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LEAH FLEMING
Orphans of War
Alasdair, Hannah, Ruari and Josh This one’s for you! Published by Avon An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2008 This edition published 2016 Copyright © Leah Fleming 2008 Leah Fleming asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9781847563552 Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008184070 Version: 2016-03-28 Contents Dedication The storm in the night takes everyone by surprise: ripping tiles into domino falls, battering down doors, plucking out power lines and cables, hurling dustbins and chimney stacks through fences and down the streets of Sowerthwaite, past the sturdy stone cottages whose walls have stood firm against these onslaughts for hundreds of years. Showers of rolling timbers hurtle into parked vans, flinging in fury against shutters and barricades. In the back ginnels of the market town, the brown rats newly installed in their winter homes burrow deep into crevices as the wind flattens larch fences, blows out cracked greenhouse glass, twisting through gaps on its rampage. The old tree at the top of the garden of the Old Vic public house is not so lucky, swaying and lurching, groaning in one last gasp of protest. It’s too old, too brittle and hollowed out with age to put up much resistance; leaves and beech mast
