Roland Moore - Christmas on the Home Front

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Copyright © Roland Moore 2019

Cover design by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Roland Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008204457

Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008204426

Version: 2019-09-12

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page Christmas on the Home Front ROLAND MOORE

Copyright One More Chapter a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Copyright © Roland Moore 2019 Cover design by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Roland Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008204457 Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008204426 Version: 2019-09-12

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

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

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

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.