The return to Spitfire’s Rise should have felt warm and welcome. Instead, Jack felt embarrassed. He had found that replacement home at a speed that had impressed everyone, only for everyone to wonder why they’d bothered once Mark had called them with the good news.

Jack laid his box of weapons on the grass before he opened the trapdoor and leapt inside, and tried his best not to feel ungrateful. They were back in Spitfire’s Rise, a place that had become more of a home to him than any of the houses from his previous life. In fact, his time away from the house had reminded him exactly how much he both loved it and depended on it.

I did my duty and served the others well, he thought to himself, and ultimately it was all for nothing.

Then again, that’s what to expect when you live your life for the sake of others. Unrewarded servitude.

Jack bit his lip and let out the quietest sigh he could. Reward or not, it had still been the right thing to do. And if Spitfire’s Rise were ever in danger of being exposed again, he would take the same actions again. His personal preferences had no right to enter into it.

But serving others did not mean they would like you. Gracie had been colder to him than frostbite ever since he had told her the truth. She and Simon followed him into the tunnel, and Thomas brought up the rear with a small box of food. Once they reached the entrance, Mark was waiting next to the Memorial Wall.

‘That’s everything, is it?’ he muttered.

‘Yeah,’ answered Jack. ‘What’s that in your hand?’

Mark lifted up the bottle of wine, and Jack read the label closely.

‘Crémant de-something-or-other-Frenchie,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be offering that to underage teens, you know.’

‘I think we need a bottle,’ Mark answered as Simon and Gracie dumped their boxes of weapons, and Thomas carried his food in the direction of the farm. ‘One way or another, we’re writing history tonight. Either we lose this war forever, and we’ll drink to the death of Great Britain. Or the guys will return victorious, and we’ll drink until we believe it.’

Gracie crept up close and brought her eyes level with the bottle’s label.

‘Be careful with that,’ she said. ‘It looks like strong stuff. It’s… seven hundred and fifty ml.’

Jack opened his mouth to correct her, but shut it again when he remembered he was her least favourite person in the world.

There was an odd sound at the door to the farm, like falling paper. Jack turned around. Thomas had dropped something from underneath his box of food whilst trying to open the tunnel door.