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

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Copyright © Roland Moore 2018

Cover photograph © Rehka Arcangel/Arcangel Images

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Roland Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008204440

Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008204419

Version: 2018-06-07

To Rafał with lots of love. Always proud of you and your wonderful imagination.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright Harper Impulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018 Copyright © Roland Moore 2018 Cover photograph © Rehka Arcangel/Arcangel Images Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018 Roland Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008204440 Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008204419 Version: 2018-06-07

Dedication To Rafał with lots of love. Always proud of you and your wonderful imagination.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Roland Moore

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

A s the young girl with red hair reached the street, she was surprised to see her mother, Margot Dawson, standing outside their house. Of course, she had seen her there hundreds of times before, cleaning the step, chatting to neighbours, but there was something odd about her being there now. Something was wrong. Her mother looked bewildered, in shock, her eyes large and fearful. And when she glanced at the girl, it was almost as if she didn’t really recognise her at first. “Iris?” she said, snapping out of it. She grabbed hold of her daughter, seemingly as much for support as for the need to talk to her. She pulled her towards her. Margot knelt down, her voice deliberate, but brittle.

“I need you to do something. Can you do it for me, darling?” The words were tinged with desperation, making Iris realise that the only answer her mother wanted to hear was yes.

The girl nodded. But her mother still looked troubled, perhaps unconvinced. So she touched her mother lightly on the shoulder to reassure her. She had seen adults do that and it seemed to work. But here it was a silent promise. A child’s promise.

And now, seven years later, 17-year-old Iris Dawson tried to put the memory to the back of her mind as she walked towards the church in the middle of Helmstead. She didn’t realise that sometimes you get a second chance in life. Sometimes you get a chance to put things right.

It was a bright, sunny day when they buried Walter Storey.

The good and the great of Helmstead put on their finest clothes and trudged dutifully to the church to pay their respects to the young man. A man who had been taken too soon. Talking in hushed tones, they moved slowly down the paved pathway, their faces dappled with sun from above the oak trees lining the graveyard. The Reverend Henry Jameson, dressed in full ministerial regalia, was there to greet them and offer them comforting words as they filed into the church.

Iris Dawson stopped by the church gate. She was an eager-to-please and enthusiastic young woman with pale, flawless skin, large blue eyes and a shock of curly red hair that fell in natural ringlets. Currently her face was etched with a deep sense of foreboding, a chill spreading up her spine, as if it was being caressed by icy fingers. After everything that had happened she would rather be anywhere else in the world right now. She certainly didn’t want to go inside. But she knew it would be frowned upon if she didn’t show her face. She opened her small handbag and, being careful so that no one would see, removed a tiny rag doll. It was no more than two inches high, adorned in a battered red-checked dress, one of its eyes missing. A threadbare totem from childhood that had been there through everything. Iris gripped it tightly in her hand, knowing it wouldn’t be visible. She took a deep breath and, without enthusiasm, walked slowly towards the church, offering a tight smile to the reverend as she passed. She hesitated on the threshold, took a deep breath, and stepped inside, her footsteps echoing on the stone floor. Beyond the rapidly filling pews, she could see the coffin, positioned in the central aisle. She edged away from it and found a seat, stoically looking at the stained- glass window ahead rather than the coffin. Thinking about the body would bring the traumatic events of the last few days flooding back into her mind, and she was struggling enough to hold things together without that. She had to focus on the window.

Walter had been Vernon Storey’s eldest son. Vernon was not a well-liked man in the village. His grasping and suspicious demeanour might have made him unpleasant company, but it was his streak of callousness that really made people uneasy. There was something, a strange and intangible something, that festered in him. A dark heart. But most people had liked Walter.