By the end of August, even at Fleethaven Point, the newspaper headlines were beginning to dominate their lives, pushing even the long, exhausting days of harvest into second place.

‘Have you seen this?’ Danny waved the daily paper under Kate’s nose. ‘They’re getting closer; bombing Midlands towns now, though they’re still concentrating on the south-east.’

‘Really.’ Kate grabbed the paper and scanned the newsprint. She jabbed her finger at the picture of a crashed Heinkel on a British beach. ‘They’re not getting it all their own way, though.’

‘Far from it! The RAF are really coming into their own now.’ Danny rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘They reckon there are dog-fights going on over the Kentish coast most of the day.’ He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips in excitement. ‘I’ve made up my mind, Katie. It’s the RAF for me an’ no mistake.’

A picture of the injured airman they had pulled from the sea came into her mind. She shuddered inwardly at the thought that Danny could so easily end up like Philip Trent; baling out over enemy territory, injured and totally dependent on the good-will of complete strangers to rescue him. Resolutely, she pushed such morbid thoughts from her mind. No doubt Philip Trent was back in the air by now, maybe even involved in these dog-fights Danny spoke of. She wondered what had happened to him. Was he still alive?

She hoped so.

Aloud she said, ‘Good! Then it’s the WAAFs for me.’

‘Well, that’s it then. We’ve been an’ gone an’ done it now,’ Danny said as they emerged from the recruiting centre. ‘Me in the RAF and you in the WAAFs.’ He grinned saucily. ‘I hope they know what they’re letting themselves in for.’

Playfully, she punched his arm. She felt better now that it was done. There was no going back and her family would just have to accept it.

As if reading her thoughts, Danny said, ‘Still thinking about yar mam?’

Kate nodded.

‘She had a rough time in the last lot,’ he reminded her. ‘First Ernie Harris getting killed; yar mother thought a lot about him.’

‘I can’t remember him. Can you?’

Danny shook his head. ‘He was Grannie Harris’s eldest. Joined up when he was only sixteen.’

‘Me mam never talks about anything to do with the last war. It’s as if she wants to forget it all.’

They sauntered back towards the railway station, walking close beside one another but not quite touching, and reminiscing about their childhood, piecing together the snippets they knew of a time they could scarcely remember, yet knowing that what had happened then had shaped their own lives.