FROM THE LADDER OF HIS pigeon coop, Doctor Charles Smith gazed over white-frosted farmland. The sun peeped over the horizon, then slid into the full glory of a new day, setting dull clouds ablaze. Rich golden light painted the windows and thatch of a distant tied cottage where his patient lay sleeping – the family inside that humble home would treasure their baby boy for the rest of their lives.

After twenty-four hours attending a difficult confinement, the local midwife, Fanny Eccles, had sent the young woman’s father, Jacob Boniface, to knock the doctor from his sleep. In that vacant hour before dawn, Dr Smith saved the exhausted young woman’s life with a simple snip, and later, a few stitches. Now, mother and baby were sleeping peacefully. In a whimsical moment, the doctor imagined an angel heading for Bethlehem, stopping off to illuminate that humble dwelling in Dover. He yawned, then smiled, uplifted by the Yuletide scene.

He glanced across the frozen furrows of a turnip field and gave thought to all those men serving. Christmas or not, they’d be too busy killing each other with the newly invented machine guns in the Great War. He sighed wearily, hoping for an hour’s sleep before leaving for his surgery.

These days, too many of his call-outs were under more ominous circumstances. The gangrenous limbs of war amputees, or sepsis, were often the forerunner of yet another premature funeral. His morphine and syringe were always to hand.

He shivered, tugged at the corduroy collar of his waxed jacket and stared at the sky, searching hopefully for his best birds. A month ago, ten homing pigeons had left for the Somme in wicker baskets strapped onto the backs of British soldiers, the Pigeon Corps. Military leaders waited for the birds to carry crucial information home from the front line.

The trill of a bicycle bell broke his thoughts. Turning on the ladder, Dr Smith peered over a hedge. Albert, local telegraph boy, pedalled helter-skelter down Lighthouse Lane, his bright grin challenging the doctor’s frown. The doctor had delivered Albert fifteen years ago and had hardly seen him thereafter, yet this would be the fourth time the boy had thumbed the gate-latch in the past six months.

He turned and stared over the Dover cliff top, across the English Channel to the grey line that hid France, and beyond, Greece.

‘Doctor! Dr Smith!’ Albert shouted, abandoning the bell to wave a message over his head. ‘News from Athens!’ The boy wobbled, then clutched the handlebars and returned to bellringing.

He hurried down the ladder. Earlier in the year, Charles and Martha had dealt with the sudden sacrifice of their other two children, Arthur and Sissy. Two weeks ago, another telegram had arrived, this time concerning their youngest child, eighteen-year-old Gertie.

With deep regret we must inform you, after the sinking of HMHS Britannic in Greek waters, VAD Gertrude Smith is listed as missing, presumed drowned.