In the middle of January Jinny’s father’s prediction came true as a sinister new development of aerial warfare was experienced in Britain. German Zeppelins crossed the Norfolk coast during the night to bomb unsuspecting British towns, resulting in civilian deaths. Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn were the targets and both towns were fully lit as the enemy approached from the south. More bombs fell near Sandringham, the King’s Norfolk home, and for the first time in the war civilians didn’t feel safe in their beds. In December three German warships had loomed out of the mist off the east coast and shelled the towns of Scarborough, Whitby, Hartlepool and West Hartlepool, killing and injuring hundreds, but the Zeppelin attack was different, everyone agreed. And to target the King’s residence caused a national outrage.

By the middle of the year even ordinary men and women knew they were in the war for the long haul and that the earlier claims of a swift defeat for the Germans were false. The enemy’s terrible new weapon of choking chlorine gas had caused panic in the trenches on the Western Front in April.

Alexander had written that the gas, drifting across from the German lines, was a swirling greenish-yellow vapour and looked fairly innocuous, but its effect had been deadly, allowing the Germans in their gas-proof helmets to tear a four-mile gap in the Allied front. Rose didn’t know if he had been stricken by it, he hadn’t said, but since that letter she had ceased to worry about Nathaniel and all her thoughts concentrated on Alexander. There was a lot of talk about trench warfare in the papers now and less glorifying of the war. Alexander hadn’t been home since the year before when the twins were born, and now they were both sitting up and were very different to the small newborns he had left. Once the infants were sleeping through the night they had gone into their cots in the night nursery, and although Rose found she slept a little better without their snuffles and squeaks keeping her awake, she missed them.

William had told her his man had found Nathaniel. Her father-in-law’s friends in the police force had paid Nathaniel a visit, but William had told her nothing more and she hadn’t asked. She didn’t want to know where he was living or what he was doing or his response when the police had been to see him. She wanted to put him out of her mind and allow him no access to her thoughts.