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it was as if she was frozen to the glass. She went on beating and screaming, weeping incoherently, on and on, even when she was aware that there were figures on the path below her, looking up and waving their arms. She was locked in with a ghost somewhere behind her and the walls about to bury her alive and she couldn’t bear it. ‘Help! Help! Oh please help me!’
    Doors banged, and there were heavy feet on the stairs, men’s feet, not ghosts’, feet with boots on, crunching, and men’s voices. ‘Hold on! We’re coming!’ and then her father was picking her up, cuddling her close, carrying her away.
    â€˜Oh Dad! Dad! Dad!’ she wept, clinging to him. ‘I’m
so
glad to see you.’
    â€˜Hush, my pretty,’ he soothed as he carried her down the spiral staircase. ‘Hush now. You’re all right.’
    They were out in the fresh air, with the moon bright andclear above their heads. Bright and clear and comforting.‘Oh Dad!’
    He sat down on the grass underneath the nearest gaslight and cuddled her on his lap and set her beret straight and brushed the wet hair out of her eyes and produced a clean handkerchief and told her to blow her nose like a good girl. And her sobs gradually subsided.
    â€˜Now then,’ he said, when she was calmer, ‘tell yer ol’ Dad all about it.’
    â€˜There was a ghost on the stair,’ she said, still clinging round his neck.
    â€˜Did you see it?’
    â€˜It punched me in the back.’
    â€˜Did you see it?’ he insisted gently.
    â€˜No,’ she said. ‘It punched me in the back.’
    â€˜Ah, then it wasn’t a ghost,’ he said easily, patting her shoulders. ‘It was that ol’ trip stair. Caught a lot a’ people out has that ol’ trip stair.’
    The twins were being marched out of the tower by their father. They looked much smaller than they’d done when they were tormenting her, smaller and crestfallen. And they were both crying.
    â€˜A trip stair?’ she said, beginning to take comfort.
    â€˜Oh yes,’ her father said. ‘Caught a lot a’ people out has that. Grown men an’ all. Uneven you see. Makes you trip up and when you start ter fall, well that’s like being hit in the small a’ the back. See? Just a trip stair. That’s all. Now blow yer nose again like a good girl. Time we was getting home. Yer Mum’ll wonder where you are.’
    It sounded so reasonable. A trip stair. Yes, that must be it. And yet it had felt just like somebody punching her in the back.
    They began to walk towards the Casemates.
    â€˜You won’t tell Mum I was …’ she hoped, trotting along beside him.
    â€˜Not a word,’ he said. ‘It’ll be our secret.’
    â€˜But what if the twins go saying things?’ she worried.
    â€˜The twins’ll have sore backsides by now,’ he said, ‘if I’m any judge of the Ser’nt Major. I don’t think the twins’ll want to tell anyone about it, and especially not your mum, or I might lam into ’em an’ all.’
    â€˜Are we very late?’ she worried. ‘Mum’ll be ever so cross, won’t she?’
    But Mum was surprisingly mild. She was sitting by the stove, darning one of Joan’s black stockings. ‘You been a long time,’ she said as they walked into the kitchen, but the words were an observation not a rebuke.
    â€˜Got talking,’ Dad said, stooping to kiss her cheek.
    â€˜You going back to the Club?’ Mum asked.
    â€˜No,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll give it the go-by tonight.’
    Mum folded up the stocking and put it back into her workbox. ‘Time that child was in bed,’ she said. ‘She’s all eyes. Up you go, Peggy. We’ll be along presently to tuck you in. Did you have a good day?’
    By now Peggy had recovered enough to give a sensible answer. ‘Yes, Mum,’ she said.