Through the long winter, Esther threshed the corn in her barn by hand with Sam’s old flail, spending long hours in the cold, with the wind whipping between the two sets of open doors, blowing away the chaff and leaving her the precious harvest of grain.

There was no news of Jonathan. Was he dead too, like Matthew? Or was he still out there in the muddy trenches? Did he ever think of her? she wondered. Did he remember Fleethaven Point and the warm sand and the soft, lapping sea, music to their love-making?

By the spring of 1918 the news from the war front seemed no better – worse if anything. The newspapers which Will still brought each week were gloomy. The Germans had launched massive attacks on the Western Front and British-held trenches were overrun and captured. The British faced defeat and fresh fears swept through those left at home. Had they lost so many young men in vain?

Then, like the turn of the tide, the British and their allies were marching forward, breaking through the Hindenburg Line and marching on and on and people began to speak as if victory could be a reality.

One morning she heard Will’s whistle; not one blast as usual to herald his arrival, but three shrill notes piercing the air. Esther set down the egg basket she was carrying and ran to the gate. Will was standing up on the front of his cart, excitedly waving a newspaper and climbing down before his horses had stopped. ‘Esther – Esther lass. It’s over. It’s really over.’

Esther stood at the gate staring at him as he came towards her.

‘The war, Esther. It’s over.’ Wordlessly, she put her arms up and he hugged her to him. ‘It’ll be all right now, lass. Things’ll get better – you see.’

At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, it was indeed all over. Of course there was rejoicing and in some towns and cities there were joyous celebrations, but amongst the community at Fleethaven Point there seemed only relief, their happiness tempered by the losses their small number had sustained. The squire’s son, who would never step into his father’s place; Ernie Harris, Ma’s firstborn – and Matthew. In the months since Esther had received the final letter from the Army authorities there had been no further word, no hint that there was any hope that he could still be alive.

Now that it was finally all over, Esther clung to the hope that Jonathan had come through, that perhaps he would come home, that he would come to the Point to see her and, maybe, finding her a widow, just maybe . . .