Molly lay in the dark, unable to sleep, even though it had been such a long day and the night before so bad. She felt keyed up, worried about everything. Now she was alone, lying there, she allowed herself to think. She cast her mind back over the war, both the good times and the bad. There’d been her first Corporal, Phoebe Morrison, who had in her brusque way, encouraged Molly to carry on, to succeed in the army. Phoebe Morrison had also been Molly’s Subaltern in Belgium for the first months, and it had been with great regret that she had parted from her when the war finished.

In the spring of 1945 the ack-ack batteries stationed in Belgium were definitely no longer required and were to be stood down. Some of the staff were sent home. Molly, even while celebrating Victory in Europe with everyone else, was desolate that she would have to go home. However, Phoebe Morrison gave her to understand that this need not be the end: Molly, along with Cath, took the aptitude tests to remain in the force, which was to become the 21 Army Group HQ in Brussels. They were both sent on to the Headquarters of the British Army on the Rhine at Bad Oeynhausen.

It was clear that most of the roles were to be taken by men. The appointing officer seized on the fact that Molly had experience in cooking and told her that she could cook for one of the messes. Cath came to work on the telephone exchange. While Molly had hoped for a more challenging job, by this stage she was just happy to be allowed to stay, and she and Cath and the others had some happy times in the gracious surroundings of Bad Oeynhausen barracks. She had never seen Phoebe Morrison since, but she knew she would never forget her for her encouragement, for the fact that in the end she seemed to have a special place for Molly in her toughly guarded heart.

Amid all the rest of it, of course there had been Tony, the lovely times they’d had together on the cliffs in Wales, and in London. But then came the agony of his death. Any place she had been with Tony was associated with sadness.

After that though, after some other postings, during her greatest time of sadness, she had been sent to Clacton. Lying there that night, Molly’s heart began to beat faster. Now that was one place where she felt she could go and see it in a positive light. She thought of her friends there – Cath and Nora and Ann and, strangely, Ruth, a studious girl who had fallen out mightily with Molly in their early days of training together, before they became unlikely friends. None of them would be there, of course: it was no good looking back. But maybe she could find work, away from here, by the sea. A fresh start in a place where at least the memories were good? In her mind she walked the long parade at Clacton, remembering how the guns had fired continually from the practice camp along the coast. She remembered the Viennese Ballroom at Butlin’s where they had danced. She fell asleep thinking of it, a smile turning up her lips.