Checking once more that the aviary door was securely latched, she smiled at her two young helpers. ‘And now I must catch a bus to Central station.’

In the country bus from Bidston to her destination, Tess glanced at her watch and sighed. If Snowy had been home, she reflected, this entire tedious journey could have been shortened by as much as a couple of hours. The army had taught him to drive and Snowy had said in one of his letters that he meant to buy himself wheels just as soon as he could shake the British army dust from his boots. A mental picture of him sprang into Tess’s mind: tall and fair, his skin bronzed by the hot sun, his teeth looking whiter than ever against the tan. Dear Snowy! Letters arrived rarely, but when they came he always signed off Your loving Snowy, which, to Tess at least, indicated that he was as faithful to her as she was to him.

Gazing out of the window, Tess congratulated herself on the fact that there appeared to be few women in Malaya anxious to grab themselves a British soldier, even one as attractive as Snowy. Most of the women he mentioned were nurses or worked in the offices, and though there were occasional dances and presumably other social events it appeared from Snowy’s letters that he did not indulge in such pastimes. In fact, in one letter he had written that the nurses all had faces like horses and the office workers were pale and pimply. Knowing Snowy as she did, furthermore, she discounted the local girls as competition. In the secret depths of her mind she had to acknowledge that she thought Snowy was a snob. She remembered a jeering remark he had once made regarding the slanting eyes of a friend, and also his references to Jonty as the ‘ploughboy’. No, if she feared any competition, which she did not, it was unlikely to come from a beautiful coffee-coloured maiden, no matter how tempting her wiles. Besides, Snowy was fighting a war, albeit a strange one. It was referred to as ‘the emergency’ and she gathered, from Snowy’s cautious comments, that his platoon patrolled the jungle, pushing the insurgents back whenever possible, and feeding and protecting the natives in the tiny, pathetically poor villages. They would do this for a matter of weeks and would then be recalled to Singapore for what they called R and R – rest and recreation – during which they might enjoy such entertainment as the showing of old British films, the odd dance at which men outnumbered women by ten to one, or a meal in a local restaurant.

Remembering how indignant Snowy had been upon discovering that she kept Jonty’s letters, she had acquired a smart green folder for Snowy’s correspondence. Some of his letters were short, stained with sweat and occasionally depressing, for two of Snowy’s platoon had died, and though he had not given her any details she supposed it to have been from a tropical disease such as malaria. Tess’s heart bled for him; a friend, badly wounded, had been in hospital for several weeks before he had been invalided home to Britain and Snowy had said, frankly, that he envied the bloke. I’d give a good deal for a cold beer and a night’s sleep undisturbed by the whining of mosquitoes, he had written. Still, I’ve served just over two-thirds of my sentence, so roll on the New Year. It can’t be too cold or too blowy for this little soldier boy!