Phyllis wasn’t in on it. We didn’t dare tell her—she was under Cromwell’s thumb. When Jamie had to give her his report after they blew up the U-boats, he used the Bell Rock Lighthouse being alight as an excuse for sweeping the area around it. I don’t think he lied to her; I’m not sure anyone could. She talked to you like a primary school teacher, brisk and firm. She settled all of Ellen and Mrs. Campbell’s arguments (over Ellen’s ration coupons, Ellen smoking in the bedroom, Ellen propping her bicycle against the shed door instead of properly putting it inside, Ellen hanging her wet mackintosh in the bathroom). Phyllis stuck to the rulebook about everything. The Isle of Man butter ruffled her feathers something terrible.

“Oh, no, Mrs. Campbell, don’t butter my toast this morning, please. I don’t want to know where it came from, and I shall have to report it if any more comes in!”

I didn’t think she really would report Mrs. Campbell for a pound of contraband butter; she was kind as kind. But she would have reported the Enigma machine.

So Ellen and I didn’t have much chance to talk about it, because she and Phyllis shared a bedroom, and there was almost always someone else about when I saw Ellen. I was hardly ever on my own.

I had Jane to look after. She couldn’t go far or fast, but she was determined to make the most of her freedom, and I was constantly panicking that she’d go off without me and get herself into some difficulty. When the gales cleared off, she decided we should take the bus to Stonehaven to visit the library there. We timed it so Ellen could give us a lift to the bus stop (with Phyllis in the van too, on her way to the aerodrome; there was no escaping her).

A thing happened on the bus that scared me and Jane both.

We got on and I paid our fares, and we went and sat just across from a young mum with a wobbly baby on her lap and a little boy next to her. Jane, I discovered, could not resist a baby.

“Hello, little man!” She leaned forward, around me, to see him. She covered her eyes and uncovered them quickly. “Peepo!”

The baby gave a gurgle of a laugh. His big brother, not yet old enough to be in school, stared.

“How old are your boys?” Jane asked in a friendly way.

“Bertie’s four, and wee Angus is just nine months old today,” said the woman.

The four-year-old Bertie wasn’t staring at Jane. He was staring at me, sitting right across the aisle from him.

Suddenly he buried his face in his mum’s arm, clinging and fearful. His shoulders shook as he started to sob.