Danuta relaxed once more into the pillows. ‘Is good,’ she said on a sigh. And then she frowned. ‘Where is Peggy? Why she not here?’

Ron glanced across at Dolly, who nodded back. ‘I’ve yet to tell her about you,’ he admitted, ‘but the minute she knows she’ll be with you like a shot.’

‘You not tell Peggy because you think I die?’ Danuta had a glint of humour in her sunken dark green eyes.

‘To be sure I knew you weren’t dying,’ lied Ron, ‘but it would have upset Peggy to see you as you were.’

Danuta nodded, and then her eyelids began to droop. ‘Lovely Peggy,’ she murmured sleepily. ‘She like mama – I have miss her.’

As Danuta fell into a deep, drugged sleep, Ron unashamedly wiped his eyes with his grubby handkerchief. ‘If I’m to tell Peggy and get her up here before the end of visiting time, I’d better be going,’ he said gruffly.

‘There’s no rush,’ said Dolly, clearly finding it hard to control her own emotions. ‘That letter from Churchill means we can visit any time we like.’ She shot him a watery smile. ‘Dear Hugh arranged it all, even to the point of virtually drafting the letter so every point was worded to make life easy for us.’

Ron had never met Sir Hugh Cuthbertson, who was head of MI6 and Dolly’s boss, but he knew him by reputation and the snippets of information Dolly had confided to him over the years. ‘Thank him for me when you next see him,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘To be sure that’s a debt we can never repay.’

Dolly smiled up at him as she took his hand. ‘He wouldn’t dream of asking you to,’ she replied. ‘Now, go and tell Peggy. I won’t be here when you return, but I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Will you be staying with us?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ll be with Pauline. She’s yet to reply to my letter, and I suspect she’s not too happy with me at the moment, so I have to try and smooth things over.’

Ron had only a vague idea of what she was talking about because he hadn’t really been listening when Peggy had told him about the to-do with the American general down in Devon. ‘To be sure, wee Peggy will be glad of your presence,’ he sighed. ‘The poor lass has enough on her plate at the moment.’

Dolly nodded her understanding, and Ron left the hospital, his emotions all over the place. He was delighted that Danuta was on the road to recovery, but how to tell Peggy – how to explain the terrible injuries? He should have asked Dolly, he realised, as he grabbed Harvey by the collar and dragged him away from a huge slice of chocolate cake someone had carelessly left on a low table.