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The train journey to Singapore passed in a blur. The carriages were packed, people sitting or standing in the corridors, and Evie sent up a silent prayer of thanks that Arthur had been able to secure seats for them. As well as Mary Helston and her mother, Susan Hyde-Underwood and Stanford, four other women and two schoolboys shared the cramped space.
Evie forbade herself from feeling any discontent, knowing that she and all the other passengers had walked out on the servants, shopkeepers, policemen, gardeners, estate workers, teachers and students that made up the non-European population. These people loathed and feared the Japanese as much as the whites did. Aunty Mimi had witnessed her husband being gunned down in the street. The old lady had loved and cared for Jasmine and her baby
