Land Girls, The Promise

by Roland Moore

  Frank stumbled on a tree root and Iris hauled him to his feet. He winced as she continued running, but Iris smiled encouragingly. It was only a little further. Come on. They could do this.

  Another shot zinged out, hitting a tree to her right. She risked a look behind him, but she couldn’t see their pursuer. Quickly Iris tried to calculate where Joe must be, but she couldn’t. She urged Frank to cut to his left, aware that it might be a quicker route through the foliage. They couldn’t afford to attempt a route that was blocked with too many trees and bushes. It would slow them down and allow Joe to gain on them. Iris crashed through the bushes and heathers, taking a route that would get them to the road quicker than if they had stayed on their original course. Frank was struggling, so she slowed down to help him.

  “Put your arm around my shoulder,” Iris shouted. Frank hesitated, unsure as to whether she could shoulder his weight, but Iris just scooped her hand under one of his arms and heaved him along. Flashing a grateful smile, Frank placed his arm over her shoulder so that Iris could help him take the weight off his ankle. They struggled down the embankment, slightly heartened that they hadn’t been shot at for a couple of minutes. Frank could see the road ahead, just another few yards to go. Iris was very tired, but this sight spurred her on. The section of road ahead was near a blind bend, but she knew that around it was the sanctuary of Hoxley Manor. Their salvation.

  Iris adjusted her grip on Frank’s arm to get a better purchase. The incline was steeper than before, so the problem now was not to lose control and tumble down the hillside. They passed the last two silver birch trees lining the descent and reached the edge of the road. Iris was almost giddy with relief. The concrete of the road was mere feet away.

  But then the figure of Joe Batch stepped out from behind the last tree, standing on the road and blocking their path. His nose was a bloodied mess, his hair was slick with sweat and dirt, and his uniform was torn at the lapel. He was breathing heavily, but a smile of satisfaction filled his face. Iris realised with grim finality that this was what he was trained for. He raised his gun.

  “Wait, Joe,” Iris pleaded, putting her body in front of Frank’s.

  “Get out of the way!” Joe shouted.

  Iris stayed still, blocking Joe’s aim. She wasn’t going to let this happen. If Joe wanted to kill Frank, he’d have to have her blood on his hands too. She stared into Joe’s deranged eyes and wondered how he could be so damaged and deluded. He looked back with glassy eyes, his feet moving rhythmically up and down on the tarmac of the road, agitated. It was a stand-off.

  But then Frank hobbled to the side, sighing. He glanced at Iris and shook his head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t let you take a bullet for me.” Frank said, his voice trembling. “Go on then, son.”

  Iris was distraught. She watched as Joe clicked back the safety catch on his gun.

  Frank closed his eyes.

  Joe took a step back onto the road to get a straighter aim at Frank. He levelled the gun at Frank’s face.

  “Say goodbye, you Nazi trait-”

  The words were curtailed with a loud bang, too loud to be a gun, as time slowed down. Iris knew something else had happened, but her mind struggled to process what she was seeing. She saw a lorry, laden with munitions skidding across the road. She realised it had just turned the blind bend from Hoxley Manor and smashed into Joe Batch, sweeping him aside as if he was a rag doll. Even as it braked sharply and careered across the road, Iris knew that Joe Batch must have been killed instantly. Her senses came rushing back to her as she heard the noise of the squealing brakes, the tyres ripping into the tarmac, the rumble as its engine stalled mid-skid.

  Was Joe dead? He must be, surely.

  But she had to check, so she ran to the road, her senses assailed by the smell of petrol, tyre rubber and smoke from the road surface. The lorry had jack-knifed across the narrow road and the dazed driver and his wingman were clambering out of the cab. Iris couldn’t see the front of the cab, but she could see that the windscreen was smeared with blood. As she reached the passenger door, she could see a hand poking around from the front of the lorry, laid across the tarmac. She walked slowly, numbly, round. The hand was still gripping the gun and Joe was twitching on the ground. He clenched his teeth and grimaced, his face a bloodied mask. There was one more spasm and then he was still.

  The driver and his wingman bent down to their fallen comrade, as Iris shuffled slowly back to Frank.

  “Hey, miss!” the driver shouted, but Iris was dazed and ignored him.

  She had to check on Frank. His face was ashen and his fingers were shaking. They looked at one another, amazed at what had just happened and shocked to their cores. Slowly it dawned on them that the ordeal was over.

  Shish, shish, shish.

  It sounded like the rhythmic beat of a drum brush, relaxing and hypnotic in its own strange way. As she sat in her chair, Iris rested her head against the thin wall so she could hear the steady marching of the American soldiers on the parade ground outside. The sound of a multitude of boots stepping in unison had calmed her. And while she had hoped the ordeal was finally over, she knew that it wasn’t quite finished. She was waiting in a corridor at the American barracks, while Frank was being questioned in another room. She had already been interviewed by Captain Cosallo and Major Warrender, a special investigator for the US military. They wanted to know everything that had happened and Iris knew that they would question her again after Frank, as he’d already been in twice. They’d told her that Frank had recounted his list of confrontations with Joe, from the earliest one outside the village hall to the fracas at Hoxley Manor to the beating outside the pub to the desperate chase through the woods. Iris recounted her times with Joe and how he had turned on her outside the film screening. Harry Cosallo had commented that Joe certainly seemed prone to changeable and dangerous behaviour.

  “Did Frank have a beef with Joe?” Harry asked, his crumpled face looking weary.

  “No,” Iris replied. “If anything, it was the other way round. Joe got all sort of fixated on Frank. See, he was sure Frank was the one who betrayed you lot to the Germans at Panmere.”

  Cosallo and Warrender shared a look. The Major made a note in his folder. Iris couldn’t see what it said.

  Later, Cosallo and Warrender questioned Frank for a third time. He was getting tired and irritable with all this rigmarole, but the Americans seemed to prefer it when he was off-guard and tetchy. He guessed they hoped he’d make a mistake that way.

  “Surely it’s obvious that your chap was after us? We did nothing to provoke him,” Frank said, wearily.

  “We’ll find out in good time, Mr Tucker,” Cosallo said. “At the moment, Joe isn’t able to speak.”

  Frank looked surprised and shocked. “You mean, he’s not dead?”

  “Did you hope he would be?” Cosallo jumped on the comment.

  Warrender touched his arm lightly, taking a more measured and reasoned approach. “He’s in a very bad way, he might not make it,” he said, his voice an unexpected laconic drawl. Frank was still reeling. Like Iris, he was certain that the impact had killed Joe. He assumed that it must be touch and go with his odds of surviving being very slim. “But if he regains consciousness, we’ll be able to ask him for his version of events. And, while you and the girl have a plausible story, you can appreciate why we need to hear his side.”

  “Sure.” Frank shrugged, not really appreciating that point at all. As far as he was concerned, it was obvious what had happened. A soldier, reeling with grief and loss, had gone spectacularly off the rails and had engaged in a one-man vendetta. “Can we go now?”

  Harry stared hard at Frank. It was Major Warrender who broke the silence. He nodded his consent and as Frank rose from the chair, added, “But stay at the farm. We may need to speak to you again.”

  Frank went outside. He waited for Iris to be released, and then, as darkness fell, the two of them trudged wearily back to Pasture
Farm. It wasn’t until they had nearly reached the door to the farmhouse that Frank told Iris the news that Joe Batch was still alive …

  Chapter 11

  A few days later, the dawn sunlight fumbled through the windows and roused Iris from her slumber. Despite being exhausted from her recent ordeal and from the last week’s events, it was some small relief that this time the pain in her head came from a stress headache rather than a hangover. The temptation to dive into the orange liquid in the wardrobe had been strong, almost overwhelmingly so. But Iris had fought the urge, knowing that she would need a clear head for today. Her final day at Pasture Farm.

  After the showdown in the woods, the girls and Esther had rallied around Iris, making sure she was all right, offering comforting words, warm drinks and smiles. It was like old times. Iris had wondered whether the benevolence would stretch to letting her stay at Pasture Farm. She hoped that Esther would give her a reprieve, but the reality was that nothing was going to change. In fact, the ordeal in the woods seemed to give Esther further proof that it would be best for Iris to make a new start. She needed to get away from this place. Iris hadn’t been that surprised. She guessed that Esther and Finch wouldn’t budge. So last night, her last night at Pasture Farm, sleep had taken a long time coming, kept at bay by wondering whether Evelyn would show up today to trade the note for the map. She knew that Esther and Finch wouldn’t change her destiny. But would Evelyn make everything right?

  Until then, Iris knew she had to go through the motions. She hauled out her battered brown-leather suitcase from the top of the wardrobe. It had been her mother’s old case for her stage management work and a playbill for Northampton Theatre was still pasted to the side. And although some of it had been torn away over time, Iris could still make out the names of some of the acts. Belview and Morris, The Wild Bunch, Sparrow Soprano. Names forgotten in the mists of time. Iris flipped open the case and began to fold her clothes. She placed her small rag doll into a pocket on the case. As she packed her few possessions, she thought about her meeting with Evelyn in the car. She regretted leaving things in Evelyn’s court. It meant that every minute today would be spent wondering if she would appear. Her gut feeling told her it was a simple deal that would benefit both of them. Iris would get proof to show that she hadn’t been lying. And Evelyn would get the map.

  The map!

  Iris thought that she must remember to get it from Frank’s shed before she left. She must take it with her. At least that way, she would have it if Evelyn later changed her mind and wanted to trade.

  There was a rap at the door, followed by Esther’s voice. “Breakfast is ready.” Esther went to the next door along the landing - Joyce’s room - and repeated the phrase, although Iris doubted that Joyce would be inside. At this very moment, she would be racing back from Shallow Brook Farm after a night with John.

  When she was dressed in her uniform, Iris went to the kitchen and joined Shelley and Dolores for breakfast. Esther had made porridge and tea, a meal that would leave them all feeling uncomfortably hot on such a warm day. Frank was already finishing his. He had recovered well from the run through the forest and the bruises on his face from his beating in the village square were beginning to fade as well.

  Joyce bustled in from outside, her hair dishevelled.

  “Where have you been?” Esther asked, suspiciously.

  “Checking on the cockerel,” Joyce said with a straight face. Iris smiled at her, knowing the truth. Joyce sat at the table and Esther slopped some porridge into a bowl for her. The mood around the table was more subdued than usual but it didn’t have the sombre, funereal feeling of the last few days. Having a meal at five in the morning would never result in sparkling conversation, but there was a downbeat feel as they all knew that Iris was leaving. Esther brought her mug of tea and sat down at the table.

  “Now then,” she said emphatically. “Fred said he’d drive you at two o’clock to the station. He’ll sort you out a ticket to East Anglia. I’m not sure if you’ll have to get two trains or three, but don’t worry, he’ll arrange all that. We can get the funds back from the Women’s Land Army.”

  Iris nodded, feeling that she would still be saved from this by some magical last-minute reprieve.

  Joyce smiled warmly at her. “You’ll be fine and you’ll have to come back and see us, won’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Iris said brightly.

  “You keep practising the writing and you can write letters to us,” Frank offered. Bless him, trying to keep things positive. But Iris doubted that she could continue to learn to read and write without him. She’d miss their lessons in the shed. She saw her dream of writing a letter home to her mother slipping away.

  Esther gave Iris a curious look, perhaps uncertain as to whether Iris was brave-facing her situation or whether she had merely accepted it with remarkably good grace.

  After breakfast, Iris went back upstairs and closed her case. She checked the drawers by the bed for any forgotten items and then put the case on the landing to take downstairs. Finally she went to the wardrobe. It was empty apart from Billy Finch’s suit, the coat hangers swinging like wooden skeletons. She pulled the bottle of carrot whisky from the bottom; her reassuring companion for those bleak, terrifying nights. The bottle was nearly empty, but Iris didn’t want anyone to find it. She walked across the landing to the bathroom and tipped the contents down the sink. Then she tucked the empty bottle under her arm, picked up her suitcase and went downstairs, giving her old room the briefest of glances. She found Finch’s stash of brewing paraphernalia under the stairs, in the cupboard. She added the empty bottle to the collection and closed the door. She left the suitcase in the kitchen and went off to work a final shift at the military hospital at Hoxley Manor before finishing off at Shallow Brook Farm.

  But on her way, she noticed Joyce collecting some tools from the shed in the yard. Checking that no one was around, Iris approached her. She’d decided that she needed a back-up plan in case Evelyn didn’t show up.

  “Joyce?”

  “You all right? Well, as much as you can be?”

  “Do you remember that dance a few weeks back? The one that was really hot and sticky. When the fight broke out?”

  “Oh yes. Those GIs taking lumps out of each other! Way to break up a party, wasn’t it?” Joyce smiled at the memory of that strange evening. But Iris wasn’t here to just reminisce.

  “Do you remember Evelyn there?”

  “What?”

  “She came in and she was looking for someone. You said about her hair - it being a natural blonde colour.”

  Joyce narrowed her eyes, obviously trying to recall the details. “Yes, you’re right. She was there, yes.”

  “It was the first time we saw her.”

  Joyce stared at the bundle of rakes and forks in her hand. Iris assumed they were getting heavy so she cut to the chase.

  “The thing is, she was looking for Finch that night. And it’s only because the fight broke out that she didn’t meet him. It stopped her. And then, later, she bumped into him at the agricultural show, seemingly by accident.”

  “What, so you’re saying she set out to meet him?”

  “Yes. She planned it right from the start. And it always involved that tin at Shallow Brook Farm and Vernon. She never just bumped into Finch by accident. It was planned.”

  Joyce nodded. “I believe you. I’ve always believed you. But what can we do? Finch has got his heart set on her.”

  “This shows she’s up to something. Maybe we should both have a go at convincing him? If we go together, he might listen, don’t you think?”

  “It’s not going to do any good.” Joyce looked uncomfortable.

  “Why?”

  “Finch is in love. He won’t listen to this story. He won’t think that Evelyn set out to snare him, will he?”

  “But I’ve got to try. If Evelyn doesn’t show up to trade for the map, I’m finished here.”

  There was a long, awkward silence, then Joyce p
ut her hand on Iris’s shoulder, looked her in the eyes and said sadly, “Sorry, love.”

  Iris watched as Joyce collected the tools up in her arms and made her way across the yard.

  What could Iris do now?

  Iris hated making the beds. But it was an inescapable part of the job at the military hospital, so she and Shelley Conrad were busy stripping a bed of its covers and preparing new linen to replace it. In truth, Iris didn’t have to work many shifts at the hospital. She wondered if this was because of her age and Esther not wanting her to see too much blood and guts. Shelley had been watching her with a concerned expression for the last ten minutes, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t know how. Iris was deep in thought. For once, she wasn’t thinking about whether or not Evelyn would show up to save the day. No, this time, she was thinking of Joe Batch, knowing he was somewhere in this building, in one of the rooms. After they had finished the bed, Iris asked if she could have a few minutes’ break before they did the next one. Shelley smiled and nodded her head.

  Iris walked from the ward to the main corridor. She caught a passing nurse.

  “Excuse me? Do you know where I could find Joe Batch?”

  “Third door,” the nurse said, pointing up the corridor, before heading off. Iris walked slowly towards the door. She hesitated, not certain that she wanted to see him ever again. But a grim fascination meant that she wanted to see his face one last time, to look into his eyes and see how he could have become so twisted.

  As she waited at the door, Iris was startled by the arrival of Dr Channing behind her.

  “Hello?” he said, concern in his voice. “Did you want to see him?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “He was trying to shoot you, by all accounts, wasn’t he?” Channing said, obviously trying to steer her away from such a meeting.

  “He was after Frank. I was just in the way.”

  “Because he thought Frank had tipped off the Germans about Panmere Lake?”