A Promise to Keep

by Lilian Harry

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

A powerful and evocative saga - the sequel to A GIRL CALLED THURSDAY. When Thursday Tilford returns to Haslar Hospital after two years serving as a VAD in Egypt, she finds many changes. With the town packed with troops waiting to leave for the Normandy beaches, and Haslar on standby for the wounded, Thursday's thoughts go to the two men who are vying for her heart: Connor Kirkpatrick, the naval doctor she met at Haslar in 1940, and army doctor Mark Sangster, who travelled with her on the troopship to Egypt. Although she longs to keep her promise to Connor, Thursday's feelings for Mark force her to consider the nature of promises and even, in the end, the nature of love itself. It is only as the war ends and she is presented with an ultimatum that she understands the truth about love, about promises - and about herself.

Release date: August 19, 2010

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 296

Sample

Once again, I owe a debt of gratitude to Helen Long, whose book Change Into Uniform inspired both this novel and the previous ‘Thursday’ story, A Girl Called Thursday.

Helen Long was a remarkable woman. A debutante in the 1930s, she volunteered as a Red Cross VAD and served in Haslar Royal Naval Hospital in Gosport, Hampshire, and then in Egypt. She was one of the first members of the RN Blood Transfusion Service, and after the war became one of the first BEA air hostesses, before marrying Dr Aidan Long, whom she had met at Haslar.

Helen wrote several other books, the most significant being Safe Houses Are Dangerous – the story of her uncle, Dr Georges Rodocanachi, and his wife, Fanny, whose flat in Marseilles was the headquarters of the O’Leary escape line, bringing many Allied servicemen to safety from occupied France. She contributed frequently to such magazines as The Lady and in the last year or so of her life was awarded the Silver Rose Bowl of the Society of Women Writers and Journalists for her writing. Sadly, she died in 2001 while I was writing A Girl Called Thursday, and I was never able to meet her. I have, however, had the pleasure of meeting both her husband, Aidan, and her son, David, who have been most helpful and encouraging.

As the Royal [Naval] Haslar Hospital features strongly in both books, some readers might like to know its situation today. Unfortunately, although the hospital is still functioning, it is on a much reduced scale. Currently run by all three Services and the NHS it serves local as well as Service patients, but its excellent Accident Treatment Centre is confined to dealing with injuries only. Patients with life-threatening conditions have to make the twelve-mile journey through the bottleneck of the Gosport– Fareham road to the Queen Alexandra Hospital at Portsmouth – a journey that can take well over an hour. The town of Gosport is in constant fear of its complete closure, which would be a sad end to an historic and still desperately needed hospital. The Save Haslar Task Force has been working to prevent this, and I wish it all success.

I would also like to thank Surgeon Captain Jarvis and his staff at the hospital who gave me so much assistance with my research and kindly allowed me to use their marquee as a launch venue for A Girl Called Thursday.

Some terms may be unfamiliar to new readers:

VAD: Voluntary Aid Detachment – volunteer nurses (mostly unregistered) who served as assistants with the armed forces

QAIMNS: Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service

QARNNS: Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service

SBA: Sick Berth Attendant

BGH: British General Hospital (Egypt)

DUKW (pronounced ‘duck’): wheeled amphibious personnel carrier

Pompey: local name for Portsmouth

‘Thursday!’

Thursday Tilford, enveloped in a mass family embrace, laughed and cried and kissed all at once, and finally begged for mercy.

‘You’re suffocating me! I can’t breathe!’ They stepped back and she found herself with just her mother’s arms still around her. Tears brimming from her eyes, Thursday held her close for a moment.

‘Oh, love,’ Mary said at last, pulling a hanky from her sleeve and wiping her wet cheeks, ‘it’s so good to have you home again.’

‘It’s good to be here. But it’s not for long, mind,’ Thursday warned her. ‘I’ve only got a few days’ leave and then it’s back to Haslar. The war’s not over yet by a long chalk.’

‘No, but it could be soon,’ Jenny piped up. She had gone back to her favourite position on the hearthrug where she had been playing with little Leslie. ‘They say there’s something really big going on all along the south coast – tanks and all sorts heading for the beaches, and—’

‘And you didn’t ought to be talking about it!’ her father said sharply. ‘For goodness sake, our Jenny, the war’s been going on for nearly five years; you ought to know by now about walls having ears and all that. I hope you’re not opening your mouth like this when you’re working down at the hospital.’

‘Course I’m not,’ Jenny said in an injured tone. ‘It’s just in the family. Anyway, Thursday’ll be there to see for herself soon. I bet Portsmouth’s one of the main places the invasion’s going from—’

‘Jenny! That’s enough.’ Walter gave her an angry glance. ‘Family or not, we didn’t ought to discuss it. It’s too easy to let something slip when we shouldn’t – not that we know any secrets,’ he admitted, ‘but you just don’t know who might be listening or what they might pick up on. Least said, soonest mended.’ He opened his tobacco pouch and stuffed his pipe, pressing the baccy down hard with his thumb. Jenny folded her lips wryly and shot Thursday a comical look. Thursday felt her lips twitch. Not much had changed at home, she thought. They might all be two years older than when she had last seen them, and Jenny training as a nurse at the Royal Infirmary, but Dad was still doing his best to rule the roost and Jenny still cheeking him and getting away with it.

‘Never mind all that,’ Mary said, giving Thursday’s arm a little shake. ‘Come and sit down, love, and I’ll make a cup of tea. We’re all pleased to see you back safe and sound, and that’s the main thing. I can’t tell you how worried I was, all the time you were at sea.’

‘We’re all waiting to hear about Egypt,’ Jenny added. ‘Aren’t we, Dizzy?’

Denise nodded. She had pulled Leslie back on to her own lap and he leaned into her and slid his thumb into his mouth. Thursday knelt beside her cousin and gazed at her little godson, marvelling at his soft cheeks and long lashes. ‘I’ve missed two whole years of him,’ she mourned. ‘He was still a baby when I went away – he’s a real little boy now.’

‘Three years old,’ Denise said proudly. Her face clouded a little. ‘His daddy hasn’t seen him since he really was a baby.’ She looked at Thursday. ‘How was Vic when you saw him? He’s hardly told me anything.’

Thursday hesitated. She’d still not decided how much to tell Denise about the injuries her young husband had received in Africa. ‘I’ll come round and have a chat tomorrow,’ she said quietly. ‘We can’t talk properly in this scrum. But he’s all right, Dizzy, and he talked about you and Leslie the whole time. You don’t have to worry about that.’

Her Uncle Percy cleared his throat. ‘The main thing is, he’s safe, or as safe as anyone can be these days. And Denise knows she’s always got me and her mother to turn to.’

‘That’s right,’ Flo agreed. ‘It’s just as well she stopped at home with us when Vic was called up. She can carry on with her job and I can look after the baby. Not that he’s any trouble at all, the dear little soul,’ she added, chucking her grandson under the chin so that he giggled and curled himself more deeply in his mother’s lap.

Thursday smiled and turned to take a cup of tea from her mother. ‘How about our Steve, have you heard from him lately?’

‘Oh yes, he writes regular. He doesn’t say a lot, mind you, they’re not allowed much paper for a start, but he seems to be going on all right and I don’t think they treat them too badly either in prison camp. They have football matches and get up concerts and that sort of thing, and we’re allowed to send parcels, when there’s anything to send, which isn’t all that often. I don’t think the food’s very good but at least he’s alive and more or less safe.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t like thinking of him treated like a criminal, but I don’t mind admitting I’d rather that than have him fighting.’

Thursday nodded. The Tilfords were lucky that Steve was a POW. She thought sadly of her cousins Mike and Leslie – Mike posted missing, believed killed, at Dunkirk and Leslie shot down in his Spitfire. No wonder poor Auntie Flo thought the world of her grandson, named after them. He and Denise were all she had left now.

It was obvious that Leslie was the apple of everyone’s eye. It seemed almost impossible to believe that Uncle Percy had refused to look at him when he was born. He and Flo had been horrified when Denise, at only fifteen, had admitted that she was pregnant, and furious with Vic even though he’d believed her to be eighteen. The fact that Denise had lied to him didn’t excuse him taking advantage, Percy had raged. They weren’t married, not even engaged, nor likely to be if Percy had anything to do with it. He’d wanted the girl sent away somewhere quiet to have her baby and get it adopted, but at this Flo had put her foot down. Out of wedlock or not, she told Percy, this was their grandchild, and it could be the only grandchild they’d ever have. They couldn’t, they just couldn’t, let the baby go to strangers.

Walter and Mary had been just as dismayed. Girls who had babies without being decently married were ostracised, and the whole family tainted. Flo’s stance had surprised them – she’d always been one to worry about what the neighbours would say – but she’d been so determined that everyone had had to accept it, and with Denise flatly refusing to give up the baby, Percy had been forced to agree to their marrying as soon as Denise turned sixteen. And, as Mary had observed, babies brought their love with them. Even if they hadn’t been wanted, they all seemed to make themselves a place in the family, and little Leslie Michael Stephen – named after his two uncles and Thursday’s brother Steve – had been barely a fortnight old when he’d won his grandfather round. Even Vic, who had got his call-up soon after his son’s birth, had been accepted, especially by Flo who had never forgotten the way he had comforted her when she’d got the news about Leslie. ‘As good as a son to me,’ she’d said, and refused to let Percy say another word against him.

As Mary handed round the tea and a plate of biscuits, Thursday sat in her mother’s armchair, trying to get used to the feeling of being at home again after two years in Egypt. She looked round at the familiar room and the faces she’d missed so much. There’d been changes while she’d been away. The saddest was that her little dog, Patch, had died. Mary had written to tell her he was ill with distemper, and Thursday had known at once what the next letter would say. When it arrived, she’d left it unopened for a whole day, waiting till nightfall to read the bad news. Oh Patchie, she’d thought, the tears dripping on to the sheet of paper, oh Patchie. And she’d remembered how he’d come to her as a puppy on her twelfth birthday, struggling out of the cardboard box in which her father had brought him home and licking her face as she lifted him into her arms. He’d been with her during all her growing-up years, her special friend, rushing to meet her when she came home from school or work, sleeping on her bed whenever he could sneak up the stairs, keeping so close to her that Steve had once said he was glued to her leg. And now he was dead. Patchie. Her Patchie.

Thinking about him brought the tears to her eyes again. Now she was home, it was as if he’d only just died, and the sorrow of knowing he would never rush to her again came as fresh as on the day she’d received her mother’s letter. Then, catching Mary’s eye, she blinked back the tears and smiled. I’ve cried for him once, she thought. I’m not going to spoil this homecoming by doing it all over again.

‘Is Auntie Maudie coming over? I want to see her before I go back.’

‘She’s on duty a lot this week. I thought we’d pop over to Ledbury on the train one afternoon. Day after tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.’

‘I’ll come too,’ Jenny suggested. ‘We can talk about operations and things.’

Mary frowned. ‘You know I don’t like—’

‘It’s all right, Mum, I’m only teasing. But you can’t expect three nurses to get together and not talk about their job! I always have a natter with Auntie Maudie when I go over, and she’s sure to be interested in what Thursday’s been doing.’

‘Of course she will,’ Thursday said. ‘And I want to thank her again for the little nurse’s watch she lent me. Uncle Bill gave it to her in the First World War, and I’ve worn it all the time. It’s been a godsend on the wards.’

‘Well, so long as you don’t start talking about blood,’ Mary said, and everyone laughed. ‘Now look, we didn’t know just what time you’d be getting home today so I haven’t done anything special, just a few Spam sandwiches, but we’re all here again for Sunday dinner. Your father’s going to kill one of the hens—’

‘Not Aggie!’ Thursday broke in, and her mother gave her an exasperated look.

‘No, not Aggie, I daresay she’ll outlive us all if you’ve got anything to do with it. It’s one of the others, that you don’t know so well. And don’t go down the garden giving them all names – you know once they’ve got names nobody likes to eat them. There’s plenty of veg from the allotment, and some soft fruit for pudding, so it’ll be a real old-fashioned Sunday dinner. When d’you have to go away again?’

‘I knew you’d ask that,’ Thursday said. ‘I’m just surprised you’ve waited so long – usually you ask the minute I walk through the door. “Hello, Thursday, nice to see you, when are you going again?” Can’t wait to get rid of me, as usual.’

‘You know I didn’t mean that!’ Mary’s face was pink as everyone laughed again. ‘Oh, you’re awful, the lot of you. I can’t say a word without getting picked up on it . . . I only want to know so that I can make arrangements. And so I don’t wake up one morning to find you’ve gone.’

Thursday gave her mother’s arm a squeeze. ‘You know I wouldn’t do that. And I’m only teasing, you know that too. I’ve got a week – so that’s next Wednesday, thirty-first of May.’ She stretched her arms, nearly knocking her cup off the arm of her chair. ‘A whole week at home! Luxury.’

‘Time to tell us all about Egypt,’ Jenny said wistfully. ‘I wish now that I’d volunteered as a VAD, instead of going for State Registration and getting stuck here in Worcester. Would have done, if I’d known you could go to places like that.’

‘You’re better off as you are if you want to be a real nurse. We’re just dogsbodies most of the time, doing all the dirty work, though we do get to talk to the patients a bit more – the QARNNs just don’t have the time. But we’ll never be trained like you are.’ Thursday took another ginger biscuit to show her appreciation, aware that her mother would have saved these specially for her return. ‘Anyway, what I want to know now is what’s been going on while I’ve been away. How about Mrs Hoskins – is she home or is she off with that fancy man of hers again? And that boy who got sent to approved school – is he back terrorising the neighbourhood? I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’

Jenny giggled. ‘You certainly have! Freddy Barnes went into the Army and he’s won two medals already – his mum’s like a dog with two tails. As for Mrs Hoskins, she’s had so many fancy men even she’s lost count, and—’

‘Pipe down, Jenny!’ Mary said sharply. ‘You know what we think about that sort of gossip. I’m surprised at you for encouraging her,’ she told Thursday. ‘I’d have thought you’d have learned better, being with those other girls. They tell me a lot of the VADs are real upper-class.’

Thursday grinned. ‘They are. But they like a good gossip as much as anyone else. It’s just upper-class gossip, that’s all. You should hear what they say about the lords and ladies they know and what goes on in big houses with all those bedrooms. Why, Louisa Wetherby once told me—’

‘Thursday!’ her mother expostulated, and the girls dissolved in giggles.

Thursday winked at her sister and cousin, and whispered, ‘Tell you later,’ and then said aloud, in a demure voice, ‘Sorry, Mum. Let me get you another cup of tea, and then you can tell me all the things you want to tell me about, all right?’ She got up and took her mother’s cup, then bent suddenly and kissed her. ‘D’you know what? It feels much more like being at home when you tell me off than when you treat me like an honoured guest. So just carry on that way, will you? Because that’s what I’ve missed most.’

Mary shook her head at her. ‘Stop it do, or you’ll have me in tears again. As if I’ve ever told you off ! Didn’t tell you off enough, that’s what your father always used to say.’

Thursday smiled and went out to the kitchen. She filled the kettle and put it on the stove, then stood leafing through the pile of cookery books and pamphlets her mother had collected. Potato Pete’s Recipe Book: Two Ways of Reconstituting Dried Eggs, and Try Cooking Cabbage This Way . . . She turned to find her Cousin Denise standing beside her. The younger girl looked at her.

‘You will tell me the truth about Vic, won’t you – what happened to him and – and how he is now. I’m sure there’s more than he’s told me, and I’ve got to know.’

Thursday laid her hand on her cousin’s arm and nodded. ‘I will, I promise. But you mustn’t worry, Dizzy. He’s just the same as he ever was, really. And he misses you and Leslie all the time.’

Denise nodded and sniffed, brushing her hand across her eyes. ‘I miss him too. I really do love him, Thurs, I always did. It wasn’t just a – what did they call it? – infatuation. We really did love each other. That’s why I lied to him about my age. I was so scared I’d lose him if he knew the truth.’

‘Well, that’s all over now.’ Thursday warmed the teapot with a drop of hot water from the kettle. ‘You’re married and you’ve got your little boy, and one day soon Vic’ll come home and you’ll be able to get a place of your own and settle down properly.’ The kettle boiled and she made the tea. ‘Go and get the cups, Dizzy. I’ll come and see you tomorrow and tell you all about when I saw him in Egypt.’

She stood for a moment alone in the kitchen, listening to the chatter from next door. There would be a lot of talking to do in the next few days, a lot of stories to swap and a lot of reassurance to give. And then she would be going back to Haslar, the Naval hospital on the shore of Portsmouth Harbour where she had first become a VAD. Another kind of homecoming, in a way. I wonder how much will have changed there, she thought. And I wonder what’s going to happen next. Something big, Jenny said – perhaps even an invasion. Can this really be the beginning of the end of the war, after all this time?

Denise came back with the cups and Thursday began to fill them with tea. Just for now, she’d forget all about it. Just for now, it was enough to be at home in Worcester with her family.

During those few days’ leave, Thursday saw Denise only a couple of times. She was working long hours at the glove factory, making khaki gloves for soldiers, navy-blue ones for sailors, grey ones for airmen and leather ones for officers. ‘Once this is all over I’m never going to look at a glove again,’ she declared, coming in for a late supper after three hours’ overtime when Thursday was round at her aunt’s the next evening. ‘I’d rather have chilblains!’

She lay back in her mother’s armchair, her eyes closed. Thursday looked at her pale face and thought of Vic, lying in his hospital bed. They’re just kids, the pair of them, she thought, and they’re not the only ones either. This whole war’s being fought by kids.

‘I had a letter from Vic today,’ Denise said, opening her eyes suddenly. ‘I told him you were coming home. He says you just about saved his life, Thurs.’

Thursday coloured. ‘I didn’t do much. I just sat beside him at night. I think it helped that I could talk about you and Leslie, that’s all.’

‘Well, whatever you did he thought a lot of it. And so do I.’ Denise closed her eyes again. ‘I’m glad you were there.’

Thursday bit her lip and nodded. ‘I’m glad I was there too. It was strange having someone from the family out there in Alex. We hardly knew each other before – when you got married – but we got to know each other quite well in the hospital. He’s a nice chap, Dizzy. You’re lucky – you’ve got a good husband.’

‘Well, I always knew that!’ Denise said, with a flash of her old spirit. ‘Knew that right from the start. But then you do, don’t you – when it’s the right one.’ She closed her eyes again. ‘That’s if he still thinks I am the right one.’

‘Oh, he does!’ Thursday hesitated, then took a breath. ‘Look, it’s a long time since I saw him and I expect it’s different now, but – well, he was wondering if you’d still fancy him. You see—’

‘But of course I’ll fancy him!’ Denise exclaimed. ‘I fancied him the minute I first saw him. Why on earth shouldn’t I?’

‘Because he doesn’t look quite the same.’ Thursday searched for the right words. She’d known for a long time that this moment must come, that she would have to prepare Denise for her first meeting with Vic. ‘Dizzy, he was badly burned. His face was blistered all over – and parts of his body too. It’s probably not so bad now as when I last saw him, but he’s bound to be scarred.’ She looked helplessly at her cousin. ‘I’m sorry, but you ought to know – so that it isn’t too much of a shock.’

There was a short silence. Then Denise said in a small voice, ‘Is it very bad?’

‘Quite bad,’ Thursday said honestly. ‘I’m really sorry, Diz.’

Denise bit her lip. She looked at Leslie, who was on the floor engrossed in a game with some old lead soldiers. Then she took in a deep breath and shrugged.

‘I don’t see that that’s so awful – so long as he’s not still hurting from it. He’ll still be the same old Vic underneath, won’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Thursday said with relief. ‘He’ll be the same old Vic. He was in Egypt, anyway. We got on really well.’

‘That’s all right then,’ Denise said. She lifted her chin a little and looked Thursday in the eye. ‘You know what Gran says – handsome is as handsome does, and I reckon my Vic will always be handsome to me, no matter what other people think. But thanks for telling me. I wouldn’t want to look as if I was upset by it, the first time we see each other again.’

Thursday nodded, relief washing through her. It had been one of the things that had haunted her about coming home – the necessity of telling Denise about Vic. Even now, she wasn’t sure that she’d really prepared her for the puckered, dead-looking skin that covered all one side of Vic’s face now and stretched down his body. Perhaps later on she’d tell her more, but she’d learned that such shocks took time to absorb. Denise would ask for more information when she was ready.

‘He really does love you, Dizzy,’ she said quietly. ‘He told me that. He just wants to get back to you and Leslie. Nothing else really seems to matter to him.’

‘It doesn’t matter to me either,’ Denise said. ‘Just to have us together again, a proper family – that’s all we want.’ She paused. ‘All anyone wants, I suppose. Funny that it takes a war to bring it home to people what’s really important about life.’

The brief leave over, Thursday set out on the familiar train journey to Portsmouth. And as she walked down the pontoon from the railway station and stepped aboard the waiting pinnace, she felt herself jerked back four years, to the moment in 1940 when she had first stared out over Portsmouth Harbour.

Four years! Four – no, five – years of war, years that had torn her and millions of other young men and women from their homes and families and thrown them into lives they could never have dreamed of. Thrown many of them to their deaths, she thought sadly, remembering the long lists of names in newspapers, the reports on the wireless, the soldiers and sailors she had herself nursed, both here in England and during her years abroad. And here she was, home again, and still it wasn’t over.

‘Come on, love,’ urged the matelot waiting to cast off. ‘You’re not here on your holidays, you know. Mind you,’ he added, glancing at her, ‘you look as if you ’ave been. Look as if you’ve been in the South of France sunning yourself, you do. And what’s that ribbon you’re wearing? Been serving overseas?’

Thursday nodded a little self-consciously. She’d been proud to be presented with the medal that indicated her service abroad, but reluctant to display it until her father had told her, bluntly, that it was her patriotic duty to do so. ‘That’s an encouragement to others, that is,’ he’d said, knocking his pipe out on the fender. ‘It’s good for people to know what girls like you have been doing to serve your country. It gives ’em summat to hold up their heads about, summat to hope for. You wear it, and be proud to.’

‘So where you been, then?’ the matelot asked now, still eyeing the ribbon. ‘Africa?’

Thursday nodded. ‘Egypt. I’ve been there two years. But I was at Haslar before that, and now they’ve sent me back. It feels queer, coming home again after all this time and the war still on. Somehow I always thought we wouldn’t come back till it was over.’

‘Maybe it won’t be too long now,’ the sailor said cryptically, looking out over the busy scene. Thursday followed his glance. The harbour was thronged with ships – some tied up at the main jetties in the dockyard, others moored out in the harbour, with smaller boats, ferries and tugs bustling between them. And as the Naval pinnace made the short crossing to the Gosport side she could see through the entrance that the Solent itself was just as crowded. Something was obviously going on – something big.

‘What is it?’ she asked curiously, but the sailor glanced at her sideways and tapped his nose.

‘What we don’t know can’t hurt us. But you must’ve seen the roads, all jammed up with Army stuff. Been coming in for the past few weeks, so I’ve been told – lorries, tanks, DUKWs, you name it, it’s there. American, too, a lot of it. Second Front, innit? And they say it’s all being masterminded from just over Portsdown Hill.’ He seemed to remember his first words and shut his mouth firmly. ‘Shouldn’t have said that.’

Thursday looked at him. There was nobody else in the boat, but everyone knew that you had to be careful what you said, especially about anything military. Careless Talk Costs Lives – the notices had been everywhere at the beginning of the war, and there had been cases of people put into prison for making casual remarks that could have been helpful to the enemy. A girl only had to be overhead in a teashop, telling a friend that her sweetheart’s ship was sailing that night, and it could end in the ship’s being torpedoed and sunk. Spies and Fifth Columnists, it seemed, were everywhere.

She turned her eyes again towards the crowded harbour. There was clearly a big ‘flap’ on, and from the look of the ships and the determined air of the smaller boats hurrying between them, it was obvious that the matelot was right – it was the long-awaited Second Front. Everyone was expecting it, had been for months – it was why she and the other VADs had been brought home. The theatre of war was moving back to Europe.

Jenny had been right too. It was the invasion. The invasion of Europe by Britain, and by her allies – America, Canada, Australia and the rest. This was what the country had been waiting for.

‘I came by train,’ she said, ‘and it was packed with Navy types. But you’re right, we did see a lot of Army vehicles on the roads, and all along the country lanes. You mean they’re planning to take them all on ships? But how?’

He shook his head. ‘We don’t talk about it, not more’n we can help. There ain’t no need. Everyone can see what’s going on, and we all know the beaches have been closed for months. Gawd knows what they’ve been doing there, building bloody great concrete towers it looks like – not that you can see much past all the barbed wire. We might have our own ideas what they’re for but we don’t ask. And if you take my advice, you won’t neither.’

Nothing’s changed, Thursday thought, remembering how she and Patsy Martin – Patsy Greenaway now – had come to Portsmouth by train on that bitterly cold, snowy day in 1940, not daring to talk about where they were going or why, in case there was a spy in the carriage with them. It all seemed a very long time ago: the train getting stuck in huge snowdrifts so that the passengers – mostly soldiers – had climbed out to help dig a way through; their surprise at the harbour station with its wooden platform and glimpse of the sea surging beneath them; the massive icicles that had formed beneath the structure; the sloping pontoon to the Gosport ferry crowded by the workmen swarming out through the dockyard gates.

And the ships! It was like a different world, different from anything either she or Patsy had ever seen, except in pictures or at the cinema. The frigates, the destroyers, the enormous, towering bulk of the aircraft-carrier Ark Royal looming over them in their tiny pinnace. One of the greatest ships of the Royal Navy, she thought sadly, remembering the flight of aircraft it had taken to the beseiged island of Malta, the battles it had fought, the pride everyone had felt in its name. And now it was gone, sunk by a U-boat off Gibraltar.

The s