‘I know. But I somehow feel that you will understand, and I so want to unburden myself to someone. It isn’t easy with someone you love, and who loves you. They are too hurt by it all.’

‘Aye, I knaw about that. I want to talk, but I don’t knaw how they’ll all handle it. They won’t understand.’

They’d reached the stile and Ella sat down. Billy stood for a while, which made this even more difficult for her. She didn’t think she’d ever have to tell her story to a young man she’d only just met. But she took a deep breath and began to talk. Once she did so, she found she couldn’t stop. Everything came out: the separation from Flors, the rape, her cruel treatment by the Germans and how she told them more than she should have done, in fear for her child’s safety. At this point Ella couldn’t stop the tears flowing down her face.

Billy sat on the grass in front of her and took her hands. This wasn’t the Billy she’d been told of by Mags, who had always likened him to Harold. ‘I’m sorry, Ella.’ Tears seeped from his eyes as he said this.

Forcing herself to go on, she told him, ‘I don’t know why they didn’t send me to an extermination camp straight away, once I admitted to having Jewish ancestors. It remains a mystery to me. I can only think they didn’t have everything in place at that time – transport, and so on. As the Resistance had disrupted so much, they sent me to another camp for the time being. The camp I went to was run like a small community. The British had organized themselves well and gave no trouble, so it was largely a peaceful time. But then the Germans found out about the Jews in the camp who had hoodwinked them. They were rich, important people from Poland, really nice people, who had managed to buy their passage out and pass themselves off as British. They had false British papers.

‘Then the terror came back, as the Germans began to flush the Jews out. They had these trains – well, cattle-transporting trucks. They rounded us all up and were transporting us. Oh, Billy, that train was awful, with so many packed in it that we could hardly breathe. We stood all the way, packed in so tightly that when a woman fainted, she couldn’t fall to the ground. They . . . they taunted us, telling us they were sending us to extermination camps.’

The fear of it all revisited Ella and she was quiet for a moment, trying to compose herself. Billy held her hands the whole while and waited. He really did understand.

‘Arnie had intelligence about this, and rescued me and got me back to England.’

‘You’re safe now, Ella.’