‘Gwen!’ Nora’s hail over the throb of the engine jerks her back and she eases off the accelerator as she realises how close she has come to the edge of the field. She brings the steering wheel round, focused again on the task in hand, but once the tractor has turned, dragging the seed drill with it, she sneaks another glance at the treeline above her, where man and child walk, hand in hand, into the sun-dappled depths.

Jack helps Tom select a tree first. He warns him that the trunk will be the backbone of their shelter, so they must choose wisely. He guides the boy’s attention to the tree’s setting – its position within the wood, the nature of the ground – and at last they find one set a good distance from those around it, with a sturdy trunk and bare earth at its base, free of ground elder and dog’s mercury and away from spurting holly bushes. Tom puffs out his chest and solemnly agrees.

They gather fallen branches, the boy dragging ones as long as he is tall from the undergrowth. Jack is careful to employ Tom in every aspect of the shelter’s construction. He helps him lift the branches upright rather than take on the task himself, though he could do it in a fraction of the time. When the boy struggles, huffing and puffing, weak but showing effort, he grins at him and ruffles his hair and says, ‘Hard work, isn’t it?’ and ‘You’re doing a canny job, there lad’ and then finds himself having to explain the northern meaning of ‘canny’.

‘You talk funny,’ Tom says boldly.

Jack roars with laughter. ‘I’ll have you know that’s a fine Geordie accent I have there. Don’t worry, lad, we’ll have you speaking proper in no time.’

When the tree is thickly ringed with bent props, the boy scampers off to gather bracken with which to carpet the shelter’s floor. When he is done, Jack stands back, arms crossed, as the boy, red-cheeked, his hair damply tacked to his forehead, looks eagerly for his approval. He nods his satisfaction.

‘Can I go inside now?’

‘Aye, I reckon you can.’

The boy dashes forward, collapsing to his knees. He crawls into the tepee-like structure, wriggling himself around until he is sitting with his back to the smooth bark of the beech tree, his knees tucked against his chest.

‘There’s room for you too.’

Jack’s heart swells and for a moment he cannot speak. He squats down and peers in through the triangular doorway. The boy draws in his feet and pats the ground beside him.

‘Come on!’

Jack laughs, then carefully, on his hands and knees, he crawls inside and sits, hunched over, too tall for the cramped space.

‘Did you sleep in shelters like this when you were in the army?’

‘No … we didn’t really have time to build things like this.’