Five years of destruction and mayhem, lives lost everywhere, shortages of food and fuel and clothing - and the insane mind behind it just urges us all on and on to more destruction. And we all keep playing.

It's impossible to stall a Lizzie.

Oh Julie, wouldn’t I know if you were dead? Wouldn’t I feel it happening, like a jolt of electricity to my heart?

Maddie took the top of her egg off. The hot bright yolk was like summer sun breaking through cloud. The first daffodil in the snow. A gold sovereign wrapped in a white silk handkerchief. She dipped her spoon in it and licked it.

Don't know how I kept going. You just do. You have to, so you do.

Careless talk costs lives.

Southampton's barrage balloons floated gleaming in the moonlight like the ghosts of elephants and hippos.