And now the war is over.

Yesterday, Churchill announced victory from the balcony of the Ministry of Health in Whitehall. Elizabeth and Margaret leant close to the wireless to hear him speak to the crowd that had gathered in anticipation of the news they had been waiting for. ‘This is your victory!’ he declared and the crowd roared back as one: ‘No, it’s yours!’

Elizabeth’s throat had snapped shut when she heard that. What would they all have done without Churchill?

‘It is the victory of the cause of freedom in every land,’ Churchill went on in his gravelly voice. In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best.’

Elizabeth can’t help feeling as if her best has not been very much. It is barely a month since she joined the ATS. She has been hoping to join the headquarters as a junior officer to work on transportation, but Papa is already making noises about needing her at home to help him with royal duties.

Duty. The one word Elizabeth cannot turn her back on.

She holds the thought of Philip close to her, and she treasures his letters. He wrote and asked her to send him a photograph so that he could look at her while he was reading her letters to him. It felt almost like a declaration. A photograph means more than a letter. She spent ages choosing one to post out to him.

In return, as requested, he sent her a photo of himself looking coolly handsome in his naval uniform. Elizabeth put it on the mantelpiece in her sitting room where she could see it every day until Crawfie clucked and told her it was indiscreet.

Lately, Philip has grown a beard, he tells her. Send me a photo so I can see what you look like now, Elizabeth wrote, and when it arrived, she studied it carefully. She doesn’t find him as handsome with a beard, but at least it would keep Crawfie quiet.

She put it on the mantelpiece in place of the photo her old governess thought so revealing.

‘There, no one will recognise him now,’ she said, but Crawfie only gave her one of her looks.

He is still in South East Asia but it cannot be long before the war is over there, too, and then surely, surely, he will be able to come home?

And what then? No promises have been made. Photo or no photo, Philip may have changed his mind. In all the joy of the war ending, Elizabeth is ashamed that she still has a wish left: that Philip will still want her.

‘Lil, are you ready?’ Margaret bounces in only to recoil at the sight of Elizabeth in her uniform. ‘Why are you wearing that? It’s awful!’

‘It’s my uniform,’ Elizabeth says quietly. ‘I want to.’

Margaret rolls her eyes at her sister’s choice of outfit. ‘They want us out on the balcony,’ she says. ‘Papa says we can’t keep people waiting any longer.’