She thumped her fist down on them, making him yelp and pull his hand away. ‘Oi! Leave it out!’ she yelled. ‘I’ve had just about enough!’

Everyone around turned and gawped at them. A few people jeered and laughed, as the man got to his feet and hastened away, red-faced.

‘Good for you, love,’ the woman in the headscarf said. ‘Dirty old man. There’s enough of them down ’ere. Say, there’s room with us. Come and sit over here.’

They sat together for hours in silence. Maggie was grateful that the woman seemed to understand she didn’t want to talk.

The stone floor was as hard and cold as ice beneath her but she didn’t dare move, not even to find a lav. If she left her place, she’d never get it back again. She slept in fits and starts, dozing for a few minutes and then waking again with a jolt, because of the cold or someone coughing or a baby crying.

The next time she woke, the woman in the headscarf had gone and two men had taken her place.

People were starting to stretch and yawn and stand up around her, folding up their blankets, pulling up mattresses.

It must be morning. Perhaps the all-clear had sounded.

Maggie’s limbs were so stiff with cold they hurt as she tried to move them.

Couples and families – white-faced and exhausted – were slowly making their way along the platform towards the exit.

She’d wait here for a while. There was no point getting up yet, if she was only going to join a queue at the bottom of the stairs.

The men asleep beside her were lying close to each other. One had his head on the other’s shoulder. Their blanket had slipped down and she could see they were holding hands. Maggie reached forward and gently pulled the blanket back over them.

People could be funny about that kind of thing.

Her face was tight and her eyes were sore from all that crying and lack of sleep. But at least she’d got through the night and one thing was now clear, she was going to say yes to Jack, she’d marry him on condition that she could still do her bit. She still wanted to take up that post that Lord Ashford had found for her, using her German. So, they’d have to marry quickly and go off to their postings, or else wait a while.

It would be a marriage of the head, not of the heart, but that was all right.