“Alice! Are you ready? It is time to bring the workers theirlunch.” Mum? I run towards my bedroom door,practically flying forward with excitement. I am finally about tomeet my mother again. Oh, how I’ve missed her. I exit the door andstep out on a rainy runway in November. I stand in a black dress nextto Mum and Dad. Heavy raindrops hit the caskets being rolled out of amilitary cargo plane. I hear choked sobs from my mother and myfather’s tight grip is the only thing keeping her upright. Theylean on each other. They wouldn’t have been able to stand on theirown. Ten caskets roll by towards weeping relatives. The last onestops in front of us. My big and strong older brother rests in it. The last time I saw him he was home onleave, more tan than I’d ever seen him before. We had playedcricket, he had taught me baseball and mum had been so happy to seehim again. He’d told us about the Egyptian heat, about sand dunesand the blue Mediterranean sea. We had no idea that would be the lasttime we saw him. What a difference it must be to arrive fromel-Alamein in Egypt where the sun shone so bright and with suchintense heat that the air itself shimmered. Back home to cold andrainy England. The whole way home is spent in a silenceonly broken by the now quieter sobs from my mother in the front seat.I sit in the back and try to process this new reality where I willnever see my happy, kind and energetic brother again. The world willnever hear about the farmer’s son who gave his life for king andcountry. To the rest of the world, he is only one in the masses whohave died in this bloody war. Once we’re back home I’ve decidedthat I hate war. I open the front door. And end up in a small, shabby flat inEast End in London. My first very own flat. It is a small room andkitchenette in a building where many of the flats still haveunrepaired holes in the walls sustained during the Blitz. It is verydifferent from the farm and fields back home in Shropshire. I placemy bag on the rickety table in the middle of the room and admire mylittle palace. This will do nicely.