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The sky was black over the Downs, a solid line as if an artist had slashed a paintbrush across the canvas. Alarms rang out. Church bells rang. Codename Cromwell – the day we’d all known was coming. The invasion was happening.

I sprung from the bed, heart pounding, sweat pouring from my body. It was pitch-black. Only the alarm remained.

I slapped the clock, and sat on the end of the bed, trusting that the panic would pass. I breathed, slowly, in and out. In and out.

There was no invasion, I told myself. Not yet. I still had time.

‘What time is it?’ Margaret asked. She didn’t sound put out at all. Had she even been asleep?

‘Four,’ I said.

‘I’ll drive down the road and come back,’ she said. ‘Don’t want Vaughn thinking we spent the night together.’

She kissed me, her hand on my cheek where she’d slapped me.

‘You didn’t hold back,’ I said.

‘If a job’s worth doing ...’ she said, with a grin.

*

A pair of headlights wobbled in the distance as a car made its way along the lane to the farm. I stood in the cool morning air, waiting. Bill Taylor joined me. He’d gone home for the night, liked to sleep in his own bed, but now he was here, ready for the day. It would be the most important day in our year. Make or break.

After months of dry weather, the forecast had suddenly changed. A storm was blowing in from the Atlantic. Twenty--four hours before it arrived, if we were lucky.

Two hundred acres of wheat needed harvesting. Yesterday had been too early. Too much moisture in the stalks. Many of my neighbours had blinked in the face of the -oncoming storm, cut their corn even though they knew -better. Give it a day and their stooks, bundles of wheat gathered together across their fields, would be steaming, generating enough heat to destroy what had taken half a year to grow. But at least they’d got it harvested, they’d be telling themselves as they rode out across their fields, watching the tell-tale wisps of smoke and praying for rain. Maybe they’d get lucky. Maybe their moisture content was all right. Today they’d be watching the sky as the clouds rolled in, hoping it would arrive before I could get the harvest done. Nothing more pleasing to a man who’s made his own mistakes than seeing his neighbour getting his comeuppance.

The peaceful morning was broken by the throaty cough of the tractor turning over. It fired, then roared. Seconds later, it rolled out of the barn, cracking pebbles under its thick tyres, Elizabeth at the wheel. Bill Taylor had tied a cushion onto the seat so she could see over the steering-wheel. I -saluted her, and she nodded. If you’d told me back in -November when we planted the seed that come harvest I’d have a twelve-year-old girl in the driving seat, I’d have said you were crazy.

The car pulled into the yard, Vaughn at the wheel, excited as a schoolboy on his way to the beach. Miriam climbed out. Her walking stick was gone, and I hoped her recovery was complete. A long day in the fields would test her, and the last thing I needed was to lose a pair of hands halfway through the day. Freddie slumped in the back seat, asleep under a pile of coats.

Behind them, the lane was filled with people, here to help. Bill Taylor had put the word out that we were paying twenty shillings a person for the day’s work. Good money that for many would help keep the wolf from the door.

Margaret’s car threaded its way through the labourers. Vaughn saw it. He smirked.

It would be a long day, but if the weather played along, we’d get the job done.

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