A Burracombe Easter

by Lilian Harry

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

On Easter day in 1918, Frances Kemp looked out at the little thatched village and promised that, one day, she'd come back...Long before Miss Kemp became headmistress of the village school, she had reason to know and love Burracombe. Sent to stay with family, young Frances treasured her summers there and the friends she made. But as she grows up, she admits that there is someone there who is more than just a friend. As Frances watches so many get called away to war, she must struggle to find a way to get by while her sweetheart is away and a way to think about what lies ahead in a world where every day brings ever more uncertainty.

Release date: April 17, 2014

Publisher: Soundings

Print pages: 64

Sample

I’ll come back to Burracombe again one day, she vowed as she stood on the little grassy plateau amidst the Standing Stones on that Easter Day in 1918. I’ll come back here to live and work, just as you and I said we would.

As she gazed out at the thatched and slate-roofed cottages huddled in the wooded valley, at the glimmer of the little river between the trees, at the green and gold of the moor rising above, Frances Kemp felt the familiar stirring of the memories that so often invaded her heart these days. Memories of the past four years, since the Great War had been declared. Memories of herself and Ralph …

 

‘Have you heard?’ Herbert Turnbull asked, skidding to a halt on his bicycle as Frances, her brother Johnny, and their cousins Ralph and Iris Stannard walked along the village street. ‘We’re at war with Germany!’

The little group stopped and turned. Herbert was breathless and bright-eyed with the news, and had obviously been riding at full speed on the Royal Enfield Roadster that was his pride and joy. Frances, aged fifteen and spending the summer holidays with Johnny and their cousins’ family in the Devon village of Burracombe, shrugged impatiently.

‘What’s so special about that?’

‘It’s a war,’ he said. Herbert, who lived in one of the small hamlets two or three miles from Burracombe, went to the grammar school in Tavistock with Ralph and often joined them for walks or picnics. ‘It’s years since we had a war. We’ll have to go and fight.’

‘Who’ll have to go?’ Johnny asked. ‘And it’s not that long – only about eleven or twelve years since the second Boer War ended.’

‘Long enough. I thought I’d never get a chance. I’m going to enlist straight away.’

‘In the navy?’ Ralph asked sceptically. ‘I thought you didn’t like ships. You get sick on the Torpoint ferry.’

‘I do not! Anyway, I don’t want to go into the navy. I want to join the army.’

‘The army?’ Frances echoed. In a naval area like Plymouth and her own home town of Portsmouth, the thought of joining any other service seemed like treason.

‘Yes. That’s where all the fun is. You won’t get much fighting aboard a ship in this war, Fanny. It’s not like in Nelson’s time.’

‘You can’t. You have to be eighteen to join the army.’ Ralph spoke reprovingly, but Herbert shrugged.

‘I will be eighteen by the time they get organised. It always takes ages for a war to really get going.’

‘Why do you want to go and fight anyway?’ Frances asked. ‘It sounds horrible to me. You could get killed.’

‘And then I’ll be a hero.’ Herbert cycled in circles around them. ‘Or honourably wounded so that I have a limp for the rest of my life, and people will never forget I was one of the first soldiers to go and fight. Will you enlist, too, Ralph? What about you, Johnny?’

Frances looked at her cousin a little anxiously. It was one thing to think of Herbert going to war and coming back with a wounded leg, but quite another when it came to Ralph. It gave her an odd feel. . .