He seemed more at ease in his body these days. He spoke quietly but amusingly about his work at a large bakery in Ipswich, and he was generous with his money, buying two rounds of drinks in a row and refusing to let anyone else chip in.

Talk turned to what they would do if the government, as was widely expected, extended the call-up to women. One girl wanted to work on farms, and the other was already training to be a nurse. Joan fancied being a driver – perhaps even an ambulance driver, even though it probably meant joining the ATS, enduring hours of square-bashing and having to wear unflattering khaki.

‘Isn’t it terribly dangerous, driving ambulances?’ Kath asked now.

‘Isn’t everything dangerous in war?’

‘What about you, Kath?’ one of the girls asked.

‘The WAAFs, of course. My brother’s in the RAF,’ she said. ‘Besides, that’s where all the good-looking men are.’

‘But they don’t take women pilots, do they?’ someone asked.

‘There are a few, Mark says, but there are plenty of other jobs women can do, like communications work.’

‘Communications? What’s that?’

‘How do you think all those planes know what to do, when to scramble, which direction to fly in?’ She stopped. Careless Talk Costs Lives, the posters shouted. Even mentioning in the most general terms what Mark had talked about could get him – and her – into trouble.

‘What about you, Sam?’ she asked, to change the subject. ‘Which service do you fancy?’

Joan jumped in, a little defensively: ‘He’s exempted because he works in a bakery.’

‘There’s more to it than that,’ he said quietly, pausing to study his nearly empty glass.

‘Go on, Sam. You’re with friends,’ someone prompted.

‘My parents are Quakers,’ he began at last. ‘And one of the most basic requirements of their – well, my – faith is to promote peace and oppose war. We believe there are other ways of settling disputes between people, and even countries.’

‘Didn’t Chamberlain and everyone try that already?’ Kath asked. ‘Do you really think we could persuade that madman to back off, just by having a cup of tea and a little talk?’

Sam flushed. ‘I’m only telling you what we believe. So in the last war, my father registered as a conscientious objector, even though he knew he would be court-martialled and sent to prison. He ended up spending three years in gaol.’

Kath held her tongue. Surely even gaol was better than dying in the trenches.

‘They were treated terribly, not allowed to speak to any of the other prisoners and given the worst rations. He nearly died,’ Joan added.

‘Even then, he always claimed he was fortunate because some of them were sent over to France and told that if they disobeyed orders they would be shot as deserters,’ Sam added.

‘You’re lucky, though, with your exemption,’ one of the other girls said.

‘I’m not so sure, to be honest. It just doesn’t seem right when all the other boys are out there, but my parents would probably disown me if I joined up. When I mentioned it, my father hit the roof and wouldn’t talk to me for days. Mum said he considered it disrespectful to the sacrifice he made for his faith.’