Their journey back was long and arduous, taking them three days in all. Their two stopovers in safe houses had informed them that the area was teeming with Germans, especially in the area of their first stop, where they’d had to sleep in a freezing barn and take it in turns to stay awake and on watch.

In the second house there was more comfort, as the farmer had converted his large cellar, which was virtually undetectable when closed, into a dormitory with cooking facilities, and a lavatory of the traditional stand-over type dug into the ground. This had a wall partitioning it off from the dormitory. Beside it were a sink and soap and a towel, and they were all able to take it in turns to wash in the water supplied by a pump next to the sink and heated on the stove.

Drinking hot cocoa, having filled up on a lovely rabbit stew made by the farmer’s wife, and with Lonia asleep, they all sat on the beds provided and talked. Ella had recovered a little, though her body showed the signs of all she’d been through. She was stick-thin and her cheekbones jutted out, making her hollowed eye sockets appear even darker than usual. Her hair had been matted to her head, though now it hung in wet strands as Sibbie had helped her to wash it, and had washed down Ella’s body too, while Marjie had tended to Lonia.

The farmer’s wife, a little woman, had supplied Ella with a warm woollen frock and cardigan and some knitted stockings. Ella wore black boots on her feet, which Marjie had never seen before, but she didn’t ask where they came from, assuming that they had been a product of the bartering system that Ella had spoken of.

Lonia had fared better, having been fed, Marjie suspected, on her mama’s rations as well as her own, although her body was covered in flea-bites. The only clothes they had for her were those Lonia arrived in, and so they had washed these and they now hung round the fire to dry.

Arnie held Ella, or sat near to her, the whole time, and when travelling had never left Ella and Lonia’s side. But it was plain to see that Ella, though looking to him for support and comfort, had put up a barrier, where Arnie was concerned. This was so sad to witness, and Marjie knew the couple needed some time alone together or the rape ordeal, which her mama had told her about the last time they were together, could drive a wedge between them. She put her hand out and took Ella’s. ‘My lovely Aunt Ella, I feel so much for you. Everything will get better. One day we’ll all be happy again, and this will be behind us.’