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On August the 25th, 1934, Mr. Cattermole drove his black Rolls Royce along High Street and into the tiny village of Thames Ditton, in Surrey, England. The car’s purring changed as the wheels met with the gravel driveway of the large house. Mr. Cattermole glanced at the shrubberies to his left and caught glimpses of the walkways between the rich foliage. Beyond lay the low red brick buildings that in days past had housed horses and carriages; but now converted into a priory, these buildings served as living quar- ters for the Sisters of Mercy, a small order of Anglican nuns who owned the property.

Mr. Cattermole smiled; he visualized the sisters hurrying silently along the cloister with its smooth stone floor. The long passageway ran inside the length of the building from the nuns’ quarters and then took a right turn to the main house. The nuns always walked softly and silently through the cloister, either entering the chapel for service, or going to the wards to care for the aged. But on this day, Mr. Cattermole knew a great change was afoot. He continued along the driveway, glancing at the outer wall of the red brick chapel that stood in all its majesty with its stained-glass windows winking in the bright sun.

To his right, stately trees stood on manicured lawns that swept away and curved around to the back of the house. Roses of every hue spilled out of the flowerbed in the center of the driveway; their heady perfume wafted through his car window.

He brought his car to a halt, quickly alighted and saw the sisters excitedly chatting to one another in front of the cloister doors. He smiled again as he opened the passenger door of the car; Eva Mary, Reverend Mother Superior, wriggled forward in her seat.

“Would you?” she said, holding a tiny brown baby up to him.

He touched the peak of his cap and obliged. He looked down at the baby and smiled as a pair of solemn brown eyes stared up at him. The sisters and a number of staff appeared in the doorway, eager to see the baby. They knew of its coming, but not its circum- stances. “Come along my little pet,” Reverend Mother said as she retrieved the baby.

Mr. Cattermole returned to the car and drove back down the driveway. In all his years of service to the Reverend Mother, this had to have been the most extraordinary trip. He shook his head.

“My, my,” he said to himself as he picked up speed on High Street. Dorothy, Reverend Mother’s personal maid, held the door open and Reverend Mother, a tall regal figure, stepped inside, crossed the passageway and went through another set of doors into the cool interior of the great hall. She walked quickly over the ancient flagstone floor, veered to the right past the sweeping stone staircase and on into her private rooms. Dorothy followed her and others hovered in the doorway.

“Come and see her,” Reverend Mother said, as she sat down in her high back floral chair. Sister Faith, a diminutive nun, walked across the room with arms outstretched.

“May I, Mother?” she said.

Reverend Mother chuckled, holding the baby closer. “Isn’t she a darling?” She gazed intently at the child, taking in the black curls and the soft curve of her cheeks and the tiny fingers curled around her own. “You’re my Mary,” she announced to the baby,

“and you’re going to live here till you’re all grown up.” She held the baby up to Sister Faith. “We’ll have our home for children yet,” she said.

In that same year, on August 19, 1934, Adolph Hitler became

Führer of Germany. From then on his fanaticism swept across Europe. Country after country surrendered to the Nazis. Hatred toward God’s chosen people escalated; concentration camps were established and men became insane. Chaos reigned all over the world. By August 1940, the Germans began bombing offensives against airfields and factories in England. Daylight raids over Britain and concentrated attacks on central London increased, culmi- nating in the German blitz of September 1940.