The rationing of certain foods sent Esther into a fury. ‘What are we supposed to do then? Us that produce the butter and bacon? Ration oursens? Answer me that?’

‘They’ll tell us, Esther love, just as they’ll tell us what crops they want us to plant.’

‘Aye, potatoes!’ Esther said scathingly. ‘Whoever heard of beautiful fields of waving wheat and oats being replaced by ’tates?’

‘We must do what we can to help the war effort, love,’ Jonathan replied gently.

Then Esther’s wonderful smile, like the sun appearing once more, lit up her face. She put her arms about her husband and rested her head against his chest. ‘I’ll do whatever they want, as long as they don’t take you away from me this time.’

Jonathan chuckled softly. ‘We’ll be in a bad way if they have to call up men of fifty!’

Watching them, Kate smiled fondly, but in her heart she feared for Danny. Conscription had been extended now to include men up to the age of twenty-seven – Danny’s age. Would he be called up, Kate anguished, or was he safe as an agricultural worker?

At the beginning of April the enemy invaded Denmark and Norway and in May they swept through Belgium and also into Holland. Then northern France came under attack.

The menace was coming closer.

‘Danny? Where are you going?’

The late May morning was bright, the sun glistening on the water as Kate stood on the river bank, looking down into Robert Eland’s fishing boat moored at the end of the wooden jetty. Danny was packing blankets, boxes of food and tins of diesel into the stern.

‘Sheerness.’

‘Sheerness! Whatever for?’

‘Me dad had to register the boat because it’s just over thirty foot and now it’s been commandeered, so I’m takin’ it down there mesen.’

‘What for?’ she repeated.

‘I – dunno.’

‘Yes, you do. I can tell.’

He continued carrying boxes from the jetty on to the boat. ‘There’s trouble across the Channel.’

‘Is your dad going with you?’

‘No, he’s got to man the lifeboat. I’m going on me own.’

‘Then I’m coming with you.’

‘No, you’re not . . .’

But she was scrambling down the bank and marching along the wooden planking. He barred her way. ’Tis no place for a woman.’

Kate laughed in his face. ‘Oh no? Do you really think I’m going to let you go without me!’

‘Kate, yar mam . . .’

‘Me mam’s got nowt to do with it. I’m of age, aren’t I?’ The dialect, which she had made valiant efforts to smooth out in her working life, came back strongly when she was angry. And she was angry now.

‘Well, ya not dressed right.’

‘Then I’ll go home and get mesen dressed in trousers and warm clothes.’

‘Ya’ll need oilskins . . .’