One of the ladies on the committee here whispered to me that I had made a mistake. The girl’s father was no ‘Butler’. He was a ‘Cutler’—a gipsy man who went about the village streets grinding knives on a wheel. We eventually managed to find out something about the girl, and we took her. She was a wild creature, supremely good at managing horses and cattle, but quite unable to live with other girls in the hostel. She refused to eat in a room with other people, but she would heap her food on a plate and go away alone to eat it outside. She told me strange stories of her life. One winter they found an empty house in a lonely part of the downs, and then a lot of other gipsies joined them and they took possession of it and lived there all through the winter. If anyone was seen approaching, the gipsies cleared out and hid in a wood near-by till the stranger had passed. They lit no lights at night lest these should betray them; and the rooms in the house were dark except on moonlight nights. Sometimes tremendous fights sprang up in the darkness. They often began by a man giving his wife a thrashing. The woman screamed and so did other women. One after another joined in till the brawl became general, everybody hitting out right and left. After a time the floor used to become oddly slippery, and then in the morning they would find it covered with blood.
Now that the Land Army was an official organization, we had to keep a great many fresh rules. We soon had five or six training schools in different parts of the county, and one of my first official jobs was to hold a court martial in one of these, on a girl who one night got out of bed and clambered out of the window. I acted as President of the Court and a Board of Agriculture official came to show us how to conduct the case. I never saw a more hideous monster than the prisoner, and the Prosecuting Officer asked her a question which I thought was a foolish one, as there seemed no likelihood of its being answered. She said:
‘What did you go out for?’
The girl would have made her fortune on the stage. She took every advantage of her hideous face, and showed great histrionic skill in pausing for some time before she answered, and turning her head from side to side with the most ridiculously coy expression. This interval attracted all eyes to her face, and then she said with a grin:
‘Because two boys wanted to see me again.’
Obviously no boy could ever wish to see her once, much less twice; and I had great difficulty in saving myself from breaking into a fou rire which would have ruined my reputation in the Land Army.
One morning I got an S.O.S. message from one of our North Wilts workers asking me to come at once to deal with a most critical case. When I arrived I found that this lady had been away from home for a few days, during which her secretary opened a letter from a farmer’s wife complaining that her husband was carrying on a liaison with one of the milkers whom we had sent him. The secretary at once wrote and accused the farmer of seducing the girl and threatened to remove her. The farmer declared that he would prosecute the Land Army for defamation of character and he demanded the name of the informer. The wife implored not to be given away.
I could not think what to do, and could only rely on my very official appearance in stiff khaki uniform, which made me look a great deal more important than I felt. Two members of the Committee came with me and we were shown into the dining-room to wait. As I sat there I prayed earnestly that I might know what to say when the farmer appeared. I looked out of the window and saw him going out of the house and disappearing among the sheds with a gun in his hand, and I sat for some time expecting to hear a report. I did not. After a while he came in, still carrying the gun, and he sat down facing me on the opposite side of the dinner-table, against which he leant the gun. Thus we faced each other—I, flanked by my two lady supporters, and he with his quaking wife on one side, and on the other, the rather impudent-looking girl who had been accused.
I opened the interview by saying in a very dignified tone:
‘If you will look at your contract, you will find that the Land Army has the right of moving its members from farm to farm at its own discretion. I propose now to remove Jane Smith from here. I think you probably know my reason, but I advise you not to ask me for it’.
He looked taken aback, and said after a moment:
‘Will this do any injury to the girl?’
I told him he could leave that to me.
By this time he looked frightened and he said:
‘What am I to do if you take my milkers away? I have seventy cows in milk and only one man to milk them. Will you let me have another girl?’
I answered: ‘I will ask your wife what she thinks about that.’ Then, turning to the wife, I said: ‘Would you like to have another milker?’
She said that she would. Neither the farmer nor the girl had another word to say and I made the exchange
