Chapter 1

It was only a scant two months ago that Laura Gallagher had first discovered the existence of the Woman's Land Army. She remembered reading about it in the magazine at the neighborhood beauty parlor only a short distance from her tiny apartment in London. With most of the young men already conscripted and serving in the military forces in mid-1940, things in the city had gotten a lot less exciting with regard to finding a suitable husband. Now, there was the threat of aerial bombardment added to the mix and she was beginning to regret her move into the center of the city from her parent's home in the suburbs. She was so happy to get out from under their watchful eye and not feel guilty about putting on a little lipstick and wearing the new nylon hose that caught the men's eyes. But then the unexpected happened and they were in this dreadful war that created such an imbalance of available men for the young women like herself that just wanted to have a bit of fun before settling down.

On Friday she received a little notice in her pay envelope informing her that her job on the newspaper was redundant to her. The company had adopted a policy of making all desk jobs available only for returning service members with physical problems that precluded their continued military service. She would soon be forced to accept work at one of the munition factories or even in the wards of the casualty stations with depressing reminders of the grim reality of modern day warfare. The open fields and the photos of the smiling women and muscular farmers looked so enticing that she signed up for a stint in the Woman's Land Army unit based in Hertfordshire county which was not that very far from London.

The train that she took from London dumped both she and her luggage off on the platform in Watford and within an hour almost thirty young women had gathered into a group of bewildered females wondering if they had made the right decision. A uniformed woman from some unspecified militia organization showed up and told them they would be taking the train to St. Albans for assignment to an assortment of local farms and dairy plants. They were warned that cigarette smoking was permitted only when allowed by the person in charge or the owner of the farm. Apparently, there had been a couple of incidences of unfortunate fires caused by careless matches or cigarettes dropped by "city" girl members of the WLA. Laura did not care for the way the woman distastefully slurred the word city when making the announcement.

They were all crammed inside one car of the short train to St. Albans. Most of the girls had loosened up by now and they were chattering away about the most ridiculous things notably with nothing related to the war effort. Laura regretted wearing her nylons noticing that most of the women had elected to wear slacks with sensible low heeled boots for walking on rough terrain. She quietly slipped off her dress shoes and replaced them with her running shoes that she used like clockwork each morning before breakfast. The girl sitting across from her smiled and nodded her head in agreement with her decision.

"Good idea, my recruiter told me to dress proper for the first day because the farmers kind of pick the girls on the first impression."

The girl told her that her name was Joyce and that she had decided to join the WLA because her parents had too many to feed at home and there was little chance of getting a job without the all-important training she had never bothered to secure.

She told Joyce that she was glad to get the exercise and get paid at the same time she was making a contribution to the war effort. Joyce looked at her like she was a little too eager trying to be seen as doing the right thing. In a way, Laura knew she sounded ridiculous but deep inside she did have that basic thought about the situation. Her hidden reason was the fear that she would never get to meet any interesting man in the city now because all that was left was married men with children or war-scarred men with no future and the villains that always managed to stay well hidden when push came to shove. Hopefully there might be some unmarried farmers or farmer's sons out in the country that might be caught in the net of lipstick and gartered nylons.

Laura realized she had never gone into the station to get the indoctrination speech because she was far too busy shutting down her activities in London. She had managed to get her furnishings into her father's garage with some difficulty but he was very kind to allow her to cramp his work space with her silly things. Her books were all boxed up and stored in the attic where they should be safe unless the house got hit by a bomb which, in actuality was a very possible scenario. Still, her parents were reasonably safe since they were a fair distance away from the center of town and only a stray missile would present a danger.

She read the letter from her old boyfriend Tommy who told her that he really missed her a lot. It made her a bit angry because he was less than lukewarm to her when they were courting while she was still living at home. He seemed to be more interested in playing the field with the pretty young things at the office where he worked than in paying attention to her. Now he was training on a tank crew and had been posted to North Africa to fight against General Rommel, The Desert Fox. She hoped he would be safe but had no interest in reviving her relationship with him again. Still, she knew she had to write him a friendly letter because she didn't want to be accused of being one of those "Dear John" Jezebels that fooled around behind their loved one's back.

The station at St. Albans was surprisingly deserted. Laura had expected to find an entire contingent of prospective employers waiting to divvy up the female offerings from the city. She began to think that maybe the commitment to the WLA was not a good idea after all. She stretched out on top of her bags and dozed off in the afternoon sun.