As Dan Braithwaite's best friend Fred lies dying in his arms in a shell hole on the Western Front in 1918, he asks Dan to promise him three things: That he'll keep smiling no matter what life throws at him, that he'll raise a glass to the Lost Lads of England every Christmas Eve in the pub they knew so well back home, and lastly that Dan will tell Fred's Nan that he died well and that he loved her very much. Dan gives Fred his word that he will, and in return Fred promises that he will somehow see him safe home to their beloved village of Little Hope, high on the Yorkshire moors.
Dan does make it home, and the first two promises he made to Fred are easily kept, but he is heartbroken when he realizes that he's left it too late to pass Fred's last words on to his Nan, as by the time he gets round to it the old lady has passed away.
Time passes, and although Dan makes a new life and is happy with his wife and children in the village he and Fred grew up in, he still thinks of his old friend and misses him terribly. Sometimes, he even thinks he sees him.
Matters come to a head on Christmas Eve 1941 when heavy snowfall brings an old oak tree crashing down onto the village pub in Little Hope. For the first time since Fred's death, Dan isn't able to raise his customary toast to the Lost Lads, and his cheerful grin falters.
With his own son listed as missing presumed dead at sea after the sinking of the frigate HMS Longsword, Dan ventures out into the icy night to search for a neighbour's child who has disappeared in a nearby wood, and suddenly the veil between the past and the present becomes very thin indeed.
What links a local gamekeeper also searching for the child, to both Dan and Fred and a Summer's day in Flanders years before and who are the mysterious gypsies in the blacked-out caravan in Creeper's Wood?
As the sirens wail in Little Hope and the searchlight battery on Gallows Hill swings into action, the villagers head for their shelters and batten down the hatches. But out in Creeper's Wood, where a battle of wits between Dan and the gamekeeper who believes him to be a poacher has started, the question is this: Can the bonds of true friendship survive far beyond an unmarked grave somewhere in France and if so, might there yet be hope for a teenage sailor lost at sea?
