The distress in the woman’s voice was so desperate that neither Ilse nor Lotti paid him a moment’s heed. As Lotti pulled back the bolts and opened the door, the woman half fell on her, covered in blood.

‘It’s my thigh,’ she gasped as they dragged her inside. ‘I’ve been hit by shrapnel. Please stop the bleeding. Please stop the bleeding before I die!’

Ilse ran towards the suitcase, scrabbling in it for the first-aid box. Gertrud Diekermann rushed forwards with a scarf. ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting it towards Lotti. ‘Use it as a tourniquet.’

Zelda poured a generous measure of Jack Daniels into a glass, holding it ready for the woman to drink as Lotti began swiftly binding the scarf tight above the severed artery.

As she was doing so there came the sound of booted feet approaching. Zelda rushed to shut and bolt the door, but the soldiers were there before her, slamming the door wide and trapping her half senseless behind it.

There were four of them and as they entered the cellar, submachine guns at the ready, Lotti ignored them, signalling to Ilse to continue helping her with what she was doing, grabbing hold of Gertrud’s hand and dragging her down so that she too was on her knees with her back to them, seemingly helping give the still-moaning woman emergency treatment.

Hester had been at the other side of the cellar and she remained there, perfectly still. Gerd Diekermann didn’t remain perfectly still. She flung herself against her husband, screaming at him to protect her. Little Frau Menzel had her arms around Pee-Wee’s cage, as if prepared to defend him with her life.

Satisfied that, apart from the aged Herr Diekermann, there were no men in the cellar, they kicked over bags, rifling through them, taking whatever easily edible food there was: dried sausage, a heel of bread, Irmgard Diekermann’s cheese. One of them roughly took Herr Diekermann’s watch from him, the others stood over Lotti, Ilse and Gertrud as Lotti continued in her task of removing shrapnel splinters.

For a moment, Lotti thought they were going to be left unmolested and then one of the soldiers yanked Gertrud to her feet.

‘Komm,’ he said, beginning to pull her towards the open door with one hand, while holding his sub-machine gun in the other. ‘Frau, komm.’

Lotti sprang to her feet. ‘Let her go! She isn’t a Frau, she’s a Fräulein. She’s only sixteen!’

The soldier stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. ‘Frau ist Frau,’ he said, much to the amusement of his companions and then, as Irmgard Diekermann fell hysterically onto her knees, he dragged Gertrud out of the cellar.

There was nothing any of them could do. Lotti’s pistol was in her greatcoat pocket and her coat was rolled in a bundle next to one of the plundered bags. Even if it had been within her grasp, using it would have been useless. One dead Russian would not prevent the other three from taking vengeance. The sub-machine guns would be turned on them and in a split second of time all of them, Frau Menzel’s canary included, would be blasted into eternity.