‘So, you know then that I love you and still you try to send me away?’

‘But I’m not the same man who used to show you off around Lincoln. Look at me … I’m a wreck.’

‘Huh!’ She sniffed disdainfully. ‘More of a mess than a wreck,’ she said frankly. ‘Your hair is a bloody disaster, but I suppose that will grow back in time, and now I’m getting used to it I quite like that grey colour, it makes you look distinguished. And all right, you’re not much more than a bag of bones at the minute but I’ve no doubt Edith, Cissie and Mum will fatten you back up in no time when you get home.’

Suddenly for the first time in a very long time he started to laugh, and tears began to roll down his cheeks.

‘Livvy, you don’t change at all,’ he told her with a shake of his head. ‘It would be a very brave man indeed who took you on.’

She tossed her head. ‘You’re quite right, so are you brave enough?’

‘I dare say I shall have to be. I’m too scared of you to say no,’ he answered with a twinkle in his eye and suddenly she was leaning over the bed and kissing every inch of his face.

‘Right, in that case you’d better hurry up and get yourself out of here so that we can be married,’ she told him bossily. ‘I shall be out of the WAAFs in a short time and I don’t like to be kept waiting when I’ve made my mind up about something.’

‘Yes, boss,’ he answered as he held her awkwardly and suddenly he had a future to look forward to again.

‘How is John?’ Livvy asked when she rang home that night.

‘The stroke was nowhere near as bad as last time, thank goodness,’ her mother told her, sounding relieved. ‘But what about Giles?’

Livvy smiled. She was standing in a telephone box not far from the hospital having spent the whole day with him. She had decided to stay another night in the grotty little B & B so that she could see him again briefly before she set off back to the base the next morning. ‘He’s very malnourished and weak. In fact, he looks like a skeleton with skin stretched across its bones,’ she admitted. ‘And his hair has gone completely grey, what’s left of it. But I’m sure once we get him home, he’ll soon be on the mend again. And, Mum … I ought to warn you, as soon as we’re both home we shall be getting married.’

‘Oh, darling! That’s wonderful news,’ Sunday cried delightedly. ‘I’m sure when I tell John this will perk him up no end! Am I allowed to?’