Two figures were walking slowly up the cliff path towards the Castle. A gull screamed in the blood-red sky. I squinted in the gloom. Pa? Mags? But I hadn’t seen either of their boats return . . .

It wasn’t Pa.

It was Kipper and, leaning heavily against him, was Mags.

She had a blanket wrapped around her, her jumper was ripped and she had a cut on her arm. She walked as if her legs could barely take her weight. Kipper helped her up the steep slope to the Castle. I ran to my sister and clung to her tightly. Her clothes were cold and wet. Her face, beneath blackened smudges, was bloodless.

She looked as if she needed to say something, but she couldn’t say it. She just stared at me.

I stared back, a huge sob rising painfully in my chest as I realized what this meant. I put my arms around my sister again, pressing my face into her shoulder as I said the words she couldn’t say.

‘Pa isn’t coming home, is he.’

Chapter 27

27

Mags had a bath and then fell deeply asleep, curled up on her bed in her striped pyjamas.

Kipper helped me make tea in the kitchen. We ate corned beef sandwiches made with the last of the week’s stale loaf.

‘Tell me what happened, Kipper.’

‘Where do you want me to start?’ he said.

‘At the beginning.’

‘Right. Well – I wasn’t planning on going to Dunkirk. Mum’s found things very difficult since Dad was . . . you know . . .’

I nodded. I understood why he didn’t want to say it out loud.

‘Well, I said I wouldn’t go. I was down at the harbour early morning yesterday, helping our lads get the boats ready for the trip, when I saw Mags there, fiddling with her clapped-out old motor boat. It never occurred to me that she was actually planning on crossing the Channel in that rust-bucket. Anyway – pretty much everyone else had left, and I was just about to head home to Mum when I heard Mags start up the motor and I saw her and the rust-bucket go chugging out of the harbour.’

‘What did you do?’ I knew the answer to that question already.

‘There was one of our boats still moored up. I jumped straight in and followed her,’ he said. He couldn’t look at me then, just kept his eyes fixed on the flagstone floor. ‘I know boats, and I knew that boat would never make it to France.’

‘She did make it to France,’ said a voice at the doorway. ‘She just didn’t make it home again.’

Mags was awake.

‘Come and sit by the stove, Mags,’ I said. ‘You need to keep warm.’