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tried to thank him afterwards? He said that he’d get over the flogging soon enough, but if I’d been expelled it might have ruined my whole life, and he couldn’t let that happen.’ He looked up. ‘That’s the sort of chap he is, Leo. That’s the sort of man you’re turning down.’
    Leonora looked at him in silence for a moment. Then she said, ‘It was a brave thing to do, and the action of a good friend, as you say. But he did it for you, Ralph. That doesn’t make him a good husband for me.’
    Her brother got up impatiently. ‘I don’t understand you! What difference does it make? Tom is a good chap and you should be grateful he’s so patient. He won’t hang around for ever, you know, waiting for you to come to your senses.’
    ‘It’s not a question of me coming to my senses,’ Leo snapped back. ‘Tom’s your friend and you’re in his debt. That doesn’t mean I have to marry him. Do you know what Victoria says? She says he only wants to marry me because he can’t marry you.’
    She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. She saw the colour drain from Ralph’s face and for a moment she thought he was going to strike her. Then he flushed deep crimson.
    ‘That’s a foul thing to say! That’s the foulest thing anyone has ever said to me.’
    He turned and left the room without another word.
    No further objections were raised to the idea of the camp, so Leonora and Victoria set off in Sparky the following weekend. Leo quickly had to recognize the force of what Ralph had said at dinner that night. It rained, and the ground was soon churned to mud. In addition to making her own bed and caring for her horse, she found herself lugging buckets of water from the river and collecting bundles of firewood and peeling huge mounds of potatoes. She got used to waking to reveille at 5.30 in the morning and living on porridge that tasted of wood smoke and meat that was singed on the outside and red in the middle. She had never worked so hard in her life – and she loved every minute of it.

Three
    Returning to Sussex Gardens felt like being forced back into a straitjacket. To make matters worse, she found that her grandmother had enrolled her in her absence at a finishing school, which she was expected to attend every morning in order to improve her ‘deportment’ and polish her social skills. When she protested that this clashed with her riding lessons at the cavalry barracks her grandmother threatened to stop her allowance if she refused to attend. As if this was not bad enough, Ralph had refused to speak to her since their conversation about Tom. He visited very rarely and when he did the atmosphere between them was bitter. Leo would have apologized, given the opportunity, but he made sure they were never alone together.
    She had been back from camp less than a week when she opened The Times to read that the Bulgarians and the Serbs, in alliance with Greece, had declared war on Turkey. By early November the Bulgarian army had reached Chataldhza, the last line of Turkish defences between them and Constantinople, and the Greeks had captured the port of Salonika.
    Three days after this news arrived Victoria burst into Leonora’s room when she had only just finished dressing.
    ‘Have you seen this?’ She waved a copy of The Times under Leo’s nose.
    ‘Seen what? You’re very early. I haven’t had breakfast yet.’
    ‘This!’ Victoria folded the paper back and held it for Leonora to see. She read: ‘GALLANT YOUNG LADIES HEAD FOR WAR ZONE. The ladies of the Women’s Sick and Wounded Convoy, under the direction of Mrs Mabel St Clair Stobart, set off yesterday for Bulgaria, where they intend to offer their services as nurses to the allied forces.’
    Leo put the paper aside and stared at Victoria. ‘They are actually going! Going to a real war, to do all those things that we are only playing at.’
    Victoria nodded grimly. ‘Makes you think we joined the wrong outfit, doesn’t