Roland Moore - Land Girls - The Promise - A moving and heartwarming wartime saga

Frank would know.

But unfortunately Frank had been arrested and was being kept in the village police station. Iris wanted to go to see him later, after the funeral. But first she needed to pay her respects to Vernon. That would be the decent thing to do. That’s what a lady would do. Her mum might be proud of her doing that. She clutched her handbag, as if it was a protective talisman, and edged nearer, listening as Henry’s words of comfort were carried by the gentle breeze.

When the service was over and the good and the great were dispersing, she approached a brooding Vernon. By this stage, her mind was so muddled. If Frank thought he’d done it and Vernon thought he’d done it, then surely that was the end of the matter. It might have been a tragic and regrettable accident, a fight gone too far, but Frank Tucker would hang for his crime. Iris felt bereft that her friend, Frank, had done this. Since she’d arrived at Pasture Farm, Frank had been like a surrogate father for her, guiding her and helping her as she navigated life as a Land Girl. He had been teaching her to read and write, painstakingly giving her lessons in the evenings. He was a good man. If he was guilty, then it was such a waste.

“Sorry about Walter,” Iris stammered.

“Not your fault.” Vernon scowled. “It was that flaming friend of yours. He battered my boy.”

Iris was taken aback by his ferocity and found herself involuntarily taking a step away. The Reverend Henry Jameson tried to console Vernon with a warm smile. It wasn’t the time or the place for such outbursts.

“Why did he have to go back to that barn?” Iris asked. It was a casual expression of regret that this was the one decision that had led to Walter’s demise, nothing more. She hadn’t intended it to be a searching question, but the answer surprised her.

“He didn’t,” Vernon said gruffly.

“Really?” Iris asked.

“He didn’t go back, you silly girl.”

“Are you sure?” Iris wanted to say she had definitely seen Walter walk away from the barn after the fight. He must have gone back. There must have been a rematch. But Vernon was obviously in no mood for splitting hairs. And the reverend was right; it wasn’t the time or place. Vernon left her in the graveyard, her head swimming with a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

As the last remaining mourners left, Iris kept her word to Frank Tucker and went to see him at the police station. The only policeman in the station was PC Thorne. On secondment from nearby Brinford, PC Thorne had found himself in the unenviable position of serving three villages and two towns as their sole source of law enforcement. All the other police officers had been conscripted into the armed forces. He didn’t really have the time or inclination to help Iris, but he knew he was duty-bound to do so.

Iris was allowed to see Frank for five minutes and she was led into a cold room with a table and two chairs, walls decorated with half-green and half-cream walls. Frank was brought in. He was pleased to see her and tried to be pleasant and humorous towards her; as if they were just talking in his shed after dinner. But Iris could see the fear in his eyes; his shoulders stooped with defeat, his hair lank and unwashed. Had he already given up? She knew that he would be put on trial for this and, if found guilty, he would be hanged by the neck.

“How are you?” Iris said, somewhat redundantly.

“The food isn’t as good as Esther’s, but at least there’s not so much yakking at meal times.” Frank shrugged.

“You’ve come here just to get away from all us Land Girls, haven’t you?” She smiled. Frank smiled too, warmth in his eyes. But the warmth bled away as an awkward silence filled the room. Then Frank sighed and told Iris what he wanted to happen. His words surprised her.

“I don’t want you coming again,” he said. “This isn’t how I want you to remember me.”

“Don’t talk daft. You’ll be back,” Iris said bravely. “You’ve got to help me finish writing a letter home, haven’t you?”

“Someone else will have to teach you.” He nodded, closing the matter in his mind. Iris felt a little foolish for trying to lighten the mood at the wrong moment.

“I mean it, Iris. You forget about all this. Remember those evenings when you’d be chewing your pencil and I’d be helping you trace the alphabet. You remember those times, eh? Not these ones.”

Iris knew better than to question such finality. His mind was made up and any entreaties she made would likely make his veneer of control snap. And she didn’t want to show that lack of respect to a man she admired. So she decided it would be best to come straight to the point and tell him what had troubled her at the graveyard.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Why did Walter come back for a rematch?” she asked.

Frank looked puzzled. She guessed that it all seemed a bit irrelevant to him now. What did it matter? As far as he was concerned, he’d killed a man and that was that.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw Walter Storey walk away from that fight a few minutes after you left.”

“Yeah, but he died from what I did to him. The body is a strange old thing. Maybe it took time for the injury to kill him.”

“What was he like after the fight?” Iris persisted.

Frank rubbed the bridge of his nose and thought about what had happened. “We’d had the fight. I’d given Storey a beating and left him in the barn. The boy wasn’t unconscious or anything. There didn’t seem to be any cause for concern.”

“And what happened then?”

“What are you getting at?” But Iris’s insistent look made Frank realise that she needed an answer. “I walked to my shed and got on with mending a couple of rakes. That’s when you came to see me.”

“But I saw Walter leave the barn.”

“What are you saying?” Frank was clearly confused by what she was trying to tell him, so Iris decided she had to spell it out.

“You must have had another fight with him. A rematch?”

Frank shook his head. No, definitely not. “Maybe he came back to the barn looking for me and then collapsed?”

Now it was Iris’s turn to sigh. She hadn’t thought of that option. “Maybe,” she whispered, deflated. The discussion seemed to make Frank withdraw into himself and a brooding silence filled the small room. There seemed to be nothing else to say.

As she wished Frank well and left the police station, Iris struggled not to show Frank that she was upset. Stiff upper lip and all that. It seemed to be how he wanted to play it too. There would be no big, tearful goodbye, just a matter-of-fact parting of the ways. The last moments of a friendship. She walked with unsteady legs down the steps of Helmstead Police Station, her mind more confused than ever. She decided that she had to see Vernon again.

“‘Ere, I told you loads of times, I don’t like pickle!” Connie protested, as she unwrapped her sandwich and realised that Esther had given her just that on her cheese. Esther shook her head and apologised. She rooted in her wicker trug for another sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper. She found one with a ‘C’ written on the side.

“Here’s yours, Little Miss Fusspot,” Esther said.

“I can’t help it.” Connie handed back the offending sandwich in exchange. “Pickle’s unnatural, innit?”

“I like it,” Joyce commented.

“Well, you’re unnatural.” Connie smiled.

As the friends joked and started their lunches in the West Field, Iris took her greaseproof parcel with her and trotted across the yard. She could feel the other girls looking pityingly at her as she went.

“She’s lost without that Frank, isn’t she?” Connie said.