‘There’s a war coming, Gwen, sure as houses, and me? Well, I intend to go and do my bit as I always have done, just like the men in my family did in the last one.’ Weariness suddenly overwhelms him, and he is troubled by an unexpected ache in his chest. ‘And if the last one’s anything to go by, the chances of a bloke like me coming home are pretty slim …’ She starts to protest but he raises his hand to stop her. ‘And I’m all right with that. I’m not asking you to marry me, Gwen, because I want anything from you … I don’t expect anything. But I could give your bairn my name. No one needs to know it’s not mine, not unless you choose to tell them, because I’ll never give the game away. Some might gossip it must have been conceived out of wedlock, if they trouble themselves to do the maths, but we wouldn’t be the first couple who shut the door after the horse has bolted, so to speak. And I reckon no one will care – they’ll see we’ve done the right thing.’

‘Jack, this is … this is very kind of you, but … even if there is a war, even if you do go to fight … you’re making huge assumptions. You might survive. And then what, Jack? What happens if you do come back?’

‘I can’t come back, Gwen.’

‘You say that now, but you might … and …’

‘I can’t come back, Gwen, because I can’t be here. I shouldn’t even be here now. I’ve stayed too long as it is.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I didn’t come down this way for a change of work, Gwen. I was running. I should still be running.’

‘Running from what, Jack? Jack?’ Her tone hardens as he fails to meet her eyes. In a moment of prescience, it hits her. Her voice fades to a whisper. ‘Oh God, Jack … what have you done?’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jack

Newcastle upon Tyne, June 1939

Years of exposure had rendered him deaf to the clanks and groans of machinery, the harassed shouts of men, the hollow clanging of hammers on steel and the whine of slow-moving derricks.

Inured to their distractions, Jack focused on his own task. He braced the rivet gun against his hip as his holder-upper inserted a furnace-fresh rivet through the punched plate before him. His frame shuddered as the pneumatic hammer pummelled the white-hot tail with the thundering sound of a titan rolling its tongue. When the rivet was flattened and firm he stepped back and wiped the sweat from his forehead, a fleeting pause before the next molten tip was presented and vibrations wracked his body once again.