Giles continued to fork straw into one of the stalls and when he was done, he said abruptly, ‘I shall be going to London tomorrow so I’d be grateful if you could give George a hand with the other horses as well as your own while I’m gone.’

‘Why are you going to London?’ She was curious despite the fact that she kept telling herself she didn’t give a damn where he went.

‘I’m hoping to join the RAF, as it happens, so I have to go and sit some exams and see if they’ll accept me. If they do, I’ll be leaving shortly after to begin my training.’

Livvy’s eyes grew round as she stared at him incredulously. ‘Then, er … good luck.’ She could think of nothing else to say and he gave a wry grin.

‘Don’t you mean good riddance?’

She felt herself blush and was instantly on the defensive with him again. ‘Of course I don’t! I like to think I’m a little more adult than that. In actual fact I’ve been thinking of signing up myself.’

‘You!’ Now it was his turn to look shocked. ‘Doing what?’

She sniffed and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I haven’t really given it a lot of thought yet but there’s bound to be something I can do.’

As he stared at her standing there looking so dainty and delicate, he doubted it, and if truth be known he didn’t like the thought of her being actively employed in the war at all, though he had no idea why he should feel that way – she’d been nothing but a pain to him since the day they had met.

‘In that case good luck to you too,’ he answered, and much to her chagrin he turned and marched away without another word.

The following afternoon, Sunday went to see John and found him reading the newspaper. ‘Have you seen this?’ he asked. ‘It says that Hitler has ordered the flogging of Jews and there are barbarous and systematic tortures being inflicted on them in both the Dachau and Buchenwald camps. Some of the poor devils have gone mad and others have pretended to try and escape so they will be shot rather than have to face the agony of living there! It’s despicable! What sort of a monster is this Hitler, for God’s sake!’

He took a deep breath and smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry about that little outburst, my dear, but how could anyone read of such atrocities without becoming upset?’

‘I quite understand. But now I’d like to speak to you about the proposal you put to me yesterday, if I may?’ She’d had to force herself to come and get this over with because she knew if she put it off it would stand between them being friends.