The crowd began to groan, their reaction gathering momentum and becoming a low grumble that somehow threatened unpredictable, possibly dangerous behaviour. Then someone heard someone else say that they had heard there were no vacant rooms left in all of Dunkirk for that night. The rumour swept like fire catching dry grass. Hungry, homeless, hopeless, the news of the accommodation shortage caused a violent rush towards the station door. Howard and Clarke were on their feet in an instant, seeing the possibility of surging through the doors with the mass. People pushed and shoved, careless of who they stood upon. Howard felt irritated at their selfishness but not shocked; he had seen crowds trample one another for a decent seat in the stalls, he knew there would be no scruples among desperate refugees. He was a tall man and had an advantage over most. He saw a woman with two small children lose her footing; luckily she could not fall completely because the crowd was so densely packed, but she lost her grip on her daughter’s hand.

‘I’ve got her,’ he told her. He lifted the small girl up on to his shoulders to protect her from the crush, leaving the woman free to concentrate on the other child, who was not much more than a baby.

‘Stay close,’ yelled Clarke.

At that moment the half-open station door suddenly burst wide under the pressure of the rolling and swelling mass. They were all carried past the officials and out on to the street like flotsam and jetsam.

No one could demand paperwork.

When Howard collected himself, he realised he still had the small girl on his shoulders but he could not see the mother with her other child in the crowd. Clarke looked amused. ‘What are you going to do with her?’

‘I suppose there’s nothing for it but to wait and see if her mother reappears.’ Howard shrugged. It was a risk hanging around the station, near the guards and officials, but there was no choice. With a weary, resigned air, they sat down on their suitcases among the refugees. Howard did his best to comfort the small girl, who was crying. She smelt of urine. ‘I wish I’d saved my bread roll,’ he commented to Clarke.

‘Here.’ Clarke pulled a chocolate bar from his inside pocket. Howard was surprised he hadn’t eaten it earlier, on the long walk to Dunkirk. ‘Emergencies only,’ explained Clarke. A distraught five year old was an emergency.

It was a long half-hour before Howard spotted the headscarfed face of the Belgian mother racing towards him. She fell to her knees and hugged the girl to her breast, squashing the baby between them. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears; she closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t cry in front of her daughter. In French she told Clarke that she had been trapped inside the station when staff shut the doors. She feared that Howard had run off with the girl. When she admitted this, she cast Howard a look that was caught between fearful and grateful. She felt guilty for not trusting him, but he had the sort of extremely handsome face that made certain women suspicious. She explained that she had lost her luggage in the crush. She owned nothing now except what they stood up in. Clarke translated.