of the way.

  ‘Ready to get started again, Granger? Give it another couple of days and we’ll try you on the felling sites proper. It’s not every girl that gets the hang of it but looks like you might.’

  Connie stood and twisted round to rub the small of her back. Pride bubbled, mixed in with relief. Frank didn’t seem the sort to mess around and it had been a long time since anyone had thought she was up to much. She’d been right to sign up with the WTC, not that she’d had much choice in the end. Her arms were heavy and the insides of her fingers were rubbed raw, but the weight of the worry had eased off, ever so slightly. If all this shoving around of logs solved the other thing … that wasn’t so bad, either. These aches were good ones. They’d replace the ones that crowded in if she let herself think.

  Four

  Gloucestershire Regiment

  Shropshire

  12th April, 1944

  Dear Father,

  I trust this finds you well. Isn’t that how you’re supposed to start a letter? Been years since old Miss Turner taught us that at school. Mind, she’d have me putting ‘Dear Sir’, but it seems a bit daft to go all formal.

  Feels funny enough to be putting pen to paper to you at all, but here I am outside the forest and there’s you tucked in it, and this is the only way I can find my way back to it until I get some leave. Don’t reckon that’ll happen for a good while, neither. Best we can hope for is that this war is done soon and I’ll be back in time for next year’s lambing, even if I’ve missed it this year. Don’t go overdoing it. Frank will send one of the lads to give you a hand if you give him the nod. I know you don’t like to ask for help but the sheep traipse miles up and down the forest, and even with Bess it’s a lot of ground to cover.