The Summer of the Barshinskeys [antikvár]

Author's Note Of course this book is fiction, most of it. But when I began to research the background I realised - so incredible were the stories I heard — that it could well have happened. Indeed, some of the personal experiences that were related to me were far stranger than my tale. And so I decided to keep some of the real events that happened, and include them in my story. Captain Patterson and Chief Engineer Bathgate were real people, SS Moscow II was a real ship, and all the events pertaining to them are true (allowing for a little poetic licence here and there). For those readers who are interested, Captain Patterson and Chief Engineer Bathgate did reach home safely. My little group of Quakers travelling to Buzuluk in 1916 are fictitious, but groups of Quakers were arriving there during the summer and autumn of that year. Flora D'Ete, Elizabeth Stubbs, Mr Foulgar and Mr Goode are my people, but Robert Tatlock, Dr Manning and Nurse Morgan were real. If I have misrepresented any of the real people in this book, I can only apologise. The entire episode of the Friends' Unit in Buzuluk was a remarkable one, in terms of both courage and endurance. The full story is told with scrupulous accuracy in Richenda Scott's Quakers in Russia.