I, of course, took the opportunity to interpose with pigheaded Wallace pride, ‘I am not English, you ignorant Jerry bastard, I am a SCOT.

I am scared of the way they are clinging to the French and Belgian ports, even though they’ve been pushed out of most of the rest of France. There is something about it that spooks me. They’ve lost.

How can you grow to love a handful of strangers so fiercely just because you have to sleep on the same couple of wooden planks with them, when half the time you were there you wanted to strangle them, and all you ever talked about is death and imaginary strawberries?

I realized I would be forced to run away from home if someone tried to arrange a marriage for me. I didn’t want to think about it.

Where I fail in accuracy, I hope I make up for it in plausibility.

I am in the Special Operations Executive because I can speak French and German and am good at making up stories, and I am a prisoner in the Ormaie Gestapo HQ because I have no sense of direction whatsoever.

If you show this devious little liar one atom’s worth of compassion I will have you shot.

It is so hard trying to say what you mean.

It’s impossible to stall a Lizzie.

She whispered, ‘C’etait la Verite?’ Was that Verity? Or perhaps she just meant, Was that the truth? Was it true? Did any of it really happen? Were the last three hours real? ‘Yes,’ I whispered back. ‘Oui. C’etait la verite.