Chapters (52)
- Cover
- Margaret Dickinson
- Dedication page
- Contents
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Part Two
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Sow the Seed
- Note
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Copyright page
‘Oh, Kate, what am I going to do? What are we going to do?’
Sensibly, she said, ‘We’ll take it day by day, just like everyone else is having to do in this war, and when it’s all over – well, we’ll see then, won’t we?’
She smiled at him as he leaned forward to kiss her mouth. As his lips touched hers, desire ran through her like a shock wave.
When she went back to her hut in the early evening, the letter was lying on her bed. At once she recognized Danny’s sloping handwriting on the envelope.
With a jolt Kate realized that during the last twenty-four hours she had not once thought of Danny Eland.
Thirty-Two
So, Rosie was to have Danny’s child.
Kate sat on the bed, waiting for the hurt to come. Rosie is having Danny’s baby, she told herself, and tightened the muscles in her stomach, waiting.
She felt nothing. All she could see in her mind’s eye was Rosie’s happy face, her dancing golden curls, and Danny’s proud grin stretching from ear to ear. And just fancy, Beth a grandma! How pleased she would be.
Kate had the strangest feeling that she was gripping Danny’s hand tightly, hanging on to it like someone drowning. Then gradually, she felt as if she were loosening her hold, not completely, but just starting to let go; beginning to let Danny go.
She stood up, folded his letter and put it back into the envelope, opened the drawer of her locker and tucked it behind the whelk shell.
Slowly she closed the drawer.
‘Do you know,’ Philip said, a comical expression on his face, ‘I’m running out of excuses for us to drive out of camp.’
Kate giggled, then her face sobered. ‘We shall have to be careful. I wouldn’t want to see your career damaged.’
‘What about you? I don’t want to see you hurt.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Oh, Kate, I love you so but I wish things could be different.’
‘They couldn’t be so very different, even if you weren’t married,’ she said directly, but the gentleness of her tone took away the bluntness of her words. ‘We still wouldn’t be able to meet openly. Me a lowly corporal and you a Group Captain!’
‘Yes. Isn’t it ridiculous?’
‘It seems so, but the powers-that-be must have had their reasons for setting such rules. I suppose they had the undermining of discipline in mind.’
He nodded. ‘Well, not all girls would be as understanding as you, Kate. Some would try to take advantage.’
She giggled again. ‘Oh, I take advantage of you – whenever I get the chance.’