‘She needs an ambulance,’ Joe said in a low voice. ‘As soon as possible. Can you run down to the village? You’ll be quicker than me.’

‘Yes,’ my sister breathed. ‘Yes, of course.’ She kissed me on the forehead and I felt her tears wet against my skin and hair. ‘I’ll be back before you know it, Pet.’

And she was gone again.

I lay there, staring up into the flaming ribbons of cloud above, trying hard to remember everything that had happened the evening before: Michael cutting the telephone line, the argument with Magda, the police station, the chase across the clifftop, the bomb, falling through the air . . .

After a while I started to feel very, very tired. My eyes closed against the brightening sunlight.

‘Stay awake,’ Joe said.

Thoughts swirled sleepily in my mind like honey in hot milk. The song of the stones was a lullaby now.

I could feel Joe’s hand on my arm. ‘Stay awake, Pet. Listen to me. Open your eyes.’

I opened them and tried to make his face come into focus. A strange thought swam into my head.

‘You know about Dragon Bay Cave, Joe,’ I whispered. ‘You know the tunnel?’

‘Know about it?’ He smiled then – and it was something wonderful. His eyes lit up, bright blue. ‘I dug it.’

I didn’t understand – Joe had only moved to the village last summer.

‘How do you think I got down to the beach so quickly when that German bomber came down?’

‘But . . .’

‘Don’t worry about it now, Petra.’

‘And the telephone – I locked the lighthouse . . .’

‘I’ll explain,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain everything.’

Then there were voices coming closer. My sister had brought half of the village with her. Mrs Baron was there, and Edie from the bakery, and several policemen too – though it didn’t look like the oily one was with them.

‘The ambulance is on its way,’ Mags said.

I could hear Mrs Baron’s voice: ‘You should have gone! You should both have been on that wretched bus. I said it was too dangerous for you to stay here – if you’d gone, none of this would have happened!’ She sounded angry, and terribly anxious, close to tears.

My sister’s voice was quieter. She was kneeling beside me again. ‘I should have been with you, Pet. I shouldn’t have let you go alone. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s all right, Mags,’ I managed to say.

Edie gave me a sip of water.

Mrs Baron was talking to the policemen.

‘Michael, my son, Michael – he hasn’t been home since the air raid . . .’

‘He was here,’ I whispered.

‘What? What did she say?’ And everyone was suddenly quiet. Mrs Baron bent down towards me. ‘Michael was here?’

One of the policemen bent down too. ‘During the air raid? Are you sure, miss? He was up here on the cliff when the bomb fell?’

‘Yes.’