She glanced towards the beds. One pilot had his arm in a sling and was dressed in some old clothes of Pierre’s, ready to leave. The other two looked very poorly indeed and her heart sank. It would all be up to her now and it seemed a heavy burden to bear, even so she managed a smile.

‘Thank you, I shall be fine. But go. It will be light soon and you’ll be more at risk if you don’t get off now.’

Harry was already helping the pilot up the stairs but after lifting his bag Richard paused to look at Holly. She had the feeling that he wanted to say something but, appearing to think better of it, he merely inclined his head and followed the others up the stairs and then the trapdoor slammed shut and she was in darkness save for the light issuing from the flickering oil lamp. She heard the heavy table and chairs being dragged back into place and for a moment she panicked. But taking a deep breath she looked towards her patients. Their lives depended on her and she would not let them down, she had to be strong for them.

The smell in the room was atrocious and it was all she could do to stop herself from gagging, but if the men had been as ill as Richard had told her she couldn’t have expected anything else. There was no window in the cellar so everything that came out of them had to be carted up to the cess pit in buckets. Thankfully Pierre did that job every evening as soon as it got dark.

She immediately began to do what she could for them, sponging them down with cool water and dripping fluid into their mouths, and a day later her efforts seemed to be paying off because one of the men appeared slightly better. He even managed to open his eyes at one point and when he saw Holly hanging over him he started but then relaxed when she smiled at him, before his eyes fluttered shut again. But not before she had seen the terror in them. He must have been imagining himself still in the POW camp.

Francine came down to the cellar whenever she could to take over so that Holly could snatch a few hours’ sleep and finally on the third day the stronger of the two men woke properly and even asked for a drink.

‘He is improving, yes?’ Francine asked with a smile and when Holly nodded she breathed a sigh of relief. Later the same day, James, as he introduced himself, even managed a few sips of some of Claudette’s nourishing chicken soup.

‘He’s still very weak,’ Holly explained to Pierre when he popped down to fetch the buckets later that evening. ‘But I think he’ll make it now. We just have to get him strong enough to get him back to the hospital.’

‘And Ben, the other one?’ Pierre looked towards the other young man who was still in a very bad way and who as yet had shown no signs of improvement despite Holly’s best efforts.