By Easter, with Paul well settled at St Dunstan’s and Jenny, the new nursery maid, proving to be a great help to Josephine, Vicky’s thoughts turned to ways in which she could help the war effort. All over the country women were doing work that previously only men had done, in order that the men could be freed for fighting.

She thought of Shuttleworth Hall’s long terrace and of the many French windows that opened out onto it. Beds could easily be wheeled out there on summer afternoons and, with the view down to the river, there could be no better place for rest and recuperation. She would have to engage qualified nursing staff, of course, and the conversion of the east wing into wards would take a lot of work. It could be done, though. And once it was done, she would have the satisfaction of knowing she was contributing to war work just as much as anyone else.

The next morning, after telling her father her plans and having his full support for them, she telephoned Violet Ramsbotham.

‘Dearest girl, of course I remember you,’ Violet rasped. ‘And I knew you were back at Shuttleworth Hall with your children after leaving…well, we won’t go into where it was you left. What is it I can do for you?’

‘I want to convert Shuttleworth Hall into a convalescent home, but I’m not sure how to go about it.’

‘Then I shall tell you,’ said Violet robustly. ‘First, it helps if it’s run under the jurisdiction of the Red Cross. Second, you need to become a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment. Third, you need to obtain the services of an experienced ward sister and two fully trained nurses. Fourth, you need to obtain the services of three or four VAD workers other than yourself. Fifth, you need equipment. Medical equipment, of course, and beds that can be wheeled and plenty of wheelchairs and masses of linen. If you like, I’ll drive over to Shuttleworth Hall and assess what is needed in a more detailed way.’

When she told her father of the impending visit he paled. ‘Great Scott, Vicky! You didn’t agree to the suggestion, did you? You’ll have to deal with her yourself. I’d rather face the Kaiser’s hordes than Violet!’

Intimidating though Violet undoubtedly was, she was also frighteningly efficient. Within a few short weeks Shuttleworth Hall was transformed and, by midsummer, was fully functioning as a convalescent home for wounded soldiers.

‘Poor beggars,’ Arthur Hudson said after making his initial acquaintance with them. ‘I doubt many of them will ever work again, never mind fight.’

Vicky, too, wondered what the fate of her patients would be when the war was over. Nearly all of them had lost a limb. For the luckier ones it was an arm or a hand that had been blown into eternity. For the less lucky it was a leg—and sometimes it was both legs.

‘The Krauts have big guns, miss, see?’ a youth who had lost both legs to gas gangrene said to her as she bathed his stumps. ‘They’re so big they can lob shells weighing nearly a ton. It’s like an express train coming at you. The fort me and my mates were in was supposed to be able to stand up to anything, but the Krauts’ big guns flattened it—and us—as if we were beetles.’