Thanks for the reviews, folks! Having satisfied my urge to begin in the middle of the story with some tasty titbits of the things to come, here now is the beginning. Hope you enjoy!


Chapter One

Faith Meredith Meets Her Fate

February 1917

1

"The world is a very big place. No matter where we go or who we are, it's always bigger than we expect it to be."

John Meredith had said those words, sitting on the veranda at The Manse with the summer sunshine all about him. Honeysuckle climbed up the trellises, and somewhere Rosemary was singing just like the birds down in Rainbow Valley.

"I'll grow to fit it, Dad," Faith had said, determinedly. She had meant it too, and the words came out of her lips with such confidence and cheerfulness that she felt an aching pang when she remembered it.

Mr Meredith had just smiled his gentle smile, which she realised now was his way of hoping she was right but knowing with much greater wisdom than her own that it would be a long, hard journey.

And it had only just begun.

Faith leaned her head back against the cushioned seat and gazed out of the carriage window. The English countryside was flying past as the train sped along, every inch of it covered in a thick blanket of fluffy snow that made it look very much like anywhere else. The early morning sunlight twinkled on the ice, and between the gently falling flakes there was an azure-blue sky smiling down at her - the same sky that watched over Glen St Mary, thousands of miles away over a heaving ocean; the same sky that watched over Jem and Jerry and Carl in their dark, frightening world.

Funny how so many different things can exist all at the same time, Faith found herself thinking, abstractedly. Maybe that's what Father meant. How funny I never thought about it before!

She sighed, and pulled her thick blue coat closer around herself. Ever since the boat had docked at Southampton she had been trying to distract herself from the sensation of powerlessness that threatened to engulf her, but as the train clattered nearer to the great city of London she was starting to feel very small and insignificant and utterly, utterly incapable of what she had set out to do.

It had seemed like such a good idea three months earlier, when all of Kingsport - safe, untouched Kingsport - had been on fire with patriotism and a growing eagerness to 'do one's bit'. Lots of girls were doing it, although most of them were spoilt young society women from the College who had very little altruistic motive and much desire to soothe the fevered brows of handsome young officers.

Faith snorted aloud, startling the other occupants of the carriage, and she closed her eyes against the wave of infuriation that bubbled up inside her. Those girls' 'potential husbands' were dying every day, through lack of care as much as battle wounds. All the hospitals were overcrowded, and doctors were as precious as jewels and just as hard to come by. Competent nursing was what was required, and Faith meant to help give it.

Oh, how easy it had all seemed then!

And now here she was three months later, hastening towards her destination at an alarming speed: the Red Cross Headquarters in London. It seemed nightmarish, somehow, and all the way across the Atlantic she had relived moments from her training that only served to make her even more nervous. Blood had never made her faint, and she certainly wasn't afraid of hard work, but what awaited her now was oh so different from the civilised little town hospital in Kingsport! Scores of wounded soldiers arrived in England every day during the biggest battles, she'd heard, some of them not having seen a doctor since they fell on the battlefield. Many died on the way, and the rest, when they arrived, were thrust into dark, poorly staffed and even more poorly stocked city hospitals while they waited for treatment.

Faith felt her heart speed up, and tears pricked behind her eyes. She thought of Jem, and Jerry, and Carl, and railed inwardly against her own paltry effort at making a difference. If one of them were wounded she might not even get to see them, or they might be taken to Holland or western France to be looked after by total strangers.

Stop it, she told herself, very firmly. This won't do. You knew that you might not be able to help them if you came. You came to help whoever you could, and perhaps some poor woman somewhere will sleep soundly knowing that you are caring for her dear boy.

She'd told her father that when he tried to reason against her coming. Faith managed a very small smile at the memory - it had been one of the few occasions in her life when her father had ceded the right of the matter to her.

"That, my brave girl, is a very noble thought," he had said, taking her in his arms with eyes full of love and understanding. "And I'm proud of you."

The sun was higher now than when the train had started off from Southampton, and Faith could see the chimneys of London in the distance. She was almost there.

"Paddington!" bellowed the guard in the aisle outside her compartment. "Paddington Station in ten minutes! All change, please!"

The train burst through the archway into the station, screeching to a halt at the busy, smoky platform. Faith glanced out of the window and took a deep breath. She could smell the coal and fumes in the air.

Well, this is it, she thought, raising her chin in brave determination.This is where it all begins, in the big world I swore to fit into.

There was a guard at her elbow suddenly. The door was opened, like a drawbridge to a vast fortress, and Faith Meredith stepped down into the swirling smoke to meet her fate.

2

From the very first moment of her London life, Faith had barely half an hour to herself. She was driven straight to the Red Cross Headquarters from the station, and there was promptly pushed and pulled about by Matrons and orderlies before being herded with all the other girls who had come across on the boat with her into a high-vaulted room full of boxes and filing cabinets.

A sour-faced Sister with a crooked nose clapped her hands for silence. "Your first day begins tomorrow," she said, with an efficient firmness that bewarned strict rules and no nonsense. "You have been assigned shifts to work in the wards during your time here. When I have finished speaking you will come to the desk to register yourselves and be given your timetables. This is a general hospital," she added, with a very school-mistressy frown, "and we care for general patients here as well as military casualties. We will be starting you all off in the general wards this week, progressing to the others next week once we've hardened you all up a little."

A grim welcome indeed.

Faith cried herself to sleep that night in the poky little attic room she had been directed to, and woke up feeling thoroughly ashamed of herself the next morning.

"How silly," she said, as she stared at her face in the cracked old looking glass in her room. She had seen her reflection a hundred times before, but that morning it seemed wrong somehow. The same dark eyes gazed back at her; the same golden-brown curls fell about her shoulders; her eyebrows had the same quizzical expression they always did when she examined her looks - but she felt as though she barely knew this girl in the glass at all. Was it really the same girl who had danced under starry skies in the Quad at Redmond, dressed in all her finery and turning heads all the way to the pavilion? Had she really once laughed and played in Rainbow Valley and scandalised the Glen community with her impetuous spirit? Was this the girl who had been held in the arms of a College senior one magical evening and told how desperately he loved her?

Faith gulped back the urge to cry again as the memories flooded over her.Home had never seemed so far away.

"Oh, Jem, I wish you were here," she whispered, hugging her arms about her. "What would you tell me to do if you were here?"

Something inside her answered from an unknown spring of wisdom - instinct, telepathy, she knew not what. All that mattered was the sound of his voice in her head, accompanied, she could tell at once, by a characteristic snort of derision and a cocked eyebrow.

"Don't be an idiot, Faith, you know you can do it."

It was the brisk, practical response she needed - anything sentimental would have broken her down at once.

She tidied her hair and slipped on the neat uniform lying on the end of the bed and felt a good deal better. She would write home as soon as she could, and lose herself for a little while in all things Glennish and familiar. That would soon soothe everything over. Everything must have a beginning, and things were sure to become easier after a time….

The trouble was that 'everything' took up every waking moment from dawn until dusk, and there was just no time to sit and write letters. For three days Faith was kept so busy in the wards that collapsing into bed for some sleep before the next shift began became all she was capable of - but finally, on the third night, she found the urge for homeness quite outweighed the need for rest. She needed to write.

Dearest, darling Una,

I've arrived! Goodness, it seems a hundred years ago that I was back in Kingsport, but it can't be more than a week. Oh, but so much has happened in that week that it could have been a lifetime! I've been so busy I hardly know whether I'm coming or going, and I've scarcely seen anything except the inside of the hospital and these dreary old hallways in the Nurses' Home. I wish I could write some long, lingering description of London and the grand old buildings we used to learn about in school. Do you remember Mr Hazard telling us about the Tower, and all the kings and nobles who had their heads cut off there? I did see it yesterday, because Sister sent me out on an errand into the town. It's all glowing turrets and there are green trees all around. It's almost impossible to believe that people died horrible, lingering deaths there in years gone by. But I'm learning fast that there is much in the world that's hard to believe, and all of it must be faced with a brave heart.

Oh dear, what a gloomy way to begin a letter. Forgive me, darling, and prepare yourself for Faith Meredith's very first account of life in London!

The Red Cross Headquarters is quite a pretty little place, really - at least it would be if it weren't for all the poor soldiers inside it. It's hard to truly admire a piece of splendid architecture when you know that hundreds of boys are suffering so dreadfully in the wards. They're marvellous men, though, and I can't say that enough. Some of them are astonishingly cheery, despite everything, and we have some proper characters among them! I was so dreadfully nervous on my first morning that I knocked over a whole cabinet of linen and bandages, and didn't Sister scold me? All the boys were laughing their heads off at me, but I didn't mind a bit because it was so nice to see them smiling.

Oh, Una, there is so much more I could write about them and about the work we do here, but I'm so dreadfully afraid that my letters will make you unhappy if I say too much. I'm determined to keep cheerful, and I need you, little sister, to be cheerful too so write and tell me off if I ever become too gloomy!

Matron told us all that we would be in London for up to three weeks being trained up on the wards before being posted out into the country to one of the many general military hospitals. More and more are appearing every month, she said, because there just isn't enough room for all the wounded in the cities. They try to evacuate as many as possible from the overstretched, overcrowded hospitals in France, so lots of big country houses are being requisitioned to take them. One day soon I'll be at one of them - and oh, Una, I'm full of strange, muddling feelings about it. There's part of me that feels frightened to death about going, but then a little voice somewhere inside me pops up and says, very strictly, "Faith Meredith, pull yourself together, my girl, and remember why you came!" You may laugh, but she's quite right, that little voice. I don't know where I'd be without her! I think of Jerry and Jem and Carl, and then it all comes flooding over me that if they weren't afraid to come then I certainly shouldn't be. My risk isn't half so great as theirs.

Faith paused at this point in her letter and chewed the end of her pen. She hadn't meant to become so philosophical. Poor Una would take one glance at it and be filled with anxiety for her, which was the last thing Faith wanted. The trouble was, the words just seemed to fall onto the page that way, as though her hand had a will of its own.

"Perhaps I'll write to Jerry first," she said to the empty room. "He won't worry, and it will get everything off my chest so I can write a good, cheery note to Una."

Darling Jerry,

I'm writing from London at long last, in the snug little attic room I have on the top floor of the Nurse's home. I say snug but I really mean cramped and stuffy. My window overlooks the courtyard where all the ambulances and army trucks park, and I can see all the comings and goings of everybody in the hospital. You've no idea how glad I am that I came, Jerry, but your little sister is feeling very sorry for herself tonight. I can't imagine how much worse it must have been for you, but -

A sudden noise outside her door made Faith jump and drop her pen in surprise. It was a soft tapping sound, as though someone was tentatively knocking on the other side. It was so unexpected at two o'clock in the morning that Faith took a moment or two to recover herself before groping for a dressing gown and padding across to open the door.

There was a golden-haired girl outside, swathed in a frilly nightdress and shawl. She looked up at the startled Faith with big, anxious eyes.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to wake you," she whispered, urgently. "It's just that I think there's somebody downstairs. I heard the front door go, then a bang, and I'm sure somebody is in the stairwell. Oh, I didn't know what to do! It can't be one of us, because the gates were locked hours ago!"

Faith tried to process this jumbled mass of information. She vaguely recognised the girl - they'd waved to each other as they came and went for shifts in the hospital, and Faith remembered somebody calling her Mary. She had seemed to be a little shy and clumsy, but she had a sweet smile that made Faith disposed to like her at once.

"Have you been down to see who it is?" Faith asked.

Mary blushed. "No….I…didn't dare. Oh, you must think me so silly. It's just…" She paused, looking embarrassed. "I'm terrified of the dark, and this place is so strange I didn't…."

Faith put a hand on her arm. "It's all right," she said, with a friendly smile, wondering what on earth possessed a fragile little thing like this girl to become a military nurse. "We'll go down together. I expect it's just one of the porters checking the locks."

She lit a candle and they went to the stairs. It was a narrow, poky old staircase, full of mouse holes and utterly treacherous to climb in the dark.

"Do you suppose it's an intruder?" Mary whispered, anxiously.

"No, I don't think so. He would have had to get past the night porter at the gate."

They rounded a corner, and the light of the candle illuminated a huddled figure wrapped in a dark blue nurse's coat sitting on the lower steps. It jumped as the light fell on it.

Mary jumped as well. "Oh!" she exclaimed. Faith edged closer to get a better look.

It was a girl, with long black hair and sapphire eyes. She had an excellent nose and a fine, high forehead and elegant brows, and she would have been very pretty had her eyes not been quite so red and bloodshot. She looked very dusty and miserable sitting there in the darkness.

"Goodness! What's happened to you?" Faith exclaimed, astonished.

The girl sniffed and gave her a watery smile. "I got locked out. I tried to scramble through a little gap behind the storehouse, but I forgot about the drop." She massaged her ankle, wincing a little.

Faith smiled, kneeling down beside her. "Lucky the porter didn't catch you."

"Oh, him!" said the girl, with a snort. "He sleeps through his shift usually. I just didn't want Matron to see me clambering over the back way. Her rooms overlook the yard."

"Well, I don't think it's broken," Faith said, after peering at the ankle. "You'd better come up to my room and we'll bind it up somehow…"

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" said the girl, suddenly, grasping Faith's hand. "I really don't want to be thrown out."

"Certainly not. I wouldn't dream of it." The girl's face brightened in relief. "Come on, can you stand?"

Between them, Mary and Faith managed to get the transgressor up the stairs and safely deposited on Faith's bed. Mary cast an anxious glance down the corridor. "I'll just go to the end and make sure Matron didn't hear us," she said, and disappeared.

As Faith rummaged around in her case for something to bandage the ankle with, the wounded stranger related the tale of her night's escapade.

"I'd slipped out to see my brother," she explained. She seemed much more talkative for a friendly face to look at, and her red eyes were suddenly alive with a natural jolliness. "He's just started renting a flat in Kensington, and he's so unhappy at the moment I just had to go and see him. I hated being so near and unable to see him. I'm Caroline Heyer," she added, as an afterthought.

Faith shook the proffered hand, smiling. "Faith Meredith."

"Oh, that's a lovely name," Caroline said. "It reminds me of a lovely violet dusk and crystal-clear water and yellow roses."

Faith felt a rush of affection. What a lovely thing to say! She laughed - a clear, happy laugh that had been very much absent since she'd left Kingsport. "Yours makes me think of green fields and a roaring blue ocean."

Caroline's face broke into a lovely smile, and she threw her arms around Faith impulsively.

"Oh you dear thing! How strange that is, because I live in a tumbledown old house right on the edge of a cliffside overlooking the sea. The ocean is in my blood!"

She told Faith all about her village in Cornwall and how one can see for miles and miles across the sea, and how the winds howl around the house at night. The house was called Smuggler's Rest, and her family had lived in it for generations. Faith talked about her home too, letting herself get deliciously lost in describing the beautiful Glen, and Rainbow Valley, and Ingleside, and how the sun glints on the sea in the early morning, and how the pond becomes smoky-blue at dusk, and how cool the crystal water is in the Rainbow Valley spring.

A sudden wave of homesickness flooded over her after a little while, and Caroline reached out a squeezed her hand.

"Go on," she urged.

Faith found herself talking about Una and Jerry and Carl and all the Blythes. She couldn't quite bring herself to tell her of Jem, though. Some things are too sacred for words, even among kindred spirits, and she couldn't bear to speak of the thing that was the very cornerstone of her soul in a poky old room in a nurses' barracks.

But Caroline's eyes smiled back at her when she spoke his name, and Faith had the briefest vision of another day, in a far lovelier place, pouring her whole heart out to her new friend with the sun shining overhead and green, living things all around them. At that moment she didn't know if it was real or just pure imagination, but she hoped very much that it might one day come true. She hardly knew Caroline at all, but somehow Faith just knew she'd understand.

They talked for what seemed like hours, but it was scarcely more than twenty minutes when they reckoned afterwards.

"Oh, I'm going to be fit for nothing tomorrow," sighed Caroline, with a little yawn. "Serves me right for sneaking out, I suppose."

"Could you not have got a pass out to see your brother tonight?" asked Faith, curiously.

"I asked, but Sister told me nobody was allowed to leave the Headquarters for anything except official errands until Saturday night, the silly old bag. I just couldn't wait until then!"

Faith gave a little peal of laughter, and Caroline looked a little sheepish.

"I shouldn't have said that. Sister's all right really. Oh dear, I'm always saying things I shouldn't."

"I am too," said Faith, sympathetically. "My father always told me I ought to think before I did things. I never learned."

"I'm glad," said Caroline, studying her thoughtfully. "I'm afraid I'm far too forward. Mother used to tell me it would be my undoing, you know. I start talking and suddenly I can't stop!"

It seemed so long since someone had spoken to Faith in such a carefree, blithe way. She was so easy to chat to, this unusual girl, and she didn't bat an eyelid when Faith related the story of the time she and Walter Blythe had ridden pigs down the main street, and all the other scrapes she had got into as a little girl in the Glen.

Caroline burst out laughing, and said that she knew Faith was a kindred spirit the very moment she'd appeared at the top of the stairs.

"I knew you would be my guardian angel, Faith Meredith. And look how neatly you've bandaged up my ankle. Matron will never even notice it."

"Can you hobble on it?"

She gave it a try, limping around the room for a little while. "I'll survive," she pronounced.

"Would you like some cocoa?" Faith asked. "I'm gasping for something."

Caroline agreed heartily, and soon they were sitting on the bed with hot mugs. Caroline even produced a bag of mint humbugs from one of her pockets.

"You know, Matron would have a field day if she caught us now," she chuckled. "Midnight feasts! Giggling into the small hours! Scandalous!"

"Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest, as they say," Faith said, mischievously.

Caroline seemed to study her for a little while.

"I have had a sudden inspirational thought!" she announced, excitedly. "Why don't you come out for a little refreshment on Saturday night? I'm sure we could get passes. I know a nice little place down by the waterfront, and I can introduce you to some of my old college friends. What do you think?"

Faith matched Caroline's impish grin with her own. "I think it's a grand idea."

3

And so, darling Una, I am to spend tomorrow night with Caroline, and I'm so excited about it I can hardly concentrate on my work. It's so nice to have a friendly face here now that I can look out for. You've no idea how comforting it is!

Oh dear, I really must finish up this letter. I've used nearly all my ink! You will give Dad and Rosemary and Bruce my very special love, won't you? I would have written to them as well tonight, but I'm so tired and my candle is nearly burnt away! Look after them for me, and yourself. I hate not knowing how everybody is, and I rely on you to tell me the honest truth.

Oh, pray for me, Una - I shall need every last tiny prayer you can spare me soon! But keep just as many for Jerry and Carl. They need them far more than me.

All the love in the world, dearest, and prepare yourself to hear much more of Caroline. I have a feeling that she will be figuring a great deal in my letters from now on!

Your loving sister,

Faith.