He leaned towards her, his tone urgent. ‘You would have to explain where you have been all this time, and that will make them suspicious. If they think you have returned to work with the resistance, then you will be sent to Siberia and simply disappear like so many thousands of others.’

‘I’m sure that won’t happen,’ she said, quelling the sudden nervous flutter inside her.

He pressed her hand between both of his. ‘It will, Danuta. Everyone is questioned, and if they don’t like your answers … Please don’t go. You’re young and lovely, and I’m sure most brave – but you cannot fight these people. They do not listen.’

Danuta watched the swirl of dancers, but her thoughts were far from this room and the happiness of the celebrations. She was remembering the years she’d worked covertly behind enemy lines for the SOE and with the underground resistance fighters; the times she’d escaped capture by the skin of her teeth when someone had betrayed her; the horror of seeing her lover being shot; the nights and days of hiding in barns and under bridges from the Gestapo who were so determined to find and punish her – and finally the terrifying days she’d spent being interrogated and tortured by them.

She’d been saved by an Allied air raid which had destroyed her prison and offered escape, and had been so close to death that she was barely aware of anything as the resistance fighter had carried her to safety, and managed to get her on a British hospital ship to England. She’d survived, but at a terrible cost, for the internal injuries inflicted by the Gestapo meant she could never have children.

Could she really risk going through all that again? Did she have the strength and courage to face such a formidable enemy for the sake of doing her nursing? And did this longing to see her homeland warrant putting her life and Solly’s in mortal danger? Her entire family was gone, so there was nothing left for her there, and if Stanislaw was right, it wouldn’t be the Poland she remembered. For the first time in many years, her resolve began to waver.

‘I am very sorry, little one,’ Stanislaw murmured, putting his arm about her shoulders. ‘I have said too much and have made you think of things which have made you sad.’

‘I have dreamed of returning home for very long time,’ she replied in English, easing from his embrace. ‘Do you not wish to go back, Stanislaw?’

‘Every moment of every day,’ he replied. ‘But I will not return until Poland is free again. And I cannot see that happening for a very long time.’

‘But our people are foreigners here,’ said Danuta. ‘What if the British order you to go home?’

‘Then we must resist with all our might. We helped the British to win this war, and have earned the right to stay.’

‘Right-oh, you two, enough of that,’ interrupted Peter. ‘I’m taking Danuta for a dance.’ With that, he drew Danuta to her feet and whirled her out onto the floor in a fast foxtrot.