Christobel

Christobel Part 1

Author's note

Christobel is my sixth novel (and second with an historical/family history bent) although the first offered free-to-read on Wattpad. I hope to garner a little helpful feedback here before publishing a final version in the normal way.

It's essentially two stories for the price of one (and so great value!) told in alternating chapters, about two people with nearly the same name. Christopher's (Chris's) tale is set in the nearly-present, 2014-15, before the British referendum on membership of the EU. He is English and a nurse who's taken up a job in Germany. His great-great-grandmother Christobel was also a nurse during the years prior to and during the horror of World War One.

Both Chris and Christobel, by their idealistic actions, find themselves in dire straits. They are both entirely fictional characters but Christobel's story, which is told in the form of her journal, is embroidered onto the real-life one of British heroine Edith Cavell, and the book was inspired by and is in tribute to her. I do hope you find it interesting and enjoyable.

Christobel

Prologue

He lay awake in the dark, trying to blank his mind for sleep. But that was easier said than done, with his brain racing, knowing what was coming in the morning: the van ride through the grey November morning to the courtroom. The trial was over and now it was judicial decision time. Guilty as charged or free. He didn't feel optimistic. Had been counselled against it, so as not to raise his hopes. There'd been little sympathy for or understanding of his actions from stern, judging authority.

A heavy black pall of – what? foreboding? fear, probably; anxiety and dread, certainly – hung over him. He felt physically sick. How had things come to this?

He regretted what he'd done now. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but it had seemed right at the time, it really had. Perhaps he'd been naive, but there had seemed to be clear moral justification. Well, justified or not, he couldn't go back in time and do things differently.

And now the sword of Damocles was hanging by its gossamer thread . . .

Chapter 1

Chris and Frieda rounded the final bend of the drive. It still came as a slight shock to him, the manor house suddenly appearing like that with no prior warning until now, with no distant view on the approach; slumbering there in the bright crisp February afternoon, in its lush manicured grounds, grey and venerable and ancient.

It was Frieda's first visit though. Of course Chris had described it to her, making it sound impressive and everything, but she was still taken aback.

'Wow!'

He smiled. She really was remarkably fluent in English, considering that she didn't live in Britain, which was more than could be said for his German.

'Yeah, quite something, isn't it?'

She gawped at the house. 'Yes, it is. It must have cost a great deal of money.'

Chris laughed. 'Well little brother can afford it, I'm sure. He's absolutely loaded.'

Frieda frowned quizzically. 'Loaded?'

Well, perhaps she wasn't entirely fluent. He elucidated. 'Loaded with money. Wealthy. Rich.'

'Ah, yes.'

He could almost hear her brain working, filing the phrase away, adding it to her vocabulary.