‘No, you’re right,’ he admitted, cheerfully. ‘Not quite. But me and the other chaps have joined the LDV. The Home Guard, they call it now.’

There was a moment while she registered the news, then she gave a little shriek. ‘Oh! Good for you. What made you do that?’

‘We thought it only right to do our bit for the village, in case of invasion! Nah, I’m fibbing! Truth is, we were shamed into joining by a one-eyed veteran from the last one. We met him in the pub and he ordered us to report for duty. We didn’t dare say no!’

‘Have you got uniforms?’ Maggie asked.

‘No!’

‘Weapons?’

‘Not yet.’

Maggie was giggling now; it sounded nice.

‘Whoa up a minute,’ Ray said. They’d reached the bottom of a steep hill and the tandem had already slowed right down. ‘Come on, I think we’ll have to get off.’

He pushed the tandem up the slope and Maggie walked on the other side. Within a few yards, they were both panting.

‘How, exactly,’ she asked, catching her breath, ‘do you qualify for the Home Guard?’

‘Ah. I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that.’

When he explained, she laughed again. ‘Oh, Ray, that’s a scream. You must tell the others. Tell them tonight, at dinner!’

* * *

‘… and then we had to say we’d fired a rifle and we had to be “capable of free movement”,’ Ray said.

Miss Sharp, sitting on the other side of the table, inclined her head. ‘Free movement? Interesting. How did you demonstrate that?’

He shrugged. ‘We had to run around the village hall.’

‘And is that true?’ Nancy asked, glancing around at the men. ‘Have you all fired a rifle?’

Norm waved his fork in the air. ‘No, we bloody well haven’t! But it doesn’t matter because they don’t have any! There’s one Lee-Enfield rifle from the last war and a load of pitchforks.’

Bill quickly swallowed a mouthful of food. ‘Don’t forget the golf club, Norm! The Boche won’t stand a chance, if they ever make it this far!’

Ray had embellished the story of how they’d joined the Home Guard, so that even the other chaps, who, he could tell from their red faces and hard stares, were furious at first that their secret was out, were soon laughing and chipping in with their own anecdotes.

‘To think,’ Pam said, ‘when you kept disappearing in the evenings, we thought you were in the pub!’

The men exchanged guilty glances. Sometimes – quite often, in fact – they had been in the pub. Best not admit that now, though.

Even Miss Sharp was wiping her eyes and shaking her head. ‘Oh, I haven’t laughed so much in ages. You’re wasted, Ray,’ she said. ‘You should be on the stage.’

‘Yeah, scrubbing it!’ Bill said.

‘What else goes on in this Home Guard?’ Nancy asked. ‘Sounds a hoot. Are ladies allowed?’