The Old Tudor Tea House had nothing old or Tudor about it. It was a modern bungalow with would-be oak beams, but it was popular. It provided a very good tea, and the garden, where in the summer tea was served, was full of arbours and corners hidden behind hedges of Dorothy Perkins roses.

Richard Trent, very brown from the desert, came striding into the tea-garden. He looked rather outsize for it somehow, as if he could knock the whole place over if he had a mind to. He looked into the main tea-room; it was early for tea and the waitress, in a flowered green overall, was still putting the teaspoons in the saucers.

“Good afternoon. Have you seen a young lady with red hair? She’d have a dachshund with her.”

The girl smiled. He looked so pleased with life, so obviously at the beginning of some leave.

“No. Will you wait here? Or if you like to pick a table in the garden I’ll send her out to you.”

“That’s the idea. She knows where she’ll find me.”

He went outside. There were two or three couples already at tables, but none had taken the one he wanted. It was in a little summer-house with its back to the garden. He sat down with a pleased sigh. How often in the last months had he pictured this?

Sheila, in the white she had planned, with a big hat in her hand trimmed with cheery-coloured ribbons, stood in the doorway of the teashop and looked round. She would have been charmed if she had known that the waitress, eyeing her in admiration, thought she must be a film star.

“Has—has an officer been in asking for anyone?”

The waitress looked at Sheila’s golden head.

“Not for you.”

“For somebody with red hair?”

“That’s right. With a dog.”

“Yes, a dachshund.”

“You’ll find him in the garden.”

Sheila searched the garden. The few couples looked up. The men thought to themselves that somebody was going to be lucky. She came to the summer-house. It had a cobweb-covered window. She peered through it. Then she took out her handkerchief.

Dick looked at his watch. Quarter to four. If Barbara wasn’t here by four he’d give her up and make for the village; Miller had said she was doubtful if she’d get back. A girl came through the garden. She didn’t see him. There were a few fruit trees in front of the summer-house; she leant against one crying bitterly. Dick was so happy himself with his leave and the thought of Barbara at his journey’s end, that he couldn’t bear to see somebody else suffer, especially something as young as Sheila. He got up. “I say, is anything wrong? Can I help?”

She raised her face from her handkerchief, but her head was turned away from him.

“I’m desperate.”