Geoffrey picked up the hamper and led her out of the door, through the gate and into the field. The grass was tufted. The wooden soles of Dora’s clogs slid on the grass, and her feet twisted inside the canvas uppers. The field was on the slope and Dora struggled, tempted to walk barefoot, but she knew the dangers of tetanus. Just a little scratch from a sharp stone or a piece of rusty wire, that’s all it took. From the top of the hill they could see the sea and the spinney in one direction, the fields in another. They went down into a small dell.

‘Do you know,’ Geoffrey said, ‘we can’t be seen from the house, though we can see it. I used to hide here, as a child.’ He flicked a blanket out, laid it on the ground.

‘You were brought up here?’ Dora said.

‘I was born here,’ he said. ‘As was my father. Grandfather, too.’ He shook his head. ‘Where are you from, Nurse Dora? I’ve never asked.’

He was sympathetic, this man, but Dora hesitated, even so.

‘Let me guess,’ he went on. ‘Strawberry-blonde hair.’

Rotblond.

‘Blue eyes.’ He studied her, smiling, lines around his eyes white against the sun-beaten skin. ‘Somewhere north.’

‘There you have it,’ Dora said.

‘Norway? Sweden?’ he went on. ‘I thought Swedes were white-blonde.’

‘Viking blood,’ Dora said. ‘Some were redheads. Horns. Curly hair.’

‘Your English is good,’ he said.

‘I’ve lived here some time,’ Dora said. ‘And my father used to send me to England every summer before the war. Threw me in at the deep end. Insisted I must learn English. And French.’ She smiled. ‘It stood me in good stead.’ Even so, she needed to watch what she said. She thought in her mother tongue. It would be so easy to slip.

‘And your father?’ Geoffrey said. ‘What did he do?’

‘He was a doctor,’ Dora said. ‘A surgeon.’ Ran the field hospital in Verdun and came home with the Iron Cross and skills no surgeon wished they had, but she didn’t tell him that.

Geoffrey took a chicken out of its greaseproof wrapping and laid it on a plate, finger to his lips. ‘Fell off the back of the requisitions list,’ he said. ‘It’s a seagull, if anyone asks.’

Dora laughed.

‘I forgot the carving knife.’

‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘We can manage. What are fingers for?’

He reached into the basket, pulled out two glasses and a bottle.

‘Elderberry,’ he said. ‘From before the war. Ripe and fruity, and rather sweet.’ He poured into the glasses, passed one to Dora. ‘Happy birthday.’ He raised a glass. ‘To you.’

‘How did you know it was my birthday?’ Dora said.

‘I sneaked a look at your identity card,’ he said. ‘It’s not just the Germans who find it useful.’

‘So you saw my place of birth too?’