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proportional. I don’t think either you or I should countenance it.’
    ‘What turpitude do you refer to, vicar?’ asked Harriet. ‘That sounds interesting.’
    ‘Well, we heard the other day,’ said Mrs Goodacre, answering for her husband, ‘of a young pilot in a parish in Lincolnshire who did not return from a mission in the North Sea, and they put him down as missing presumed dead, when all the while he had baled out, I think they call it, and been rescued by a fishing boat. And instead of reporting back to base he just went to London and took a job under a false name, only of course he hadn’t got a ration-book, and so he got into difficulties and had to confess.’
    ‘Do you think perhaps he was very frightened, and didn’t want to have to fly again?’ asked Harriet.
    ‘What a charitable view of human nature you have, dear Lady Peter. No, I understand that it was because he was heavily in debt under his real name, and he was hoping to avoid his creditors.’
    ‘If so, that was indeed turpitudinous of him,’ Harriet agreed.
    ‘It takes all sorts to make an air force,’ said Jerry, looking up from a copy of Picture Post , which he had apparently had in his greatcoat pocket. ‘I’ve even encountered this evening the only man I have ever spoken to who was not impressed by a Spitfire. Actually thought the Luftwaffe had better kites. Amazing.’
    ‘Who was that, Jerry?’ asked Harriet.
    ‘Didn’t catch his name.’
    ‘Quiet, everyone!’ said Constable Baker. ‘I think I can hear . . .’
    And as everyone hushed they could all hear it – the steady triumphant level note of the siren sounding the all-clear.
    ‘And about time too,’ said Mrs Ruddle, heaving her substantial bulk up off the floor with the aid of a sharp tug from her son.
    ‘Cheer up, Baker,’ said Dr Jellyfield. ‘Perhaps we’ll never have to do it for real.’
    The expression on Constable Baker’s face made Harriet suppose that he would far far rather have the village obliterated by enemy bombs than have his work thus converted to yet another form of labour in vain. But people were pressing towards the door now, all at once, carting their possessions and creating a bottle-neck, which it was Constable Baker’s duty to sort out.
    Shortly they emerged, burdened by whatever they had brought with them, their gas-mask boxes slung over their shoulders, their sleeping children limp and heavy in their arms, into the still and bitterly cold open air. Suddenly everyone seemed in a good humour. Greetings and goodnights rang out from neighbour to neighbour, and then faltered into silence.
    The Crown Inn stood at the widest part of the village street, known as the Square. A horse trough and a couple of flower-boxes graced it, and by day the greengrocer could let his boxes spread over the pavement. The icy moonlight bathed it with an eerie clarity, and now that the moon was high overhead there were no more shadows than at noon. And clearly visible to everyone was a young woman lying on her back in the middle of the street, one hand thrown up, the palm lying empty, her head turned to one side, the taffeta of her slinky dance dress silvered in the moonlight, her gas-mask case beside her as though she had let it go as she fell. She had been carrying a blanket that was still folded over her left arm.
    Dr Jellyfield pushed through the little knot of people, and knelt down to take the girl’s pulse. Then he passed his hand over the face, to close the eyes, and stood up.
    ‘I thought this was supposed to be a dumb-show. Just for practice,’ said Mrs Hodge. She sounded indignant, as if, should there have been any real need for the night’s excursion, she had been cheated.
    ‘Well, if it was a real raid . . .’ said Mr Gudgeon. Everyone looked round as if to discover the impact of enemy action but not so much as a broken window could be seen. The higgledly-piggledy line of the village houses with their uneven roof lines, crooked chimneys,