The last few miles had been hard. She’d hardly even had the energy to speak. She’d focused on keeping up with Ray’s pedalling as hard as she could, anxious not to leave all the hard work to him. She’d concentrated on the rhythmic swish of the wheels and tried not to cry out when they hit yet another hole with a bang and a bone-shaking thud and cold rainwater had splashed up her legs.

‘Sorry!’ Ray called back, between what sounded like gritted teeth.

Maggie patted him on the back each time, to say she understood. It saved talking.

A horse and cart was trundling slowly down the lane towards them. At the sound of the steady clip-clop of the shire horse’s hooves, Ray slowed Daisy down, called out a warning to Maggie and pulled up onto the grass verge.

The horse veered off to the side as it approached, eyeing them with suspicion. It probably felt the same way about tandems as she did about horses.

The farmer was chewing a straw, the reins held loosely in his hands. When Ray asked if they were anywhere near Jenks’ farm, he jerked his head, indicating that the farm lay ahead of them.

They were almost there.

In the farmyard, it smelled of hay and dung, and brown chickens, clucking softly, ran ahead of them. A black-and-white sheepdog slunk out from behind a stack of hay bales and stared with strikingly blue eyes but didn’t make a sound. He moved silently behind them.

‘He’s rounding us up!’ Ray said, laughing.

A middle-aged woman had come out of the farmhouse and was walking towards them. She was wearing an overcoat, wellingtons and a headscarf and had a wicker basket looped over her arm.

‘Yes?’ she asked.

As they stopped the tandem and dismounted, the sheepdog came closer and sniffed the wheels. Maggie introduced herself. ‘I’m Violet Corbett’s sister. The little girl who’s billeted with you?’

The woman frowned and pursed her lips. ‘Violet,’ she said, absent-mindedly. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Not here?’

‘She’s out with Joan, the other vackie. They’ll be back soon; they’ve only gone round the fields with Seth.’

Ray and Maggie exchanged relieved glances. Imagine if they’d cycled all this way, only to find that Violet was elsewhere.

‘Do you mind if we wait?’ Ray asked.

‘Not at all, come inside, you look plum wore out, the pair of you.’ Mrs Jenks, as she turned out to be, set about making tea. They sat at the kitchen table, which was covered in a gingham checked tablecloth. The place looked clean and homely. There was a perky blue budgie sitting in a cage near the sink.

‘That’s Charlie,’ Mrs Jenks said. ‘He’s got his own gas mask.’