“Absolutely perfect.” She took a deep breath. “And what’s more, he asked me to marry him.”

“You’re engaged?” Daisy asked excitedly.

Emily nodded.

“Hearty congratulations, Emily,” Mrs Anson said. “I am so pleased for you.”

“But don’t he come from Australia?” Alice asked.

“He does. And we’ll be going back there after the war.”

“All the way to Australia?” Ruby looked terrified. “My, but that’s so far. And all them kangaroos and things.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be with him,” Emily said. “Not long now, so Robbie told me. He gets the latest news from the navy. That German offensive—it was just a desperate last attempt to stop the Allies’ advance. He reckons it will all be over before Christmas.”

“Saints be praised for that,” Maureen said. “Four years of our lives wasted.”

“So many men’s lives wasted,” Mrs Anson said quietly.

“Here comes old Crosspatch,” Daisy warned. “We’d better be working or else.”

They returned to their harvesting. The rain had made the red soil even heavier, and they had to take turns digging out the plants with the big fork.

“I never thought I’d want to milk cows or look after pigs, but after this, it seems like a piece of cake,” Daisy commented as she lifted a plant free and the rest of the girls squatted to pick the tiny tubers.

“Cows have to be milked at five in the morning,” Alice pointed out.

“Ah, but I’m used to that,” Daisy responded. “Always up at five in the big house.” She moved closer to Emily. “So where do you think your wedding will be? At your home here in Devon?”

The full memory of the quarrel with her parents came back to her. Her mother would never agree to her marrying Robbie—that was obvious. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve no idea. We’ll take that one step at a time.”

“Did he give you a ring?” Maureen called.

“It was all rather sudden,” Emily said. “He hadn’t intended to propose to me. He didn’t think I’d want his life in Australia. But then he said he couldn’t live without me. So he didn’t have a ring ready. He’s going to try and send me one, but I don’t know how that will be possible at the front. We’ll just have to wait until he comes back. But that’s fine.”

However, two days later, a small package arrived. It was waiting with the rest of the post on the hall table when they came in from the fields. The rest of the women crowded around Emily. “Go on. Open it!” voices urged. Emily would rather have opened it in private, but she could not disappoint them. Inside was a letter.

My own darling girl,

We stopped in Dover between the train and the boat. Some of the blokes took the chance to pop to the nearest shops for cigarettes. I didn’t have time go to a proper jewellers’, but I saw this in a pawn shop window, and I thought it would do until we can choose a real ring together.

Emily opened the small box. It was a small gold band with a row of tiny inset rubies. Emily’s fingers trembled as she took it out and put it on. The women gave sighs of happiness.

“Isn’t it pretty?” Emily held it up to show them.

“You’ve got a good bloke there, Emily, love,” Alice said.

“You don’t know how I’m wishing that would happen to me,” Maureen said dreamily. “I think I’ll have to come out to Australia to visit you and you can introduce me to his friends.”

“We’re going to live out in the middle of nowhere on a farm,” Emily said. “I don’t think you’d find it much fun.”

“Well, maybe not a farm. I’ll have had my fill of farming by the time this is over. How many more potatoes can there be in the world?”

“It might be something worse after this,” Maud said gloomily.

“What could be worse than digging up potatoes all day?” Maureen demanded.

“Mucking out pigs?”

They nodded agreement.

“I heard that we’ll be done here by the end of the week,” Mrs Anson said.

Emily slipped off to their room. She sat looking at the ring on her finger, then she took it off, put it in its little box and tucked the box under her pillow. She wasn’t going to risk wearing it in the fields.

Perry’s Farm

Devon

August 8, 1918

My dear Clarissa,

I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while, but we’ve been worked so hard that I’ve had no time to breathe, let alone write. By the time we come back to the farm after twelve hours working in the fields, we are almost too tired to eat the stew or meat pudding that’s waiting for us, and we fall asleep instantly after.

But luckily we have dug up our last potato and moved on to something new. We are haymakers! We are learning to use a scythe, which looks terrifying. One wrong sweep and we cut off our feet at the ankles! Then we have to rake, bundle and bring the bundles to the haystack. The farmer does the actual stacking. He’s much nicer than the last grumpy man, although he does get a good laugh out of our pathetic attempts at scything.

And I’ve good news I’ve been dying to share with you. Robbie asked me to marry him and I said yes. We’ll get married as soon as he is out of uniform and I’ll go out to him in Australia. And in answer to your unspoken question: no, my parents do not know, nor would they approve. They have made it quite clear what they think of Robbie. It is a terrifying thought that I’ll never see them again, but I had to choose, and I chose a man who loves me.