Standing in the background, she watched while Philip spoke to each person there. As he paused behind Mavis, Kate saw Isobel look up at him, tilting her head coyly, her blue eyes shining and a smile curving her mouth. He spoke briefly to her and then bent over Mavis to talk to her. Kate was amused to see that Isobel bent forward with a semblance of keen concentration. She heard Philip’s deep laugh, Mavis’s giggle and Isobel’s tinkling, affected laughter. As Philip straightened up and turned away to speak to another WAAF on the other side of the room, Isobel glanced at Kate. There was a look of triumph on her face and then, as she continued to stare at Kate, a slight frown creased her smooth forehead as if she were trying to draw something out that was nudging at the depths of her memory, something she could not quite catch and hold on to. Kate felt the old fluttering just beneath her ribs.

One of these days, Isobel was going to remember . . .

At that moment they all heard the distinctive sound of the air-raid siren.

‘Right, everybody to the shelters,’ Philip said calmly, and waited until everyone had preceded him out of the room.

‘Come on, Mavis, don’t hang about,’ Dave’s voice was sharp but Kate noticed he made no move himself until Mavis had pulled off her earphones, pushed on her tin hat, grabbed her gas mask and followed Isobel who was already heading for the stairs. Kate felt Philip grasp her arm firmly and propel her out and across the grass to the trench shelter. The winter sky hummed and, fascinated, Kate looked up to see two fighter planes wheeling and diving around each other, guns spurting death.

‘They’ll crash into each other,’ she gasped.

Beside her, Philip said grimly, ‘It happens.’

As it became obvious that the warning had not been for a bombing raid on the airfield, personnel began to emerge from the shelters again to stand watching the fight taking place above them. The aircraft with the circular red, white and blue emblem of the RAF had the black plane in its sights. The enemy aircraft twisted and dived, but to no avail; the British pilot followed his every move as if an invisible cord tied them together. Suddenly, they saw black smoke trailing from the enemy plane. Forgetting where they were, Kate gripped Philip’s arm, her horrified gaze watching the aircraft screaming towards the ground, the smoke slashing the grey sky. As the plane hit the ground and burst into flames, around her there came the sound of cheering and against the clouds the Spitfire rolled victoriously.

Philip was silent.

‘There – there was no parachute, was there?’

‘No, Kate,’ he answered quietly as they stood together watching the pall of smoke on the far side of the airfield marking wreckage. As fire engines set off across the grass towards it, the all-clear sounded.