In fact Molly was anything but excited. A heavy dread filled her, making her feel queasy, on top of the poor night’s sleep. She stood on the quay in that steel-grey morning with her kitbag and the old case with leather straps she had bought in Birmingham before she joined up. Holding tight to the well-worn, familiar handle of the case that had travelled so far with her, it felt at that moment like her only friend in the world. She lit a cigarette, smoked one, then another.

The crossing was calm and quite pleasant, and Molly managed to keep her spirits up while she was still with Cath. The two of them, and Orla, went and walked up and down the deck, looking out over the sea.

‘I still can’t take it in,’ Cath said, her eyes reflecting the grey water. Even her wayward auburn hair looked subdued under the heavy clouds. ‘We’re actually leaving the army – it’s over. I don’t know if I’m sad or glad.’ She took Molly’s arm and squeezed it. ‘I’ll be glad when I see Derck’s lovely face smiling at me, I know that. But my God I’ll miss you, Molly. You’ve got to promise me we’ll keep in touch, now? Are you sure you won’t change your mind and come and stop in London with us?’

‘Oh no – ta,’ Molly said. ‘And of course I’ll keep in touch, you daft thing.’

She was tempted to go and try for a life in London with Cath, but she just knew it didn’t feel right. Had it just been Cath it might have been different, but with both the Irish girls, she felt three was a crowd. And then Cath had her future with Derck and would be gone. Molly found the thought of London overwhelming. Her only memories of it were such painfully sad ones. Tony, the man she had loved when they met at a training camp on the Welsh coast, had been killed in London by an unexploded bomb that had been concealed in a nearby house. London, for Molly, was a place of grief and death.

She had, at that moment, absolutely no idea what she was going to do next with her life.

Even the train ride to the demobilization centre was fraught with painful memories. As chance would have it, they were to be processed at a Release Centre in Birmingham and had to travel up out of Euston, a journey that Molly also associated with Tony and what, for her, had been the darkest days of the war. And Birmingham, although the place she came from, was somewhere she would have been happy never to see again.

As they had so much kit and most of the girls were eventually heading for all sorts of different destinations, they were allowed to leave some of their luggage at Euston.

‘You’ll be taking all yours, though, won’t you, Molly?’ Orla asked, knowing that Birmingham had been her home.