LITMIR.BIZ

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       Chapter Twenty-Three

       Chapter Twenty-Four

       Chapter Twenty-Five

       Chapter Twenty-Six

       Chapter Twenty-Seven

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty-One

       Chapter Thirty-Two

       Chapter Thirty-Three

       Chapter Thirty-Four

       Chapter Thirty-Five

       Keep Reading …

       About Annie Groves

       Also by Annie Groves

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER ONE

       December 1941

      ‘I don’t see why I have to do it. Why can’t you?’

      Gladys shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew that there would be no point in getting angry with her younger sister. That never achieved anything. ‘Because I’m on duty this evening,’ she said calmly.

      Evelyn threw up her hands, groaning theatrically. ‘Of course you are. You’re always on bleeding duty. Proper saint, you are. How did they ever manage without you?’

      Gladys took the two steps necessary to cross their tiny kitchen and reached for her gabardine coat that hung on the back door. She still hadn’t grown out of the thrill of putting it on, of having her own uniform. She’d waited long enough to be able to join the Civil Nursing Reserve. She was damned if she was going to let her sister make a drama out of nothing, yet again. ‘What’s so important that you can’t make a bit of stew?’ she asked.

      Evelyn scowled. ‘I was going to do my hair.’

      Gladys laughed. ‘Do what to it? Didn’t you just do it?’

      ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand,’ Evelyn snapped meanly. ‘It’s not as if you ever took any trouble with yours. Look at it, just hanging down straight, all flat and horrible.’

      Gladys shrugged, pulling on her heavy coat. She knew her mousy-brown hair was lank but she was far too busy to spend hours curling it in papers or hunting down bleach or whatever smelly substance it was that Evelyn used to lighten her carefully coiffured locks. ‘Not much point when it’s mostly hidden by my cap,’ she pointed out.

      ‘Exactly.’ Evelyn pouted. ‘You’re always down that blasted first-aid post, when you aren’t running round after those district nurses in their precious home. You never have no time for us no more. I have to do everything and it’s not fair.’

      ‘Not fair?’ Gladys couldn’t bite back her instinctive response. ‘I tell you what’s not fair. Having to miss nearly all my schooling cos Ma couldn’t cope with all seven of us. Working my fingers to the bone for you lot when I was only a kid myself. Only learning to read when I started work at the nurses’ home. Even that was just good luck in that two of them made time to teach me. Now, when I finally get a chance to do nursing like what I’ve always wanted, you still expect me to cook for you first, so you don’t have to give up an evening doing your hair.’

      Evelyn wasn’t impressed. ‘Oh, not that again. Poor old Gladys. You’d

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