“Maybe a nice English boy,” Audrey said. She hadn’t had a date, or time for one, while her mother was sick. She liked the idea of meeting a nice man one day, but she hadn’t had the opportunity in years.

“I’d rather wait til the war is over,” Louise said soberly, and her situation was more complicated.

None of them were desperate to find boyfriends. They had too much else on their minds.

The two nurses they were sharing their cabin with had looked startled when they saw Louise, but made no comment after a quick glance at each other. The others seemed nice enough, and they decided to ignore her.

The days on the ship dragged by and there were some tense moments, when the ship slowed, and they all suspected the lookouts had spotted something or the captain had been warned. Then their speed would pick up again. The captain was pushing the ship hard to get to England in a hurry. Ships just like theirs had been torpedoed and sunk by U-boats or attacked by the German Luftwaffe, but day followed day without incident. And finally, five days later, land came into sight. More than two thousand cheers rose from the ship as they all stood on deck. They had made the journey safely, and their next adventures awaited them.

Chapter 8

When war was declared in Europe in September 1939, although they were older, Prudence Pommery’s parents were among the first to offer their home to house as many children as they could manage during the evacuation of children from London. They had three grown children of their own. Maximillian was twenty-two, Prudence was twenty, and Phillip was nineteen. Both their sons enlisted in the RAF immediately. A month after war was declared, Prudence signed on for an accelerated two-and-a-half-year nursing course at the local college, near their Yorkshire manor.