by Roland Moore
“What are you talking about?”
“My friends have died. Boys I went to school with, good old boys I went to the dances with. We all joined this war thinking it would be something to look back on. To feel we’d done our bit. But they ain’t going home to tell anyone, are they? And I’ll go home, assuming I make it that far, and be alone, haunted by all those empty chairs at the bar.”
“I’m sorry about your friends.”
“Are you?” Joe’s expression was cold and dark. It wasn’t a look that inspired Frank to think there was any chance of a rational discussion. He feared that this conversation would only end one way. And he also feared that he wouldn’t be able to defend himself against such a young, fit soldier.
“I had nothing to do with this,” Frank said in as measured a tone as he could manage, as if trying to calm a vicious dog.
“Is that so?”
“Are you going to keep accusing me? Or can I go home?” Frank decided that he might as well risk breaking off from this unpleasant encounter. What did he have to lose? He made to walk off, but Joe continued to talk at his back.
“Brinford air base got bombed. A while back. I heard about that. Seems you were at Pasture Farm then. And then a month or so ago, a train was derailed on the way to Helmstead. People died. Again, you were at Pasture Farm.”
Frank felt a flush of anger. He wasn’t going to have this young kid accuse him in this manner. “So was a lot of people! You want someone to blame, fair enough. But it isn’t me. Now don’t be ridiculous and just get back to your barracks!”
As soon as the last word left Frank’s mouth, he felt his jaw explode in pain as Joe punched him square in the face. Frank listed forwards and felt a hard right hook on the side of his head. Then another fist smashed against his nose. Frank started to fall, but not before Joe got in another punch, sending him crashing to the ground. Feeling disorientated, Frank started to drag himself up. Not to fight, but to talk, to try to stop this man’s irrational and misdirected anger towards him. But as Frank reached a kneeling position, Joe kicked him hard in the ribs. Frank felt the woozy haze of unconsciousness falling over him. But he was dimly aware of Joe pulling back his foot for another kick. In cold certainty, Frank knew then that this man intended to kill him.
“Stop it! Bloody stop!” Iris hurled herself at Joe, knocking him over. They both fell in a heap. She scrambled to her feet, raising her hands in some kind of defence, unsure of what she would actually do. “Just leave him alone!”
“Stay out of this, Iris,” Joe warned, hauling himself up.
“Or what? You’ll beat me up too?” She watched Joe, but crouched down beside the broken body of Frank Tucker. A stream of blood was oozing down his chin and one of his eyes was closed and reddening. Joe hesitated, as if weighing up whether to continue the assault. Then he growled and walked away, tossing a cursory glance back at them. Iris cradled Frank to her bosom until she regained her breath. Then, mustering as much strength as she could, she helped him to his feet. “What a state,” she said.
“I’ve had better nights,” he gasped, earning a warm smile from her.
“Come on, let’s get you back to the farm.”
By the time they had staggered, with Iris supporting Frank, to the yard of Pasture Farm, it was nearly midnight. Frank had told Iris about how Joe Batch had been caught in a German raid at Panmere Lake and how he seemed to blame Frank for tipping off the Germans. She was shocked. She thought about Joe Batch and his behaviour outside the cinema. She didn’t know him well, but he seemed hot-headed and prone to outbursts. Trying to be charitable, she assumed he was under a lot of pressure. After trying to force himself on her, he’d come to his senses and apologised. She told Frank that maybe he couldn’t help himself when his feelings were all over the place. Frank thought she was being very sweet to offer this charitable view. As they surveyed the farmhouse, the building was in darkness. Iris went to open the latch on the kitchen door, but the bolt was slid home. No! They were locked out for the night. As Iris contemplated whether to call out or throw a stone at Esther’s window, Frank turned away.
“No, I don’t want them seeing me like this.”
“What?”
“I’ll sleep in the shed. You’re welcome to join me.” Frank took a step towards his shed and stumbled. Iris realised that she had no choice but to keep an eye on him tonight until she was sure he would be all right. Besides, the last thing she wanted to do was wake Esther and further blot her copy book. If that was possible.
The two friends forced open the rickety door of the shed and went inside. Warm, stifling air greeted them, the result of a hot day baking the air inside. Frank cleared a chair for Iris, removing some tractor parts that were wrapped in pages of The Daily Mail. It was the old armchair near the door, the most comfortable item of furniture in the place. Iris often sat in the chair while trying to read to Frank. Frank moved his wooden stool away from the bench and grasped the edge of the bench for support as he lowered himself down. His bottom landed with a soft thud on the dusty floor and he breathed out in relief.
“You can’t sleep on the floor.”
“I’m not on the floor. I’m propped up against the work bench.”
“But with your injuries, you should have the comfy chair.”
“You have it, Iris. I’ve slept in worse places.” He shut his eyes to curtail the conversation. Iris pulled a hessian sack over herself and tried to get comfortable. The sack irritated her neck and the dust in the shed was making her cough. She watched Frank in the dim light, crumpled on the floor, his shoulders propped against the bottom of the bench. The tan clothes and cardigan that moved as he breathed. It reminded her of her father. How she wished he could be here. With numb disbelief at what had happened today, Iris was desperate for a paternal hug, something grounding to make her realise that she wasn’t going mad. But her father wasn’t here. And somehow the thought that he could never be here made her feel even more desperate and alone. Iris realised that no one would save her. She had to take care of this situation herself. Like the feeling she had experienced when she’d walked up the stairs of Shallow Brook Farm with a poker, it was time to fight back.
Four and a quarter hours later, the annoyingly incessant sounds of Finch’s cockerel woke Iris. She spat out the hessian sack, which was gummed against her mouth and tried to straighten up. Her neck was a collection of spasmed muscles from sleeping in such a ridiculous chair and her body ached from the pulled muscles from helping Frank back to the farm. She watched Frank for a few moments. In a deeper sleep, it took the cockerel a few more goes of its dawn chorus before Frank roused. With one eye swollen shut, he opened his bleary good eye and took in the sight of Iris trying to massage her own neck.
“How are you feeling, Frank?” she asked.
“Bruised. But all right.” He pulled himself up using the side of the bench and dusted down his clothes. “Let’s go and see if Esther has made breakfast yet.”
“I thought you didn’t want her to see you.”
“I can’t avoid it, can I?”
“I need to tell you something first.” Iris stopped him. He could tell by the tone of her voice that something was worrying her. Something bad. So he straightened up and arched his neck to relieve the knots as he listened as Iris told him everything that had happened, right up until the confrontation in Pasture Farm last night. Iris felt that it was all such a mess. What could she do?
Frank struggled to make sense of what she was saying. He put his hand under a pile of newspapers and produced a small tobacco tin. Inside were three rolled-up cigarettes. He lit one up and contemplated the problem. Iris carried on talking as she had thought of some other pieces that didn’t fit the jigsaw.
“I can see how she hoped to get me out of the way, by giving me that strong drink, but John and Martin would still have been at Shallow Brook Farm. Wouldn’t she need them out of the way too?”
“Well, they got a note saying that a fence had come down. John and Martin went off to
fix it. They examined every foot of that blasted fence and there wasn’t any damage.”
“They got a note?”
“Yeah,” Frank said. “Martin told me.”
“So the men had been sent on a goose chase?”
“That’s about the long and short of it.” Frank exhaled into the crisp morning air. “So if she wanted you out the way, then she had a plan to get rid of you all.”
Iris mulled it over. “But no one will believe me. Evelyn was so calm and cold about it all. It just seemed like I was being cruel, making things up to try to ruin things between her and Finch.”
Frank nodded, but it seemed as if he wasn’t really listening. Instead he offered his own question, “So did she want the photograph, do you think? If she wanted to marry Finch for his money, the last thing she’d want is him finding out that she knew Vernon, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Or it could be this.” And Iris produced the folded piece of paper from her pullover. Frank took it, unclasped his wire-framed spectacles and stretched them across his face. He scanned the page’s contents.
“It’s a map.”
“I thought it was. I couldn’t read all the words. It says tree, though.”
“Well done. It does, yes.” Frank peered at the pencil lettering and drawing. It had faded but was still largely legible. “Tree. Brook. Fence. It’s all very vague. This could be a dozen places on Shallow Brook Farm. If it is on Shallow Brook Farm at all.”
“There’s an X, though. That’s where something is buried, isn’t it?”
Frank nodded.
“Do you think it’s treasure?” Iris asked.
“Or a body,” Frank replied darkly.
“Would you look after it for me?” Iris asked. “It was the only thing that Evelyn didn’t get. If she works out it’s missing then she might come for me.”
“I’m sure that won’t happen.”
“I’m not being crazy. You didn’t see her attack me.”
Reluctantly, Frank agreed to look after the map. He put it inside his tobacco tin and snapped the lid shut, before burying it back under the pile of papers.
“There. Safe and sound.” He offered a smile, although it looked more like a grimace on account of his split lip and yellowing cheek. As they walked from the shed, Frank and Iris turned the conversation to different matters. He was interested to know who she thought was behind tipping off the Germans for Panmere Lake, the railway attack and the Brinford air base attack. Frank thought it might all be the same person. Iris didn’t know. But she knew one thing, it wasn’t Frank and it wasn’t her. And she objected to having to distrust her friends and neighbours. But the uncomfortable and undeniable fact was that there was a collaborator in their midst. But who was it?
Someone else was thinking the same question.
Private First Class Joe Batch sat bolt upright on the hard wooden chair as his superior officer looked with weary eyes at him. Captain Harry Cosallo was a small crumpled man in his late thirties with deep-set brown eyes obscured in a doughy face. He was a kind man, experienced in the ways of war but with the heart to know the toll it had on young, fresh recruits. He recognised such a toll on the face of Private First Class Joe Batch, even though Joe was currently doing his best to effect a look of stony indifference.
“There was one witness who thinks it was you, Private,” Harry Cosallo said in a soft voice. They were here to talk about the matter of the assault in the town square. The assault on a Frank Tucker.
“It was not me, sir,” Joe stated, briskly.
“The witness,” Harry consulted the clipboard in front of him for the name, “An old lady, called Mrs Fisk, says that she saw a frenzied attack.” He scanned the face of the young soldier for any reaction and then proceeded. “Mrs Fisk said that the attack was only stopped by the arrival of a young woman.”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Mrs Fisk did not know who the young woman was.” Harry exhaled heavily. He didn’t want to be doing this. He knew that morale was at rock bottom following the carnage at Panmere Lake. Even if Batch had been involved in the attack on Tucker, Harry had already decided that he would be as lenient as possible. But if Joe Batch wasn’t going to admit it, did he really want to push this casual enquiry into an actual interrogation? Harry studied the young soldier, who was still motionless and steely eyed.
“I know what you’ve been through,” Harry said softly. For the first time, there was a flicker of something on Joe’s face. A flicker of emotion. “I lost some of my best buddies in Operation Torch in Morocco, watched as bits of them flew around me.” Harry swallowed hard at his own horrifying memories, doing his best to shut it away and maintain his business-like demeanour. But he hoped making the point might get Joe to open up. “So I know, Private. I know how this can also hurt the men who are left behind.”
Joe gave a tiny, almost imperceptible, nod. An acceptance of this fact. He had been feeling churned up and wretched since the events at Panmere Lake, bottling so many feelings inside. Rage and regret were just two of them. He didn’t know how Iris would be towards him after his actions outside the cinema, but he guessed the assault on her friend wouldn’t have improved her attitude.
“You feel guilty, you feel it should have been you. Those men died and yet you survived.” Harry considered his young subordinate. “You wonder why you were the lucky one, even though sometimes it will feel like a curse to be left behind with the guilt. Hardly lucky then, eh?”
“No, sir,” Joe said.
“I recommend you take some time to recuperate and to get yourself fighting fit.” Harry wrote something on the clipboard. “I’m recommending two weeks” leave, to start immediately. You’ll still be required to do basic drill training and chores, but you’ll be exempt from military action. And you will not stray more than three miles from the barracks, is that clear? This isn’t a vacation.’
“Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Private First Class Joe Batch rose quickly to his feet, offered a stiff salute and turned hard on his heel to leave the room. Harry Cosallo watched him go, lent back in his seat and sighed.
Joe returned to the large dormitory that he shared with thirty-four other men. The hangar-like room was empty, rows of neatly made metal beds, flanked by identical wooden cabinets, awaiting the hustle and bustle of the men’s return. Joe went to his bed, five along from the door, and opened his cabinet. He took out his cigarettes and matches and was about to pocket them, when the door opened and a tall, ginger-haired recruit entered. He was the same rank as Joe, but Joe hadn’t seen him before. The man nodded a scant acknowledgement at Joe and moved down the line of beds, his lips moving as he counted them. When he reached the bed eighth from the door, the soldier stopped and produced a brown paper bag from his pocket. He straightened out the bag, opened the wooden cabinet and proceeded to empty the contents into the bag. The soldier stopped momentarily to examine a photograph of a girl before adding it to the bag. Joe’s face was showing plenty of emotion now. He didn’t like this one bit.
“Hey! That’s Chuck’s,” he snapped.
The tall soldier turned, a perplexed look on his face. “Private Wellings?”
“Yeah, Chuck Wellings.” Joe sauntered closer. “What are you doing?”
“I have been assigned to empty the lockers of the men we lost at Panmere and to ensure that they are sent to the relevant families.”
“It’s too soon for that.” Joe scowled. “And besides, Chuck didn’t die at Panmere.”
“He didn’t?”
“No, he damn well didn’t.” Joe was angry, feeling the same rage he’d felt at Tucker rising up inside. Even though this was probably only a clerical error, the impersonal treatment of his friend was riling him and pushing the wrong buttons. “Chuck was injured at the shooting range. He went to Hoxley Manor and then he took his own life. Got it?”
The ginger-haired soldier nodded, uncertain of where this left him regarding his instructions.
&nbs
p; Joe snatched the bag from his hands, delved in and produced the small photograph. It showed a smiling young woman with an abundance of freckles and a big, kind face. “This is Lorraine. She’s Chuck’s sister. She’s his reminder of home.”
“I’m sorry, but I have been assigned to -”
“Empty the lockers of the men - I know.” Joe held out the photograph for the soldier to take. “These possessions aren’t just meaningless things; they mean something. They’re important. And that means, you look after them, yeah?”
The soldier took the photograph nervously and placed it back in the bag, aware that Joe was watching him closely.
Joe turned quickly and stormed out of the dormitory, the fresh air hitting him like a welcome cold shower. He watched as soldiers trooped around the parade ground, following the barked orders of a drill sergeant. Joe lit up a cigarette, but it took him several attempts as his hands were shaking too much. He thought of Chuck Wellings. He thought of their laughter and adventures back home. He thought of long-suffering Lorraine, trying to keep her brother in check. How could Joe look Lorraine in the eyes again? He couldn’t deal with seeing her kind face wracked with tears and heartache. She didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve that. He thought of his buddies who had died at Panmere. He saw himself walking down the main street when he got home, the relatives of the dead pointing at him. How did he survive? Why didn’t he die with them? It wasn’t fair.
If only he could make things right.
He knew that was impossible. He couldn’t turn back the clock. And even if he could go back to the lake and follow his sergeant’s orders, what then? He couldn’t have made a difference to the outcome. He’d just be one more casualty having his locker cleared out.
There was nothing he could do, but live with what happened. It was then that a thought, big and bold, forced itself into his mind.
