Dominic Bell is a former oil rig worker from Hull, East Yorkshire, and multiple WM winner. He writes as a break from computer programming and attending to the needs of his teenage children. His main writing project is endlessly editing a series of First World War novels.
‘ There you are!’ said Colonel Haughton as his daughter came in to the railway station restaurant. ‘So sorry I’m late!’ ‘Well, sit down, sit down.’ She looked tired, he thought, tired and older with little lines at the corners of her eyes a twenty year-old should not have. He thought of her coming out, cancelled by the war like so much else. Visiting country houses and attending balls. The life she should have led. ‘So how’s being a VAD?’ ‘Hard work,’ Julie said, ‘but you get a lot of appreciation.’ She too was watching him, evaluating. Dark marks under his eyes suggested the wound was still giving him trouble sleeping.
He nodded. ‘I expect you do.’ He glanced around. There were several men appreciating her.
