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monstrously betrayed by his brother and his Fuehrer. In common parlance, a decent man. I wonder, are there other Germans like him, others who can tell us what he told us, and would tell if they were free to do so?’
    ‘If all he said is true, Boots, then there must be, there must,’ said Polly. ‘Did he say who runs these concentration camps?’
    ‘Himmler’s SS,’ said Boots. ‘That’s believable, if so much else isn’t. I’m still struggling with some doubt.’
    ‘So am I,’ said Polly.
    ‘Now Intelligence not only has no proof, but no Corporal Thurber, either,’ said Boots. He grimaced. ‘There’s a suggestion he might not have hanged himself if I’d been there, for he asked once or twice if I had deserted him, if I considered him a man who belonged to an insufferable people.’
    ‘Boots, you’re not going to blame yourself, are you?’ said Polly.
    ‘No, Polly, I’m going to have a whisky, a stiff one,’ said Boots.
    ‘And then?’ said Polly, aware that he was a shaken man.
    ‘There’s always you, Polly, thank God,’ said Boots.
    ‘That’s one thing you can always believe,’ said Polly.

Chapter Seven
    LITTLE PHOEBE ADAMS, ADOPTED daughter of Susie and Sammy Adams, ran around the bedroom she shared with their natural daughter, Paula. She was shrieking with laughter, Sammy in chase of her. She scrambled over the bed, Sammy popped up on the other side, cut her off and collared her.
    ‘Got you, little sausage,’ he said.
    ‘Daddy, you cheated,’ she said, flushed and indignant. But she was happy to be up in his arms and to look into his smiling blue eyes. She was seven, a girl of giggles and responsive affection, and as much of a delight to Sammy as Paula, almost nine. Two of his other three children, Bess and Jimmy, were still in Devon as evacuees. The third, elder son Daniel, seventeen, had returned home three months ago, and was working at the factory in Belsize Park.
    Phoebe, with her dark curling hair, dark eyes and elfin prettiness, had her own special place in the affections of Sammy and Susie. They cherished her as if she had been their own, and in the same way that Boots and Emily had cherished Rosie as a young girl.
    ‘Did I cheat?’ asked Sammy.
    ‘Yes, you went so’s you could get in front of me,’ said Phoebe, who had a strange belief that Sammy and Susie were her natural parents. That was something Sammy and Susie were going to have to deal with eventually. ‘Daddy, again.’
    ‘I’m supposed to be getting you ready for bed,’ said Sammy, as mentally and physically up to the mark at nearly forty-two as he had been when running a market stall at eighteen.
    ‘Just once more, please,’ said Phoebe, so he set her down and a new chase began, Phoebe shrieking as she scampered around. Up the stairs and into the bedroom came Paula.
    ‘Well, I just don’t know, I’m sure,’ she said, taking off Chinese Lady, her never-failing grandma. Her fair hair, loose, was shining from a brushing, and she wore a dressing-gown over her nightie. ‘I simply don’t know what I’m going to make of you two, and Mummy says that if you bring the house down, Daddy, you’ll be for it. And Daniel said he can hardly hear what the wireless is saying. And Grandma says she didn’t bring you up to make a racket.’
    Sammy and Susie, still living with his mother and stepfather in the Red Post Hill house, had decided to stay until the war was over, when they would rebuild on the site of their bombed home. Chinese Lady and her husband, Edwin Finch, had no objections whatever to an indefinite stay by Susie, Sammy, the two young girls, and their brother Daniel. The large house had six bedrooms.
    ‘Mummy and Grandma said that, did they, Plum Pudding?’ said Sammy.
    ‘Yes, Daddy, they did,’ said Paula.
    ‘Oh, my eye,’ said Sammy.
    ‘Oh, crikey,’ said Phoebe, and darted a glance at Sammy. He tried to look like a guilty man, but failed. A little grin came and went, and Phoebe smothered a