I’ve been writing a story for my October newsletter. My heroine is a woman with two children, trying to get home to England and the husband who left her in Spain when the army invaded France.

The ship docked in Portsmouth on the morning tide. The passage from Spain had taken most of the money Maggie had been able to save, and she was determined to be out of town before nightfall so that she would not have spend any more.

In summer, a woman, a toddling infant and a baby could make themselves comfortable for the night in a hedge or under a tree—and had done so many times during their long treks through Portugal, Spain and even the south of France. But towns were not safe places for those without a roof over their head and a stout door between them and the predators who would take even the little that Maggie and her children owned.

It didn’t take her long to discover that passage on a coach would cost more than she could afford, so it would be another long walk.

Two hundred miles, at least, and that was if the first village was the correct one. It was only after several letters had gone unanswered that a kindly army chaplain explained that Parker was a common surname and that many villages were called Ashton. Even in the English Midlands, which was all she knew about where Will’s family lived, there were several Ashtons. She had sent her next letter to them all, proclaiming her intention to leave Spain and come to England. She hoped one of those letters had reached the intended recipient, for the cost had set back her savings and kept her in Spain for another month, even though the chaplain was good enough to send the package in the army mail, to be posted on from London.

Ah! That was what she needed. Outside a general store was a sturdy wooden wheelbarrow. Maggie went inside to find the price. “Three shillings, ma’am,” said the shopkeeper. After some haggling, she bought it for two shillings, popped Billy inside, and pushed it back to the wharf.

To her relief, the boy she had paid to watch her baggage was still there, and so were her bags, her small trunk and the bag with all the things she needed for the baby. She gave the boy another threepence and an extra penny to help her load the wheelbarrow. Then, with Billy perched on the trunk and Madeleine still in the shawl tied tightly to her back, she set off to walk to Ashton.

“It will take us the rest of June and part of July, I expect,” she told her two children as she walked. Chatting to the children helped to pass the time as the long miles rolled away under the single wheel and her shoulders ached. Her feet, too, for it had been months since their last long trek.

Once she had arrived in San Sebastián, she had found work cleaning floors and making up rooms in an inn, so she could save enough money to buy passage for them all. Between that and the time on the ship, it had been more than three months since she walked that far, and Madeleine had grown heavier—it felt like much heavier.

Eva was happy in her shawl. Soothed by her closeness to Maggie and rocked by the movement, she made no complaint. Maggie supposed she slept some of the time, and for the rest, watched the world pass with those wise eight-month baby eyes.

Billy, who was never still even in his sleep, kept asking to get down from the wheelbarrow to walk and then to get up again a few minutes later, for he was tired of walking.