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    All Quiet on the Western Plains: Homecomings Series, #2
    All Quiet on the Western Plains: Homecomings Series, #2
    All Quiet on the Western Plains: Homecomings Series, #2
    Ebook96 pages2 hours

    All Quiet on the Western Plains: Homecomings Series, #2

    By Isabella Hargreaves

    ()

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    About this ebook

    One war, two battle-scarred hearts, one chance for happiness.

    English nurse, Fleur Armitage, moves to outback Queensland to escape all reminders of the Great War. Jack Edgarson, pastoralist and war hero, is a damaged man living in isolation, fearful he may harm someone. Their lives become entangled, but dare they love each other?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIsabella Hargreaves
    Release dateNov 19, 2015
    ISBN9780994367174
    All Quiet on the Western Plains: Homecomings Series, #2
    Author

    Isabella Hargreaves

    Isabella Hargreaves is an award-winning historical romance author. She writes Romance through the Ages, with a story to tell from the Regency era to Ancient Britain and to 1920s Australia. She loves writing about strong heroines finding the men to match them. She is a winner of the Romance Writers of Australia Romantic Book of the Year 2022 (novella category), the Romance Writers of New Zealand Koru Award 2018 (novella category) and the Romance Writers of Australia 'Little Gems' short story competition 2018, and a finalist in a number of other awards. Isabella lives in Brisbane, Australia, where she works as an historian and is butler to three moggies. When she's not reading and writing, Isabella loves horse-riding and scenic walks. She dreams of an around-the-world trip to indulge these passions. For more information about Isabella Hargreaves' books, and to sign up for email advice about her next release, go to: www.isabellahargreaves.com Follow on: Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/isabella-hargreaves Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7457181.Isabella_Hargreaves Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IsabellaHargreavesBooks

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      Book preview

      All Quiet on the Western Plains - Isabella Hargreaves

      Copyright © Isabella Hargreaves 2014

      First Published 2014

      Revised Edition 2015

      ISBN  978-0-9943671-8-1

      Except for use in any review, no part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

      This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organisations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

      Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at:

      http://www.isabellahargreaves.com

      Dedication

      To Brian Sinclair, with thanks for his advice

      on World War One matters, and for his editorial assistance.

      Prologue

      casualty clearing station behind the front line, Western Front, France, March 1918

      A tremendous explosion punched the ground. British Army Nurse, Fleur Armitage, stumbled. Dirt splattered against the canvas walls of the ward. A siren growled its warning.

      The injured soldiers surrounding her cringed in terror at the renewed threat, or lay motionless, resigned to their fate. Drawn and ashen-faced, they looked pitiful, vulnerable.

      Glancing out the tent, Fleur saw the sky pulse with bright light. Guns blazed the Allies’ response to the enemy artillery fire, but shells continued to fall, far too close to the medical tents. Fleur’s stomach tensed in fear, but she smiled with stiff lips and kept tending her patients.

      Battle was raging scant miles away, where the German army made another push to reach Paris and victory. The stream of injured men into the clearing station in the last few days showed the Allies were suffering badly.

      Fleur’s head pounded in synchrony with the thunder of the heavy guns of the bombardment. Exhaustion numbed her thoughts.

      Matron hurried into the ward, followed by some orderlies. Quickly Sister, you must pack your bags.

      Fleur looked around. She hesitated. I can’t leave my patients, Matron!

      "Go now. The orderlies will move the patients. The ambulances are here. As soon as they’re full, they’ll leave."

      Fleur took one last long look at her boys, whose stretchers the orderlies were now lifting.

      She ran from the ward to her tent. Inside, she threw her few belongings into her kitbag, heaved it onto her shoulder and rushed towards the waiting vehicles.

      A shell burst in the night sky, raining shrapnel down onto the ground behind her. A fragment sliced her cheek. Teeth clenched in fear, Fleur kept running. Dust and smoke choked the air, abrading her nose and throat.

      Patients and nurses filled the body of the vehicle. The ambulance driver tossed her gear onboard and she joined him in the front.

      Where are we going? Fleur gasped. She touched her cheek and found blood oozing from the cut. She clamped her handkerchief onto it. The ambulance bumped onto the damaged road with the convoy of vehicles.

      The General Hospital near Abbeville. God willing. The driver’s face looked set for an ordeal.

      Back to where we started then. She laughed grimly. Resigned to a long drive through the night, Fleur wrapped her arms around her wool-clad body and closed her eyes, hoping to block out the chaotic scene around her. Flashes of shellfire tinted her closed eyelids red. German airplanes droned in the sky while anti-aircraft guns sought them out.

      Dawn chased the ambulance west.

      On arrival later in the morning, Fleur was ordered to rest. She woke in the late afternoon. This was the hospital from which her team of nurses had been sent to the casualty clearing station. It was quieter here.

      Months of constant nursing throughout the winter had wearied her. The horrific wounds, the deaths, the despair, were wearing her down. When would it end? She ate a meal of bread and jam before going to check whether any mail had arrived since her departure for the casualty clearing station. She walked across the hospital compound. The chilly afternoon mist made her cough and wheeze. One small letter in her mother’s writing awaited her.

      Excited, she tore the envelope open with her finger and pulled out the folded paper. Eagerly she scanned the spidery writing for news of home. What she read brought blood pounding in her ears. Tears blurred her vision.

      Dead.

      Roland was dead.

      She would never see his face again or hold his hand or kiss his lips.

      They would never marry.

      She would never have his children.

      The world turned foggy. She slid to the ground. Around her she heard a buzz of activity, then nothing.

      ☼☼☼

      Western Front, France, August 1918

      Lieutenant Jack Edgarson, Australian Imperial Force machine gunner, stumbled from fatigue. The advance on the German line was twenty-four hours old. In the strange light of the explosion-rent night, he and his men ran forward hunched over, circling shell holes.

      Their objective—a line of trenches—was several hundred yards ahead of them. A shell burst above, illuminating the battlefield. They dropped to the ground.

      Crawling forward, Jack led his men onwards across the smashed terrain, past bodies that hadn’t been retrieved since the last onslaught. Above them, shells headed for the German trenches whined. The smells of dank earth, blood, decomposing flesh and acrid smoke choked him.

      Getting closer now.

      They were less than a hundred feet from the dark gash of trenching when a machine gun spat out its line of death at the men on Jack’s right. His group lay still for long minutes. Then slowly, on Jack’s command, they eased forward.

      He knew exactly where the gun emplacement was located now.

      Jack slithered into the trench to the left of the machine gun. He silently dispatched an enemy soldier returning with ammunition. There was a cry of alarm.

      The rest of Jack’s men ran the last few yards to the trench. The machine-gunner hammered out a burst at them before Jack used his revolver on the man’s offsider. The gunner looked back in shock. Jack shot him.

      Grabbing the machine gun, he swung it on the enemy, spraying it across the oncoming defenders. His sergeant blasted on his whistle for the remainder of the troops to advance, to take advantage of the surprise attack. Within minutes, under the cover of Jack’s machine-gun fire, the entire position was taken.

      As dawn slashed the sky with tepid light, his sergeant noticed the weeping

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