The bombardment of the island had started now and Marianna could feel the panic rising in her throat. It was the same feeling that occasionally came over her in an operating theatre when things started to go wrong, only in this case, it was worse.

"One step at a time, Nurse Porter," she remembered the elderly doctor saying to her when she was present at her first operation, "start with your breathing then take it one step at a time and you'll make it through."

So she ignored the chaos around her and concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other to scramble down the rocky cliff and reach the village below where her objective lay. Once the reached the bottom of the cliff she was surprised and heartened to see that though there were no Allied troops nearby, the Greek villagers had no intention of giving up their island without a fight. Many of the men had emerged from their houses carrying whatever weapons they could find and were engaged in combat with the Germans. She even saw two elderly women dressed in black spoiling for a fight.

But she couldn't stay to see who would win. Her shoes clattered on the narrow cobbled lanes as she wound her way along the maze of ancient streets. She had to get to the hospital. The hospital was safety, protection. Surely the Germans wouldn't dare attack it, given that it had a large red cross painted on its roof? And what was more, she had a duty to protect the patients inside the hospital, even if was her day off.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the imposing stone doors of the hospital. She was safe. But she was still afraid. Afraid of what the Germans might do to the soldiers and afraid of what the consequences of the islanders resistance might be.

Jo looked up from her writing to see Lucas in the doorway, shopping bags in hand, thoroughly drenched from the pouring rain outside.

She sprang up, "let me help you with those," she responded, still thinking to herself how strange it was seeing Lucas doing such mundance tasks as bringing the shopping home. He always gave off a James Bondish air of sophistication which seemed rather at odds with the Tesco bags he was now carrying.

"What were you thinking about?" Lucas demanded suddenly, observing the smile on her face.

"Nothing," Jo replied hurriedly, and decided it would be diplomatic to change the subject.

"How's Alex coming along?" she enquired politely.

Lucas shrugged, "so so."

"Oh," Jo replied, sounding disappointed. "Isn't he working out? I thought he was good and I did spend quite a bit of time training him before I left."

Lucas made a non committal sound. He honestly couldn't find anything actually wrong with Alex to complain about. His chief complaint was that he wasn't Jo. That and his little public display of affection when Jo had left still managed to irritate him when he saw Alex.

"He speaks fluent Russian you know and Urdu. And he has lots of contacts in the Foreign Office," Jo added, hoping that Lucas might be brought around to seeing the merit of her recruitment choices.

"Don't we all,' Lucas replied, sounding unimpressed.

"You don't like him do you Lucas?" Jo asked, watching him curiously.

Lucas shrugged. There were a million things that annoyed him about Alex but none of them seemed bad enough for him to single out. "He's ok. Not my type though."

"Nobody's proposing that you marry him Lucas," Jo replied, rolling her eyes. "If you made an effort you two might find it easier to work together. I'd have thought that given you both have a common interest in Russia and he's very knowledgeable on a lot of subjects you would get along pretty well. Perhaps we should invite him over for dinner and then you could get to know each other better."

"No," said Lucas, surprising himself with the force of the reply.

"Oh," said Jo, concerned that she had annoyed him, "well of course if you don't want to we won't, it's your house after all."

"That's settled them," Lucas replied decisively. "But now I think about it there was one other matter I had to mention to you."

"Mmm?" Jo replied absently, as she searched through the shopping bags to see what was inside.

"That was that we're having a visitor stay tonight. Alice's aunt."

"Her aunt?" Jo repeated, turning around to face him, the surprise evident in her voice. "I didn't know – do you have another sister Lucas? I thought you said there were only two of you?"

"There are. But I tried to track down Alice's father and got nowhere but did manage to contact her sister in Newcastle and she was coming down to London this week anyway so I suggested she come and stay tonight and see Alice."

"Oh," Jo replied, looking thoughtful as she removed a packet of chocolate biscuits from the plastic shopping bag so that she could perform a 'quality control' taste test on them, "yes it does sound like a good idea for Alice to get to know her aunt. When is she arriving?"

"Soon I should think," Lucas responded, "she had some work event to attend in the city but said she'd be round after that."

Jo looked at him and wondered if the concept of preparation for this unexpected houseguest had ever entered his head. It seemed unlikely. She put down her biscuit reluctantly and announced that they had better start cooking dinner if that was the case.

.....

As it turned out it was fortunate that they did for Louise Granger turned up promptly on their doorstep half an hour later. Louise was a rather plump specimen of a woman in her early 40s with peroxide blonde hair who took one look at Lucas then smiled like a cat that got the cream and greeted him with a rather alarming degree of familiarity but kissing him on the cheek not once but twice, and then holding him to her in a somewhat uncomfortable embrace.

Jo watched with some amusement as Lucas managed to extract himself tactfully from her grip, and then held her hand out towards Louise when Lucas introduced them. To her surprise she found that once she had noticed that she existed Louise's greeting was noticeable cooler towards her, in fact it was almost verging on frosty as she surveyed the young blonde disapprovingly. "Your wife?" she questioned, frowning as she turning to Lucas.

Jo interrupted, "no – just a friend," she replied, shaking her head.

"I see," Louise replied, ignoring Jo and turning her attentions to Lucas. "Now, Lucas do take me to see my little niece. I'm dying to get to know her better, and of course her dashing uncle too."