Afterwards it was hard to remember in what sequence things had happened, as it had all been so quick and there was no time to think, only to act.

By some miraculous manoeuvres of his own, Hamid had got them on board a troopship that was carrying back to Constantinople wounded men of the invading forces.

In the confusion and darkness, those who were in charge of the ship did not realise that as well as the wounded English, French and Turks on board they also carried two Russians.

Fortunately Yamina could speak both English and French perfectly and Hamid was Turkish.

He was one of the many Turks who had left Constantinople to seek lucrative employment with the rich Russians on the opposite shore of the Black Sea.

Yamina had known Hamid first when she was a very little girl and as the years passed the whole family grew to rely upon him.

When they returned to St. Petersburg, it was Hamid who remained to look after the house. He supervised everything and kept the place and the huge staff in readiness for their return.

And it was Hamid now who had carried them away to safety, arranged for Yamina to stay at her father’s side on board and who with consummate cleverness persuaded the Commander of the troop ship not to disembark them at the hospital at Scutari with the other wounded but to take them on to Constantinople.

It necessitated a great deal of argument and exchange of money, but fortunately once again it was Hamid who had brought with them the money that was to prove a lifeline in the long months ahead.

Having taken them to Constantinople, Hamid found a small house where they could live.

At first Yamina had been horrified how small and cramped it was. It looked little more than a white box with a flat roof, like so many other Turkish houses in a poor district.

But she soon realised how wise Hamid had been in choosing nothing pretentious, nothing that people would ask questions about.

What they had to fear was the curiosity of their neighbours and the hunt for spies, which even that first winter was beginning to make itself felt in the City.

Yamina soon adjusted herself to a life that was so different from anything she had ever known before that sometimes she thought that the past must be just a figment of her imagination.

Her father was extremely ill and the winter had added to his weakness by giving him bronchitis, so that he had to sit up in bed and was unable to sleep at night.

As there were only two tiny bedrooms on the top floor of the house, divided by a parchment-thin partition, the fact that her father did not sleep but must sit coughing and wheezing all through the long hours of darkness meant that she did not sleep either.