I thought about the baby growing inside me and nodded.

*

The magistrate released me with a caution and Jacob Boniface was ordered not to come within half a mile of our house, or a hundred yards of me.

Back home – on a mattress where the flock-stuffing gathered in lumps, determined to quarrel with the contours of my body – I hardly slept, more confident by the day that I was with child. Each day became a struggle. Manno became my hero, an anchor in my sea of troubles, although I suspected he hardly understood the intensity of my feelings towards him. He was a simple village fisherman, only twenty-two years of age. Captivated by the unconventional man who had swept me off my feet and literally thrown me on the bed, I wondered if I had given my heart away too soon?

*

My father agreed with my wedding to Johnathan and because he was a soldier, we had special dispensation to marry, two weeks later, before a small group of friends which included Matron Merriberry and Josephine, and some distant relations of Perkins. That day I became the Corporal’s wife in the town hall.

After the formalities before the registrar, we went back to our house. Mrs Cooper and her two daughters had prepared a wedding banquet – magnificent, considering we were in the middle of a world war. First, oysters, followed by a brace of pheasants with apple and walnut stuffing, roasted vegetables, and dandelion salad. Pudding was a luxurious apple charlotte with clotted cream.

After a little too much sherry, Johnathan and I left home, showered by the guests with rose petals and rice. Father drove us to a hotel in the town for one night. Someone had bedecked father’s Ford in white ribbons, added a pair of old boots to the back bumper, and fixed a written sign that said JUST MARRIED to the rear of the car.

I was frantic, sure Perkins would realise I was not a virgin. However, my true friend, Josephine, was ahead of me.

‘Gertie, come into the bedroom,’ she said earlier that day.

I followed her.

‘Look, I may be entirely wrong, if so, pardon me, but you may need this.’ She handed me a little parcel wrapped in white linen.

‘Thank you, but what is it?’

‘Forgive me. You are probably intact.’ Her eyes flicked down, then back to my face. ‘I’m sure you are. But as you rode a motorbike in Mudros, such activities can rupture a woman’s hymen. Do you understand?’

I nodded frantically. ‘I think it did . . . I’ve been so worried.’

‘Then, to save the tedium of explanations, use this gift and we’ll say no more.’

‘But how? I know nothing.’