I tried to keep my mind on tracing our bearings in relation to where I’d seen the entrance earlier, and concluded that we were heading north-east from it. It was a pointless exercise - if I was going to make a dash for it, now was the time, because there would probably be more soldiers wherever we were being taken. But I wasn’t going to run, because Scarface had a sub-machine gun and he might be inclined to use it. And even if he didn’t, or missed me, I had already seen that the entrance was well guarded. All my options had closed down. So I marched on, turning when told to, hoping that Isabelle had got it out of her system.

After about a quarter of an hour of walking in silence, we arrived at a series of interconnected bungalows. Scarface jabbed us towards one of the doors and we stepped through and walked down a long corridor with doors on both sides. Each had a name-plate and a title - it looked as though we were in a former office block.

We were pushed through a door marked ‘Walker, Godwin - Chief Accounts Officer, B-3’, into a sea of familiar faces. Everyone from the plane was here, seated in chairs or lying on mattresses on the floor. They all looked up at the limping secret agent and his elegantly attired accomplice. Gunner had removed his shirt, and there was bruising on his chest - it looked like he’d had a rough time of it. The Biafrans were mainly sprawled on the mattresses, eyes closed, limbs sticking out of their thin ‘uniforms’. I noticed with relief that the women and children were not here, and hoped that Alebayo had been sincere when he had said they would receive proper treatment.

I quickly surveyed the rest of the room. It was the archetype of an office: a massive square desk that looked like it had come in from a Punch cartoon, grey filing cabinets, dead pot plant. Perhaps the place was bugged. There were no other exits, no windows - and no guards. It was odd, but then why waste men? The prisoners would also have seen the gates and known the futility of trying to make a run for it, and they probably assumed someone was stationed outside the door anyway. They were also, of course, hardly in a fit state to escape. But still. It could be an opening . . .

‘Do you think this is humane?’

It was Isabelle. She had turned to Scarface. Her hands were resting by her hips, but her glare was fierce.

‘Do you?’

He stared back at her for a moment, his face expressionless, his arm clutched firmly around his gun.

‘This is a war, Mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘You are enemy combatants. ’