Margaret stifled a yawn. It was only nine o’clock, but she still felt tired from the sleep she’d missed from the early shift yesterday. This work was too important, though, and this evening with her friends was too dear to wrap up early. Another Glenn Miller song came on—“Knit One, Purl Two.” The girls fell into another fit of giggles. The song had dominated radio stations last year, and its appearance at this moment felt like it was all meant to be.

“You know what?” said Gladys. “I think I’d like to do this every Saturday night after all.”

Margaret smiled at Gladys’s response to the silent wish of her heart. She whispered a prayer for the boys who would receive the socks and went back to work.

Tomorrow, she would write a letter to William and slip it into the box before shipping it out.

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

From the shelter of the rotund folly, Tom Powell could almost believe that there was not a war going on beyond its columns. In almost every direction, he beheld the gentle slope of hills in a palette of green hues. And closer to the estate house—which looked miniature from this perch—lay perfectly manicured hedges shaped into precise geometric patterns. The kind in which a child might delight in a round of hide-and-seek.

He’d been dispatched to Littlecote House to deliver a message to Colonel Sink, and his luck at borrowing a bicycle to take on his way from Chilton Foliat had saved a few minutes over walking. When he’d arrived at the estate, it had looked nearly deserted. So he was reveling in this extra time by sitting under the shade of the white pavilion before heading to the large manor and completing his assignment.

It was a far cry from just weeks ago when they’d been packed—five thousand men in a vessel built for one thousand—in the Samaria. Fresh from training in the debilitating heat of Camp Toccoa, Georgia, and more schooling in North Carolina. (Still hot, but fewer bugs to contend with.) Even as their stomachs lurched from seasickness, his friend John Beck had told him his secret for staying hopeful among the intensity of the training and the fear of what was to come. Stop when you can. Close your eyes. Smell the air. Listen for the birds. Imagine that it was a vacation that brought you over the Atlantic.

A seeming impossibility considering the few hours of sleep they were afforded. But now Tom wanted to try it, especially in a place as beautiful as this.