Pain lanced her, like a knife deep in her heart. ‘We can’t! Not Papa’s bakery. It’s his life.’

‘His family is his life. This is just bricks and mortar, Anna.’

She wrenched herself free from her mother’s grasp, suddenly furious. ‘How can you say that? It’s more than that. It’s what Papa worked all his life for. It was – is – his pride and joy.’ She shook her head. ‘We can’t allow the bakery to close. I won’t let it happen.’

Her mother looked helpless. ‘I can’t see another way …’

‘Edward will run it,’ Anna said. ‘You know Papa always meant for him to take over the business one day? He can do it when he comes home.’

‘That might – be a long time.’ She could see her mother choosing her words carefully. But Anna still understood what she really meant. And she couldn’t allow herself to think that way.

‘He will come home,’ she insisted quietly. And so will Papa, she added silently. One day she would have her loved ones all back together again, and everything would be just as it always was.

And until then, she had to keep everything going for them.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Grace never approached Sergeant Trevelyan’s bed without expecting him to be dead.

It had been three weeks since he survived his operation, defying all the doctors’ worst predictions. His recovery had been agonisingly slow since then, and every time Grace had to go to his bedside to feed him, or wash him, or administer his painkillers, she did it with dread, thinking that this would surely be the day she found his lifeless corpse lying there.

She was sure of it now, as she and Dulcie did the dressings round together. Grace had been keeping her eye on his bed while they attended to the other patients. He was lying on his back, perfectly still. It was hard for her to tell if he was breathing, but she was certain he hadn’t moved in all the time she had been observing him.

When the time came, Grace found herself approaching Sergeant Trevelyan’s bed on tiptoe, wincing at the trolley’s squeaky wheel.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Dulcie asked.

‘Shhh!’ Grace turned to her, finger to her lips. ‘I think Sergeant Trevelyan might be – you know.’

‘What?’

Grace mouthed the word silently. ‘Dead.’

Dulcie frowned. ‘Why are you whispering, if he’s dead? He won’t hear you.’ She peered over Grace’s shoulder. ‘Come to think of it, he does look a bit blue,’ she said.

‘Do you think so?’ As Grace edged closer to check, a pair of cold green eyes snapped open. Grace jumped back with a yelp, colliding with the dressings trolley and sending a bowl of swabs clattering to the floor.

Dulcie laughed. ‘Look, Duffield, you’ve woken the dead!’

Grace quickly gathered up the scattered swabs and put them in the bowl ready for burning. Then she turned back to Sergeant Trevelyan with a smile.

‘Good morning, Sergeant,’ she greeted him brightly. ‘How are you today?’