She was tense, eager to see the girl, but trying hard not to imagine what might have happened to her to bring her here, for the last she’d heard of Danuta, the girl was in Germany, helping to rescue the Allied airmen who had been shot down – so it was unlikely she’d fallen victim to an air raid over here. But whatever the reason she was here, it was now her turn to repay the girl for her bravery, and to reassure and mother her, and provide the peace and love she’d need to recover.

Fred stayed in the van, and promised to wait for as long as they needed.

Peggy and Ron hurried through those familiar corridors, passing men and women on crutches or in wheelchairs, the remembered odours of boiled cabbage and antiseptic unavoidable.

Ron quietly opened the door, and after peeking in, stood aside to let Peggy enter.

Peggy’s heart was thudding as she tiptoed into the deeply shadowed room and approached the bed. She gave an involuntary gasp as she saw the bruises and bandages, and had to cover her mouth with her hand. ‘Oh, Danuta,’ she said softly. ‘Oh, my darling, sweet girl, what happened to you?’

Danuta opened her eyes – eyes filled with pain and the horrors she’d seen – and then she let out a sigh and reached up her arms to Peggy. ‘Mama Peggy,’ she whispered. ‘Mama, I come home to you.’

Peggy’s tears pricked her eyes as she tenderly held the girl to her heart. ‘I’m here, darling. I’m here.’

Ron quietly left the room. They didn’t need anyone but each other for now.

13

Burma

There had been skirmishes and ambushes from the moment they’d scaled that riverside cliff. The fighting had been fierce on both sides, and although they’d wiped out several rats’ nests of Japanese, some of their number had been killed or wounded.

However, despite this, Jim was getting a real sense of this strange and beautiful country into which he’d been thrust. Blue-hazed mountains soared above lush, jungle-clad valleys where hidden villages of bamboo huts lay by crystal-clear rushing rivers that fed into neat paddy fields. Unfamiliar bird calls were accompanied by the tinkling of tiny bells in ornate little pagodas bedecked in frangipani and smelling of burning incense, while saffron-robed Buddhist monks walked barefoot from village to village, and long-horned cattle cropped contentedly as white egrets hitched a lift on their backs to feast on the ticks and flies they found there.