“You can get about and I can’t,” Jane scolded. “Stop dithering and earn your keep.”

Louisa looked as if she’d laugh and cry all at once.

“Bring me some coffee if the house isn’t on fire,” Jane added in a gentler voice. “I will hold the fort, as they say.”

In the public bar, soldiers and firemen and the village Home Guard were running in and out and shouting to one another. The house did not look as if it were on the brink of falling down or burning up, but it was dark as a well because of the electricity being out. Nan rushed about boiling kettles and supplying folk with towels and blankets through the back door.

“What’s happened?” I exclaimed.

“The limekilns have collapsed,” Nan answered grimly. “Those Jerry prisoners are trapped. Maybe worse.”

“Oh no!” Louisa cried.

Nan gave her a strange look.

“RAF Windyedge sent their fire crew across. They’ll dig ’em out,” Nan said. “The snow’s melting fast, and if they clear the runway I think the lads will be flying tonight.”

“I ken, I’ve got to hike back to the airfield in case they need me in the Tilly,” I said. “Phyllis went before the bomb fell. Where’s Sergeant Lind?”

Nan shrugged. “Wing Commander Cromwell popped in and nabbed her so she can translate when they dig out the Jerries. There’s that much going on, I’m as glad not to have the house full of guests the day. Louisa, could you take this can of porridge out—”

“I’ll do it, Mrs. Campbell,” I interrupted. “Louisa has to stay with Mrs. Warner. She tumbled over when the bomb hit and she’s hurt her arm. She can’t use her sticks.”

Nan pushed her wispy black hair away from her face and rubbed her eyes.

“Whisht, I never believed I’d see this day,” she muttered, and slammed a full kettle on the hob. The blue flame of the gas burner gave a merry glow—God be thanked, the gas mains weren’t damaged. “Is she all right?” Nan asked. “Does she need the doctor?”

As a Traveller I don’t believe I ever wanted a doctor in all my years, but after I’d seen one or two airmen fly in with punctured lungs after an op, I respected medical folk more than I did as a wee lassie. Aye, Jane ought to see a doctor—but it could probably wait until the blaze in the nearby trees had been put out, and the trapped men rescued.

Louisa thought the same. “She’ll do for the moment,” she said. “I’ll look after her just now.”

Louisa:

Jane said she wanted coffee.