Daddy cleared his throat. ‘I doubt if the Merchant Navy would see it that way.’

William gave a nervous laugh, embarrassed at expressing any uncertain emotion in front of his father. ‘Yes, well I suppose we all really know our days are numbered now. Waiting to be called up and all that. It’s all rather disturbing.’

‘Well, it’d be terrible if anything happened to disturb your little life, wouldn’t it?’ I said. I saw Angus look at me in surprise.

‘Kate, how can you say that?’ Mummy snapped. ‘Heaven only knows what your poor brother might have to go through. And Angus too, for that matter.’

‘D’you think it hasn’t crossed my mind?’

The terrible thought of Angus going away: it was like a hand closing tight around my heart, making my breathing go shallow. Our generation was brought up on images of the Great War. The trenches were woven in to every family history.

‘If it comes to it, Angus,’ William said, ‘who are you going to join up with?’

My father’s voice sliced unexpectedly across the table. ‘You take it for granted I suppose that you have to follow the herd, like thousands in the last war who thought it was a heroic and glamorous thing to do. Have you not considered that there might be other alternatives?’

‘But you weren’t a conshie in the last war,’ William protested, his face as usual turning red easily. ‘And if you had been they’d have given you a pretty thin time of it.’

‘No, I wasn’t a conscientious objector then.’ His voice had dropped but it was clipped and precise, his accent coming out more strongly than usual. ‘I was a medical student. I chose to direct my energy to the preservation of life instead of its annihilation.’

The four of us sat watching him awkwardly. He discussed his thoughts so rarely that we felt at a loss as to how to communicate with him. His fervour usually expressed itself quietly, in his writing.

‘But Father, this Adolf Hitler fellow is a raving lunatic. You can’t just let him march across Europe taking away people’s liberty and get away with it. Where’s the justice in that?’ William had assumed his debating chamber tone. ‘We have to fight. Doesn’t it bother you, the thought of other people doing all your fighting for you?’

‘Bother me?’ Daddy’s pale blue eyes swept round the table coldly. ‘Does it bother me? William, it appals me. But I can’t believe there’s any such thing as justice in a war. There’s nothing just about it. And I have to stand against it with every fibre of my being. Can you understand that?’

William stared at him, then said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t agree. When the time comes I shall offer myself to the army. I can’t do anything mechanical of course, but they might find me something clerical or educational. I’m sorry I can’t share your ideals, Father, but that’s just the way it is. What about you, Angus?’ He spoke with a note of appeal, needing Angus to support his point of view, but there was a challenge in his voice as well, the old competitiveness. I watched Angus anxiously.