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,’ he had gone on, ‘ that I should not be a responsibility to you yet I had not the courage to do what I should, to have left you in Morskoy Slavy, left the moment . . . but I did not, I allowed myself to be frightened by the noise of shouting, frightened as only a coward would be .’
    ‘ No, Alec .’ She had caught at his hands. ‘ You were no coward; like everyone else in that square you were taken by surprise .’
    ‘ I ran away, Ann .’
    ‘ No .’ Her sharp reply had rung on the morning air blessedly quiet beyond the sounds of factory and workshop. ‘ You did not run away and I ask you not to do so now. It would be a worry to me, Alec, wondering were you well, were you safe; please, I know this is hard for you, that you want to return home to your family, but until this dreadful war is ended that has to wait .’
    There had been no more discussion. Rinsing the butter pats Leah often referred to as ‘wooden hands’ Ann’s thoughts remained with Alec. They had walked on in silence but she had seemed to feel the turmoil in his mind, asking why the relatives he had spoken of, those who were to meet him in England, had not been there at the dockside? Why in all his months in this country there had been no word?
    Her fingers were now slippery with water and one of the several metal ladles she reached for dropped against the stone of the sink. Ann gasped, a sudden fear ripping through her at the hard dull sound.
    Vivid in its clarity, graphic in every detail, a picture flooded into her mind, a scene taking place in that Great Maritime Square.
    There had been a rumble, a sound like distant thunder. She had glanced at the sky; it was clear, a blue promise of a day free of snow.
    Ann saw herself turn to glance along the length of that vast square, undecided as to whether she had tried hard enough. Should she return to the house? Search again for that ‘most precious possession’?
    Once gone from Russia there would be no further chance to preserve the honour her father had spoken of, no chance to keep her own promise given at the moment of his death. She had glanced towards the huge arched entrance to the seaport; the ship – if she missed her ship!
    It was not only overhead, that rumble of thunder. Alive in her mind it sounded as it had on that day, coming nearer, a constant repetitive drumming . . . and the people. Caught up in the confusion of finding her way and then in her indecision about whether to return to search those rooms again, she had taken little note of people scattered around. Then loud above the throb of still-distant sound had come shouts, men calling to others emerging from doorways or running from side streets; tall, short, young and old they had come together in groups, their faces set in expressions of anger, some waving fists as they shouted. But she heard too the cries of women, frightened cries as they were pushed from the way of the assembling men, screams of fear from children knocked accidentally to the ground, echoed by mothers hauling them to their feet only to push desperately through what had become a solid line fronting the port entrance.
    What was happening? Where had all these men come from? Why were they shouting?
    She had tried to ask but they had not understood her questions nor she their responses; yet their gestures, the rough hands pushing her away could not be mistaken: she should leave the square.
    But they would not let her pass. With arms locked together, the chain of figures refused to give way. She had decided to wait in the shelter of some doorway; whatever this protest was about it would soon be over, the men would disperse and she could enter the port, enquire after the next ship leaving for England.
    She had taken one step, one step only before being caught by the arm.
    A stillness had settled over the crowd. Their cries had died away but not that other noise, that pounding pulsating beat, bouncing from wall and stone paving, echoing and re-echoing until like a