Daisy's War


 Daisy’s War
 
 
 Cover
 
 
 Title Page
 
 
 Chapter One
 
 
 Chapter Two
 
 
 Chapter Three
 
 
 Chapter Four
 
 
 Chapter Five
 
 
 Chapter Six
 
 
 Chapter Seven
 
 
 Chapter Eight
 
 
 Chapter Nine
 
 
 Chapter Ten
 
 
 Chapter Eleven
 
 
 Chapter Twelve
 
 
 Chapter Thirteen
 
 
 Chapter Fourteen
 
 
 Chapter Fifteen
 
 
 Chapter Sixteen
 
 
 Chapter Seventeen
 
 
 Chapter Eighteen
 
 
 Chapter Nineteen
 
 
 Chapter Twenty
 
 
 Newsletter
 
 
 About the Author
 
 
 Also by Rowena Summers
 
 
 Copyright
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cover
 
 
 Table of Contents
 
 
 Start of Content
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Chapter One
 The small boys stared open-mouthed as Daisy pirouetted in front of them, as grandly as any film star at the local fleapit. The girl playing with the rag doll on the mat merely sniffed and refused to look at her. Daisy was going to ignore her anyway. Stuck up little madam that she was. Vanessa! Who ever heard of a name like that for a kid from the slums? No wonder she had airs and graces and thought herself better than anybody else.
 “So what do you think, then?” Daisy asked her small brother and the two young evacuee boys. “How would you fancy being looked after in your hospital bed by Nurse Daisy Caldwell?”
 “You’re not a proper nurse yet,” Norman, the older of the brothers, said, scowling. “You’re just a girl done up in a fancy uniform. Not like our dad. Our mum says he’s got a proper uniform now…”
 Vanessa hooted. “Your dad ran off and left your mum years ago, stupid. The only uniform he’s wearing now has prob’ly got arrows on it, like them jailbirds wear in my Beano.”
 Daisy glared at her as the younger of the brothers howled, “Our dad ain’t in jail! He’s flying one of them bombers and killing Jerries, that’s what he’s doing, Nessa Brown, and you’re a pig—”
 “Oh yeah? Tell that to the fairies, birdbrain. And don’t call me Nessa! Anyway, I bet your dad’s rotting in some ’orrible jail – and prob’ly dying of consumption by now,” she added for effect.
 “Shut up, Vanessa,” Daisy whipped out at once. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
 “Yes I do, clever-dick nurse,” the girl said in a kind of triumph. “Me old gran died of it, so there.”
 All Daisy’s pleasure in the brand-new probationer’s dress she was wearing disappeared at once. She tried to remember that this irritating girl had no idea that Daisy’s own best friend was suffering from consumption – or TB, as those in the know called it, she thought, with a brief surge of superiority – and that the outlook was bad. Very bad, as it happened. After such a good start, Lucy’s chances of survival were less than possible. They were nearer to nil.
 It was all so unfair. Why did Lucy have to die? What had she ever done to deserve it? Everybody knew the Germans were rough-riding it over half of Europe and killing people now, ever since that pompous Mr Chamberlain had produced his ‘Note’ six months ago and plunged them into war with Germany.
 “Politicians!” Aunt Rose always snorted – having no time for them as a breed – “Always meddling in people’s lives and usually getting it wrong.”
 But this was different. Lucy was different. She wasn’t an anonymous face that Daisy didn’t know. She wasn’t one of the wounded soldiers who were starting to be sent to Weston General now, and cheerfully saying how much they liked to see Daisy’s pretty face – even when some of them couldn’t see at all through eyes that had been shot away or horrifically burned, and some of them had ghastly seeping wounds and not much chance of ever living a proper life again.
 Daisy could cope with them – mostly – because it was her job, and she loved it. But Lucy was her best friend, stuck in a miserable sanatorium in deepest Wales, dying of TB at the age of seventeen; and there wasn’t a damn thing anybody could do about it.
 “Anyway, our dad’s flying aeroplanes and killing Jerries, so that’s all you know,” Norman was shouting furiously now, rounding on Vanessa as his brother began to snivel. “Just like your boy, ain’t he, Daisy?”
 She snapped back at him without really meaning to, not wanting to think too much about the lack of communication from her young man right now.
 “Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know you’d better get this mess cleared up while I change out of my uniform. Then you can all help me get the tea started before Aunt Rose comes home from her knitting circle.”
 Vanessa looked scornful again. “Why would she want to sit around knitting socks for soldiers she don’t even know? Why can’t their mums do it for ’em?”
 “For somebody whose mum never knitted anything for anybody as far as I could tell, you should think twice before you condemn other people,” Daisy told her smartly, knowing Aunt Rose wouldn’t like hearing her censure a twelve-year-old who was far from home and well out of her normal environment. But sometimes this one was impossible.
 They were all far from home in Aunt Rose’s motley household, she thought suddenly. Though it was hardly very far for her youngest brother Teddy and herself, moving down to Weston from their Bristol home after their mother had died.
 It was just temporary, of course – they still had their old home in Vicarage Street to go back to any time. Except that temporary had somehow become more permanent than any of them had planned. You had to thank Mr Hitler for some of that – but not all of it.