to his memory.
“Mind your step. That’s it,” he said with a nervous chuckle as a young soldier climbed up. Finch glanced back at the surreal sight of the train and its carriages sprawled across a large area of grassland. The fire fighters had arrived and were trying to extinguish a blaze in the middle section. Some distance away, a large group of passengers were huddled together, being treated by a few village doctors and nurses. Some soldiers were building a pile of luggage as they recovered what they could from the wrecked train.
“I was just saying I wished you’d pick us up. And here you are.”
Finch looked round to the sound of the voice. It was Joyce Fisher, bruised and suffering some small lacerations to her face, but otherwise all right. She’d recovered from the shock of what had happened and found her voice. She had a hair pin in her mouth and was busy tidying her hair as she walked towards the trailer.
“I’m like the genie of the lamp.” Finch giggled.
“Mind you, didn’t think I’d have to go through all this to get a lift.”
Finch beamed a large grin. “Thank heavens you’re all right. That’s the main thing, eh?”
He plucked her from the ground and spun her round – chuckling with relief.
Joyce winced. Finch put her down awkwardly.
“Bruises.” Joyce grimaced.
“Sorry, got carried away!” Finch chuckled. Realising that he was being watched by rows of blank eyes on the trailer, he placed his thick fingers on his lower back as it twinged with pain. “Overdone it.”
Frederick Finch gave bed and board to Joyce – as well to Esther Reeves, the Land Girls’ warden, her teenage son and three other Land Girls. Within the boundaries of the Hoxley estate, Pasture Farm sported a homely and quaint little cottage in its vast expanse of fields and outbuildings. Before the war, it had just been home to Finch and his young son Billy, but now Billy had gone away to fight and the house was rammed full of new people, the vibrant chatter and noise making it once more not just a house but a home. Finch enjoyed having the house feel so alive, full of strangers who became friends. It reminded him of before. It reminded him of when his wife was there, the fire roaring as she laid on feasts for their friends, a house full of laughter.
As Finch watched Joyce get up onto the hay trailer, he poked a stubby finger in the air and counted how many people he had on board. Joyce hid her amusement that Finch’s mouth moved while he counted.
Reaching a tally in his head, Finch frowned. Someone was missing.
“Where’s Connie?”
Nearer the wreckage, the young nine-year-old girl with blonde curls was wrapped in a blanket as the village doctor, Dr Wally Morgan, checked her leg for injury. He was a well-meaning but often drunken man in his fifties; a man unused to having to use his limited medical knowledge on such a scale.
“How’s that?” Wally asked, manipulating her ankle.
The girl winced. He’d got his answer.
“Point your toes to the ground. Can you do that, dear?”
The girl tried her best. Her foot was moving fairly well. “Hurts a bit, I think.”
“I don’t think it’s broken,” Wally said, tapping her shoulder by way of closure as he got to his feet. He plucked up his medical bag, ready to move to the next patient. “Probably just a bad bruise. It’ll go a pretty old purple over the next day or so, I’ll wager.”
Wally Morgan scanned the huddles of patients and helpers, deciding where to go next. This was a lot more activity than he was used to as a village doctor. He was already feeling that he’d reward himself with a drink or two tonight. This felt like proper war work, a step above looking at Mrs Gulliver’s bunions. Wanting an easy win, he managed to ignore a man with a twisted leg and set off to see a young man who had a bleeding temple.
As she’d stood in the wrecked doorway, smoke billowing out around her, Connie Carter had felt the searing heat of the fire on her back. It felt as though it was already burning though her Land Army sweater; angry orange tendrils trying to fry her skin. The heat could overcome her at any time and topple her, unconscious, back into the burning carriage. That would be the end of it. As she stood there, it only took a fraction of a second, but for Connie the moment stretched out forever. She gripped the sides of the doorway, her boots crossing the threshold. A clump of mud fell from one boot. Dimly she thought of the station master at Brinford with his broom and his short temper.
“Mind you don’t mess up my burning train.”
A bloom of black smoke belched from the back of the carriage and engulfed Connie, pulled past her into the fresh air. There wasn’t enough air to breathe. Connie felt herself totter, woozy, losing focus. She steadied herself, blinking to try to clear her head. More smoke rushed past her. It was getting harder to breathe, the air dry and somehow thin. She tried to focus and force herself forward. But her fuzzy brain suddenly couldn’t work out which way was forward. Even though the opening was inches in front of her, she was disorientated and looking around for the way. But the black smoke was rushing past her, like a biblical plague of suited commuters. She couldn’t see anything, even though logic should have told her to follow the direction the smoke was heading in. Towards the air. But logic wasn’t working.
Connie swooned, almost fell. There was nothing left in her lungs. She couldn’t see and all she could hear was the rush of smoke and the crackle of burning wood somewhere in the distance.
A gust of wind saved her life.
Outside the carriage, the wind poked a brief hole in the billowing blackness that was exiting the door. For a moment, Connie could see a soldier sitting on the grass in the distance, a man in shock being treated by a nurse.
She knew she had to head in that direction.
The flames staged one last attempt to grasp her, but Connie launched herself from the doorway, following the brief glimpse of light she’d seen. Her lungs were gasping as she fell in a heap on the ground. Looking behind, she saw tall flames consuming the carriage, dancing, blowing the glass out from the windows. One second longer and she would have been overcome with smoke and she would have collapsed into that inferno.
It had been a narrow miss.
Connie sobbed in relief and took hungry mouthfuls of air. Each breath made her hack up the acrid smoke that had tried to take over her lungs. It took several minutes before she could speak, and even as she got her voice back, the coughing would be there to remind her of her lucky escape.
Now Connie Carter sat on the grass drinking tea from a mug. Some villagers had lit a fire and were boiling a kettle to provide hot drinks for the wounded. The tea was weak and milky but it hit the spot. Connie noticed the young girl from the carriage and moved over towards her.
“How you feeling?” Connie asked.
“All right. Your face is all black.”
Connie laughed. She hadn’t seen herself, but she supposed that it would be. Certainly a thin smear of greasy soot covered her arms and hands. It probably caked some of her face too. She offered the mug. “Want some tea? It’s weaker than a kitten, but it hits the spot.”
The girl shook her head. “Not
