Interrupted Journey

Chapter 10 - Hunger times

As February turned to March, work on the farm started to pick up and there just wasn't enough food for the work we were trying to do.

We were down to a starvation diet and we were all becoming thin and weak. The seed potatoes and lambing sheep were looking increasingly tempting but we knew that eating them now was a guarantee of starvation next year.

We ate the last scrap of everything. The few vegetables that were left were washed and eaten whole, nobody thought about peeling them; the single tin we occasionally allowed ourselves to add to the stewpot was rinsed with so much water it gleamed and every scrap of the single sheep we allowed ourselves per week was eaten - down to the bones which were given to the dogs. It was when I discovered Emily and Elizabeth sucking the juice out of the sheepskin that had already been boiled for stock that I knew that things were getting bad. Frustratingly enough, it was at this time that egg production from the chickens dropped off and we seriously considered culling their numbers even further and adding the stringy chicken meat to our diet.

We thought about food all the time but, by unspoken agreement, we tried to avoid talking about it. It just caused frustration and bad temper. I was glad that we had prepared so much wood the previous autumn. It was one less labour intensive job that had to be done in our starving state. The fields had to be prepared again but at least there weren't the same number of stones to be cleared as last year.

"Mam's stopped eating again," Susan told me one evening in bed. We were spending a lot of time in bed these days. The lack of food meant we were tired all of the time. "Ned too... and I'm letting them."

Even in the midst of the crisis I was shocked that Susan would be complicit in this self sacrificial suicide. On reflection, it explained why the meals of late had been slightly larger than our budget allowed.

I went down and talked to her the next day on my way down to the bridge.

"My spy tells me that you've stopped eating again," I said to her.

"We 'ave," she confirmed. "I might not 'ave the lists and spread things.."

"Spreadsheets," I said automatically though I hadn't seen one for over a year.

"...but I can see how much we 'ave in t'larder and I can see as 'ow it ain't enough."

"But we..."

"...an' if thou tries to say as 'ow it is I'll gi' thee a clip round t'earole for lyin'."

"But we don't want to lose you, Mam."

"An' I ain't sayin it don't mean owt that you want me but we're all 'avin' to learn t'ard way as how there's a difference between wanting an needin'. I want to see me grandkids grow up but I need to know as how they're goin' to. I promised you t'year and that's what you've 'ad."

This wasn't even driven by depression at the loss of Tom. She and Ned were deliberately starving themselves to death so that the rest of us would have a better chance of surviving. I took her in my arms and kissed her.

"Oh give over, you great daft lummox," she said but there were tears in her eyes.

We scoured the countryside for anything we could eat. On one marvelous day the boys managed to snare four rabbits. Though we knew it was fat and carbohydrate we needed rather than skinny rabbit protein, it was still wonderful to get up from the table with a full stomach for a change.

And then we lost our unborn baby.

I was on a patrol on the tops with Mike when it happened and, by the time I had been located and relieved, it was already too late.