Prologue
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North Africa 1941
Tilly lay in the bottom of a crater, face down in the sand. She shifted slightly, trying to free her airways, and immediately felt a searing pain shoot through her shoulder. She rolled over onto her back and rested in that position for a while until she regained her strength. She looked above her. The sides of the crater swept away from her, the rim a blurred line between earth and sky. She was alive at least — the pain told her so.
A grim, unnatural silence surged over her. The brilliant blue sky seemed to have been painted on. It didn’t belong there. Not a sound. She saw a plane high above her, but couldn’t hear its engines. The silence was uncanny. There was a humming in her ears. She’d gone deaf. The last thing she had seen before everything went black had been the waves of scorched earth stretching into the distance. An ocean of sand, so unlike her country home back in England.
She reached out for home and the safe hedgerows of Micklewell, hundreds of miles away. Now she was drowning in sand. Where was she? A few moments ago, she had been at the wheel of an ambulance heading out to rescue soldiers injured ina bombardment. Now, it was she who needed the ambulance. She took a deep breath and used her good arm to push herself upright. Her shoulder was dislocated; she could hardly move her left arm. She winced at the thought of having to force it back into place by herself. The procedure was difficult enough being performed by a second party. By herself? Well, she didn’t want to think about it.
Was she alone? She was so distracted by the pain that she didn’t think about her partner and armed escort. She scanned the hole she was in. No sign of Fliss or Bert. She tried to stand and bit down hard on the pain. The sides of the crater were steep, but she had to try to scramble out. The sand slipped away from her feet and it was slow progress, but she eventually reached the top. She could see the ambulance on its side, a tangle of metal, one wheel still spinning from the impact. She hobbled around, frantically searching for Fliss. She was beginning to fear the worst.
A sparkle of reflected light caught Tilly’s eye. It was the bejewelled bracelet of the watch that Fliss insisted on wearing, despite its impracticality. ‘My God, Fliss!’ Tilly gasped, her breath catching in her throat. She fought back the tears and tried to remain practical and detached. But this was her friend. The tears came anyway and rolled down her cheeks. She hurried towards the still body that lay there partially covered in sand. She knelt down, cleared Fliss’s nose and mouth, and placed her own face close to her friend’s. She could feel her shallow breath. She was alive! Thank God. Blood was seeping from a wound on her forehead and she was barely conscious, but she was alive!
‘Fliss, Fliss. It’s OK. I’m here. You’re going to be OK,’ Tilly said, her breath coming in fits and starts.
She was conscious of her own heart thumping against her ribcage. She felt Fliss’s heartbeat. It was racing. She lifted herfriend’s eyelids. Her eyes were rolled back in her head. Tilly carried on talking to her, reassuring her friend she was there.
‘I’m not leaving you, Fliss. You’re going to pull through this. Don’t you give up on me now. Don’t you dare!’
Chapter 1
September 1937
Tilly’s home was in the School House in Whippingham, Isle of Wight, which she shared with her sister, Dot Truscott, her guardian, Amelia Clarence, and her brother, Ronnie Truscott.
Tilly saw Ronnie as a brother, despite the fact that she was technically his aunt. Ronnie was born in 1917 to Tilly’s oldest sister, Kate, just one month after Tilly herself was born to Ada Truscott, Ronnie’s grandma. She and Ronnie had left Micklewell in the summer of 1923 when they were six years old. The family had been in financial difficulties and Amelia Clarence, the headteacher of Micklewell school, had offered to foster them and take their newly qualified teacher sister, Dot, with her to her new school on the Isle of Wight.
It had been a huge change for Tilly and Ronnie, but, now, here they were, thirteen years later and a new phase of their lives was about to begin. Tilly was to train to become a nurse at the Royal County Hospital and live in. Ronnie, though, would remain living with Dot and Amelia in the schoolhouse until he had finished his apprenticeship with Saunders-Roe, the highly respected shipbuilding and aeronautical engineering company in East Cowes.
It was the first time they had been separated since they were born and they both felt an acute sense of loss, as if a limb had been severed. They had shared everything together and now they must go their separate ways. It was a strange situation for them both, as they always felt as if they had two homes, one in Whippingham, Isle of Wight and one in their ancestral home of Micklewell in Hampshire.
The day of Tilly’s departure had arrived and she waited at the bus stop with Ronnie. Dot and Amelia were both teachingand not able to leave their posts to wave Tilly off. But her dear Ronnie was there, and she was so pleased she had his company and didn’t have to set out on this important first step towards independence completely on her own.
‘You look just the ticket, Tilly,’ Ronnie said. ‘I must admit that I find it difficult to picture you in a uniform toeing the line to Matron. Write and tell me if what they say about matrons is true. Whether they are all dragons. And if the rumours about nurses being all too ready to further their knowledge of the male body is to be believed? You be careful too, mind. Apparently, those junior doctors are renowned for taking liberties with all those attractive nurses around them ready to oblige.’
‘Ronnie! I thought better of you,’ Tilly exclaimed, pretending to be shocked. She had heard the rumours too and she wasn’t averse to finding out the truth of them herself. She was actually looking forward to meeting an educated man who knew a bit about the female body and the way it worked. Someone with a bit of sensitivity and a delicate touch. Not like those fumbling teenage boys who tried to grab her behind the school bike shed.
She smiled to herself as she thought about Ronnie’s comments about her appearance. She was pleased with the way she looked this morning and noted that she had turned a few heads on their walk to the bus stop. She had selected the smartest dress she owned, mid-calf length, pale blue with a neat collar, gathered shoulder panels and a belted waist. Plain but elegant in order to avoid the stern eye of any matron, but nonetheless flattering to her petite figure. She had made the right choice. The colour suited her and complemented her auburn hair. She had taken time over her make-up so that it wasn’t too bold, but subtle. Her pancake foundation gave her a good colour and the pale blue eyeshadow beneath her neatly arched eyebrows accentuated her wide blue eyes. She was lucky enough to have long eyelashes, and didn’t need the gooey lashlengthener that had become popular and which you had to spit into to make useable. She tucked her unruly hair under her hat and stood tall, ready to take her first step into the world of work.
As the bus approached, she turned to embrace Ronnie and kiss him goodbye.
‘Good luck with your first day, Ronnie,’ she said. ‘It won’t be long before we’re together again at the School House. Write to me.’
Tilly deliberately sat in the back seat of the bus so that she could wave at Ronnie. As his lonely figure disappeared into the distance, she felt a lurch in her stomach. His last words echoed in her ears and a smile seeped onto her lips, challenging the tears that threatened to moisten her eyes.
‘Try not to get into too much trouble on your first day, sis.’
Chapter 2
Tilly arrived in good time. Although she lived less than an hour’s bus ride from Ryde, she was not as familiar with it as East Cowes. She got off the bus very close to the hospital and started out on the short walk.
She stood before the gates of the hospital and put down her small suitcase. It was a formidable-looking, red-brick building with rows of windows behind which she envisaged rows of beds holding sick patients. The central building displaying the nameRoyal County Hospitalin bold white letters was flanked by two wings, one of them ending in an elegant curved bow window, more befitting of a stately home than a hospital, she thought. There was a strange tower topped by a dome and Tilly wondered at its purpose.
As she stood, gazing in awe at what was to be her new place of work, a figure dumped a hefty suitcase beside hers and said in a bold voice, ‘Well, this is it, then. Last day that we can call our time our own. From now on it will be, “Yes, Matron, no, Matron, three bags full, Matron.” You must be one of the lambs to the slaughter, just like me. Felicity Marcheson, pleased to meet you,’ the young woman said, extending her hand.
