Ellen felt very unwell and concentrated hard to keep her mind free of anxieties as Filip and the doctor continued a conversation in which the doctor questioned him about where he had come from and asked if he intended staying in England. She heard Filip say that he and his wife and their children hoped to do so, that he was an engineer and that he wanted to find his family who had also come to England a year ago. His cowsuns, she heard him say, which in spite of her increasing discomfort made her give a teary smile as she remembered that Anna had pronounced cousins the same way.

Dr Lucan drove them right to the door of Ellen’s house, and when Edyta opened it the doctor seemed astonished to find two other women there and a host of children.

He came inside. ‘You don’t all live here, surely?’

Ellen collapsed on to one of the beds, explaining that her good friends had looked after her three children whilst she went to find out about Harry.

‘I’m so sorry that we’ve been so long,’ she gasped out to Anna and Edyta. ‘We’ve been to ’hospital. Harry was hurt in ’explosion and—’ She suddenly gave a great start and drew in her breath. ‘Oh! Hah!’ She screwed her eyes up tight and bent double. ‘Something …’ She took another breath. ‘Doctor?’

‘Yes, I’m still here.’ Dr Lucan came to her side. ‘Do you have another room, a bedroom?’

Ellen began to shake her head, but Edyta broke in. ‘You can use my upstairs room.’

The doctor hesitated. ‘The stairs?’

‘We will take the children upstairs,’ Anna interrupted. ‘Is that all right, Edyta? Filip, you will help us?’

‘Your mother?’ Ellen gasped. ‘She can’t—’

‘Gone with my brother this morning,’ Edyta said, clasping Ellen’s hand. ‘She said to give you fond greetings and hoped that your husband is not hurt. Come,’ she said to the others. ‘There is a fire; the children will be warm.’

Mary and Sarah looked back at their mother with some trepidation, their lips trembling, but obediently they followed Anna and Filip, who were urging the younger children onward, while Edyta ran ahead of them to open her door and then ran down again to be with Ellen.

The doctor took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, but when he turned to Ellen she shook her head.

‘It’s too late, doctor,’ she said tearfully, her eyes full of grief. ‘I’m bleeding; miscarrying, I think.’

‘Cloths then,’ Dr Lucan said briskly, ‘towels, soap and a bowl of water.’

Edyta nodded nervously as Ellen told her, in short gasps, where to find the things he needed, and when she came back she murmured to him, ‘Doctor, I’m a single Jewish woman. I have no experience of childbirth.’