text: [Themes: Historical, Historical]
  
  > look around
  The kitchen looks large enough to accommodate the platoon of culinary staff who may have worked here before the war. Circumstances are now reduced, however, leaving the place rather bare: a large wooden table at one end, with a single hard wooden chair right next to it, now comprises the bulk of the furniture. A long, old-fashioned cooking range runs along the east wall, while doors lead off to west, south and north, a calendar being attached to the last of these.
  
  Hilda is busily clearing up the remains of my frugal supper.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, West
  
  > Examine calendar
  It is one of those plain calendars that simply lists the days of the current month in a square grid; it is currently showing October 1940.
  
  > go to Croxley
  (going west)
  
  The hall passage comes to an end outside a brown door to the north. Other doors lead east and west, while the passage runs south towards the main entrance hall.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, East, West
  
  (To continue on your way use the command CONTINUE or C).
  
  > continue
  (going south)
  
  This is the widest part of the hall, where it opens out to accommodate the flight of stairs that leads up to the east. On the other side of the hall a dark panelled door stands closed to the west, while the hall itself continues to both north and south.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, West, Up
  
  (To continue on your way use the command CONTINUE or C).
  
  There's another creak from upstairs, followed by the sound of footsteps and a door closing.
  
  > continue
  (going south)
  
  The hall is quite dimly lit, with dark, oak-panelled doors to east and west, the front door to the south, and a passage (effectively a continuation of the hall) leading off to the north. Against the west wall, next to a small table, a venerable grandfather clock faces a pair of stern Victorian portraits staring down from the opposite wall.
  
  On the small table is a telephone.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, East, West
  
  I have arrived at the place where I last saw Angela Croxley.
  
  > Go north
  The hall passage comes to an end outside a brown door to the north. Other doors lead east and west, while the passage runs south towards the main entrance hall.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, East, West
  
  > Go south
  This is the widest part of the hall, where it opens out to accommodate the flight of stairs that leads up to the east. On the other side of the hall a dark panelled door stands closed to the west, while the hall itself continues to both north and south.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, West, Up
  
  > go west
  (first opening the west door)
  
  The pale gold wallpaper in the lounge looks rather splendid, but the furniture seems surprisingly spartan for such a grand house. Indeed, there is little here apart from four upright chairs and a low wooden table, all rather dwarfed by the size of the room. There are also doors to north and east.
  
  On the low wooden small table is a magazine.
  
  Obvious exits: North, East
  
  > Examine magazine
  It seems to be some kind of theatrical magazine, dated September 1940.
  
  > read it
  (first taking the theatrical magazine)
  I leaf quickly through the magazine, and find it to be full of play reviews and actors' gossip, which really isn't my kind of thing.
  
  > Go north
  (first opening the north door)
  
  A polished wooden dining table, large enough to seat eight or ten with comfort, dominates the centre of the room, though only four chairs are placed round it, while a heavy old sideboard stands to one side. Doors lead out to east and south.
  
  On the sideboard is a dinner plate.
  
  Obvious exits: South, East
  
  > go to the east
  (first opening the west door)
  
  The hall passage comes to an end outside a brown door to the north. Other doors lead east and west, while the passage runs south towards the main entrance hall.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, East, West
  
  > Go south
  This is the widest part of the hall, where it opens out to accommodate the flight of stairs that leads up to the east. On the other side of the hall a dark panelled door stands open to the west, while the hall itself continues to both north and south.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, West, Up
  
  > Go south
  The hall is quite dimly lit, with dark, oak-panelled doors to east and west, the front door to the south, and a passage (effectively a continuation of the hall) leading off to the north. Against the west wall, next to a small table, a venerable grandfather clock faces a pair of stern Victorian portraits staring down from the opposite wall.
  
  On the small table is a telephone.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, East, West
  
  > Go west
  The drawing room looks commodious and comfortable, but its faded green wallpaper suggests that it hasn't been decorated in a while. The principal furniture is arranged in a broad-U: two large armchairs placed opposite each other with a settee ranged in between at right angles to both of them so that it faces the fireplace. The door back out to the hall stands to the east, behind one of the chairs.
  
  On the mantelpiece are three photographs.
  
  Angela Croxley is sitting on the sofa.
  
  A man I take to be Angela's father is sitting in the further armchair, facing the door.
  
  Obvious exits: East He rises from his chair at my entrance and extends his hand.
  
  "Arthur Croxley," he introduces himself. "How do you do. I trust Hilda looked after you properly?"
  
  (My immediate thoughts are to either say yes, or shake his hand.)
  
  > examine Angela
  She's undoubtedly a strikingly attractive young woman, what some might call an English rose. She's somewhere in her twenties, perhaps a few years older than I, and has a pleasant, open, round face framed by a generous bounty of wavy blonde hair. She is sitting on the sofa.
  
  "Hilda - she looked after you properly?" Mr Croxley prompts me.
  
  > look at Arthur
  He is probably about sixty, or maybe in his late fifties, with a rather suave air about him.
  
  "Hilda - she looked after you properly?" Mr Croxley prompts me.
  
  > Yes
  "Yes indeed," I reply, "just what the doctor ordered, thank you."
  
  "Good," he nods. "Now, do take a seat. We've just been discussing what to do with you. I'm afraid it really isn't at all convenient for us to put you up overnight."
  
  "But," Angela breaks in, "we can hardly just turn you out on a night like this! So we thought that we'd wait a bit to see if they mend the phones, and if not, and the worst came to the worst, you could sleep down here on the sofa - that will be all right, won't it Mr Percy?"
  
  (Amongst other things, I could say yes or no, or thank her.)
  
  > examine the photograph
  Which photograph do you mean, the photograph of an RAF pilot, the photograph of a soldier, or the photograph of a woman?
  
  > Thank her
  "Thank you, that would be very kind," I reply.
  
  "Good, that's settled then," she declares.
  
  Mr Croxley sits on the further armchair. "Very well, then," Mr Croxley sighs. "Lieutenant, since it seems you're destined to spend the evening with us, do please take a seat. So, tell me, where were you trying to get to?"
  
  (My immediate thoughts are to either refuse to answer, or tell him about my camp.)
  
  > sit
  (on the spare armchair)
  I sit on the spare armchair.
  
  > Shit
  (sit)
  
  (on the spare armchair)
  I sit on the spare armchair.
  
  > tell Arthur about the camp
  "I've been posted to a camp on Salisbury Plain," I tell him, "but that's really as much as I'm at liberty to say."
  
  "Quite so, lieutenant, careless talk and all that," he approves.
  "Well, at least it shouldn't be too far for you to reach in the morning."
  
  > ask Arthur about himself
  "So tell me, sir, what do you do?" I ask.
  
  "Oh nothing very exciting, I assure you," he replies with a self-deprecating smile. "I'm just a country solicitor - wills, conveyancing, that sort of thing."
  
  > ask Arthur about Hilda
  "I'm a little surprised to find you employing a German housekeeper," I remark. "I thought they were locking up German nationals as enemy aliens!"
  
  "Not all of them," he replies. "Hilda is Jewish - she came to this country a year or two back. Things got very bad for German Jews after Kristallnacht, and I gather most of the rest of her family managed to get themselves arrested one way or another. I hardly think there's any risk of her being a closet Nazi!"
  
  > ask Arthur about Angela
  "Tell me about your daughter," I suggest.
  
  "I'm sure she's quite capable of telling you about herself," he points out.
  
  > ask Angela about Angela
  "Tell me about yourself, Miss Croxley, what do you do these days?" I ask.
  
  "These last few months I've just been helping my father sort things out," she replies. "What with my mother dying, and Tony, and Adam... well, there's a lot of sorting out to do, and as you can imagine my father needs a bit of support right now."
  
  > ask Angela about the house
  She rather deftly changes the subject, so I quickly find myself talking about something quite different.
  
  "Do you see those photographs, Mr Percy?" Mr Croxley asks suddenly, nodding towards the mantelpiece. "They're the cost of this war, you know!"
  
  > look at the photographs
  Two are of young men in uniform, one army, the other RAF. The third is of a middle-aged woman.
  
  > ask the mr about the photographs
  "The photographs on the mantelpiece - are they members of your family?" I enquire.
  
  "Yes," he replies, a little brusquely. "Mary was my wife. She was killed in an air-raid in London two months ago. The boy in RAF uniform, that's my older son Adam. He was shot down over Kent in July - he didn't make it, I'm afraid. The other boy is my younger son Tony. He got trapped at Dunkirk and didn't make it either."
  
  (Amongst other things, I could say how sorry I am.)
  
  > say sorry
  "I'm so sorry for your loss, sir," I say. "To have lost any one of them would be terrible enough, but all three in the space of a few months - I hardly know what to say!"
  
  "There's nothing you can say - you or anyone else," he replies grimly, "but you'll understand why we're not over-eager to entertain hordes of visitors right now."
  
  > 2
  Works of Interactive Fiction are typically narrated in the second person and present tense (e.g. "You see a gold ring here"). From time to time there have been discussions whether this convention represents the best way of conveying an interactive narrative. Shelter from the Storm allows you, the player, to experiment with this by choosing the person (and the tense) in which the game is narrated. The opening screen of the game asks you to choose the person and tense of the game before you start, but you can also change your choice during the course of play. In particular during play you can change between first, second and third person with the commands:
  
  THIRD PERSON
  
  You can also change between present and past tense with the commands:
  
  [The End]
  
  > ask Arthur about the wendle manor
  "This is quite a house you have here, sir," I remark.
  
  "It is quite a pile, isn't it?" he replies. "It's been in the family for years, but it feels like the three of us are rattling around in it rather now. When my sons were living here too, it was different - but those days are gone for good."
  
  I hear the crunch of gravel as a car comes to a halt up on the drive just outside. Mr Croxley throws a mildly irritated glance at the window, as if to say "Who could that be?"
  
  > stand
  Okay, I'm now standing.
  
  "Please do take a seat," Mr Croxley insists, waving towards the vacant armchair.
  
  There's the sound of a car door slamming, and a few moments later the front door bell rings. Angela Croxley starts to get up, but her father motions her to stay put, saying "Hilda will get it; that's what we pay her for."
  
  > listen
  From the sound of the wind and rain it seems there's quite a storm brewing.
  
  "I'm sure you'll get more than enough exercise once you've arrived at your camp," Mr Croxley suggests, "so why don't you give your legs a rest while you have the chance?"
  
  Footsteps clatter up the hall as someone - presumably the housekeeper - goes to answer the front door. There follows a brief rattle as the front door is opened, then an equally brief exchange of voices.
  
  > examine the window
  The window is hidden behind the curtains.
  
  "I really can't have you standing over me all evening," Mr Croxley complains. "Do please sit down, Mr Percy."
  
  There's a quick knock and Hilda pokes her head round the door. "Sorry to disturb you, Mr Croxley," she says, "but there's a Mr Graham here to see you."
  
  Mr Croxley frowns in mild irritation and then gives a curt nod. "Very well, then, Hilda, I'd better see him in the study." Rising to his feet he adds, "If you'll excuse me for a few minutes, Mr Percy, I'm sure Angela can keep you amused."
  
  With a second curt nod, this time to his daughter, he strides from the room.
  
  "I'm sure my father won't be long," Angela Croxley assures me, with just the hint of a smile. "In the meantime, why don't you tell me more about yourself, Mr Percy? Have you been in the army long?"
  
  > sit
  (on the spare armchair)
  I sit on the spare armchair.
  
  "Did you not hear me, Mr Percy?" Angela Croxley asks, "I asked if you had been the army long - so, have you?"
  
  > No
  "No, not really," I reply. "I joined the TA in '37 and then got called up when the TA was embodied last year. I spent a few months under canvas in muddy fields doing nothing particular, and then got selected for OCTU[1]. I've only just received my commission."
  
  "What made you join the Territorials in '37?" she enquires.
  
  (My immediate thoughts are to either blame Hitler, or say it was my friends.)
  
  (A number in [square brackets] like the one above refers to a footnote, which you can read by typing FOOTNOTE followed by the number: FOOTNOTE 1, for example. Footnotes usually contain added background information that might be interesting but isn't essential to the story. If you'd prefer not to see footnotes at all, you can control their appearance by typing FOOTNOTES.)
  
  > Friends
  "Oh, a whole lot of my friends were joining the local platoon, so I thought I'd go along too," I tell her.
  
  > Note 1
  "I see," she remarks with a gentle smile, "though somehow I suspect there may have been a bit more to it than that. So, have you been enjoying the army?"
  
  OCTU = Officer Cadet Training Unit, a unit for training the commissioned officers needed for Britain's rapidly expanding wartime army (which obviously couldn't all be supplied by Sandhurst).
  
  > No
  "No, not really," I reply, "but it has its moments. In any case, nothing seems that tough after boarding for five years at a public school, believe me! Besides..."
  
  Just at that moment the drawing door opens again and Mr Croxley takes a step into the room. "Angela, I wonder if you could join us for a moment?" he asks, then turning to me he adds, "We'll be back in just a jiffy, Mr Percy, if you wouldn't mind waiting here. I expect Graham will be able to offer you a lift when we're done."
  
  Angela Croxley rises to her feet then follows her father out of the room, pausing by the door to look back and flash me an apologetic smile, saying, "See you in a minute; be good!"
  
  And then they are both gone, leaving me alone in the drawing room.
  
  > look behind the curtain
  I know better than to mess with the blackout at night; I don't want to attract German bombers.
  
  I distinctly hear the sound of someone walking about upstairs.
  
  > look
  Drawing Room (sitting on the spare armchair)
  The drawing room looks commodious and comfortable, but its faded green wallpaper suggests that it hasn't been decorated in a while. The principal furniture is arranged in a broad-U: two large armchairs placed opposite each other with a settee ranged in between at right angles to both of them so that it faces the fireplace. The door back out to the hall stands to the east, behind the chair on which I'm sitting.
  
  On the mantelpiece are three photographs.
  
  Obvious exits: East
  
  Somewhere upstairs a door closes.
  
  > Go east
  (first standing up)
  
  The hall is quite dimly lit, with dark, oak-panelled doors to east and west, the front door to the south, and a passage (effectively a continuation of the hall) leading off to the north. Against the west wall, next to a small table, a venerable grandfather clock faces a pair of stern Victorian portraits staring down from the opposite wall.
  
  On the small table is a telephone.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, East, West
  
  > go to the north
  This is the widest part of the hall, where it opens out to accommodate the flight of stairs that leads up to the east. On the other side of the hall a dark panelled door stands open to the west, while the hall itself continues to both north and south.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, West, Up
  
  I hear the sound of someone coughing upstairs.
  
  > Up
  I climb the staircase up to the floor above.
  
  At first sight, this part of the landing has a rather higgledy-piggledy appearance, with doors leading off in all directions, the space being divided by the stair banister, and the landing continuing past the banister to the south. As I get my bearings I observe that the doors lead off to north, northeast, east and west.
  
  Obvious exits: North, South, East, West, Northeast, Down
  
  I hear the sound of a toilet flushing just to the east.
  
  > Go east
  (first trying to open the east door)
  The east door seems to be locked.
  
  > Go north
  (first opening the north door)
  
  My first impression is of the sheer size of this room, almost enough for a couple of football pitches, I think. Of course that is a wild exaggeration, but it is large for a bedroom, with plenty of empty floorspace left over even with a large double bed and heavy chest of drawers occupying their share. Looking around further little else catches my eye apart from the pale cream wallpaper and doors to south and west.
  
  On the chest of drawers is a family photo.
  
  Obvious exits: South, West
  
  > examine photo
  The photograph shows what looks like a family group. Mr Croxley looks much as he does in the flesh, suggesting that the photo is fairly recent. The young man in the picture closely resembles that in the picture of Tony Croxley in the drawing room. The three women in the picture are less familiar. All three have dark, curly hair, worn a bit shorter on the older woman than the younger two. The older woman strikes me as being a bit plain, while the younger two, though sufficiently like her to be her daughters, look moderately pretty.
  
  > go to the west
  The master bathroom looks as if it has been completely refurbished sometime in the last few years; the fittings are all styled with nineteen-thirties chic, while the white tiles covering the walls all look still quite new. The door out is to the east, while a small round waste bin sits under the washbasin.
  
  Obvious exits: East
  
  > look in the bin
  (first opening the waste bin)
  
  There's a screwed-up ball of paper at the bottom of the bin.
  
  > get the paper
  Taken.
  
  > unscrew it
  I flatten out the scrumpled fragment of paper as best I can.
  
  > read it
  Only a few words are visible: "... plan now seems unworkable...
  ... may be advisable to terminate Durbury..."
  
  Only a few words are visible: "... plan now seems unworkable...
  ... may be advisable to terminate Durbury..."
  
  > Thirdperson
  (third person)
  
  Okay, the game is now in the third person.
  
  > Go east
  This is obviously the master bedroom; it is huge. Even with a large double bed and a heavy chest of drawers taking up much of the floor space, a great deal of bare carpet remains. The door out is to the south, and a second door leads west.
  
  On the chest of drawers is a family photo.
  
  Obvious exits: South, West