Worlds Apart

A WW2 English soldier wakes from a coma to find a mysterious old man sharing his hospital room. The year is 1940 and the setting is a London city hospital. Outside the window are signs of war; tethered dirigibles and a night sky pierced by searchlights. In a single bed, a bandaged young English soldier wakes from a coma. TOMMY DAWSON remembers the battle at Dunkirk, but little else. He is surprised to find himself back in London and sharing a room with an elderly and distinguished gentleman. HERBERT explains that the sheer number of wounded and lack of space is the reason Tommy’s been placed in his private room. Tommy is dismayed to learn that he has been unconscious for a month and during that time London has been under aerial attack. He is anxious to see his wife whose visit he missed and then to get back to his unit and the war. Herbert dismisses his love for King and Country as jingoistic, and before long, they are arguing the merits of war. Tommy sees the book Herbert is clutching and believes he is either a preacher, or a cowardly pacifist. Tommy becomes distraught when Herbert reveals that his wife was killed a month ago in the English Channel. News he kept quiet to spare him the added grief. Tommy’s anguish quickly turns to anger as Herbert’s defeatist attitude confronts everything he fought for. Blackout sirens wail as the city is thrown into darkness. Tensions are at breaking point as bombs start to fall. Is Herbert a Nazi sympathizer? Or something worse? Tommy’s world is turned upside down when he finally learns Herbert’s real truth about the war raging around them. A truth that will blur the lines between reality and fiction.