The call for cease-fire went down the line and everyone slowly got to their feet to check on their wounded and mop up any surviving Japs who might still be lurking. Jim counted three dead, including the man who’d fallen beside him, and one of the mule handlers. The one wounded man would have to be strapped on horseback and sent back to the temporary HQ to be ferried out after the supply drops – how long he’d last was anyone’s guess, for he’d taken a belly shot, which usually proved fatal.

Jim breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Ernie and Big Bert talking nearby, and then took the dead men’s identity tags and handed them to his senior officer before covering the bodies as best he could in palm leaves and jungle debris. There was no time to dig graves, however shallow, but their final resting place would be marked as a co-ordinate on a map for those back at HQ, who would do the debriefing after the operation and inform the next of kin.

The men returned from the Japanese hideout to report no survivors, so after the padre had said a swift prayer over the makeshift graves, everyone gathered up their weapons and ammunition and continued their march, aware of the rattle of gunfire and the thuds of explosions in the distance. It was going to be a long three days, but Jim’s blood was up and he was ready for anything.

14

Peggy had spent an hour with Danuta, but for most of that time she’d merely held her hand and watched her sleep. She was glad the girl knew she was there and that no harm would come to her, but on her return home, Peggy had spent a restless night, worrying about her.

It had broken her heart to see Danuta looking so frail and small in that hospital bed, but despite what she must have gone through, there was still a light of determination in her green eyes when she spoke, which gave Peggy hope that she would pull through.

She opened her eyes, stretched and then turned to look at the photograph of Jim she’d placed on the bedside table the day he’d left for India. ‘I wish you were here, my love,’ she whispered. ‘I miss you so, and it’s been ages since I heard from you.’

He smiled back at her and she felt such yearning to hold him that it was almost a physical pain which she curled into beneath the bedclothes.

‘Mumma? Mumma wake now?’