The Wind in the Grass

By Colin Cossor

Life in the village of Hammerwell, situated in a remote part of Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, would appear, on the surface, to be a peaceful rural existence. Set in the period between the two world wars, the order of things is still very much as it has been for hundreds of years. But for Arthur Lever, life suddenly takes a dramatic turn. Set against a background of rural life, seed time, harvest, ploughing and lambing, The Wind in the Grass has lust, romance, cruelty, violence and sudden death. But worst is yet to come for the inhabitants of Hammerwell, insulated from the outside world by the grandeur of The Plain, they are unaware that their lives are about to be devastatingly changed forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398405509

Book preview

About the Author

On retiring, Colin Cossor studied for a BA in English and an MA in creative writing. After living in North London for 50 years, he has now moved to Suffolk, where he spends his time—when not writing—painting the landscape and walking with Paddy, his Jack Russell Terrier.

Dedication

To A.G.C

As always

Copyright Information ©

Colin Cossor 2022

The right of Colin Cossor to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398405493 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398405509 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Other novels by Colin Cossor:

On Wings of Song

Wild Justice

Either Side the River

Over the Hill

Struggle

All Their Pride

The Woman at Checkout Nine

Rita

But now the sounds of population fail,

No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,

No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,

But all the blooming flush of life is fled.

Oliver Goldsmith (The Deserted Village)

They say there’s tanks and armoured cars,

And guns that fire like hell,

I wonder if the skylark sings

On the plain I knew so well?

(Salisbury Plain)

C.H.C.

Although the village of Imber, now a

practice range for the British Army,

on Salisbury Plain, gave me he idea for

this novel. The characters and events in

it are entirely fictitious.

C.H.C.

Chapter One

The procession of cars and coaches, vans and motorcycles, moved slowly across the windswept plain. The road, torturously narrow, came to an abrupt end at a white wooden barrier. Immediately, the occupants climbed out, chattering excitedly under the warm afternoon sun. Beneath their feet, weeds sprouted through tarmac, and the grass verges looked neglected and overgrown, Rowan and Elderberry mingling with couch cascaded to the ground.

Accompanied by half a dozen soldiers, the people walked around the barrier, and moving past the danger signs, warning of unexploded shells, they hurried along the remnant of a road. The incline is steep, so that the horizon appeared no more than a hundred yards ahead. The landscape is smooth grass on chalk downs; only the occasional clump of trees breaks the sea of undulating green. One or two of the younger members of the party ran ahead of the main body of walkers, numbering perhaps some seventy persons. At the top of the rise they stopped and stared expectantly into the valley beyond. Gradually, the slower walkers, the middle-aged and the old, even two being pushed in wheel-chairs reached the summit of the hill and stopping to catch their breath, they looked down at the village of Hammerwell.

A tall, slim girl, with pale cheeks and arrogant eyes, stood loose-limbed at her father’s side. ‘Well there it is,’ she said, ‘Hammerwell Green. Aren’t you glad you came?’ She hurried her father down the hill. Arthur Lever kept his eyes on the deserted village.

‘Oh I don’t know, perhaps your mother was right, it’s no good living in the past. We come back here one day every year and stare at it. I notice there’s a few faces missing this year and half of this lot never lived here anyway. A lot of them are just sightseers. Perhaps it’s time we stopped coming.’

Susan Lever shrugged her slim shoulders.

‘You say that every year. You know full well why you come back. You’re a romantic humbug. You love coming here just as I do, and I suppose you’ll give me the usual guided tour, plus commentary.’

’Just kick me if I start going on. You probably know the place blindfold.

Susan clutched her father’s arm.

‘Come on we’re nearly at the church that seems the only place left intact. Not that the dead get much peace, mind you.’

Her father pointed away to the right of the road.

‘Just look at the farm buildings and the vicarage, hardly a wall left standing, it’s depressing. I should have stayed at home with your mother.’

‘But you didn’t, did you? Look at the manor house, that hasn’t fared too badly.’

‘I didn’t mean it to flare up into an argument. It’s not like your mother to change her mind so suddenly. Took me by surprise it did. Can’t think what got into her. I thought she liked this trip. Never dawned on me she didn’t want to come anymore. She does have a point though, when you come to think of it. Digging up the past, that’s what she said. Perhaps this really ought to be the last time.’

Susan glanced guiltily at her father.

‘I’ve heard all that before, but you always come back. You love wallowing in the memory of those tranquil days.’

‘Bless your heart; they weren’t all tranquil, not by a long shot.’

‘You always said it was one long round of bliss.’

‘When you were a child I told you children’s stories. Now you’re seventeen, it’s time you knew the truth.’

‘You mean it wasn’t all bliss.’ For the first time that day, the girl’s eyes showed a semblance of excitement.

‘Far from it, mostly it was a damn hard struggle I can tell you.’

The road wound to the left as it turned into a village of broken walls and fungus covered timber. Arthur Lever held on to his daughter’s arm. ‘Come on; let’s get over to the old home, or what’s left of it.’

They left the procession and walked towards the shell of a pair of cottages standing some twenty yards to the right. Behind them, a soldier with shiny boots and three white stripes called out urgently.

‘Don’t wander off you two.’

Arthur looked over his shoulder. ‘All right sergeant we know the rules, we shan’t blow ourselves up. We won’t go any further than this.’ The soldier waved, turning smartly back to the main body of the procession making for the church at the far end of the village. ‘Flaming army,’ Arthur muttered. ‘Why did they have to choose this village? I must have asked that a thousand times.’

Picking their way along an overgrown stone path they approached the ruins of a pair of cottages upon which nature had rolled out a carpet of soft green moss.

‘Oh Dad, I think there’s less of it than there was last year.’

The flint and stone walls rose no more than five feet high. Indeed, but for the rough shape of a door and a few sockets where once had been windows, it was difficult to discern any sort of plan at all. These are not crisp clean ruins as in the Scottish Highlands where deserted crofts are stone walls picked clean by time, and everywhere is short grass upon which grazing sheep shelter in the lee of stone. There, every vestige of timber and usable material has been carried away. Here, it is forbidden land; nothing can be removed. Inside the walls, everything lay where it had collapsed, a mess of decaying timber, thatch, and plaster upon which ragwort and nettles grew in profusion. A few feet from one of the door holes stood an iron pump. Arthur perched himself on the flat, shallow brown sink beneath it and ran a hand along the smooth glazed surface.

‘Many are the times I’ve come out here when snow was on the ground and this pump hanging heavy with ice; stripped to the waist, me, Tom and your grandfather. He was the worst one of the lot of us for washing out here, was Father. Bit of an extrovert really. He’d have laughed at how soft we are now, hot water to wash with and toilets indoors. He’d have found that unnatural, no doubt about that.’ Susan, with a ‘Save Hammerwell’ slogan printed across her white tee shirt, hoisted her slim young body into a window socket and sat dangling blue jean covered legs over the rough stone wall. Nearby, a solitary rose bush, neglected and misshapen, still managed to produce a mass of small white blooms. The fragrance carried on the air, terrible silence engulfed them.

‘The whole place looks a right graveyard.’ Arthur said. ‘You can’t imagine what it was like when it was a real village, thatched cottages with smoke curling upwards from their chimneys. People going about their lives, the normal cycle of being born, getting married, and dying, all in the space of this small community; and all that swept away in a matter of weeks. Time was when the air was filled with the sound of skylarks and lapwing. Your mother used to…’ He broke off. ‘Strange, her not wanting to come after all this time.’

‘It could be on account of me,’ Susan said, sheepishly picking at the lichen on the crumbling wall. ‘I’ve been wanting to tell you, but somehow things kept getting in the way, then there was this trip. I didn’t want to spoil anything.’

‘So that’s it, you and your mother at loggerheads and neither of you had the decency to tell me about it. You both had to sulk with each other and mess up my day. I thought it was odd, her staying at home, I mean, she was born here as well you know. Just what did you do to upset the applecart? You might have given me a bit of consideration, today of all days.’

Susan dropped her head forward so that her long blond hair fell about her face; her hands gripped the remains of the window sill.

‘I didn’t mean to muck things up, Dad, it just happened. It came out by accident, and Mum started going on like stink. I can’t understand why she kicked up such a rumpus.’

‘Perhaps if you tell me what you told her, I’ll get some idea what you’re going on about.’ Arthur took out his pipe, jabbing at the bowl with a forefinger.

Susan threw back her head sending her hair cascading backwards. ‘I want to get engaged.’

‘Do you by God! No wonder your mother had a face like a poker this morning and you only seventeen and all. Which one of them chaps you’ve been running around with wants to make an honest woman of you? Strikes me I never see you with the same chap twice.’

‘Thanks very much! We go around in a crowd because it’s fun but I’ve only been going out with one person for simply ages and that’s Mark.’

‘Mark, eh,’ Arthur packed fresh tobacco into his briar. He held the gold lighter between his hands and sucked steadily before exhaling and watching the blue smoke drift upwards, hanging above the ruins as though momentarily life had come back to the shell of his former home. Experience had taught him it was better to make time, to think before saying the wrong words. ‘I can’t call to mind which one that is. He’s not just called Mark is he; I mean he has got some other handle to his name I suppose?’

Susan slipped from the window sill and walked across to the rose bush. She pulled off one of the blooms and held it to her face, the perfume smelt heavy, an old-fashioned sweetness, like the scent worn by grandmothers and certain old ladies in church. She pulled off one of the petals and let it fall to the earth, then looked guiltily at her father.

‘Davenport. His name’s Davenport.’

Arthur stared at his daughter’s back; the lighted tobacco in the pipe burnt his fingers. He shook his hand vigorously. ‘Good God! Would that be Reggie Davenport’s boy?’

‘Mum said you’d be cross.’

‘I’m not cross; staggered would be a better word.’ Arthur drew hard on his pipe and exhaled smoke into the perfumed air. ‘I mean you only seventeen and him a Davenport, wants a bit of swallowing do that. Have you been telling your mother you’re in love with him, is that what you’ve been doing?’

Susan turned to face her father. ‘Mum was nineteen when you married her.’

‘She told you that, did she?’

‘I remember you telling me a long time ago.’

‘Ah well your age is one thing, and I’m not saying you aren’t too young. It’s not just that, it’s the other thing, I mean him being a Davenport. Your mother married a Lever, that’s a different clutch of eggs altogether. She was marrying one of her own class. My God! If it’s not history repeating itself. I’ve been through all this before with your Uncle Tom and now you want to start where he left off. I’d say that’s the wheel turning full circle, wouldn’t you?’

Susan dropped the rose, shattering the flower and sending a cascade of white petals on to the ferny floor.

‘Come on Dad, there’s no such thing as class nowadays; this is nineteen-sixty, not the thirties. The Davenports are farmers; that’s no great shakes. If I considered class at all, which I don’t, I’d say Mark’s parents are on an equal par with us, they might have a bit more money tied up in land but if they think that gives them the right to lord it over me they’ve got another thing coming.’

Arthur tried not to smile. Above them, a helicopter shattered the quiet of the day as it flew low over the village and on across the Plain; the sort of noise that once, would never have been heard over Hammerwell.

‘A bit more money! They’ve got a lot more, I’d say and while this earth’s inhabited, there’ll always be such a thing as class. You sound just like your Uncle Tom. You know about our trouble with the Davenports don’t you?’

‘Of course I do, but that was yonks ago. Does that give them some sort of feudal rights over us? If I remember correctly, you told me it was nineteen-forty when this village died, that’s twenty years ago. It’s a long time Dad.’

‘There’s so much you don’t know Susan, things you ought to know.’ Arthur sucked his pipe and gazed through a hole, which had once been his kitchen window. Beyond the road he could see the derelict Manor House, half hidden by trees and overgrown shrubs. ‘It might seem long ago to you love, to me it’s no time at all; what I believed then, I still believe today. Your mother should have known that, weren’t no call for her to get upset. Perhaps I’m not so timid these days.’ His glazed eyes, stared straight at the old Manor House. Once, the Davenports owned all this land. They might have moved a few miles away but they’re still big landowners. Your Uncle Tom was like you, he knew his own mind, and no one was going to change it for him.’ He pointed towards the ruin of the big house. ‘You see that stone pot shaped like a pineapple, that’s where the poor wretched gipsy woman was standing, that cold, dark night. I can still hear her voice, shrieking above the wind. Comes back to me now, like it was yesterday.’

* * *

Chapter Two

Darkness came early that November night in nineteen-thirty. All day a depressing blanket of grey cloud hung above the tops of the downs, giving the effect of perpetual twilight. With the coming of night, the wind swung round to the north east, whipping itself into frenzy and with it came a freezing rain. The villagers of Hammerwell, knowing full well what to expect, situated as we were in one of the highest locations in the county; with nothing to break the force of the winds for ten miles in all directions; we bolted our doors, shut the pig up in the sty, and stoked up our fires. Although the village lay in a shallow valley on the downs, it’s not low enough to avoid the winds; which, according to their direction, blow clear from the Marlborough hills in the north, or from the English Channel in the south.

I was glad to get indoors that night I can tell you. All day I had been ditching at Long Bottom Hollow, some two miles down the hill from the farm, standing in mud, and frozen with the cold, nothing inside my belly but a couple of slices of bread and dripping, I was happy to get my boots off and stand them in the fender in front of the range. Not so close that the fire would damage them, you understand, but just near enough so that they would dry out ready to put on, nice and dry for the morrow. Never could stand putting on wet boots to start the day. Mother had a fire roaring fit to catch the thatch alight; some old apple wood it was, and it smelled a treat. The oil lamp standing in the middle of the kitchen table gave off a smooth creamy glow, enhancing the snug feeling of being in the warm, out of the weather. By the time Father, brother Tom and me had put on a pair of dry warm socks, we were feeling like new men, then Mother put a hunk of sizzling bacon, potatoes, and greens in front of us, and that soon shut out the cold I can tell you.

‘By golly, that looks a treat, our mother,’ Tom said. ‘I don’t reckon there’s anyone in Hammerwell who can serve up a dish like you. You should have been a professional cook in one of those big houses. You’d have been worth your weight in gold.’

Mother blushed. She was always a soft touch to our Tom’s flattery.

‘Get on with you; you could sweet talk the birds out of the trees. Now eat up before it gets cold.’

Tom was eighteen that year and I was seventeen, Mutt and Geoff the villagers used to call us, on account of Tom being so tall and me barely up to his shoulder. Father would have been about forty-five and Mother about forty-one, I think it helps to know people’s ages, gives you a clearer picture. When you’re the age we were then you tend to think of your parents as ancient, of course we knew Father still had plenty of spark in him, he thought we didn’t know why we had to make ourselves scarce on Sunday afternoons; so they could have a rest they used to say, all I know is, the rest must have done Father a power of good and virtually nothing for Mother, for he used to be in high spirits at Sunday tea and Mother looked proper washed out.

After all these years I can still remember the taste of that bacon, done to a turn on the range where everything was cooked in those days, we didn’t have gas or electricity, just the range for heat and cooking and the oil lamps for light. Two lamps we had, one for best and one for everyday use; the best one was a tall affair with a brass stand, and a red glass shade, the everyday one had a square glass base and a plain glass mantle, it gave off quite a good light. If you wanted to read the newspaper you sat up to the table, it seemed adequate at the time. No water indoors of course; at least none on tap, we had a sink in the corner of the kitchen. If you wanted water, you went out the back to the pump. For hot water you had to heat it in a big iron pot on the range.

Mostly we lived in the kitchen; it was unthinkable to light up in the parlour; everything in there was for best; for that special day which never came: the black Rexene-covered chaise, the best rocking chair, the best clock and the stuffed owl in a glass case, all like pieces in a museum. It was a cold damp room, which we passed through on the way to bed, but in which we never lingered. Not like the kitchen which was warm, and cosy, it had friendliness with its white scrubbed table and homely range, the fire which even in high summer was never allowed to go out. The kitchen had its own particular aroma of burning wood and salted pig, which hung in two halves in the chimney recess. After we had eaten our tea and the steamed pudding had settled in our bellies, Tom put on a saucepan of water for a shave. Father settled back in his armchair next to the range and was soon dozing. Mother, having finished the washing-up, was in her arm-chair darning socks; I stayed up to the table and read the newspaper. It was still a novelty in our house, having a daily paper. Up to that year it had been just the Western Weekly News. We also acquired a wireless set, which sat on a table in the corner next to the dead pig; it was the pride of the house. No longer were we cut off in the middle of the Wiltshire downs, we were linked to the rest of the world; we could hear music, variety, and of course world news. It made quite a difference to our lives I can tell you. Once a week Mother took the accumulator, which was a sort of glass battery with a handle, to the village stores and there she’d pick up another one, which had been on charge, for this she paid sixpence. She never forgot to pick up that accumulator.

When he had washed and shaved, and made a fuss of his hair, by rubbing Brilliantine into it, so that it shone coal black; Tom, then combed it back across his head, all the time looking at himself in the small mirror over the sink. When he had finished fussing, he crossed to the door.

‘Right then, I’m off, got to meet Ted, at The Bell. See you later.’

It seemed to me he was making an awful lot of fuss just to go down to the village pub and meet his friend Ted Birchall, especially when half the locals didn’t even bother to change from their working clothes when they went for their evening pint. Mother told him to be in by half-past-nine or he would find the door locked. Although he was eighteen and over six feet tall and to me every inch a man, he was still expected to be in when he was told; mind you, it was the wireless that kept us up; until that year Father and Mother were in bed by half-past-eight. The wireless pushed it forward to nearly ten. When you have to be up at five you can’t sit up half the night.

‘Seen anything happening when you come by The House?’ asked Mother, softly so as not to disturb Father’s snoring.

‘It was too early when I came past,’ I said. ‘Like as not they were still getting everything ready. They got a right dirty night for a party I must say.’ The House to which she referred was the home of the Davenports, our lord and master, the Squire and sole