By Ray Wilson
“For it’s ‘Tommy this’ an ‘Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, go away’;
But it’s ‘Saviour of ‘is country’ when the guns begin to play…”
— Rudyard Kipling, Tommy
Henry stood in the garage, staring through two cobwebbed panes of glass that overlooked the garden and the old henhouse beyond. The windows had watched almost a century pass since the garage had been built in the 1930s.
Outside, Cilla, the family’s fiery tortoiseshell cat, sat motionless, almost belligerently,before the henhouse, her amber eyes fixed on the Burford Browns scratching unconcernedly in the dust. She looked as though she were conducting a military inspection rather than contemplating lunch.
Henry smiled.
Even amid the uncertainty of July 2026, Willow Crescent remained a sanctuary. Here, the world still made sense. Cats watched chickens. Flowers bloomed. The kettle was always ready.
“Henry!”
Agatha appeared in the doorway, waving his mobile phone.
“It’s The Pines again. Gemma says it’s urgent. Your dad’s upset… something about Tommy.”
Henry frowned. “Tell her I’m coming.”
He grabbed his crash helmet and motorcycle gloves from the workbench.
Gemma looked relieved when he arrived. “He’s settled down now,” she said quietly. “But he was very distressed.”
“What happened?”
“He kept talking about Tommy.”
Henry sighed. “I don’t know anyone called Tommy.”
Gemma couldn’t help smiling. “I think Tommy’s a cat, a ginger tom.”
Henry laughed. “Well… that certainly changes the investigation.”
His father sat quietly by the window, watching a few droplets of rain gather on the glass.
“Hello, Dad.”
His old man’s face brightened. “Henry… you’ve come.”
Gemma said you’ve been worried about Tommy.”
“I have.”
Henry pulled up a chair. “You remember him, don’t you?”
“I remember the stories.”
His father shook his head. “They weren’t just stories.”
Silence hung between them.
“Tommy adopted us just before the war. A big ginger tom. Turned up one autumn afternoon and decided we belonged to him.”
His voice grew distant. “People remember the courage of soldiers. They forget the courage of animals.”
Henry said nothing.
“The Blitz had begun. Every night the bombers came. We never knew where the next bomb would fall.”
His father closed his eyes. “One night Tommy started screaming; it was painful and terrifying. He never meowed like that before. He ran from room to room until we had to let him out, and we followed him into the Anderson shelter.”
“I remember that story, Dad,” Henry said softly.
His father nodded. “We thought he’d gone mad.”
He paused. “An hour later … the unexploded bomb at the end of the street detonated.”
His eyes drifted towards the window. “Our house was almost destroyed. But we were alive. Because Tommy wouldn’t stop crying.”
Henry remembered hearing that story as a boy. Back then it had sounded like one more family legend. Now he wasn’t so certain.
“So why are you upset today?”
His father leant forward. “I saw him.”
Henry blinked. “…Tommy?”
“It was him.”
“Dad…”
“Or one of his kin.”
His voice had become almost a whisper. “They always know; they have a special sense. I suppose it’s like clairvoyance.”
“They come when something terrible is coming.”
Henry chose his words carefully.
“Dad… Tommy’s been gone for over eighty years.”
“I know what I saw.” His father reached for a folded newspaper cutting with trembling hands.
“Read this.”
Henry glanced at the BBC headline.
Public need to be better prepared for war, 29 March 2026.
His father jabbed at the page. “Doesn’t it sound familiar?”
Henry skimmed the article.
A retired RAF officer warned that Britain was not mentally prepared for modern war. Greater defence spending. Public readiness. Civil resilience. Warnings that conflicts abroad could soon reach Britain.
His father gave a sad smile. “I’ve heard all these words before.”
He looked beyond Henry, as though seeing another lifetime.
“In 1938 they talked about preparedness. They handed out gas masks. We built Anderson shelters, starting digging trenches in parks. They all hoped preparing for war would prevent it.”
Henry remained silent.
“I remember listening to the wireless. I remember my mother sewing labels into our clothes. I remember everyone saying, ‘Surely it won’t happen.'”
He folded the newspaper. “And then it did.”
The room fell quiet. Outside, somewhere in the gardens of The Pines retirement home at Tranquil Waters, a cat gave a long, mournful cry.
Both men turned instinctively towards the window. Neither spoke. After a long moment Henry smiled awkwardly.
“It’s probably just one of the residents feeding strays.”
His father didn’t answer.
Instead, he reached into the bedside cabinet and produced a thick bundle of handwritten pages. “Take these.”
“What are they?”
“My notes.”
Henry looked down.
Across the front he’d written in neat blue ink:
Warmongers. Churchill wanted war and profit. Not weakness, appeasement.
Henry glanced down at the bundle of handwritten pages. Across the front, in his father’s careful handwriting, were four words: War. Peace. Profit. Tommy. On the first page was another heading. Not Every Road Led to War. Some Tried to Stop It. In bold script his father had written, Some were removed by the powers that be. T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, died on 19 May 1935 from head injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident six days earlier near his home in Dorset, England.
Lawrence of Arabia and Neville Chamberlain both sought to negotiate with Hitler to avoid conflict, but their efforts were ultimately undermined by Winston Churchill’s firm belief that Hitler could not be trusted. Churchill opposed any negotiations, arguing that they would lead to further destruction and accepting German domination of Europe was unacceptable.
His father had listed them one by one.
Munich, 1938. Chamberlain returned believing concessions over Czechoslovakia might preserve peace. History remembers the failure, but many at the time simply wanted another generation spared the slaughter of the trenches.
Britain, 1940. After France fell, some within the British government, led by Lord Halifax, considered whether negotiations with Germany should at least be explored. Churchill refused. He believed any settlement with Hitler would merely postpone a greater catastrophe.
Rudolf Hess, 1941. Hitler’s deputy flew alone to Scotland, claiming to seek peace. Whether acting for Hitler or pursuing his own delusions remains disputed, but his mission ended in imprisonment and ridicule.
The Vatican. Pope Pius XII quietly attempted to mediate between the warring nations. Neither side trusted the other enough to compromise.
Sweden. Neutral diplomats carried messages, sounding out possibilities whenever cracks appeared between the combatants. The conversations led nowhere.
Italy, 1943. After Sicily fell, Italy abandoned Hitler and sought an armistice with the Allies. It ended one alliance but not the war itself.
The German Resistance, 1944. Officers who tried to kill Hitler also hoped to negotiate peace afterwards. Their plot failed, and with it any chance they might have had.
Himmler, 1945. Even as Germany collapsed, Heinrich Himmler secretly approached the Western Allies, hoping to bargain. His overtures were rejected without hesitation.
At the bottom of the page his father had written, in darker ink than the rest: History remembers battles. It rarely remembers the people who tried to prevent them.
Henry slowly turned the page. The next line made him pause.
Every war begins when someone decides that peace is no longer possible; ostensibly, it is all for the greater good, but in reality, it means more support for governments and more money for bankers.
He looked across at his father.