Exactly a fortnight later, to the very day, I took Diana to the Shepwall Valley and the Black Mountain. I had taken her for a very special reason, for that morning something had happened that presented yet another crossroads in my life.
I had received a letter from the War Department.
The afternoon was blisteringly hot and there was still no rain. The sky was silver-blue and riding high, with but the merest flecks of cloud to tint it, while beneath, a heat haze shimmered all around. We left the car on the south side and together climbed to a ridge they call the Cat’s Back. Diana walked ahead, for the path was narrow, being used mostly by surefooted sheep and wild mountain ponies.
The soft breeze, so welcome after the still, hot air of the valley below, streamed through her fair hair, teasingly pressing the folds of her thin summer dress against the contours of her body. Purposely I held back to watch her — a beautiful girl on a mountain.
Below and all around lay Herefordshire, the natural patchwork now set with yellow, bronze and gold as oats and wheat and long-bearded barley wavered in the sun. I could see Pontavon, far below, where Mrs Williams and her children lived, and farther up, the track to Howell Powell’s disappearing behind a hill.
Ledingford lay partly hidden, twelve miles or more to the east, the lofty spire of St Mark’s signalling its presence. The river, lazy now and low, with lank green weed and gravel islands in its course, lingered in the parklands where Granstone’s towers peeped above the trees. Far in the distance was the rise where Donhill stood. And, standing with my back to Wales, I took in all the peace of the English countryside.
How much I’d come to know and love the county, the people, the livestock and the fulness of their existence. In the early months, I had been like the corn, fresh and green, yet now, after only three short seasons, I felt far more mature — even confident.
Diana had halted and, turning, blew some errant strands of hair from her face.
‘Isn’t it wonderful,’ she said dreamily. ‘Don’t you wish this could last forever?’
It was then that I brought out the buff envelope.
‘I had this, this morning,’ I said. ‘From the War Department.’
‘Oh, Hugh!’ she gasped. ‘No!’
I opened it and, taking out the letter, read it to her:
I have to inform you that, in view of the reduction of the National Service Commitment, you are exempt from recruitment as from September.
She took a few seconds to take it in, then threw her arms around me.
‘Oh! Hugh! How marvellous!’ she cried happily. Then I felt her body tense and she drew back. ‘Does that mean you’ll stay?’
Her face was alight with anticipation, her eyes wide and expectant, lips barely apart.
‘On one condition,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘That you’ll marry me.’
The soft breeze blew, the sun beat down — Diana said ‘Yes’.
And that old Black Mountain was the very first to know.