Wedding Bells for Land Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  He’d stayed with Grace until Edith had arrived with pink roses from her garden. Then he’d sought out a doctor and discussed Bill’s case. The elderly medic, a veteran of the First War, had shown respect for Edgar’s uniform and told him outright how much he admired the Spitfire boys who flew missions night after night without considering their own safety. He’d given no promises as far as Bill was concerned, but agreed that youth and strength were on the patient’s side. ‘It’s a waiting game,’ he’d confided as he’d accompanied Edgar to the door. ‘We’ve sewn him up and done all we can. Now it’s in the lap of the gods.’

  What have the gods got to do with it? Edgar had felt irritated as he got into his car. It’s science and good nursing care that we have to trust.

  He was still weighing up Bill’s chances of survival as he stood under an umbrella on the pavement outside St Michael’s, waiting for the service to end. Feeling helpless was the worst thing about this damned situation but he resolved to take his lead from Grace and think positively. His sister was weathering the crisis as only she could: calmly, with courage and with something that for a while he couldn’t put his finger on. It came to him as the church door opened at last and notes from the organ drifted out. With faith, he thought, suddenly jettisoning his belief in science. Grace has faith that Bill will live, and by Jove, I think she’ll be proved right!

  He watched the congregation emerge from the arched porch and spill out on to the path. Despite the heavy rain, no one seemed in a hurry to leave – he made out Joe and Emily talking to Roland in the porch then noticed Hilda usher out a bunch of Land Girls. She urged them to take shelter under a yew tree until the rain eased. Joyce wasn’t among them. Perhaps she hadn’t attended church this morning after all. Edgar would give it another couple of minutes, then if he didn’t spot her he would drive straight out to Fieldhead to find her.

  Joyce, meanwhile, lingered inside the church to ask if Doreen and Elsie wanted a lift home. They glanced outside at the rain then said a quick ‘yes please’. ‘Has anyone seen Poppy lately?’ Joyce enquired as she looked around the almost empty nave.

  ‘Not since she went to spend a penny,’ Doreen admitted. ‘Uh-oh, naughty Pops! Something tells me she found better things to do with her Sunday morning.’

  Last to leave the church, the three girls heard Bob close the door behind them.

  ‘At last!’ Edgar took a few steps forward then halted, uncertain whether Joyce’s look of stunned surprise meant that she was pleased to see him. Bareheaded and without a coat, she pushed her way through the crowd then fell into his arms. ‘Don’t say anything!’ she begged. ‘If this is a dream, I don’t want anyone to wake me up!’

  He hugged her tightly. ‘It’s real,’ he assured her. ‘I told you I’d come if I could, didn’t I? I’ve got twenty-four hours, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re here. That’s all that matters.’ Smiling and reluctantly withdrawing from his embrace, she noticed that Kathleen was among the group sheltering under the yew. ‘Catch!’ she called before throwing a set of ignition keys. ‘You’ll have to drive the van back to the hostel.’

  As the rain eased off, Hilda began to organize the chattering gang: who else needed a lift, who was cycling back, and so on.

  ‘I came on Sloper,’ Brenda told her. ‘I’ll make my own way.’

  ‘What about you?’ Edgar asked Joyce, though it was a question that could only have one answer.

  ‘I’ll come with you. But where to?’

  ‘I promised myself that I’d do my damnedest to track down Alfie Craven. It’s the least I can do for Grace and Bill.’

  ‘Count me in,’ Joyce confirmed quickly. But as they hurried out on to the pavement, Joyce noticed Poppy cycling up the street. She knew in a split second that something awful had happened.

  ‘Mr Thomson!’ Poppy wailed as she saw Neville’s father cross the road with Joe and Emily. The two men were deep in conversation and at first Roland didn’t hear her call his name. She wobbled to a halt and let Grace’s bike crash to the ground as she ran towards him. ‘Mr Thomson, you have to come home quick!’

  Joyce left Edgar’s side and ran to join them. Poppy’s hands and the hem of her yellow dress were stained red.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Roland asked slowly as he looked her up and down.

  ‘Please, you have to come!’ She took hold of his jacket sleeve and tugged.

  ‘Calm down, Poppy,’ Joyce urged, though her own heart had started to race. ‘Tell us what’s wrong.’

  ‘Neville,’ she sobbed incoherently. ‘Underneath the hay. I saw the blood. Neville!’

  ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ It was Emily who dropped the simple, devastating sentence into the ensuing silence. Emily Kellett, who had suffered the loss of her own son and would continue to feel the keen knife of grief until her last breath.

  Poppy sank against Hilda, who had hurried to join the group along with a growing crowd. ‘Oh, Mrs Craven, it’s true. Neville’s been killed. There’s blood everywhere.’

  Where? When? Who did it?

  ‘Alfie.’ The name sprang to everyone’s lips. A lad was dead. The police must be called.

  ‘Why? What had Neville got to do with Alfie?’

  Hilda took Poppy’s weight to stop her sinking to the ground. Alfie, and again Alfie!

  Roland stared at the girl weeping hysterically in the warden’s arms. He broke free from the group, his face expressionless, and walked to his Land Rover.

  ‘Wait. You can’t tackle this by yourself,’ Joe insisted as he limped after him. He laid a gnarled hand on his neighbour’s shoulder. ‘You’ll need someone to come with you.’

  While Hilda and Elsie took Poppy into the pub to revive her and Kathleen telephoned the police, Edgar and Joyce set out on their mission. They drove out of the village in grim silence, their minds fixed on bringing Alfie to justice.

  ‘If I don’t strangle him with my bare hands beforehand.’ Edgar gripped the steering wheel. ‘First Bill, now this!’

  ‘I’m partly to blame,’ Joyce admitted. ‘Poppy found out that Neville was mixed up in Alfie’s dealings. She took me into her confidence. I shouldn’t have relied on him to go to the police station and own up of his own accord, I should have done it myself.’

  ‘No, this is Alfie’s fault and his alone.’ Edgar’s mind flew back through the years to the occasions when Hilda’s son, always a bully, had got on the wrong side of the law. At first it had seemed like a laugh to the other village lads, scrumping for apples with him or uneasily watching him throw stones at pigeons. But then it had got out of hand. At the age of thirteen he’d put his hand in the post office till while Esther’s back was turned. Then, in the year when he’d been due to leave school, he’d set fire to a broom cupboard in the Institute and been sent off to Borstal, only to come back worse than ever. And so it had gone on downhill from there, to this terrible, tragic point. ‘We’ll catch him and make him pay the price,’ he promised.

  A trial before judge and jury. A hangman’s noose.

  It was no good; they could do nothing to stop Poppy crying. She collapsed on a bench next to the fireplace in the Blacksmith’s Arms, her hands covering her face, weeping and wailing, a pitiful sight.

  ‘Poppy, dear, try to pull yourself together.’ Hilda sat down next to her. ‘This isn’t doing you any good.’

  ‘The police are on their way.’ Kathleen drew Brenda to one side. ‘Honestly, of all the people who could have found Neville’s body it had to be Poppy.’

  ‘I know.’ Brenda nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s hit her hard. And Ma Craven as well. Think what she must be going through.’

  ‘Yes, it’s an awful mess.’

  ‘And here we are, standing around doing nothing.’ Brenda left Kathleen and made a beeline across the bar towards Doreen. ‘Come outside,’ she ordered. ‘I want a word.’

  For once Doreen didn’t argue but trailed after Brenda into the yard.

  ‘Look where doing nothing has got us,’ Brenda began wit
hout preamble. ‘It’s time for action.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Doreen’s instinct was, as always, to stay out of it. ‘I told you, I’ve already washed my hands of Alfie Craven.’

  ‘Easier said than done, worse luck.’ She drew Doreen towards Sloper, parked in the smithy doorway. ‘Look, we’re not the only ones who’ve worked out the connection between Alfie and our two friends from the city but we can take it a step further, you and I. We can make a link between Moyes, Nixon and Donald.’

  ‘Donald!’ Doreen’s scornful tone was accompanied by a sulky toss of her raven locks and an intended return to the pub. ‘Says you!’

  Brenda swiftly blocked her way. ‘What does it take to make you put others before yourself? One person is in hospital and another has died, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘And what do you expect me to do?’ The question exploded from Doreen’s lips. ‘Do you think I don’t care about Bill Mostyn? Or about Neville? Of course I care. I just don’t see how we can alter it.’

  ‘We can find Donald and make him admit that he met up with Moyes yesterday.’

  ‘Then what? Donald is never going to … what’s the word?’

  ‘Incriminate himself. That’s true.’ The logic of this defeated Brenda and she fell silent.

  ‘So I’m right, there’s no point.’

  Still Brenda refused to take this line. She gestured towards her motor bike. ‘You won’t even come with me to Dale End and try?’

  ‘Bull’s-eye!’ Doreen congratulated her as she flicked her hair behind her shoulder, sidestepped Brenda and walked rapidly across the yard. ‘At last, the penny drops!’

  Una waited at the gate to Beckwith Camp, carefully watching the comings and goings. She’d been there for more than an hour so the sentry had long since stopped paying her any attention.

  ‘She says she wants to talk to the doctor,’ Haynes told his sergeant, who was behind the wheel of a Land Rover and had noticed Una on his way in. ‘I told her she couldn’t enter without a pass.’

  Una ran eagerly towards the vehicle.

  The sergeant nodded briskly at Haynes then put his foot on the accelerator. He was gone before Una could reach him.

  ‘Sorry, love.’ The soldier shrugged as he lowered the barrier, went back into his box and closed the door.

  She reached her hand through the open window and took hold of his cuff. ‘Please; I only want to find out from the doctor how Angelo is.’

  ‘No can do,’ he repeated, pulling free. He felt sorry for her, as he had done when they’d brought Bachetti off the fell side the previous day, but he couldn’t help her.

  Then she would try something else, Una decided. There was always the unofficial way: along the public footpath and over the wall into the pine woods at the back. From there she could keep watch until she caught sight of a prisoner going about his business. With luck, it would be one of the men who knew about her and Angelo.

  She was on the point of carrying out this plan when a more sympathetic figure walked down the rain-soaked drive. She recognized Squadron Leader Aldridge in his smart Canadian uniform and heard him hail her from a distance of fifty yards.

  ‘Hi there. I thought it was you,’ he began as he came within speaking distance.

  Curiosity aroused, Haynes kept watch from inside his sentry box.

  ‘What can we do for you, Miss …’

  ‘Sharpe. Una Sharpe.’ There was a catch in her voice and her heart was in her mouth. ‘I’ve come to ask about Angelo Bachetti. They’ve taken him to—’

  ‘To Clifton; yes, I know.’ These Land Girls, he thought with a faint smile. They arrive in the backwoods from city soot and smoke without a clue what they’re letting themselves in for. They’re thrown in at the deep end. Sometimes they swim, sometimes they sink. ‘As it happens, I just talked on the phone with Dr Jones, one of the Clifton doctors, and he gave me an update. He says Bachetti is comfortable and doing as well as can be expected.’

  Una was desperate for more. ‘But did he sleep? Is he eating?’

  Aldridge’s gaze was fatherly. ‘One step at a time. First they have to control his fever and let him rest. That’s the key.’

  ‘Has he mentioned me?’

  ‘Honey,’ he murmured, ‘your guy is very sick, you know that. There, don’t cry.’ He offered her a clean handkerchief and went on observing quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She blew her nose then breathed in deeply. ‘Did they say how soon I can visit him?’

  ‘Not for a while, that’s for sure. But you can write as often as you like.’ Aldridge paused to ask himself how much information Una would be able to take in. She seemed terribly young, but she also had a look of fierce determination so he decided to go ahead. ‘In a case of TB this bad the doctors might decide to go ahead with surgery in order to drain fluid from the lungs.’

  ‘They can make him better?’

  ‘For a while at least. Good food will help too.’

  ‘And fresh air?’ Una clung to Aldridge’s every word.

  ‘Yes, that’s essential. And they’re finding new treatments all the time. I know this for a fact. My sister back home is acting as a guinea pig for the latest trials. She takes a cocktail of pills to keep the tuberculosis at bay.’

  The confession silenced Una. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated when at last she found her voice.

  ‘Annette is twenty-one. She’s had this illness since she was fifteen. So far she’s holding her own. In fact, there are times when no one would guess she was sick.’

  As Una listened, she inched towards a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel. Angelo might have to have an operation. With the right treatment, some people with TB lived for a long time. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Aldridge continued to look her steadily in the eye. ‘Now go home, Una. Write your boyfriend a nice long letter.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Wait for him to write back.’

  ‘I will, I will.’ She had the rest of the day to commit her feelings to paper. She would write truthfully and pour out her heart.

  ‘And be patient.’ Easy to say, hard to do. He gave her arm a sympathetic squeeze before walking up Penny Lane to his quarters. Will this be one that sinks or will she swim? He hoped the latter but knew that only time would tell.

  ‘Donald isn’t here.’ Hettie spoke before Brenda could state her business. ‘But come in anyway. There’s no need to stand on ceremony.’

  They went straight to the sitting room and from there through the French doors on to the terrace overlooking the rose beds and the fish pond beyond.

  ‘Let’s sit.’ Hettie pointed to a nearby bench.

  Brenda took off her hat and put it down on the seat. The swift ride from Burnside had left her mouth dry but she waved away Hettie’s offer of a drink. ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Donald?’ The response was vague, not at all like the Dragon’s usual fiery self. ‘I have no idea. Oh, wait a minute. The dogs aren’t here and the guns are gone from the boot room, so he must be out shooting with Dad.’

  ‘How long will he be?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why?’ Hettie’s hackles had risen the moment she spied Brenda’s motor bike turn into the drive. It hadn’t helped that the atmosphere at Dale End had been dreadful since her last visit, with Donald refusing to answer questions about why Brenda had been so upset and their father firing off an angry letter to Les, which he’d ordered Hettie to post. ‘Don’t you think it would be best to keep your distance from Donald, all things considered?’

  ‘“Things” – what things?’ Brenda’s temper flared. She was in no mood for Hettie’s underhand insults. ‘It’s him you should be worried about, not me.’

  Hettie stood up from the bench. ‘Brenda, really …’

  Brenda too jumped up. ‘What’s the matter, Hettie? Don’t you want to hear some home truths? That Donald has no respect for his brother, for a start? That he can’t keep his hands to himself? And there’s plenty
more that’s wrong with your precious brother, if you’d only open your eyes!’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Gun shots interrupted the women’s argument – proof that Hettie had guessed right. They echoed up and down the valley, scaring crows in the fields behind the barns. ‘Brenda, I think you should leave.’

  ‘Gladly!’ she retorted. Of course Donald’s sister would remain blind to his faults. What else could Brenda have expected? So she stormed into the sitting room and out into the hall, where she bumped into Arnold, who had emerged from his study, gun dogs at his heel and newspaper in hand.

  ‘What’s all the shouting?’ he demanded of Hettie, who had pursued Brenda to the front door. He ignored the visitor and backed his daughter towards the bottom of the stairs. ‘Well?’

  ‘Dad …’ Hettie grasped the top of the newel post to steady herself. ‘Where on earth is Donald? I thought you two were—’

  ‘Well?’ The black spaniels ran hither and thither while Arnold’s voice rose to a new pitch. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

  His back was turned, the newspaper rolled into a tight scroll that he wielded like a baton. Brenda grimaced as she took in the angry scene then slipped away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  She made a split-second decision: a choice between riding off on Sloper or finishing what she’d come here to do. Brenda dug the toe of her shoe into the gravel close to where the bike was parked, shot a quick glance back at the house and opted for the latter.

  Call me an idiot, she thought as she cut across the front garden then climbed a wall into the neighbouring field, but I’m damned if I leave without having it out with Donald first.

  She didn’t notice Hettie come to the door and follow her progress across the valley bottom.

  Brenda judged that Donald had fired the shots from low on the hillside overlooking the Whites’ farm. She had to cross the river to reach its lower slopes but she didn’t let this hold her up, simply taking off her white canvas shoes and wading through. Then she tied the laces together and slung the shoes around her neck. There was boggy land ahead so progress would be quicker if she went barefoot for now.