As for Jane and Sarah, they were coping with the long wait to hear about their father and Sarah’s fiancé, Philip, who’d been captured shortly after the fall of Singapore. The last they’d heard from their father was a brief note from some prison camp, but it had been written over two years before and made no mention of Philip, so anything could have happened since.

Their mother seemed determined to convince herself and her daughters that they’d both come through, and was already making plans for their return to Australia, where she insisted she would hold Sarah’s wedding to Philip, and then they’d all live there happily ever after.

It was a fairy tale fabricated by a woman desperate to ignore reality and cling to her dreams, and although she urged the girls to believe in this fantasy, neither of them could. They’d heard the awful stories coming out of Asia and hope for Jock and Philip had all but died – and they certainly had no wish to settle in Cairns.

As for the wedding plans, they really were a step too far. Peggy knew Sarah was still in love with the American, Delaney, who’d written to her recently to say he was back in the States unharmed. The girl had sacrificed her future with him through what Peggy considered was a misplaced sense of duty to Philip, vowing she’d marry him if he survived, learn to love him again, and make the best of things.

It was hardly the right way to start married life, thought Peggy sadly, and she could only hope the girl realised in time that she was making a terrible mistake, and call the whole thing off regardless of who she upset.

Emerging from her dark thoughts, she smiled and returned Daisy’s wave as the child studiously dug a moat in the damp sand around her castle and both children exclaimed in delight when it magically filled with water. It seemed Daisy had fully recovered from her nasty bout of chicken pox which had left only a couple of small marks on her forehead, but had kept her in a darkened room for over a week.

Peggy poured a cup of tea from the thermos flask and lit a cigarette, listening to the happy noise around her. She glanced across at Frank and Ron working on the fishing boats that were once more drawn up the beach beneath the cliffs. It felt strange to see them there and to hear the lively noise of the holidaymakers again, for it was as if the clocks had been turned back and the war had never happened. Until she thought again of her Jim, so far away in Burma, still fighting his war against the Japs, and all but forgotten by the people of Britain in the sunshine and joy of this new and heady peacetime.