The winter is bitterly cold. In the mornings, I hurry out of bed, wrapping myself in an old blanket as I make my way to the kitchen where I prepare breakfast for Duncan and Bunny. I set the kettle on the hob and slice the bread. Then I pack whatever food I can find into two canvas bags for their lunch. It is still dark as Duncan and Bunny stumble into the kitchen, forcing chilblained fingers and toes into gloves and boots. The water in the basins I have left on the floor to catch the drips from the leaking roof has frozen. Our pipes are frozen too. We will be forced to spend the morning tramping across fields with our buckets to collect water from the spring. They are harvesting turnips up at the farm and I wonder how they will dig the ground. I pour the boiling water into the teapot, squeezing the leaves with a spoon against the side in a vain attempt to produce a stronger brew. There is very little tea left and we have had no coffee for weeks. Duncan accepts the cup of steaming tea gratefully. He looks exhausted. He is not as strong as Bunny and the months of hard labor are beginning to exact their toll. His eyes are swollen from lack of sleep and his skin has a papery appearance, like old documents. I long to take him in my arms, to lay him in my bed and hold him while he sleeps. Instead, I rake the fire, set the places for the children’s breakfast. When Duncan and Bunny have finished eating I kiss them goodbye, watching from the door as they trudge down the lane until the cold forces me back inside.

The war edges closer. Its madness infiltrates the house. It steals through doors, seeps between crevices, invisible, contagious, evil. Julian hits his governess so violently I must apply a cold compress to her face. I can no longer find reliable help in the house. One morning it is ten o’clock before Emily appears, and when I reprimand her for her lateness, she announces her decision to leave. She can earn better wages, so she tells me, making munitions for the war. The food shortages intensify. Duncan is now so tired that he regularly falls asleep over his evening meal. Often Bunny and I end up carrying him to his bed. I long to sleep too. I long to pull the covers up over my head and wake in a different place, somewhere life is not such a struggle.

I lie in bed and listen to the wind in the trees, trying not to hear the pounding of the guns across the channel, or the slow tread of Bunny’s pacings outside my door. Still he has not given up his desire to sleep with me. I close my eyes and hope his offensive will pass.