Christmas on the Home Front. Roland Moore

      To Annie, a grandmother who loved books and who taught me the power of stories.

       Prologue

      It was one day before Christmas. And Joyce Fisher wondered whether she would live to see it.

      This winter-bleak thought wasn’t borne of fatigue from living through so many years of war. It wasn’t even the result of having lost so much along the way. No, Joyce knew, totally rationally, that today was one of those days that can change a life forever; a crossroads in which taking the wrong path could cost everything. She wished with all her heart that it wasn’t the case, that there was some rosy alternative, another path to take. But she couldn’t see any way out of it.

      She hadn’t planned for it to turn out that way, of course, but the trouble was that you rarely had any warning which days would be the ones to change things. You could plan for saying yes to an invitation or moving house or getting married. But other life-changing events could leap out in front of you, like a distracted deer on a country lane, giving you no opportunity to prepare, no opportunity to weigh up the options. Sometimes there was no time to think about consequences. Sometimes there was only time to act and then hope that things turned out for the best.

      Joyce’s hands were bunched into fists, her fingernails impressing bleached crescents into her fleshy palms. She had never felt this scared, this nervous or this numb. The torrent of emotions overwhelmed her making every thought struggle for air like a swimmer lost in the currents. It was hard to think straight. And yet that’s what she had to do. All the energy had drained from her body; her legs moving slowly, heavy and disconnected. She’d been through enough to know that she was in shock and that more tears would come later. When this was over she could give in to grief. For now, whatever defence mechanisms and natural survival instinct she still possessed had kicked in.

      Joyce was a capable, resourceful young woman, and at twenty-four, she was one of the older Land Girls at Pasture Farm. Not as opinionated as Connie Carter and not as naïve as Iris Dawson, Joyce kept everyone on an even keel, offering the gentle, understated guidance of a big sister for the other girls. She enjoyed the farm work. She enjoyed doing her bit for the war effort. In fact, Joyce was motivated to an almost unhealthy degree by the need to do her bit. She believed every bit of allied propaganda, every edict from the War Office about how civilians should be behaving, what they should be doing.

      Dig for Victory? Yes, of course.

      Don’t waste water? Naturally.

      Loose lips sink ships. Not Joyce. You could count on her discretion.

      Joyce never questioned what she was doing, never questioned her orders like her friend Nancy Morrell had. Joyce needed the order and rigidity of service to hold onto like a lifeline. It made sense of everything that had happened in her life, everything that they were going through individually and as a nation. She’d lost her mother and sister in the bombing of Coventry and the war effort gave her a purpose; a chance to bring something positive out of those events.

      She was in her bedroom at Pasture Farm where she had been billeted since she had joined the Women’s Land Army. She paced the familiar small room with its mismatched carpet and curtains and faint smell of mould; a room in which she had observed every detail during long evenings after work. The peeling skirting board, the thinning threads on the main drag of the carpet, the patch of damp in the corner above the window (a constant reminder that Farmer Finch, the landlord of the house, had failed to keep his promise to fix the guttering) and the creaky floorboard by the door. In the drawer was an article from the Daily Mail about the train crash that had happened a few months ago. Joyce kept it because although it naturally focussed on her friend Connie’s heroism, there was also a quote in there from her. It was a small claim to fame; some recognition of the part she’d played. She’d imagined showing her kids one day, if she had any.

      Sometimes the room was full of laughter as the girls got ready