Kate was wishing heartily that she had not come. She had never learned to dance properly, and the local girls in their pretty dresses with their hair curled into the latest styles, made her think of Rosie. Thinking of Rosie made her think of home and, of course, thinking of Fleethaven Point made her think of Danny.

Brian – her blind date for the evening – proved to be not spotty and shy, but overweight, extremely loud and far too familiar for such a short acquaintance.

‘Oh Kate, do let yourself go a bit, for heaven’s sake,’ Mavis hissed, snuggling closer to Dave, who sat with one arm draped around her, leaving the other free for lifting his beer glass with frequent regularity.

‘You seem to be doing enough “letting go” for all of us,’ Kate snapped back.

‘Don’t be such a prude!’ the good-natured Mavis laughed. Morosely, Kate wondered if it was even possible to offend Mavis.

‘I quite agree with Kate,’ Isobel put in, crossing her legs and puffing elegantly on a cigarette which she had inserted into a long ebony holder. Her blonde hair was smoothed back into a neat pleat and, despite the uniform, she looked like a model off the front of a pre-war fashion magazine. She had taken an instant dislike to her date and had despatched him with icy politeness to try his luck elsewhere. Isobel looked so incongruous sitting there amidst the smoke and the spilled beer, coolly fending off any young man who dared to approach her with an invitation to dance, that watching her, Kate was suddenly overcome by a fit of the giggles.

‘That’s better.’ Mavis leaned forward and whispered in her ear, jerking her head in Isobel’s direction. ‘We can only cope with one killjoy at a time.’

To her surprise, Kate began to enjoy the evening. It was not the local girls in their pretty, feminine dresses who attracted the attentions of the young men but the girls in uniform, and, once she decided to join in, Kate found herself never without a partner. Without causing any offence, she skilfully managed to steer clear of Brian for most of the evening. Before long, her feet were aching and she was sure she had left a few bruised toes where she had trodden on her partners’ feet. It hardly mattered that she couldn’t dance well, because there was scarcely room to do so anyway. But the atmosphere was wonderful; she had never known anything like it before. Everyone seemed so happy, so carefree. It was hard to believe that some of those young men singing heartily, their arms draped casually around a couple of WAAFs, might be flying over enemy territory dropping bombs by this time tomorrow night.

And some would not be coming back.