They felt they could achieve anything together: two brave women in war-torn Serbia

Lesbian military fiction is a popular genre, featuring titles such as Silver Wings and An Army of One, but Jack and Eve is a true story. Written by the journalist Wendy Moore, whose previous books tackled medical and social history, it tells of two suffragettes who caused havoc in the first world war and exposed the absurdity of Edwardian homophobes.

Before the war, the jobbing actor Vera Holme, who liked to be known as Jack, changed careers to become Emmeline Pankhurst’s mechanic and chauffeur. In 1908 she met Evelina Haverfield, the conventionally beautiful, wealthy daughter of a Scottish baron. The two fell in love, began living together and soon became the public faces of the suffragette movement. Brave and out-spoken, they fought their corner fearlessly and went to prison.

Moore expertly weaves together two narratives that have been overlooked. One concerns the development in the past century of a lesbian culture among women she describes as ‘forthright, flamboyant and proud’. The other is the story of what happened in the Balkans during the first world war.

When fighting began, Jack and Eve halted their campaign for female emancipation, enrolled in the Scottish Women’s Hospital service and before long were sent to Serbia. Jack drove ambulances and Eve ran hospitals for injured soldiers. Both travelled along dirt tracks under enemy fire to collect wounded men from the front line. This is a story of two women who challenged gender roles: Jack with her masculine clothes and mechanical skills; Eve, the beautiful aristocrat who loved to get her hands dirty. They felt themselves capable of achieving anything together and were determined to assert their right to love each other.