To her surprise, the classes were more than just a means to an end. She loved them. Her mind, ravenously hungry for something to do after all the menial work she had taken on, soaked up lessons and information at high speed. She was very quick at Pitman. It took her time to get used to the typing – a mechanical matter, needing practice – and to get back into arithmetic. But she was so excited, so determined! She took her books home and pored over them. She drew herself a diagram of the typewriter keys and practised in her room at night. Her teachers were very pleased with her and she lapped up any crumb of praise or attention. Most of the others in the class were pleasant as well, though one or two seemed to resent her eagerness and muttered a bit behind her back. Molly didn’t give two hoots. She was taking off – she was going to fly! Who cared what that miserable lot thought – just because she was better at it than them! And the longer she stayed, growing more confident, the more her sense of humour came out and she was able to make the class laugh sometimes. She loved the classes more and more.

‘I suppose I’m getting too big for my boots,’ she wrote to Ruth. ‘But I’m enjoying it ever so much. Thanks for keeping on at me!’

Ruth, who was in the final year of her degree, was having to work very hard, and Molly did not see much of her, but she wrote a note now and then, always encouraging her.

‘Glad to hear it – keep it up!’ was her reply this time.

What with one thing and another, life was beginning to feel a good deal better. For the first time in months she wrote to Em and told her where she was and what she was doing, and had an enthusiastic reply almost by return of post. Having ATS friends she could hook up with in London felt very good. On one occasion when they met Win, Molly had also told them that she’d been out to visit Honor – one of the other girls in their basic training group.

‘Her husband’s a very nice fellow,’ Win said. ‘I suppose you’d call him a gentleman farmer. And now they’ve got their girls: twins! Not identical, Honor said, but very alike all the same – called Lucy and Miranda. They’re lovely. And you should see Honor – she’s looking rather plumper and sort of creamy! She seems very happy.’

‘She’s full of surprises, that one,’ Molly said. ‘I never thought she’d make it through basic training, did you?’

‘No,’ Win agreed. ‘But then we all thought the same about you – for completely different reasons!’

‘Ah well,’ Molly blushed. ‘Yes – let’s just forget about all that, shall we?’

The others laughed affectionately and Molly felt a glow of happiness.

The girl upstairs, Sarah, wasn’t bad company either, and sometimes they sat and had a chat together, usually up in Sarah’s attic, with the fire on, so that Mrs Hodgkins didn’t complain about the noise. And Molly didn’t mind her work. It was in a nice part of London and, so far as she was concerned, it was a means to an end. What end she didn’t know – she just hoped there would be one and, as time passed, she became more sure there would.