‘No, it ain’t. What’ll I do shut up in me cottage all day with only Minnie Raby and her gossiping tongue for company?’

The next day Esther had returned hands on hips, ready to do battle. ‘Me and Jonathan have talked it over. You’re coming to live with us at Brumbys’ Farm. I’ll turn the front parlour into a bed-sitting room for ya. And dun’t think I’ll let you be idle, ’cos I shan’t. Ya can mek ya’sen useful about the farm. And I won’t have no argument, it’s only right you should come to us. We’re yar only family. I won’t tek no . . .’

She had stopped as she had heard Will Benson’s wheezy laughter. ‘I aren’t arguing, lass. It’s what I want to do.’

‘What? Well! Well – I never!’ Esther’s face had been a picture while Kate had clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. But it had gurgled out until she was leaning weakly against the wall. The crafty old devil, Kate had thought, he’d engineered that very cleverly.

So here he was now, installed in the front room that was scarcely ever used anyway; a single bed in one corner and an armchair set in front of the window overlooking the front garden and the flat fields stretching to the setting sun. He had his privacy, yet his family were only a step away, and a little work about the farm when he felt like it kept him feeling useful and needed.

Will Benson was a contented man, it was written on his face for all to see. Yet he was still a force to be reckoned with within the family, which was why Kate found herself sitting at his feet and taking a deep breath before telling him of her plans.

Before she could begin, he said, ‘You had us worried, girl. Whatever did you go off for like that with young Danny?’

Kate told him – in far more detail than she had described to her mother – all that had happened to her and Danny since they had set off from Fleethaven Point. She omitted nothing. She told him all about Gordon and the airman and how at the end of it all they’d lost Robert Eland’s boat.

When at last she fell silent, she felt Will Benson’s gnarled fingers touch her hair. With a catch in his voice he said, ‘I’m proud of you, girl. I wish I’d bin there mesen.’

She looked up at him again, holding his gaze with her steady green eyes. ‘Grandad, I’m thinking of – of joining up.’

His fingers, still against her hair, trembled slightly. ‘Aw, lass. Are ya sure?’