Christmas on the Home Front. Roland Moore

some sympathisers who might be able to help them escape this country and get back to Germany. Would it be easier to give up? But Siegfried didn’t dare voice that opinion; especially when Emory was in such a bad mood.

      Emory checked his luger pistol for what seemed like the hundredth time. Siegfried told him that it would have made his hunting easier to have had the gun. But Emory thought they couldn’t attract attention to themselves by firing off rounds in the woods.

      ‘What do we do?’ Siegfried asked, chewing on a bit of gristle and trying to make it go down.

      ‘Kein Englisch sprechen!’ Emory snapped.

      ‘We should speak English! And we should get rid of these clothes. We should try to fit in.’

      ‘You are right. I do not think straight,’ Emory sighed, wincing at the pain in his arm. ‘We should go to find some clothes. Steal them off a washing line or something. Maybe go back to the cottage where that man was. His clothes would fit us.’

      ‘It’s too risky to go back somewhere we’ve been already.’

      Emory nodded, conceding Siegfried’s point. He got up and stamped out the remnants of the fire outside their hut.

      ‘We’ll find somewhere else with clothes,’ Siegfried replied. He wanted to talk about the other thing. But he feared that any mention might antagonise his captain. But he knew that their future might depend on it. After all, they had already attracted attention to themselves.

      ‘What do you think happened to the girl?’ Siegfried asked.

      Emory scowled at him. Siegfried had been right. He hadn’t wanted to talk about that.

      ‘Who knows?’ Emory spat out a piece of gristle. ‘Who cares?’

      After an afternoon silently working the frozen earth of the North Field, Joyce submerged her numb hands in Esther’s warm sink, her nerves unable to tell if it was hot or cold. Her fingers tingled in protest and Joyce could picture her mother warning her about the danger of chilblains, but it felt so good. After a moment, she pulled her hands out, steam coming off her fingers, the skin a lucid angry pink, and wiped them on a tea towel. Esther was busying herself with a stew. Finch was reading The Helmstead Herald at the table, unaware that his arms were pushing the cutlery of the carefully laid-out places into an untidy mess in the centre.

      ‘It’s got to be a mistake. No one would sell a pig that cheap.’ Finch scrutinised the advert in the paper as if it was a rare Egyptian hieroglyph.

      ‘Maybe it’s only got three legs?’ Esther smirked.

      Finch shook his head, not registering the joke. Joyce assumed that his brain was busy navigating the fine line of whether this was a bargain or a scam. The man had a talent for that borne out of his own attempts to pull the wool over the eyes of the gullible bargain-seeker. It would irk him if someone else was doing the conning and he turned out to be the victim.

      ‘It’s got four legs and working snout, according to this.’ Finch weighed up the advert and Esther added more seasoning to her cooking.

      ‘Have you heard any more from the hospital?’ Joyce asked.

      ‘Nothing,’ Esther shook her head.

      ‘No,’ Finch closed the newspaper.

      ‘I guess there’s no change then?’

      ‘Maybe they’re trying to get rid of it for Christmas?’

      ‘What?’ Esther was confused.

      ‘The pig!’ Finch was already back on his own topic of conversation. ‘Here, I could take it to Leicester for Bea and Annie!’

      ‘Don’t go on about the flaming pig. Besides they won’t want a pig turning up!’ Esther snatched the newspaper from the table and put it on the draining board in the hope it might end the matter.

      Despite her concern about Connie, Joyce couldn’t help but laugh. Finch’s hurt reaction, his face showing confusion at Esther’s words, was a picture. Obviously, it seemed eminently reasonable to him to take a pig on a train as a gift. He grumbled and turned the page. Joyce sat down for the evening meal, rearranging the pile of cutlery into rudimentary place settings.

      The three of them ate in silence aside from Finch returning unbidden to the topic of the bargain pig. By the end of the meal, Joyce would have been happy never to have heard another word about it. But then Finch said something that piqued her interest.

      ‘Here, maybe I’ll drive over there tomorrow and have a look at the pig. If I take the van, I could pop it in the back. It’s only at a place called Hobson’s Farm on the other side of Gorley Woods.’

      ‘Gorley Woods?’ Joyce’s mind was racing.

      ‘Yes, why?’

      ‘Could I come with you?’

      ‘Why would you want to do that?’ Finch looked suspicious.

      ‘Thought it might be useful to perhaps see where Connie came a cropper. Find out if there was any reason for it.’

      ‘’Ere do you think you’re Agatha Christie, Joyce?’

      ‘It’s just nobody has had a chance to look at where it happened, have they?’

      ‘All right.’ Finch shrugged, ‘As long as Esther can spare you for an hour that is.’

      ‘I’ll start an hour earlier,’ Joyce ventured before Esther had time to voice an objection. But despite the appeasement, Esther still managed a scowl.

      Henry Jameson was dimly aware of a low creaking noise, rhythmic and close. It took him a while to realise it came from his own chair as he rocked gently back and forth as he sat watching Connie’s face. He’d been holding her hand for what seemed like ages, gently manipulating it with his fingers as if the sensation might bring Connie back to him.

      He didn’t know if she could hear him, but Henry spoke to her anyway. Mindful of the other patients outside their room and the lateness of the hour, he spoke quietly, barely more than a whisper. He gave prayers, made jokes and told Connie how much he loved her. Despite their differences, this unlikely couple had made their marriage work. Connie’s headstrong and bawdy nature, against all odds, segued with Henry’s sensible and empathetic traits. He assumed that Connie felt safe in the relationship, knowing that Henry would act as a steadying influence to her wilder traits. For his part, Connie’s unpredictability was both liberating and infuriating. But she was the spark in his life.

      He looked forlornly at his wife, unmoving except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. What dreams was she having? Henry regretted the small argument they’d had. And it had all been about that blasted magazine. The thing that caused this.

      ‘I don’t have time to play postman!’ Connie had shouted when Henry had suggested she take the magazine while he finished the evening work at the village hall.

      ‘But it won’t take long,’ Henry had protested.

      ‘But it will take long.’

      ‘You don’t have to stay with him for any length of time.’

      ‘He’s a chatterbox. I’ve waited hours for you to come back from your visits there!’

      ‘Please, Connie,’ Henry had pleaded. And his wife had conceded with a sparky flash of her deep brown eyes. All right, she’d do it, but he’d better make this up to her when they’re both at home. Connie had taken the magazine and Henry had watched her ride off away from the village hall. That was the last time he’d seen her until finding her in a hospital bed.

      What had happened in the time in-between?

      Henry’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Doctor Channing. He gave a cursory knock on the doorframe and entered without waiting for permission. He seemed somewhat irked to see Henry sitting there.

      ‘It may be best for you to get some rest.’