“Through the harbor to the basin, there is a lock at the far end on the right which will take you on to the canal. Please leave immediately, there are more boats coming in. Welcome to France.”

The sneeze caught Jean on the quayside by the Sparrowhawk, and he stopped to blow his nose. Putting his handkerchief away, he remembered Lotti’s face as she told him there were puppies. It had worn a look of pure wonder. When, after all these years of war, had he last seen that?

Throughout the day, whenever he thought of the Sparrowhawk, Jean Lepage smiled.

Back on board, Lotti was feeling triumphant.

“See how right we were to bring Elsie?” she said to Frank. “Clever dog! Perfect timing!”

“All right, all right,” grumbled Frank. “Here, take these blinking papers. I never want to see them again.”

With a wide grin, Lotti took the documents and shoved them into a drawer in the galley. Then, with infinite care, Frank steered the Sparrowhawk through the busy harbor toward the lock, while in the cabin, Ben and Lotti hovered with Federico by the door to the workshop.

“Where’s Elsie?” whispered Lotti.

“On the berth,” said Ben. “She’s made a sort of nest, like she did before the storm.”

“How do you know it’s not another storm nest?”

“It’s just different.”

“Can we look?”

“Maybe we should leave her …”

“But I want to see …”

Very quietly, so as not to disturb Elsie, Lotti and Ben tiptoed into Nathan’s workshop, Lotti with her hand on Federico’s collar …

Frank guided the Sparrowhawk under a rotating bridge and through the lock. About a hundred yards on, he saw a small hotel set back from the canal, with mooring rings in the bank. He stopped and secured the Sparrowhawk and went into the hotel to speak to the hotelier, a fierce but friendly widow called Madame Royère. Then he ordered a coffee and a sandwich, sat down and wrote a note.

The door of the workshop was half open when he returned to the Sparrowhawk. In the gray light of the fading afternoon, he saw the outlines of the children kneeling on the floor with Federico, Elsie on the berth. Lotti looked up and saw him.

“There are three puppies already,” she whispered. “You’ll have to take one, Frank, when they’re big enough and can leave Elsie.”

“I’d like that.” Frank smiled.

Lotti turned away. He watched them a while longer, then picked up his rucksack from where he’d left it in the galley, tucked his note into the fold-down table and left the Sparrowhawk.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ben found Frank’s note when he went into the cabin to light the stove for tea after the fifth and final puppy was born. He brought it back into the workshop to Lotti, and they read it together kneeling by Nathan’s berth.