A Christmas Promise. Annie GrovesЧитать онлайн книгу.

      One

      Two

      Three

      Four

      Five

      Six

      Seven

      Eight

      Nine

      Ten

      Eleven

      Twelve

      Thirteen

      Fourteen

      Fifteen

       Sixteen

       Seventeen

       Eighteen

       Nineteen

       Twenty

       Twenty-One

       Twenty-Two

       Twenty-Three

       Twenty-Four

       Twenty-Five

       Twenty-Six

       Twenty-Seven

      Twenty-Eight

       Keep Reading

       Acknowledgements

       An Interview with Sheila Riley

       About Annie Groves

       Also by Annie Groves

       About the Publisher

       ONE

       September 1943

      ‘Forty-eight hours’ embarkation leave.’

      Tilly felt a thrill of excitement shoot through her veins. This was it: she had been accepted to do her war work abroad. It was what she had been hoping for since she had volunteered for overseas duties. So much had happened in the last few months that it seemed as if she had been on exercises in Wales for years. Not that she could or would discuss it with anybody, even her mother, but there was a lot going on in Whitehall right now. Her mother would have nightmares if she knew that the War Office was preparing for a second front that would end the conflict, one way or another, once and for all. Nor could she tell her mum about the nature of her foreign duties, which had just been confirmed with a tap on her shoulder by a high-ranking officer. But she had to put that to the back of her mind now.

      She was so happy to be going home, especially now, and Rick said he would have leave, too.

      ‘Your leave starts now,’ said the chief commander. ‘Leave a contact number – but don’t bother about bringing back your bathing costumes. You may not be sent straight away.’

      ‘How droll,’ Janet said as they left the commander’s office. ‘Sunbathing, indeed! The beaches will be heavily fortified with barbed wire the same as here, no doubt.’

      ‘I know,’ said Tilly, aware that her leave would be tinged with sadness. She and the other three girls with whom she had trained, Veronica, Pru and Janet, had all volunteered for overseas duty. Every girl who offered to undertake such duties released a man for service elsewhere. The bonus was the excitement of being in some exotic foreign country for the winter instead of being stuck in foggy old London. Tilly and the other girls had been billeted close to Whitehall and her long hours meant that she rarely got home, but now, as the time to leave was drawing close, Tilly wasn’t so sure she had done the right thing, and foggy old London seemed not so bad after all. There was one consolation, however: some of the other ATS girls hadn’t been called up to go overseas for months.

       A Few Days Earlier

      ‘Are you thinking of going back to Liverpool?’ Olive asked Sally as she scraped carrots for the evening meal at the brown, stone sink, before she went out to do her Women’s Voluntary Service work. Sally, her lodger, picked up another carrot and automatically began to do the same.

      The two women enjoyed a catch-up in the kitchen when they got a chance, but as they both led busy lives, that hadn’t been often of late. However, Olive could see that Sally, as fidgety as a cat on a hot wall now, had something on her mind.

      ‘Is something the matter, Sally?’ Olive pressed her, the knife stilled in her hand as she studied the young nurse’s face. Sally looked tired, which was understandable; the whole country was tired – and sick of this war. But Olive could see in Sally’s eyes that it wasn’t just the war and the privations it brought that concerned her especially, nor was it like her to be secretive. Olive had noticed that she had talked a lot about her mother lately, much more than she had done in the past.

      ‘I’m fine, Olive, truly,’ Sally assured her landlady with a stiff smile, pushing her burnished