‘Yes, of course I did,’ Rosie replied. ‘They just kept telling me he’s missing in action, but they didn’t see him on the ground like his pal who wrote me the letter did: one minute he’s there, the next minute’ – she snapped her fingers – ‘gone, God only knows where.’

‘It really is extraordinary,’ Sybil agreed, as she gazed at the letter once more. ‘It’s like he disappeared into thin air.’

Rosie whispered fearfully, ‘You hear terrible stories about wounded men who lose their memory – wandering around with no idea where they are, or who they are.’

‘Amnesia,’ Sybil replied. ‘From what I’ve heard it’s not unusual. In which case your Mick might possibly still be alive.’

Seeing Rosie’s tired eyes light up with hope, Sybil quickly added, ‘But God knows how you trace a missing soldier who has lost his memory. If that’s even what happened.’

‘To be fair, Mick’s regiment may have written to me with more information at my former address in Finsbury Park, but, as you know, that’s been razed to the ground. I did notify them that we were being evacuated to the North and left a forwarding address, but there’s a chance that any information might have slipped through the cracks,’ she finished miserably. ‘It makes me feel useless and stupid that I don’t even know whether my husband’s alive or dead.’

‘My dear Rosie,’ Sybil said, as she gripped Rosie’s trembling hand. ‘You must be one of many women who is completely in the dark about their loved one. It’s an appalling situation.’ Looking thoughtful, Sybil added, ‘I have a few friends high up in the War Office, and I don’t mean Monty,’ she added pointedly. ‘I’ll make some discreet enquiries on your behalf, but I’ll need your husband’s full name, date of birth, rank and regiment.’

‘I can provide all of those,’ Rosie said eagerly.

When it came to meeting Lord Stow, the two women couldn’t have presented more contrasting images. Rosie, poorly dressed, nervously fiddling with her cheap handbag, and Sybil, almost back to her pre-baby figure, impeccably dressed in a well-cut military-style black barathea jacket and skirt, with a smart hat set at a jaunty angle on top of her glossy black hair, which was carefully pleated into a popular victory roll. Rosie smiled to herself as she took in Lord Stow’s expression when he was introduced to glamorous Sybil, with her posh accent and fine manners. Rosie hadn’t been asked to sit down when she had come to pay him a visit on her own, but this time, with Sybil at her side, they were both ushered to a comfortable sofa in a wide bay window which looked over the splendid gardens bathed in bright summer sunlight. Sitting with her trim ankles neatly crossed, Sybil came straight to the point.