The quick-thinking driver threw the wheel, and the Bedford lurched, missing the men, but slamming Dot and Maisie hard against each other. The driver swore loudly, and Maisie heard shouts from behind. She looked back, expecting to see raised fists and angry faces, but instead, the two men were waving enthusiastically and shouting something at the truck. Before Maisie could stop her, Dot was waving back.
“Dot, don’t!” Maisie grabbed her friend’s hand.
“Why not? They were only being friendly.” Dot retrieved her hand from under Maisie’s and started waving again. “See?”
Maisie looked back as one of the men—the darker-haired of the two—lifted one hand in the air, flourishing a lit cigarette, and bent low in a deep, if slightly unsteady, Jacobean bow.
Neither girl could suppress their laughter at this ridiculous gesture, even as they were again bumped together when the driver negotiated a tight turn up another track between high hedges. Back on the road, the blond man shoved against his still-bowing friend, knocking him off-balance, though somehow the dark-haired man managed not to fall. As they disappeared from view behind a hedge, the two of them were wrestling like little boys after school, apparently having already forgotten about the girls in the truck.
Something dawned on Maisie then. She knew the dark-haired man with the broad smile and the deep bow. She’d seen him before, she was sure. After the swerve, the men were already some distance away, so she hadn’t gotten a close look at his face. But his dark hair and his lopsided gait as he walked were triggering something in her mind. And that smile was somehow so familiar.
As they pulled up in front of two large log huts, set at right angles to each other with other smaller huts beyond, the puzzle piece slipped into place. The man looked exactly like the American chap—or had he been Canadian?—who had danced with her a few weeks ago in Brechin, the awful dancer, the one who had left her in the lurch. But what were the chances of it being him? And if it was, what the hell was he doing here?
The driver killed the engine, and Maisie and Dot clambered down, stretching their aching muscles and looking around for any sign of life.
Maisie dismissed the idea that she knew the man. It couldn’t be the same chap—that would be ridiculous. They were hours away from where she’d met him and the coincidence would be too great.
But what had that chap’s name been again? James, or Jack? Maisie tried to tell herself she couldn’t quite remember, all the while knowing that was a lie.
She knew his name. It had been John. John Lindsay.
Just then, a girl appeared, coming at a trot around the corner of the farthest hut. She looked to be only a year or two older than Dot, and she was tall, with a wide smile and a healthy tan, her brown hair loosely plaited into two thick braids. She was wearing WTC overalls, but also a brown leather jerkin, sleeveless and with wide pockets, out of which were hanging several leather straps.
Pulling the straps out of her pocket, she smiled and waved at them as she approached.
“Hello, everyone!” she called as if to a crowd, instead of only three people, and Maisie could now see that what she held was a horse’s bridle. “Come on, let’s find you somewhere to dump your things. You all look exhausted, and I bet none of you would refuse a cup of tea. No sugar, I’m afraid. We haven’t had any for a couple of weeks now.”
She picked up Dot’s suitcase and made for the hut on the left. “But we did get some honey on the sly from Mr. Macallan at the farm this morning, and that’s almost as good, isn’t it?”
She turned and grinned over her shoulder, clearly delighted to have found a way around the strict sugar-rationing rules. Dot followed along, apparently so mesmerized by the girl, she didn’t even object to the girl carrying her bag.
At the door of the hut, the girl turned, seeing only then that the driver had followed too.
“Sorry, love!” she said to him cheerfully. “You can’t come in here, since it’s our dormitory hut, but if you go into the mess hut through that door there, I’ll get this pair settled and come over to get a brew on. Is that all right?”
The driver nodded, and as he walked in the direction she had pointed, he pulled cigarettes and matches from his pocket and lit up.
Turning back, the girl said, “As I said, this hut is where we sleep, that one there is the mess hut and kitchen, and then at the back is the lavatory and shower block, or the Blue Lagoon, as we like to call it around here.”
Maisie and Dot laughed at that and the girl looked delighted.
“Oh, almost forgot! My name’s Nancy, and today, I’m your Auchterblair welcoming committee. On any normal day, though, I look after the horses.” She waggled the bridle at them. “Actually, only one horse now, since we lost Elsie.”
“Lost her?” cried Dot. “Oh no! How did she die?”
“Oh, no, she didn’t die. No, we lost her to the camp at Grantown. But we’ve still got Clyde. You’ll meet him in the morning, sweet old chap.” Nancy pulled open the door. “Clyde’s a big handsome Clydesdale—he’ll pull anything that’s too big to haul by hand, especially useful up on the hills, when the trucks can’t always get close.”
Maisie felt her mouth dry and her throat tighten. Why did it have to be a Clydesdale and not a donkey? The memory of her encounter with the rag-and-bone man’s massive beast, Charlie, was making her pulse race.
But no, she was not a child anymore. She was a lumberjill now, and she could handle being beside a horse without bursting into tears.
At least, she hoped she could.
“Do you two like horses then?” Nancy said as she waved them inside.
“Actually,” Maisie said as she passed Nancy, “I’m not much of a horsewoman. I’d rather stick to my ax and saw.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re scared of an old horse?” A strident voice came from the far end of the hut. “How silly!”
Looking around the gloomy room, Maisie saw a dozen or so neatly made beds lined up on either side, iron headboards against the walls. Two small windows let in only a little of the bright sunshine from outside. In the far corner, in the low light from a paraffin lamp, a woman was sitting in an upright chair at a table, shuffling several pieces of paper into a pile in front of her. As Maisie watched, the woman brought a rubber stamp down with two emphatic thumps—once on an inkpad and once on the top sheet of paper—and thrust the papers into a large envelope, winding the little string around the button with perfectly manicured fingernails to close it up. She was exquisitely made up, with perfect lipstick and primped blond hair neatly rolled, suggesting that she might not spend as much time with an ax and saw as Maisie and Dot had been. Maisie tucked her own cracked and crusty hands into her pockets and wondered what she should say in response.
Before she could decide, the woman stood up and consulted a typewritten sheet on a green metal clipboard before approaching Maisie and Dot.
“So, you’re my new recruits, are you?” she drawled, reaching out a hand, giving Maisie no option but to shake it, blisters or not. Closer up, Maisie could see that the woman was probably only in her midtwenties. “My name is Violet Dunlavy, and I’m the WTC officer in charge around here. So as long as you girls do exactly what is expected of you, we’ll all get along nicely. Isn’t that right, Nancy?”
Nancy was now leaning against the doorjamb, and Maisie got the distinct impression that she was trying not to roll her eyes.
“That’s right, Violet,” Nancy replied, her friendly tone sounding only a little forced, “we’re all one happy family here.” She walked up to the other end of the dormitory and set Dot’s suitcase next to a pile of linen at