Obviously her private thoughts had been right, Kate realized. Not even the safety of her own daughter had been enough to make Esther Godfrey speak to Beth Eland.

Reluctantly, Esther muttered, ‘Ya dad did speak to Mester. He said you’d both gone off down south. We thought it was a pleasure trip and then I find out you’ve been getting yarsen into this!’ Esther rattled a daily newspaper under Kate’s nose. Plastered all over the front page were dramatic accounts of how an armada of ships of all shapes and sizes had brought back thousands of men from the beaches of Dunkirk.

Kate grinned. ‘What – no picture of us on the front page? Well, I’d have thought we warranted that at the very least!’

‘I’ll have none of your sarcasm, Miss,’ her mother snapped, and flung the paper away from her in disgust.

‘I suppose you’ll be wanting to join up next.’

There was a long silence between them; a waiting silence.

Kate met her mother’s fierce gaze. ‘I’m thinking about it – yes.’

She saw the colour drain swiftly from her mother’s face and Esther put out her hand to steady herself against the table. A small gasp escaped her open lips and her green eyes – so like Kate’s own – stared at her daughter.

Kate felt a stab of remorse. She hadn’t meant to be quite so blunt, and yet, she had to make her mother understand. She turned and began to pace up and down the kitchen, spreading her hands. ‘You don’t understand, Mam. It was awful over there. All those soldiers trapped on the beach and in the water – thousands of them. There were bodies too . . .’ She gulped and closed her eyes for a moment, then she went on strongly, ‘We’ve all got to do our bit – even the women this time, Mam. We can’t let Hitler just walk into our country and take it over. And he will – if we don’t stop him. You don’t understand, Mam . . .’ she said again and then stopped.

Her mother had sunk down into a chair on the opposite side of the kitchen table and was resting her arms on the scrubbed surface. Wearily, she said, ‘Yes, I do, Kate. It was the same for me when I went to France after the last war.’

‘What? You – you went to France?’ Kate could not hide the surprise in her voice, and hearing it, her mother smiled. ‘Yes – can you imagine me leaving Fleethaven Point to go all the way to France?’

Kate lowered herself into a chair and faced her mother across the table. ‘Tell me about it, Mam?’ she asked softly.

There was silence in the kitchen, the only sounds the ticking of the clock and the singing of the kettle on the hob.