‘What? All of them?’ Holly gasped.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. They entered the farmhouse while Pierre and Francine were bringing you and the patient back here and it seems they discovered the trapdoor into the cellar. They took Pierre’s wife out and shot her in cold blood then waited for him and his daughter to get home and shot them too. And they were such good people.’

‘Yes they were,’ Holly said in a choked voice as pictures of their faces flashed in front of her eyes. Francine would never get to marry the love of her life now or bear his children. A whole family was gone in the blink of an eye and she couldn’t forget how dangerously close she had come to being with them when the trapdoor was discovered. If it hadn’t been for Pierre insisting they leave, she would have been there too.

‘And is there any news of which doctor was killed yet?’ she asked. ‘Surely they could identify him from his dog tag?’

‘Neither doctor was wearing one. It seemed too dangerous while they were working behind enemy lines.’

Holly lowered her eyes. This uncertainty was unbearable, and despite the guilt she harboured about Harry, her thoughts were only of Richard in that moment as she remembered the days when they had thought they would spend their whole lives together.

Somehow she managed to get through the rest of the morning although her face was haggard and she felt quite ill. She was violently sick shortly after lunch and realised with dismay that she must have caught James’s sickness bug as she made a dash to get to the rather primitive toilet block.

Sister immediately had her put into a small isolation bay. The last thing they needed was for this infection to sweep through the patients. Most of them were so weak they would never have survived it. One of the doctors who had been shipped in to replace Harry and Richard came in to see Holly shortly after and once he’d examined her he told the sister, ‘Her temperature is sky-high and as well as having the sickness bug she is very tight-chested. It could turn to pneumonia if we aren’t careful. I think the wisest thing would be to have her shipped back to England as soon as possible. Infections like this can spread like wildfire and we don’t want an epidemic on our hands.’

Holly felt as if she had a steel band tightening in her chest and felt so ill and wretched that she listened with only half an ear. She was grieving for Richard, Harry and the Le’Fetes, and didn’t much care what they did with her. Suddenly everything was just too much.

Her condition deteriorated over the next two days and Angela, wearing a face mask and gloves, was allocated to nurse her. ‘Come on, please,’ she implored Holly as she tried to tempt her to eat. ‘You’ve got to at least try. This is so not like you!’