‘Sometimes, love is instantaneous, as it was between your mother and I.’ He stared at the floor, for a moment lost in his thoughts, then he drew in a deep shaky breath. ‘For many other people, love grows over time. If you enjoy his company, perhaps you should give him a chance to prove himself. Other than that, I can’t advise you.’ He glanced at my hand. ‘He asked me about the ring you are wearing on your wedding finger, and to be perfectly frank, I had not noticed it. Is there someone else, Gertie?’

My mouth dried as my darling Manno came to mind. Why had he never replied to my letters when I had made it clear how much I loved him?

‘The ring simply reminds me of the miracle dolphin that rescued me, Father. If that creature had not lifted me from the depths, I would not have saved Corporal Perkins. However, the enormity of these things still shakes me. Do you think God really orchestrated all this?’

His head tilted to one side as he smiled. ‘Such an enormous experience? You think God had a hand in it all?’

I nodded, feeling a little foolish for even considering such a thing.

‘How can we know?’ Father concluded. ‘Us, mere warring mortals who can set the world on fire with our bombs, and cause excruciating agony with our evil gasses. We who build great ships, Zeppelins and aeroplanes, and squabble murderously about borderlines and areas of the great seas. Do we not think we are gods ourselves?’

I shrugged, unable to answer his questions. ‘The thing is, Father, the man who gave me the ring – the ring that reminds me that a miracle dolphin saved me, so that I could save Corporal Perkins – well, that man is Corporal Perkins’s rival for my hand in marriage. It’s all too confusing.’ My father shook his head so I tried to clarify. ‘If I had not been saved by the dolphin, I could not marry anyone. But the man who put the dolphin on my wedding finger is not the man who has asked you for my hand.’

‘I see . . . I think.’

‘If there is a public inquiry, and I am found guilty of opening the portholes and causing the Britannic to sink before it reached the island of Kea, might they hang me for mutiny? I am so afraid . . .’

Saying my deepest fears aloud was too much for me. I gulped and hiccuped and choked on my anguish. The bodies in the sea, my drowning, the needle going into my arm to draw blood, the horror of having an amputated leg dropped into my arms. All of it . . . boiled up and scalded me. And now imagining the floor opening beneath my feet and a rope tightening around my neck, then snapping it at the end of my fall into the darkest place on earth. Oh!