My sincere apologies for how long this has taken. Firstly, my computer monitor went kaput and I had to wait for it to be fixed - yes, I do still write on a desktop computer! Then, to be honest, the subject matter I am writing about here started to feel quite heavy and I struggled with how best to approach it, then of course this particular chapter required quite a bit of research to get it historically correct. which is important to me. So with all that combined, it just took a little while longer to churn this one out.

Coincidentally, today is what we in New Zealand and Australia call "ANZAC day". Which is the day we commemorate those who have served in wars and peacekeeping operations. It's basically our version of "Rememberance day" or "Veterans day" and is observed on this day as the anniversary of Australian and New Zealand troops arriving at Gallipoli in 1915 during WW1.

As is always said during public addresses and services on this day here:

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them."

...

Over the following few weeks, Oliver kept a close ear to the ground with news from Europe. Some days were wins for the allied side and other days were devastating blows. One thing was for sure - the war was far from over.

Winston Churchill was keeping in contact with Oliver several times a week. Not only because of Oliver's personal stake in the goings-on over there but also because he was one of the biggest benefactors of the British war effort.

The battle of Britain had begun and more and more artillery was needed. Oliver's factories were busier than ever. Of course, the receiving depot in London was being monitored extremely closely by Grace and Oliver. They knew things were precarious there and that any day their shipments could be attacked, their imports completely destroyed.

Still, they pressed on and encouraged their workforce to be as productive as possible, while still trying to maintain ethical work standards. Even though America was not yet involved in the war, all of their workers seemed to recognize the importance of what they were doing, and production was happening at an incredible rate.

It was just before lunchtime on the 7th of September, Oliver and Grace had just stood up from the desk and were about to walk out of the office to go and eat when the phone rang. It was a very frantic and muffled sounding Winston Churchill.

"Oliver", he growled across the line - the brash tone of his voice was a match for Oliver Warbucks himself, in fact, they shared so many of the same characteristics, Grace had questioned on more than one occasion if the two men could have been related.

"Oliver, we've been bombed. The port of London has been the worst hit. Including, I'm afraid, all of the ships in dock. There've been mass casualties. It's all a frightful mess." He sounded concerned but also somewhat exhilarated.

"Good heavens, Winston. Are you alright?" Oliver promptly sat back down again. Hearing his worried tone, Grace came and took her seat again too, glancing over at him with a questioning stare.

The older man let out a wheezy laugh. "Oh, I'm fine. The Luftwaffe can't take me down."

Oliver shook his head. In a way he admired Churchill's bravado, even if he also considered him slightly mad.

"Our poor country, however, I'm afraid it's in a rather dire state. I fear today is just the beginning of the German's plans to annihilate us. We've all but won the aircraft battle and it seems this is their last ditch attempt to regain control. Attacking civilians like this is incredibly dirty tactics though."

"Yes, it's terrible. I'm so sorry. What can I do to help?"

"You're doing everything you can already, my good man. I only thought I should contact you to inform you that communication might become difficult for a while, depending on how much of this city is about to be destroyed."

"I understand. Just, please keep yourself safe, Winston."

"My safety is not important. Getting the British people through this mess is."

"Well then at least set them a good example, hmm?" Oliver cautioned the Prime Minister, knowing his proclivity for danger.

"I will be for them what I am supposed to be. A leader."

Oliver fought the urge to sigh. His friend wasn't as invincible as he liked to believe, but he was most certainly a pillar of strength for his country and that was something Oliver deeply admired him for.

"Take care, Winston."

"You too, Oliver."

"What's happened now?" Grace asked him wearily as he hung up the phone.

"The port of London's been bombed. We've lost all of our ships and all of our men. There have been civilian casualties, too."

Grace covered her face with her hands. "Oh my God."

"I think we'd better skip lunch. We ought to update our factories and make sure they're aware of the situation. With this destruction to our shipments, we're going to have to devise a new strategy for getting the artillery to where it needs to be."

Grace spoke to him with a delicate voice but a very leveling look. "Don't you think we first ought to try and find out the identities of the workers we've lost and make sure their loved ones are informed and that they're honored properly?"

Oliver's initial instinct was to remind Grace that there were currently men dying in droves, anonymously on battlefields, being buried in mass, unmarked graves, but thinking better of it, he said, "Yes, of course, you're right."

Really, he believed it was frivolous and a blatant waste of time when time was so critical for production, but he daren't challenge Grace on the matter, not when he knew full well that the reason she'd initially agreed to join him in this crusade was because of how the situation had made her feel in her heart, how it appealed to her humanitarian side. Of course, Oliver had a huge amount of compassion for those who were suffering - he would never forget the pain he himself had felt over seeing the torment of those living in Europe the previous year, but he knew that it was a matter of business now and that he had to be pragmatic and remain level-headed in order to keep production running smoothly and efficiently and to eventually win the war.

As Grace contacted their HR team and found out the identities of the men who had been killed in London, Oliver spoke to people on the ground over there about how best to go forward with importing their ammunition now that the port had been attacked.

After speaking to President Roosevelt, he discovered that the President was in the process of signing an agreement with Churchill to exchange 50 destroyer ships for 99 year leases to British military bases in Newfoundland and the Caribbean. He knew how essential Oliver's supplies were to the British and so he told Oliver he would keep one or two warships reserved for Oliver's personal supply chain.

Oliver was very grateful and relieved that, for a start, his workers wouldn't have to cut down their hours, and also that his company would continue to be as productive as it currently was.

After setting down the phone, he glanced across the room and saw that Grace had also finished her phone calls. He bounded across to her and said jovially, "Grace, I've got great news!"

She had been slightly turned away from him so he hadn't noticed the tears streaming down her cheeks. His face fell once he noticed how forlorn his wife looked.

"One of the cabin boys on the ship was only seventeen. I just had to tell his Mother that her baby won't be coming home."

Oliver dropped to his knees in front of Grace and reached out to hug her. She hugged him tightly in return and sobbed. "He was only Gordon's age, h-he was Annie's age."

"I know. It's so terribly sad", Oliver murmured.

He knew Grace had lost her Father in the great war, but she had never been a part of it directly herself. She didn't know what it was like to be involved in combat, or to at least be privy to the goings-on of war. Oliver was a naval man and he had seen his share of action. Thankfully he'd managed to escape the war unharmed and had of course gone on to buy the company he'd once worked for, but the images of his fellow servicemen being torpedoed out on the open water, while he remained lucky enough to survive, was something he could not forget.

This war did make him sad, but more than that, it made him unspeakably angry, that people could forget so easily and so quickly how much damage could be done by it.

He had vowed to himself that if something like this ever happened again, he would not be one to sit around and wallow in despair, he would take action and do everything in his power to end it as soon as possible.

It didn't mean that the death of such a young man wasn't incredibly tragic though. Oliver was only that age when the great war began so he could relate to him on a deeply personal level.

"I will arrange to have personal letters of condolence sent to the men's families", he promised his wife.

She gave him a shaky, watery smile. "Thank you, darling."

It was a good thing that production was able to carry on swiftly as just a week later, the Germans and the British entered into a full day of heavy sustained fighting. The aircraft battle was perilous, but thanks in no small part to the Warbucks' artillery contributions, the British were triumphant.

But the attacks on London had become more frequent and there were many reports coming through of mass destruction and casualties in England's capital.

One day came in early October, after a particularly brutal attack where Oliver tried to reach the London armory, and couldn't.

He wore a very stony face and spoke with a voice full of gravity when he said to Grace that afternoon, "I have to go to London."

"What?!" Grace shrieked, instant panic setting in at the thought of her husband walking straight into a domestic warzone.

"I can't reach the armory or anyone who works there. I'm afraid it may have been bombed."

"If it had been bombed, we surely would have heard about it. Think of how much destruction it would've caused!"

"I am thinking of exactly that. What if that's why I'm finding it impossible to reach anyone?"

"Somebody would have informed you, Oliver."

"Not if there's no one left who's able to."

"But aren't these places built with anti-bombing materials?"

"Some", he conceded, but very distractedly.

"Couldn't you ask Churchill to check on it for you?"

He thought about it for a moment, but shook his head. "No, the poor fellow's got far too much to deal with already. As it is, I haven't heard from him all week."

Grace stared at him in disbelief. "Oliver, please think about what you're saying", Grace pleaded with him in desperation. It seemed her husband was suddenly hell-bent on putting himself in mortal danger.

"We could be needlessly pouring out money into a warehouse that's been destroyed, Grace." he instantly regretted arguing that point as he knew Grace didn't really give a damn about the money.

"Better the money pour out than your blood!" She argued back impassionately.

He tightened his jaw and looked at her square in the eyes. The truth was that even though he knew his weaponry had been helping in the fight over there greatly, he'd been feeling a sense of helplessness and a desperation to see what was happening to his childhood home first hand, to assess it for himself. He couldn't bear the things he'd been hearing and he thought that perhaps if he went there, there might be a possibility that he'd find out it had all been greatly sensationalized and that it wasn't as bad as what everyone was saying…even though he knew it was unlikely.

"I'll be fine", he promised her. "I'll be as careful as I can be."

"You could be as careful as you like, it won't make any difference to a bomb!"

"I'll stay underground as much as I can."

She recognized the steely determination in him she'd grown so accustomed to. It was a quality of his she usually admired, but in this instance, it scared her to no end.

"There's nothing I can say to talk you out of this, is there?" She asked him mournfully.

As he gazed into her eyes, he had no response for her. Mainly because he knew he couldn't possibly adequately explain his reasons for wanting - needing to go. He just knew there was no way she would be able to understand.

"I won't be the one to tell Annie", she swore with gritted teeth and tears forming in her eyes.

"I'll tell her tonight, after dinner."

"Oh, so we have you for one more night, then?" She asked bitterly, as if his doom was already sealed.

He sighed. "I promise you, I will be alright. As soon as I check on the armory and make sure it's intact, I will return home, I swear."

"And what if it's perfectly fine? How many more times will you need reassuring? How many more times will you want to return?"

He bowed his head. "I don't think I can definitively answer that."

Grace swallowed thickly. "Oliver…this will be the last time you will go to England while the war is still raging, and I am still your wife. Do you understand?"

The threat of Grace leaving him if he considered returning to England after this made him feel panicked, but not more so than it made him feel defensive. "I want you to think about what you're saying now."

"Oh, I have thought about it, because you see I know you so frightfully well that I was certain the day would come when you couldn't leave well enough alone. I always knew that at some point you would want to return to England, and I've toiled and toiled over what I would do, and I decided that for both mine and Annie's sakes, I wouldn't allow either of us to be put through that kind of torment."

He grit his teeth. "You'd really take Annie from me?"

"It's the last thing I would ever want to do, but I don't want her to end up like me - without a Father who was unable to say no to the bloody glory of war."

"It's not like I'm going to the front line, Grace."

"I'm sure if you were younger and had any less at stake you'd be jumping at the chance!"

He shook his head. "You're being ridiculous."

"I'm being ridiculous?!"

He took a breath before saying quietly, "You just don't understand."

Grace nodded her head, tears now falling from her sad eyes. "You're right. I really, really don't."

…

That evening, the family came together for dinner. Annie had been with Gordon all day, the two of them had both begun studying at NYU the previous month, though Gordon was living on campus while Annie was still living at home.

When Oliver told Annie of his plan to go to England, panic instantly set into the girl's heart. "But isn't it terribly dangerous over there?" Her eyes flicked between her parents. She could see the disconcerted expression on her Mother's face so clearly.

"Yes", Oliver conceded. "But I promise I will be taking every precaution possible to stay out of harm's way."

Worried about him, and also sensing her Mother was not very pleased about the idea, Annie tried a different tactic to convince her Father to stay. "But Daddy, it's my birthday in three weeks."

"And I'll be well and truly back by then, my sweet. I promise you."

She shared another worried glance with her Mother. Not wanting her daughter to feel frightened like she was, Grace gave her a small, reassuring smile.

…

That night, as Oliver climbed into bed beside Grace, he tentatively came over to her side and put his arms around her. She was stiff in his embrace. He kissed her neck and whispered in her ear, "Try not to worry, my dear. I'll be back before you know it, and I'll have the best level of security over there that money can buy."

Grace sighed. "There are other ways though, Oliver. Ways that don't involve you putting yourself in danger."

"Millions of people are living in Britain right now, people who are all just simply getting on with it. If they're all coping with the idea of permanence , then why should a few days there frighten me?"

His words did bring a small amount of comfort to Grace. The media lately had been filled with nothing but death and destruction in Europe, it was sometimes difficult to remember that there were still many people who were simply "getting on with it" as Oliver had said. It still didn't mean she thought that Oliver was wise to volunteer himself unnecessarily.

But she knew she couldn't stop him, she never really could. Once he'd made up his mind about something, that was it. It was that fact that probably bothered her more than anything. She'd asked him, pleaded with him not to go, and he hadn't taken heed of her pleas. She couldn't help but be left wondering what that said about his level of respect for her.

It had been incredibly difficult to say it to him, but she knew that for own benefit, she had to hold firm to the ultimatum she had made with him earlier.

If he chose, at any point during this war, to desert them again, Grace would be left with no other choice but to leave him. The thought made her feel sick to her stomach, but she knew she and most especially Annie, couldn't keep being put through this.

…

The following morning, Annie and her Father shared a long hug, then Grace, with a steely resolve, kissed him chastely and said shakily, "Please just…come back to us."

"I will", he assured her confidently before he smiled at them both and got into the towncar.

Grace and Annie put their arms around one another to comfort each other as they watched their husband and Father drive away from them for what they both hoped would not be the last time.