She linked her arm through Kate’s as they walked back towards the town. ‘Pay Parade tomorrow and Posting Parade the day after. What have you put in for?’

‘Motor Transport.’ Kate grinned inwardly remembering her tongue-in-cheek lie when she had been asked if she could drive, especially recalling that the only time she had been behind a wheel she had ended up driving the Squire’s motor car into the dyke and had nearly cost Danny his job.

‘What about you?’

‘R/T operator on an operational station,’ the girl replied promptly.

Kate nodded. ‘You’ll be good at that. A friendly voice over the airwaves is just what the pilots need when they’re up there.’

The two friends were lucky; they were posted for further training to the same place, but they had to part from all the other girls they had come to know.

‘We might never see any of them again, you know,’ Mavis said, unusually sober as they stood together in the train. It was crowded with soldiers and the carriages were stuffy and smoke-filled. The two girls didn’t even bother to try to find a seat.

Kate said nothing. Her thoughts were once more with Danny. With all this moving about to different camps to complete her training, she had heard nothing from him, and even anxious letters home to Beth Eland had brought no reply.

The weeks that followed were exhausting but Kate enjoyed the intensive Motor Transport training. She found the lessons in the mornings when they had to learn theory hard – it reminded her too much of school; but in the practical sessions – the driving, the maintenance work and even learning to do minor repairs – Kate was in her element. She became the instructor’s star pupil and passed out with the highest marks in all the practical tests. During one of the final tests – driving a convoy at night through the country side where the signposts had been removed and with headlamps dimmed to only a slit of light – Kate was placed at the head of the column of huge lorries.

‘You’ve got three hours,’ their instructor told her. ‘If you’re not back to camp by dawn, we’ll send out a spotter plane!’ He was grinning as he said it and she knew he was pinning his hopes, and possibly his reputation, on his recruits being first back to the camp. ‘Don’t forget, only you and the last vehicle have their lights on, everyone else follows the diff-light.’

Kate nodded. At the rear of the vehicles a small light had been fitted to shine down on to the white-painted differential. All the following vehicles would follow her lead. If she went wrong . . .

‘Don’t forget – I’m relying on you.’