Saturday 1st March, 1941

The war has arrived in Llanmarion. Even hearing the things I hear at the listening post, the war has always felt like something distant, something across the Channel. Tonight we were all reminded that truly the world is at war. We are all fighting. People, not numbers, are dying.

My ears are ringing and my hands won’t stop shaking. I won’t sleep a wink tonight. I believe the worst is over, but I daren’t close my eyes. So I shall write. I shall write until the sun comes up. At this very moment, it feels like it might not.

Today was the day of the village fete. Ivor loaned the back pasture and there were fairground rides – a carousel and a big wheel – donkey rides, skittles, and I suggested croquet, to much derision.

Agatha Moss was in charge of the cider stall with some of the other ladies from the outpost, while Bess and I were to make candyfloss. There were daffodils for sale and, just for a day, it seemed everyone was willing to forget rationing and repairing and absent sons and husbands.

Of course it was Christmas come very early for the children of Llanmarion – those born here and those sent against their will. Children came from all over – I recognised some from the train. Jane attached herself to the donkey man, an unusual Irish fellow with very few teeth, and declared herself his helper. I asked if she was in his way, but he humoured her presence, letting her brush the donkeys’ manes and feed them carrots.

Oh, what a gay day it would have been. Children ran around freely as bands played on a makeshift stage made from bales of hay. I don’t know how it had escaped me that Ivor played the drums, but play he did, comically enormous behind a drum kit with a trio of bearded musicians I recognised from around town – one with a tin whistle, one a banjo, one a hurdy-gurdy. ‘I had no idea Ivor could play,’ I said to Glynis.

‘Oh aye,’ she said, admiring him with glazed eyes. ‘Still waters run deep with that one.’

There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned to find Rick standing with a hand out. ‘Miss Stanford? May I have this dance?’

I cringed. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

‘You’re better than you think you are.’

I smiled as he led me to where other couples were dancing. Bess looked on glumly, no doubt recalling her night two weeks ago at the dance. It hardly seems possible that I’ve only known Rick for fourteen short days. It feels like a lifetime. He took me in his arms and we swayed to the music. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it was enough to be close. All of a sudden I understood the appeal of dancing. It’s about the closeness, an excuse to touch.

Next to us, Andrew danced with Doreen. He was quite the Fred Astaire and Doreen made a perfect Ginger. Next to them we must have looked so painfully clumsy, but I didn’t care. Not one little bit.

A football match broke out late in the afternoon, evacuees versus townsmen. It was friendly enough, although I noted Bryn steered well clear of Rick, who played for a while for the evacuees – against doctor’s orders, I would hazard.

Perhaps it was our own fault really.

Perhaps it was what we deserved for leaving the listening post unattended.

The first bombs fell at dusk.

There was no time, no warning, no sirens, only the blast. No one saw the big black shapes soaring over the horizon until it was much too late – we were all too busy watching the football.

We would later learn that German planes heading for Cardiff suddenly veered off course. It’s likely the payload was dumped too soon en route to Swansea, although some think the outpost was the target.

In the moment it didn’t matter. We just ran.

I don’t know how to describe it. The first bomb fell in the hills. I felt a whoosh of hot wind in my hair about a second before a hungry, ear-splitting roar tore through the valley. Rick stopped running and looked me squarely in the eye. The colour ran out of his cheeks.

The ground shook and there was a terrible, terrible pause. Everything stopped. There was shocked silence for a second before frantic birds poured out of the trees.

We came to our senses. All at once, the people of Llanmarion understood we were under fire. We were exposed, out in the open. We were going to die. I didn’t want to die.

The screaming began. People scattered, rolling off in all directions like marbles.

‘Sound the alarm!’ someone cried. My mouth went dry and I’m ashamed to say my feet froze. I didn’t dare look up in case there was something falling towards me. If I was to die I didn’t want to fear it; I just wanted to go out quickly and silently.

A hand grabbed my hand. ‘Rick –’

‘Run!’ he urged, dragging me towards the farm. It was noisy, jagged chaos. Mothers grabbed tearful children, some yelling to find theirs, but the nearest shelters were in the town centre. There was nowhere to hide.

There were children everywhere, children miles from home. Some just stood and wept. I didn’t know how to help them. I was useless.

More thunder. The earth shook. I smelled smoke.

Rick pulled me so hard I felt my arm straining in its socket and my feet struggled to keep up, pummelling the dirt track. ‘Rick, slow down!’ I begged. He careered forward, barrelling past anyone who got in our way. Some people ran towards the farm, others headed for their vehicles parked in the lane. Others just milled around, dumbstruck.

Black towers of smoke now loomed over Llanmarion village, as tall as Big Ben.

‘The cellar! The farm has a cellar, right?’

‘Yes!’

We tumbled onto the front drive down the side of the stables, Glynis already at the door with Peter. As soon as she saw me, her eyes widened. ‘Margot, where’s Jane?’

I could hardly breathe for running. ‘I don’t know! I thought she was with you!’

‘No!’ She pushed Peter through the door. ‘Quickly, the cellar!’ She ran down the drive. ‘Jane!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs.

And suddenly I knew where she was. The donkeys. She wouldn’t leave the donkeys. ‘I’ll get her.’ Wrenching my hand free of Rick’s, I ran back towards the fete. I hurtled past the barn and on into the fields. From here I could see the rides and the stage, but I couldn’t see Jane. ‘Jane!’ I called in desperation.

‘Margot! Come back!’ It was Rick, hot on my heels. The ground shook again and we both fell. This time I felt the full punch of the blast. That one must have been close. The air was thick with smoke, the smell of bonfire night. It was coming from the church, the church had been hit.

My knees were skinned and bleeding through my stockings. As I scrambled back to my feet, I saw the donkeys. More precisely, I saw Jane trying to drag all three into one of the little steel shelters where Ivor kept the hay. It leans drunkenly at the best of times and was certainly no bomb shelter. ‘Jane!’ I shrieked, setting off in the direction of the structure. ‘Jane, come here at once!’

‘He ran off and left them!’ she cried.

‘Well, of course he did!’ I took hold of her arm, but she snatched it back. Rick caught up with us and, in one movement, scooped the little girl into his arms and set off back towards the farm.

I tethered the donkeys to the hay stall and wished them well. Another bomb fell. Another explosion. I felt the hot sting on my face. Singed my nostrils, brows. Now a thick, acrid fog blanketed the pasture. I could hardly see past the tip of my nose.

I became aware of a high-pitched whistling, like a kettle singing. Something close, something hurtling towards us. ‘Margot, run!’ Rick yelled. He and Jane were up ahead of me, and my heels sank into the soil as I tried to run up the slope.

I still refused to look up. I didn’t want to see.

‘Margot!’ he cried again.

I reached the edge of the field, and Rick dragged me over the wall. With Jane in one arm and my hand in his other, we ran as the shriek grew deafening. Glynis waited at the door. ‘Quickly!’

She grabbed Jane and we tumbled through the front door.

The bomb hit. We all fell into an untidy pile in the hallway. The front windows shattered. The whole farmhouse seemed to shake. I clung to Rick and waited for the walls and ceiling to bury us alive.

After a second, I realised that wasn’t going to happen, at least not immediately. That last blast had felt close. Too close. ‘Quickly, the cellar.’ Glynis limped towards the door under the stairs. ‘The roof might collapse.’

‘Are you all right?’ I asked Rick.

‘Yes, are you?’

I nodded. Dust and dirt swirled through the broken windows and I could hardly see in front of my face. There was another deafening crash. The ground rumbled. I ducked down and Rick wrapped himself across me. Something was coming down … the barn perhaps?

Rick guided me to the door and we hurried down the stone cellar steps to find Ivor, Peter and some other villagers who’d fled in this direction. Their faces were covered in grime, only white eyes staring expectantly up at us as we came down the stairs. Ivor pulled Glynis into an embrace and held her tight.

After that all we could do was wait for the siren to stop, which it did about forty minutes later. An awful, awful forty minutes in which we said little, each imagining only the worst about what was happening above ground. Eyes wide in the gloom, we huddled together for warmth. I think I was in shock, I couldn’t stop shaking. Jane clung to me and, in turn, I clung to Rick. The pain in my knees was now a warm, dull ache.

I feared that if the farm crumbled around our ears we’d be trapped down here, to die slowly as we ran out of air, but I thought it wise to keep such thoughts to myself.

I thought about Bess and Doreen and Andrew. Where were they and had they reached a bunker? I tried to remember where I’d last seen any of them, but only remembered the first blast and the ensuing chaos.

When the sirens stopped wailing, I wondered for a second if I’d gone deaf. Ivor stood cautiously, stooping to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling. ‘I’ll go see what the damage is. Wait here.’

‘For the love of God be careful,’ Glynis urged.

He returned a only few minutes later but it felt like an age. ‘It’s safe enough.’

We emerged together. The farm was thick with choking dust and smoke. I placed a handkerchief over my nose and mouth and trod gingerly through the hall.

‘The barn is down,’ Ivor said flatly. ‘I need to go out and look for any unexploded bombs.’

‘Oh no, you bloody don’t, Ivor Williams,’ Glynis said, pulling him back with more strength than I’d have credited her with. ‘That’s what the army is for.’

Rick, feeling some residual guilt at his inaction, went immediately to see where he could be of aid. ‘I need to go,’ he said to me. ‘I’ve got to help where I can.’

I decided my place was at the farm. ‘Please be safe.’ I gave him a long kiss and didn’t care who saw.

Without prompting, I found a broom and got to work.

Luckily the farmhouse itself wasn’t too badly damaged, just filthy. Ivor boarded up the shattered windows while Glynis, the children and I cleaned in sombre quiet.

Glynis forbade me from going over to the post office to check on Bess, and the telephone lines were down.

And so at about one in the morning, with no word from Rick, I came to bed and started to write. I can’t sleep. I close my heavy eyelids and the memory of the sirens rings in my ears again. I don’t want to die, not now that I have something so precious to live for.