Each week on Tuesday Pen’n’Tonic will post  a word, a phrase, a picture, or an idea that will constitute a prompt from which to submit a poem, a flash fiction piece (not longer than 250 words), an original photograph, an original artwork, or a combination of these things that you think applies to the week’s theme.

For this week’s challenge, a black and white photograph (owner and girls unknown) of three school friends at a rural schoolhouse.

https://penntonic.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/creative-expressions-9-black-and-white/

Image provided and credited by Pen’n’Tonic

ETERNAL FRIENDS

By John Yeo

The three friends were all Land Army girls during the second world war. Betty and Cissy worked on the land and Lil drove an ambulance. They all met up one day to visit their old school for the school reunion day.
Lil borrowed the ambulance and gave Betty and Cissy a lift. The snow was thick on the ground and Lil drove very slowly and cautiously to avoid skidding out of control. Laughingly she joked, they would be safe in her hands as she was a first class ambulance driver usually driving as fast as possible.
The three friends had a wonderful time catching up with their old school chums, bringing  all the old memories of happy schooldays to life again. I took a photograph of the three of them together, promising faithfully I would send a copy on to each of them. They drove off in the ambulance laughing cheerily and waving goodbye.
Sadly that was the last anyone saw of them.
The German aircraft seemed to come from nowhere, strafing and bombing the vehicle and the houses nearby. We heard later that the bomb that hit the ambulance was a direct hit and  killed the three friends instantly. The funeral was a very sad solemn occasion that will live long in my memory.
I had the photograph developed and it was used in the obituary in the local paper, I saved this copy as a sad remembrance of my three dear school friends.
Eternal friends lost through war.

(250 Words)

Copyright © Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved