‘Look, Floss, I want to marry you. Who cares if we have a kid? Everybody has kids.’

‘Oh,’ she moaned. In the street, with passers-by bumping into them and the lonely ones turning to look hungrily after them, she sagged against him and put her face against his sleeve. ‘Oh, Alfie, dear, I’ve been waiting to hear you say that.’

Alfie laughed.

‘Silly. I thought you knew. We’ve talked about it often enough. Look, Floss, I’ll come into town tomorrow evening after parade – I can do it if I catch the six o’clock bus – I’ll come round and ask your mum properly. Then we’ll be engaged. I can put in for my credits this week, and we’ll go out next Saturday afternoon and buy a ring.’

‘Alfie,’ the happiness and the laughter made her voice unsteady, ‘engaged! Me! Oh, Alfie, wait till I tell the girls at work. I’ve shown them all your photo already.’

‘What they think of me?’

She giggled. ‘Don’t be conceited.’ She grew serious again. ‘We mustn’t spend too much on the ring. We’ve got to save up properly now.’

‘Don’t you worry about that. I’ll get you a ring that’ll give the girls something to talk about.’

‘Oh, who cares about a silly old ring.’

They were at the bus station, a yard with tall buildings around, a din of engines and a crowd crushing them together.

‘You will be on the six o’clock bus tomorrow?’

‘I’ll say. Coming to meet me?’

‘Mm. I’ll get off work early and come straight down. We’ll go back home together.’

Moving with the crowd towards the bus, they kissed.

‘Alfie?’

‘Floss?’

‘Do you love me?’

They kissed again by the platform of the bus, with people trying to shove past them.

‘That answer you?’

‘Mm. See you tomorrow.’

A grinning red face between them and a beery voice, ‘Git on there, mate, it’ll wait till termorrer.’

Borne on to the platform and up the stairs Alfie shouted back over the bobbing heads.

‘Tomorrow evening.’

As soon as Alfie came into sight of the camp he knew that something was wrong. At midnight the camp should have been dark and silent; but above him, on the hillside, there were lights, there was the sound of movement, voices, hut doors slamming, the engines of lorries warming up.

He walked down the lane and turned into the camp, filled with dread. Men were stumbling past him in the darkness with cases of supplies and ammunition on their shoulders. The transport park was filled with noise and activity, headlamps blinking, tailboards banging, men’s steel-shod boots crunching on the cinder surface.