Ron had slept like the dead and woken refreshed to start a new day with renewed energy and a determination to stay positive regarding Rosie. He had to believe she’d come back to him when she returned to Cliffehaven, or he didn’t know how he’d cope. And he vowed to himself that if he was lucky enough to be given a second chance with Rosie, he wouldn’t take her for granted ever again.

He went outside and watched as Adolf bullied the hens, attacking them with his beak and claws, making them squawk as they tried in panic to escape him.

Ron had seen enough. He grabbed a towel from the overhead drying rack, opened the pen and gave Adolf a boot up the bum. As the vicious old beast tried to flutter up to the roof of the coop, he threw the towel over him and made a grab for his neck.

‘Right, you bastard,’ he growled. ‘It’s goodnight Vienna for you.’ One strong twist and Adolf’s reign of terror was over.

Ron carried him into the shed, chopped off his head and strung him up from a ceiling hook. The meat wouldn’t be tender enough for a roast dinner, but he’d make good tasty stock once he was plucked and gutted.

Wishing he could deal with Adolf Hitler the same way, but boosted by the accomplishment of a long-overdue job, he went back indoors, turned on the wireless and made himself a cup of tea.

Sarah joined him at the breakfast table a few minutes later, her face wan and her eyes bruised and reddened from tears and lack of sleep. Ron wanted to comfort her, but as her talk with Peggy had been in confidence and he wasn’t supposed to know anything about it, he made no comment on her appearance, and filled the awkward silence between them with idle chit-chat until she left for work.

In Ron’s opinion, she was making a terrible mistake by holding onto the hope that Philip was still alive. He wondered if she’d written that letter to the American, and dreaded to think how it would affect him. Ron knew from bitter experience how terrifying it was to have to face the enemy guns on landing beaches, but the poor wee man would have to do it after receiving what the Yanks called a ‘Dear John’ letter and that would make the going even tougher.