Gwen frowns. The Fordson is drowning out all other sounds. She is reluctant to pull the switch and kill the engine, knowing what a pig it will be to crank up again, but she has little choice. The tractor falls silent, the engine clicking as it cools.

There is barely a breath of wind. In the woods behind, crows complain like old men with tobacco-tempered voices. And then she hears it.

The sound rolls faintly up the valley. Nora’s hand flies to her mouth. Gwen’s heart stutters.

‘What is it, Mummy?’

Nora jumps down from the seed drill. She stares over the fields to the village in the distance, the source of the celebratory clamour.

‘Mummy?’ Tom whines, fidgeting from foot to foot.

‘Bells, Tom,’ Gwen says at last. She clears her throat which is strangely tight. ‘The bells … in the church. Church bells.’

She climbs down from the tractor and walks over to where Nora and Tom now stand side by side. The church steeple is just visible above the folds of land below them. They listen to the pealing bells, awed into silence by the joyous sound.

‘I’ve never heard church bells before,’ Tom chirps up at last.

‘No … no you won’t have.’ Gwen’s hand strays to smooth his hair.

‘It’s over …’ Nora spins towards them, her features illuminated by her exploding smile. ‘Bloody hell, Gwen, that’s it! They’ve done it! It’s over!’ She throws back her head and whoops, her shout echoing across the field. The crows erupt from the woods behind them, flapping skywards, past the ghostly half-moon that still graces the clear morning sky.

‘Tommy boy! The war is over!’ Nora grabs Tom under his armpits. Screeching, she whirls him round and around until he is flying like one of his beloved Spitfires. He giggles with delight, a smile splitting his cheeks, but it fails to mask the hint of uncertainty that lurks behind it.

Gwen does not engage with their joyful exuberance. Instead, she drifts forward, the significance of the tumbling bells weighing heavily on her thoughts.

The war is over.

‘Oh, Gwen!’

She gasps as Nora wraps her in an unexpected embrace, rocking her from side to side and squeezing her so tightly she can barely breathe. Released, she stumbles.

‘Our boys will be coming home at last!’ Nora cries. She whips back to Tom. ‘Tom, your daddy is coming home!’

Tom jumps up and down, matching Nora’s ecstatic cheers with his own, but Gwen can tell he doesn’t fully understand. How can he? Nora is fuelling his excitement for a man he has never met, a man who, for him, fails to exist beyond the grey-and-white photograph that sits on the mantelpiece at home. How can he possibly comprehend his father’s return?

And she alone knows he has no need to, because Jack Ellison won’t be coming home.

He promised her.

He promised her faithfully he wouldn’t.