The night was quiet no longer. The explosions, so loud they made the ears ring, caused walls and floors to shake, filled the air with the rumble of collapsing masonry. Fires crackled, springing to life where hearths and gas mains had been. The acrid stench of smoke, the dry dust of crumbled brickwork, made it difficult to breathe.
This was the horror of this Great War. Wars, for centuries, were something fought on a faraway field. But the massive Zeppelins brought the war to London. As if it wasn’t enough that the people had sent sons, husbands, and fathers to die in the trenches, now the Germans aimed their bombs at the families waiting at home.
Joselyn Singleton crouched under the heavy kitchen table of her family home, her hands over her ears. All she could think of were her twin brother and her parents. She had not seen them since she had returned home and had no way to know where they were in the house, or even if they were home. She had only been inside for a few minutes when the raid had begun. The first bomb had shattered the windows and she had taken shelter under the table.
Joselyn, halfway through her eighteenth year, had been working as a conductor on the buses all day. It suited her rather more than being a volunteer nurse, the option many of her friends had taken. She was rather squeamish about the sight of blood and, besides, she did not think she could bear to see suffering on so great a scale. Before the war, she’d been cultivating a career on the stage, but that had felt very frivolous in such a time of desperation. So now she clipped tickets on buses in her smart uniform, rather enjoyed the freedom to roam around London, and tried not to remember that she did so because there was a war raging across the sea.
Of course, she could not forget. Her own brother was part of the war. Vernon was not away fighting, but rather serving a clerical duty at a desk in London, as a result of a string of childhood diseases that had left him with reduced lung capacity and made him unfit for active duty. She supposed she should be ashamed that she was glad, but he was the other half of her, her twin, and she could not bear the idea of hearing of his death via telegram one bleak day. His administrative role was just as fundamental to British victory, and both of them were rather scornful about the supposed glory in battle and prayed for an end to the madness.
Now, Joselyn cowered under the table and desperately wondered where Vernon was. He sometimes worked late into the night, but he could equally be somewhere in the house, or visiting their neighbours. Bombs were exploding across Greenwich and with every explosion she winced. Her parents had been to visit her mother’s sister in Chelsea but she had no way of knowing if they were still there.
Another bomb fell, closer this time, so close that she heard objects in the house falling. The dark room was now illuminated with an orange glow from the fires burning outside. She could hear men’s voices, shouting urgently.
Then there was a crash above her, a flash. And then, nothing.
Devon, 1918
“Promise me, Evelyn!”
Evelyn sobbed and struck her brother on the shoulder, with no intention to harm him, simply to express her anguish. He stood solid, his eyes imploring her.
“How can I promise that, Eddie? How can you ask me to even think about it?” Evelyn’s voice was hoarse with crying. She’d barely stopped since Edward had received his papers, demanding he go to fight for his country.
“How can you not promise it, Evie?” There were tears in Edward’s eyes too, a strain in his voice.
“Because I don’t want to even consider that you won’t come back, Eddie! I can’t think about it. If I promise you, it’s like tempting fate. I couldn’t live with myself.” She looked up into his familiar face. Other young men from West Coombe had gone to fight, and had died. But it couldn’t happen to her brother. He was too kind to kill, too vital to die. She reached up a hand and stroked his cheek.
“Evie”—Edward cradled Evelyn’s face in his hands—“I don’t want to think about it either. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to see anyone else die.” Evelyn could hear the fear in his voice and anxiety gripped her heart tighter. “But I don’t have a choice. You wouldn’t want me to refuse to go, would you?”
“I wish I could…” She knew there was no alternative. Edward was no conscientious objector—his patriotism, though latent, had been stirred by the struggle against Germany. Although it had not turned out to be the quick and glorious war they had hoped for, that day in ’14, he still thought there was something worth fighting for. They had always known he would reach the age where he would have to go to the front if the war did not end. There was still no sign of it ending.
“I know, Evie. And if it wasn’t for duty and all that, I wouldn’t go. But since I have to, please, promise. If I don’t make it back, live your life for both of us. Do something extraordinary. Don’t just live and die here in West Coombe. Strive to be happy—don’t settle for contentment.”
Edward’s eyes had grown wide and desperate. Evelyn could sense his pain. It wasn’t an idle expectation he had of her. On many nights she’d sat up with him in the sitting room, talking about how she found life rather too small, how she wanted something more but wasn’t sure what that was. He always told her he felt the same, that one day they’d leave together if they had to. Now he demanded she commit to that, even without him.
“But you won’t die.” Her
