Chapter 1

It was an eerie scene of tranquillity. A woman of twenty-three dressed in ragged European clothing paused to survey her path; exhausted, heavy-hearted, her cheeks reddened and sodden with tears. A thick cotton scarf wrapped snugly around her head allowing only a few stray wisps of curly dark hair and a pair of overwrought olive-green eyes to peer through. Nothing moved. Trees were motionless, their branches locked stock-still under thick layers of pure snow; the flat Norfolk landscape suffocated by its ashen carpet. The morning sky was obscured by a swirling wintry haze of pink and orange, the sun straining through just enough to scatter sprinklings of glitter over the undisturbed blanket of white shrouding the countryside.

She breathed in deeply. The salty smell of the sea air was dwindling as she made her way inland, the familiar aroma of English air penetrating her memory to its core, and biting sharply at her airways as she inhaled. She saw that her deep footsteps had drawn an irregular line extending miles in the direction from whence she had come. The silence produced by the halting of her steps was deafening. She felt the overwhelming sensation of loneliness and vulnerability; standing there, exposed and deserted. The sharp eyes of nature pierced her through; observing her every move, stalking her. Caverns of pitch darkness flanked by the tall conifers on her right were, in her imagination, hiding the eyes of a million lurking demons, which would at any point take advantage of her lack of movement and pounce upon their prey suddenly, and without warning.

She trudged forward, her ill-fitting German jackboots crunching down deliciously with each step. The boots had marred her feet during her journey, but she noticed the pain had now been reduced to a mere dull ache. The numbing cold had been a blessing for at least one thing, she thought. But she was tired, ever so tired. Every step, every heave of her foot up and out of the knee-deep snow sent new waves of fatigue cart-wheeling through her limbs and body.

She felt more relief than fear when a cry rang out from within the trees, followed by the appearance of a young British soldier, nervously brandishing a rifle.

"I said, stop right there! Put your hands in the air immediately!"

She fell to her knees and raised her weak arms as requested, as high as the strength in her shoulders would allow.

"I'm British. I'm a British citizen. I'm British", she repeated, before collapsing into a quivering heap of exhaustion and helplessness at the youth's feet.