She lay there for a long time, allowing her heart to bleed. At last Arnie rose from his hiding place and came over to her. Lying next to her, he held her. ‘Well done, Marjie. My God, that wasn’t easy. But there were too many of them, and more searching further, who would have been down upon us and outnumbered us. We had to do as we did. Our beloved Paulo, and darling Sibbie, will know that. They would have done the same. They sent us a message in the last words we heard them speak.’

Though Arnie didn’t mean they would be the last words she’d ever hear her lovely Sibbie and Paulo speak, something in Marjie prepared her for that being so, although in her mind she screamed against the thought.

Back in the camp, those that were left of them – a band of thirteen bedraggled and battle-weary men, and Marjie – knelt in a circle and prayed together. They prayed for Sibbie and Paulo, for all those who had fallen, naming each one; and they prayed for their mothers, who had yet to learn that their sons had been killed. Then they prayed for themselves and their country. Arnie and André knelt each side of Marjie.

At the end of the prayers, Arnie instructed one of the men to make some coffee, as he wanted to talk to them.

‘I’ll do that.’ Marjie, desperate for a distraction, went to the kitchen area and filled the iron pot with water from a bowser. She stood it on the huge wood-fuelled stove with its cleverly adapted chimney, which puffed out the smoke at a sideways angle, meaning that it had almost petered out by the time it made its way skywards.

As they sat drinking their coffee, they listened to Arnie. ‘Our own intelligence in these situations informs us that Sibbie and Paulo will most likely be taken to Gestapo HQ in Paris. We will find out the exact plans and details from Elianna, our contact in the offices of the gendarmes in Narbonne, as it is certain they will initially be taken to the cells there. They are too important to the Germans to be interrogated there, and will be seen as the Gestapo’s responsibility. I will do my utmost to mobilize men along the route to Paris. I have several factions of the Freedom Army who work and camp in those areas. This will mean that I have to leave for a time, in order to organize this, and to work alongside those who will mastermind a rescue of Sibbie and Paulo.’