The first month of 1944 marked the first German attack against London since the Battle of Britain. For four months, from January to May, Hitler's Luftwaffe laid waste to the British capital, in another attempt to incapacitate the city permanently. Each bombing run was named by the Nazis after a German city that had been devastated by Allied shells: Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover. All Britons had dared to breathe easier in the years that followed the strife of 1940; now they found themselves under siege again.

Cecilia was making her rounds when she heard the first of the air-raid sirens, stretching long and thin on the night air, rising and carrying to a fever pitch. A drill? she thought, absently, as she inserted a thermometer between a soldier's lips. There had been weekly drills since she had started at the hospital, just in case something should happen. But it was an odd time for a drill, she thought, the middle of the night—usually they were planned for day, or evening, so that the most number of people might participate.

But as she was thinking it there was an explosion in the next city block—a deafening sound, which shook the floor under her feet. The lights flickered, and everyone cried out as one, and there was a whirling moment of panic. Cecilia closed her eyes, as another shell sounded somewhere very nearby. She crouched, instinctually, as the walls shook again. There was a viselike grip around her arm—she opened her eyes—Manon was pulling her up. She gave her a little shake—Manon had been at the hospital during the Blitz.

"Get all the men who can walk downstairs to the shelter," she ordered, in a very un-Manonlike tone. "Come on. Vite! Quickly!"

Cecilia felt life return to her limbs at her friend's businesslike tone. She helped the shakiest of the men from their beds, and let them lean on her as she walked them to the stairs that led down to the shelter in the hospital basement. Outside she heard the sudden patter of the anti-aircraft guns that were stationed around the city center. The shells continued to fall, sounding like the growls of some terrible beast. The air raid siren screamed and screamed and then, suddenly, was dizzyingly silent, and that hot, pressing silence was worse because in it she could hear the panic of the others. Upstairs people were calling help, help and all hands on deck and she knew she must go back up and help more men descend to shelter. But for a moment she could not make herself move. What was it Gilly had written, once? 'If you can hear the whistle of the shell, you're in trouble.' What if she was to hear it? What if she was to be—killed?

"Mother, mother," she whispered, dropping her head into her hands, overcome with fear.

But still, she made herself go up the stairs on her shaking legs and help another group of patients to shelter. And then she went up again—and again. Finally Manon came down the stairs with a man leaning heavily on her arm.

"That's it," she said to Nurse Prowdy. "The others cannot be moved. Duck and cover, fellas," she called to the men. "We're in for a long night."

You could tell the veterans from the ones who had never been in battle before. Cecilia and a few others jumped at every blast, but across the room, in the dim light, some men were singing, and playing cards. Whenever there was a particularly loud and close explosion, a group of Americans began singing the words to their national anthem in a raucus tone: and the rockets' red glare! The bombs bursting in air…

Cecilia felt herself begin to sweat. Their shelter was not a good one, chosen for size, instead of safety. A direct hit on the hospital could obliterate it—and them—entirely. Their bodies would not be found—they would simply cease to exist in a blaze of heat and fury. Or else they would be trapped under the rubble until they slowly suffocated. Oh, why had she ever bothered to come overseas? Why hadn't she stayed at home, where it was safe? And how had the Brits stood this for months and months? Surely she would die, or go mad. She could not stand it—she could not.

"You will learn to," Manon said, her breath warm against Cecilia's ear. "It gets easier every time."

"I can't imagine that." Cecilia shook so much that Manon had to wrap her arms around her, to keep her still. "Oh, Manon—this can't be the same world that I was born into, that I've lived in for my whole life. That was a nice place. This is—hell. There can't be such a place as Red Apple Farm or Ingleside in the same world where this can happen? Won't it ever stop? Won't it ever stop?"

It did stop, shortly before dawn. As suddenly as the storm had descended it rolled back. The explosions ceased—the engines droned off into the distance—the ack-ack of the guns tapered off. They stayed huddled in the shelter until the siren sounded again, the all-clear. Cecilia climbed the steps, blearily exhausted, and headed for the dormitory, for her bed. But Peggy, who had remained upstairs through the whole night, in surgery, caught Cecilia and drew her back.

"No sleep tonight," she said, and Cecilia soon saw why. In a trickle that became a flood, the ambulances began to ferry in casualties from all over the city. People who had not been able to find shelter had been burned and battered by debris and they must fix them up. She worked at her duties until her hands were numb with exhaustion, and still there was more work to be done. She would be surprised, later, to find that from a military perspective, that night's raid had been a failure. Most of the German planes had missed their marks—a mistake the Nazis would not repeat in the long weeks of similar nights that followed.

Aunt Rilla always said that the body grows slowly and steadily, but the soul grows by leaps and bounds; it may come to its full stature in an hour.+ Through all of her months of work, Cecilia's soul had progressed incrementally toward womanhood. But from that terrible night on, Cecilia Blythe's soul was the soul of a woman in its capacity for suffering, for strength, for endurance.+ She would never be able to think of herself as a girl again.

She learned that it was impossible to hold a grudge under such conditions, and she readily forgave Joy her cruelty of her last letter, and Blythe his betrayal of her first romance. She was practical—she knew that she might be hurt, or even killed—and she did not want to die with a coldness on her conscience. And she learned, also, that Manon had been right: a body could, as Judy Plum of Silver Bush had once said, get used to anything—even being hanged. Even nights upon nights of torture and strife. She learned to take the air-raid sirens coolly, and to move matter-of-factly in her duties when she heard them. She learned to block the bombs out and sleep down in the shelter, getting what little rest she could before the influx of new wounded and injured came in. She even learned to behave calmly on the nights when she was scheduled for surgery, and could not join the others in the basement. So she might die? Well—at least she would end her life usefully, and in service to others. She put her own worry aside and wrote reassuring letters home, pooh-poohing the damage and the danger. She would not have Mother and Dad worried over her, on top of everything else. She could deliver them from that, at least. Slowly the bombings tapered off and all was still for a night—then two—then a week. Then another. But Cecilia never lost that horrible, heavy fear—never quite completely—and something in her soul was always waiting for it to begin again. It was only that she learned not to be paralyzed by it, to do her best no matter her fear.

It was to this new womanly Cecilia that Marshall's letter came in late May. Cecilia the girl would have only thought it very friendly. Cecilia the woman could not deny that something stirred in her whenever she thought of Marshall Douglas—and their kiss—whenever that new song by Jimmy Dorsey played:

Your green eyes with their soft lights

Your eyes that promise sweet nights

Bring to my soul a longing

A thirst for love divine…

She had the idea before evening opening it that she must read his letter in a place that reminded her of him. She could not read it in her little room, or in the cafeteria. It would not do. So she took her envelope and brought it out to the park across the street from the dormitory.

It had once been a pretty little park with a view of the London skyline, but now it was brown and pathetic looking. It should have been teeming with Mayflowers, but the trees were scorched and the grass dead. You could see the smoking rubble of the church in the next block. But if you tilted your head up, the sky was still blue, and studded with traveling clouds.

Cecilia, Marshall had written, without even a greeting; urgently, as though he had simply picked up the paper and started writing before he lost his nerve,

We are moving to Aldbourne tomorrow and I suppose you will be able to discern what that means for us from there. Finally, after two years of training, we'll be on our way to the front. The Big Push, they called it in the Great War. I thought I would be afraid when our call came, but it turns out I'm not. I'm only glad the waiting is over, and eager to do my duty at last. I hope I'll acquit myself well—not with honor, but at least in a way that would make me deserving of the peace that will come after—even if I'm not around for it. I don't think it will come to that. But if it does, I'm ready and willing and I'll meet it haply. I want you to know that, and reassure mother and the girls if you ever need to. I wrote to them, last night, and said most of the same things to them, but there is something in particular I want to ask of you, something I want you to do for me.

Do you remember the night we said goodbye in the orchard at Red Apple? You promised me, before I went—I made you promise—that you wouldn't kiss anybody else until I came back to do it again. I want you to forget all about that, now. I see it was a selfish thing to ask, and you're a sentimental sort, I know. I don't suppose I mean very much to you, in that way, but I'm afraid that if anything did happen to me you'd feel compelled to keep that promise. I want to think of you always happy, even if it means that you'll be kissing some other fellow.

But know this: you'll always be the only one for me.

M.D.

Cecilia raised her fingertips to her lips and pressed them to stop them shaking. But she was smiling, too. So Marshall had spoken, finally, that thing she had always suspected: that he loved her. She had thought he might, since that kiss. Oh, it wasn't much in the way of a love letter—there was no flowery prose—it was short and matter-of-fact, just like he was. And yet, for all that, there was something in it that made it more than any other letter of its kind should be. He put no demands on her, no pressures. He simply held his love out, like a gift for her to take or pass by. And perhaps she would be able to take it, someday, and give her own love back. But then Cecilia frowned, thinking of her promise to Blythe. She was not entirely free to give her love in turn, was she? She couldn't be, when Blythe was still hoping that she would learn to love him in the end.

She had one other letter, from Owen, which she opened and read, to quell her troubled thoughts. His letter was full of the same news Marshall had written—he was shipping out, and wanted her to not worry about him, for he was ready to fight. But at the end was a post-script that made her head whirl.

If anything should happen to me, you will watch over Manon, won't you? I love her very much, Cis, and I don't think she could bear to lose anybody else. She is—well, I won't write it because I told her I wouldn't. She'll want to tell you herself. But you'll take care of her—and keep by her side, won't you? She'll need you, if it should come to that.

It was an ominous tone to end on, and the sweetness of Marshall's letter was quite forgotten, now. Suppose something should happen to one of their bright, happy boys? She thought of Owen's fair curls matted with blood—Blythe's beautiful face wrenched in pain—Marshall's green eyes, his green eyes that she saw before her, sometimes, as clearly as if he was there with her—she saw those eyes dull and lifeless in death.

"Oh, no!" she cried, a chill shuddering through her body. She squeezed her eyes shut. "I won't think of it—I won't."

It was only the stress and strain of the past few months—it was only that the boys had written her with their plans. It would not actually happen. It couldn't.

When Cecilia tilted her head up again to look at the sky she found it cloudless and blue as before. But something was coming even if she could not see it—a storm was gathering. When it would break and where it would hit, and what damage it would do remained yet to be seen. Cecilia shivered—and for all her newfound wisdom, felt just like a little girl again.

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A/N: the parts marked by a + sign are taken from Rilla of Ingleside, by LM Montgomery.