you have children, you should never be without an emergency hankie or spare underwear,” she would say.
Pete had even asked one day if she had a full roast dinner in there, to which he’d received a playful clip behind the ear for being so cheeky.
“Hey Maggie,” came a sudden shout.
Maggie glanced around but couldn’t tell where the familiar voice had come from. All she could see were row upon neat row of Bramley apple trees. As delicious as the apples looked, she knew from painful experience that she couldn’t eat them uncooked as they gave her a tummy ache and the runs. That hadn’t been a good day.
“Maggie, Maggie,” the call sounded again.
Maggie jumped up and down with excitement, as she loved to play hide and seek. “Pete and Billy, just you come here.” There were two dull thumps behind her in quick succession as the boys jumped down from the thicker lower branches and landed on the luscious green grass leaving two pairs of flattened boot prints.
“What are you doing, Maggie?” asked Pete.
“Where are all the other kids?” asked Billy, as he looked around, “you shouldn’t wander off too far on your own.”
“They’re here somewhere playing hide and seek, but I wanted more buttercups,” she explained, “here Billy.”
He walked over to her and stuck out his chin as he bent down, used to this procedure.
“It means you love butter,” exclaimed Maggie excitedly. “The buttercup makes your chin go all yellowy.”
“Yes, we love butter,” said Pete, “but we don’t get to eat it often with the war on.”
“What are you doing?”
“Catapulting,” they answered together. “Want to see?”
“Yes please,” she clapped.
All three of them walked a short distance further up the apple orchard towards the hop field that was almost ready for harvesting. Pete produced a homemade catapult from his trouser pocket and handed it to Maggie, she thought it was the oddest thing she had ever seen.
“What’s it do?”
“Watch,” said Billy, as he gestured that she keep her eyes on Pete.
As if by magic Pete produced from his other pocket a very small apple, about the size of a snail shell. Pete took the catapult from Maggie and inserted the apple into its pouch and held it outstretched at eye level. Maggie was totally enthralled, wondering what on earth they could possibly be doing.
“Right Maggie,” said Billy “look at that big spider web over there, attached between the gate and the first hop pole, see it?”
“Yes.”
“Keep watching.”
Just then there was a swift whoosh in unison with the twang of elastic as the apple shot right through the centre of the spider’s web about twenty feet away. The apple landed a short distance beyond the gate encased in the almost transparent web that gleamed from the early morning dew. Only seconds before the web was intact and securely anchored and now the remains shook from the force; the spider would go without its dinner today.
Maggie stood motionless; she had never seen anything quite like it.
“You okay Maggie?” asked Pete gently, a little concerned.
“I want a turn,” she said with excitement as she held out her hands for the catapult. Pete produced another small apple from his pocket and stood behind Maggie to teach her how to fire.
“Not too close to your face or it could hurt,” said Billy absently stroking his ear and recalling a time when he’d caught his ear and the elastic had pinged near his eye. “Better to put it to the side, away from your eyes. I’ll help you with the first go and then you can do it.”
Maggie stood to attention and let Pete guide her hands into position before they fired, aiming at the gate this time. It was a good launch; the apple flew out of the catapult and hit the target splitting on impact. The juice dripped down to the middle section of the gate that would soon be a magnet for all kinds of bugs to feed on.
“Again,” she said excitedly.
“Load her up, Billy,” said Pete joyfully.
Maggie again stood to attention and unconsciously stuck out her tongue as she concentrated with all her might on hitting the gate. She carefully pulled the elastic backwards and closed her eyes before she released with gusto. To their amazement and amusement, the apple bounced a few inches skywards and then plonked at her feet. All three of them burst out laughing. There was a definite skill involved, as it wasn’t as easy as it looked.
For the second attempt they decided to move closer to the gate. Maggie loaded, aimed and fired and the elastic bounded upwards and pinged her fingers much to the amusement of the boys.
“This is heaps fun,” said Pete laughing.
“Again,” said Maggie, with a more determined look on her face while trying to ignore her stinging fingers. She re-loaded, aimed and fired. The apple left the catapult in a non-urgent manner and landed three feet away. Maggie was impressed at this improvement. Just then, the familiar sound announced the morning break. The echo carried around the orchard as one of the ladies banged on an old metal drum with a small wooden plank.
“Race you,” shouted Maggie, dropping the catapult and running towards the shed. Pete retrieved the catapult and tucked it back in his pocket, out of sight of the adults, before running after Maggie. They caught up easily and Billy crouched down for Maggie to climb up for a piggyback.
The workers and children sat together in the orchard in a circle enjoying the glorious late summer’s day. The younger children sat on the grass and swished their feet through the long blades whereas the older children and adults sat on apple boxes. Mrs Farley, in particular, believed that if she sat on the grass she wouldn’t be able to get up again.
Mothers passed their children beakers of squash and sandwiches and often shared their rations of homemade buns. The adults had flasks of tea and chatted, catching up on local topics and what was happening with the war.
“Do you know what bothers me the most?” said Iris. “It’s the fact that the war is all that my poor Maggie knows. She was only three when this started. What kind of a childhood is that? We could be killed at any minute, like when we were out during the air raid recently, my life, and her life, could be over before it has had a chance to start. It’s not fair.” She bit her lip. It wasn’t Maggie’s life that she was particularly worried about.
“Ay, know what you’re saying love,” said old Mr Gibbs, “Maggie’ll be alright, you’ll see. Kids are pretty resilient, but they haven’t the freedom growing up that we knew and took for granted. Yes, I’ve seen some tragic things in my lifetime with living through both wars, this one’ll be over soon, mark my words.”
“Maggie’s a bright happy child, Iris,” said Betty, “We were more or less kids ourselves during the last war. Okay, we were older than my Pete and Billy but we coped unscathed didn’t we? It’ll be the same for your Maggie, we’re tough ’ol
