He and the men he was journeying with had spent two weeks in a makeshift hospital before being taken aboard the ship. Sadly, many of his comrades had not even made it this far and two more had passed away since they had set sail. But at least now they were being treated with kindness instead of cruelty and there was food always available had they been able to eat it. Unfortunately, the starvation rations they had become used to had ensured that their stomachs had shrunk alarmingly so they could eat no more than one or two mouthfuls at a time.

‘Still,’ the kindly doctor who had first tended them had said cheerily, ‘a little and often, eh, lads? We’ll get you well again, never you fear.’

Many of the men were also suffering from horrific bed sores, some so big that they could have put their hands in them. This was due to the cramped and dirty conditions they had been living in and the fact that they had been sleeping on a concrete floor with no bedding of any kind. Sometimes Giles was surprised that any of them had survived. Each day the SS guards had entered their hut and thrown them a stale, grey loaf that would have to feed at least thirty of them for the day. They would then walk amongst them, lifting the bodies of those who had died during the night and throwing them onto the growing pile at one end of the room. Even now if Giles closed his eyes, he could smell the terrible stench that had come from them and once again his stomach would revolt and throw up any food he had managed to swallow.

But the weakness was the worst. The complete feeling of fatigue that meant he wasn’t even able to sit let alone stand unaided. There had been no exercise allowed for the prisoners in Belsen and after weeks and months of lying on a cold, hard floor their muscles had wasted away to almost nothing. Again, the doctor had assured Giles that he would regain his strength in time but sometimes Giles had his doubts.

When he had first been incarcerated in Belsen he had received parcels from home but by the time they reached him they had been torn apart and any food or items of value had been removed. Even so it was the letters that had kept him going. Especially the ones from Livvy. In them, she had told him that she had feelings for him, but would she still want him now? he wondered. He was only half the man he had been before he had bailed out of his aeroplane on that fateful night over Berlin and he wondered if she would even recognise him anymore.