No doubt, Mutti had to be careful what she wrote. She probably didn’t dare criticise the arrangements because they might take it out on her. She might be put in solitary confinement or flogged or worse. So, when she said she’d been on the beach enjoying the sunshine and some of those other things, they simply couldn’t be true.

Perhaps it was code? Rather like the kisses on Violet’s letters only more complicated. Yes, that was it: a code. Maggie only wished she had the key to unlock it.

Chapter 44

Over the next few weeks, in the letters that she sent to Vi and Mutti, Maggie made no mention of that night in the swimming pool.

Her letters were meant to cheer them up, after all, and the story of how she and Rudi had almost drowned wasn’t something to trouble them with.

Instead, she wrote about the pranks the chaps played on one another – the apple pie beds and alarm clocks under pillows – and the game they played, passing a box of matches in a chain, using only your nose. She told them about Miss Sharp’s hilarious Keep Fit classes and all Ray’s jokes and one-liners.

Perhaps, one day, when they were back together again, she’d tell them the truth. Just as Violet might reveal she hadn’t been happy at first on the farm and Mutti might admit she’d felt lonely and frightened when she arrived on the Isle of Man.

But now, they both seemed happy.

The number of kisses had gradually increased on Violet’s letters. The pages were full of them.

As for Mutti, the second letter that arrived was still full of her life in the camp and how she was enjoying it. It wasn’t a ‘code’ at all, her mother really was quite content.

‘Marvellous!’ Lord Ashford had said, when Maggie heard from Mutti. ‘Now, we’ll have to see if we can get your mother released!’

But Maggie wasn’t sure if Mutti would want to come home, even if his Lordship could pull some strings. She never mentioned Dad, and Maggie didn’t ask if they were in touch. She stuck to her rule, her letters only focused on good things.

Even though she felt reassured that her sister was happy now in her billet, Maggie couldn’t wait to see it for herself. And at the start of December, Maggie and Ray were finally ready to cycle to Violet’s farm.

‘I think this might be it!’ Ray said, as they rode the tandem into a hamlet. After miles of nothing but lanes, hedges and fields they’d reached civilisation: a cluster of cottages with black smoke swirling from their chimneys.

Maggie could hardly believe it. Had they really cycled twenty miles from Snowden Hall, setting out at first light, when there was still frost on the ground?