“I might, Evie. I might. And if I don’t, then we’ll go on as before. But if I do, in the moment when my life is slipping away, if I can think of you doing everything we’ve talked about, and more, then I will be satisfied and at peace.”
Evelyn held his gaze for a long moment. The pain in her throat was so intense she could no longer speak above a whisper. “I promise, Eddie. I promise. But please, don’t die.”
Edward smiled sadly. “I’ll try. I promise you that. And thank you.” He bent to place a light kiss on her forehead. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she did not try to stop them.
“I love you, Eddie.” Edward did not answer. He simply held her close. Her memories of their childhood together, of that innocent happiness, tormented her. He was just over a year older than her. It was a gap of three years down to their younger sister, Annie, and another two years again to Peter, who was just twelve. Edward and Evelyn had always felt themselves different to their siblings, older, wiser, and more worldly. Edward, as the eldest son, had received the best education, but everything he’d learned at the High School, he’d shared with Evelyn. His help had dulled the pain, three years ago, when she’d been required to leave school and help her mother and father in the town grocery shop. A girl’s education did not matter so greatly, providing she knew enough not to be ignorant as a wife and mother.
Her mind went back further, to playing on the beach in the bay with Eddie, digging deep holes in the sand. Eddie would tease her and say she’d dig all the way through to Australia. The picture in her mind changed again. Eddie at her dolls’ tea parties, pretending happily to drink from the miniature china tea set. Eddie at his birthday just last year, delighted with the cake Evelyn had made for him. It had always been Eddie and Evie. Although she felt a sisterly love for Annie and Peter, she did not share the level of friendship and the meeting of minds that she did with her older brother.
And now he would be snatched away from her and taken to a foreign land, where men who did not know him at all would try to take his life. She felt the sobs rising again and held him tighter.
Chapter One
November 1927
Evelyn Hopkins slipped out of the back door of her home about half an hour before the time her father would usually rise. She’d not slept at all, lying awake for a while in the empty room. She reflected on the stories of women she had read in the newspapers. These were modern times—the war had changed everything. There were women who were lawyers now, civil servants, doctors. Women who lived alone and knew their hopes of marriage had died in the mud of Flanders. These surplus women, as she’d seen them referred to, had no choice but to be independent. Even before the war, the suffragettes had made their voices heard, and not always quietly. These people made her world seem small, her expectations so limited. Now it was her time to be brave and see what came of it.
She thought of her brother, too, and wanted to go back to him. Had he slept last night? What impact would her decision have on a body and mind already so damaged, a man who had lived through such trauma?
She whispered into the early morning silence. “This is that moment, isn’t it, Eddie? That we always talked about, like birds and butterflies. The moment where you take to the air and find out if you can fly, or if you’ll just plummet to the ground. But even if you plummet, at least you had the chance of flying.”
If Eddie could go to war, live through a war, she could do this. Edward had climbed onto a train, then a ship, and had been transported to a foreign land where men were trying to kill him. So many other men had done the same. So many had not returned. This unexpected trip to London with a half-planned scheme to stay awhile and see a little of the world was really nothing more than a tourist jaunt in comparison. It was certainly nothing like as dramatic as it felt.
As she walked the three miles to the station, she thought about Edward. He had returned from the war, although, for a while, they’d believed him dead. After the Battle of Valenciennes, they’d received a telegram to say he was missing. So many of the missing turned out to be dead that her family’s grief was instant and deep.
Other families in town had lost sons, fathers, uncles. The community tried to support each other, as they all tried to fathom the loss. But Evelyn had not wanted their comfort. Eddie was gone and she was certain no one felt it as deeply as she did. Of her promise to Eddie, she’d thought very little. Loss and emptiness pervaded everything.
But a few months after the end of the war, they’d received a letter from a military hospital near Brighton. A solider who had been transported there from France at the end of hostilities. His face had been badly wounded and heavily bandaged, as had both of his hands. His uniform had gone and somehow there was no trace of his identification papers. He had not spoken since he had first arrived at the hospital. Eventually he had written his name and place of birth on a piece of paper. Tracking down the Hopkins family in a town as small as West Coombe had not been difficult.
Evelyn remembered her parents’ delight. Edward was not dead and he was coming home! She was delighted too, the heavy weight of grief finally lifted. But the thought of Eddie so injured he could not speak made it
