#war effort

As advertised in the catalogue from which they’d hired the damn thing:

In two minutes —

A lad can fit a plough

In two hours —

The lad can learn to use it

In two days —

He can plough two acres!

Good for the lad, Robin thinks sarcastically.

Their — genuinely trusty — Fordson tractor is sitting idle in the barn, because it’s just too big to cope with the awkward slope of Found Field, so they’re stuck with this thing that looks like the bastard child of a tractor and a wheelbarrow, with long handles behind a motor on wheels. Robin is meant to be able to hang on to those handles and walk behind it as it pulls a plough, but she has grave misgivings about the whole enterprise.

The tagline reads: ‘Even a Land Girl Can Use It!’ across a photo of a perfectly coiffed Land Girl smiling like she’s having the time of her life ploughing a field.

In contrast, Robin is not having the time of her life; she’s already, wet, cold and liberally spattered with mud and they haven’t even got the bloody thing started. Then the Trusty Tractor gives a cough, lurches wildly forward, nearly pulling Robin off her feet before stalling.

“Well, it’s got some power to it,” Mike says conversationally.

“I think this could go horribly wrong,” predicts Robin, eyeing the steep slope she’s meant to be ploughing down.

In the end they tie a rope from Eubie’s harness to the tractor because in the absence of her preferred bribe nothing’s going to shift two tonnes of horseflesh. At least that way if it all goes wrong they’ll be able to pull the tractor out of the gully.

What they don’t factor in is that if the tractor does head off down the hill, it’s going to take Robin with it. That’s exactly the chain of events in motion when there’s a yell from the farmyard and Nancy hurls herself at Robin, wrapping her arms around Robin’s waist and digging her heels into the slippery turf as they haul together against the machine’s torque.

“Put it down a gear!” Nancy urges.

“It IS on the lowest gear!” Robin says desperately.

“Oh crumbs,” Nancy mutters and Robin wishes she’d swear properly; the situation definitely warrants it. “Abandon ship?” she suggests.

“It took us a full hour to start this absolute c— cow of a thing,” says Robin through gritted teeth, “there’s no way I’m not ploughing this field.” Her arms feel like they’re being pulled out of their sockets.

In the spirit of experiment Nancy lets go of Robin’s waist. Without her extra weight the plough jumps out of the furrow and the tractor begins to run away. Robin shrieks and Nancy flings herself back onto Robin.

“Looks like we’re in this together,” Nancy says, holding Robin tight. A fortnight ago, Robin might have enjoyed this without thinking about it, but now she’s painfully aware of every place where their bodies touch.