‘Goodbye, Holly, have a good life. I’ll never forget what you and Dr Parkin did for me.’

Holly felt a lump in her throat as he was carried away. She could only hope for the very best for Sam and she silently said a prayer for him as he was swallowed up by the crowds on the dockside.

As soon as she had composed herself she hurried towards the train station, praying that she was not too late for the last train, and was delighted to discover that there was one due any minute. She hastily paid for her ticket and climbed aboard and soon found herself surrounded by men in uniform, many of them like herself going home on a short leave before heading back to the fray.

As she looked around at the haggard, haunted faces she couldn’t help but compare how the men looked now to the day she had watched the young men from her home town climb aboard the train at Nuneaton, eager to start their training. They had discovered all too soon that rather than being the adventure they had envisaged, it was instead a living nightmare. They had been forced to live in muddy, filthy trenches, seen their fellow men gunned down in front of their very eyes and been forced to kill to save their own skins. It was no wonder that some of them would never be the same again. They had seen sights that no one should ever see and it showed in their stance as they sat staring numbly ahead, poor things. But these were the lucky ones, for at least they were going home, she thought.

It was very late at night when the train pulled into the station and Holly was almost dropping with exhaustion. Still not far to go now and I shall be home, she thought, forcing herself to put one foot in front of another. And then there it was, her home, thankfully with a light still shining dully from the drawing room window.

She tapped at the door, which was opened by Ivy who was in her dressing robe with her hair loose about her shoulders.

‘Holly!’ she cried as she flung her arms about her and almost dragged her over the threshold. ‘Oh, I can’t believe you’re really here. Why didn’t you let us know you were coming? We could have come to meet you off the train.’

‘I didn’t know I was coming myself till a short while ago and with how irregular the post is at the moment I doubted a letter would get here in time.’

‘What’s all the noise about?’ A gruff voice sounded from the stairs and her grandfather appeared, looking stunned and delighted.

‘Why, my dear girl, thank God you are safe,’ he said in a choked voice.

‘He’s upset, well we all are. There has been so much bad news in the town and just the other week a German Zeppelin crossed the Norfolk coast during the night and rained bombs on Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn. Over twenty people are dead and ever so many more injured apparently.’