‘Er, yes.’ She grins.

‘Beer?’ Harry asks.

‘Don’t see why not,’ she says, smiling wider.

‘Woodbines. I’m gagging.’

‘What?’ she asks.

‘Woodbines. Smokes. Cigarettes.’

‘You smoke?’ she asks in genuine shock.

‘Of course I smoke. Everybody smokes.’

‘Nobody smokes now . . . or only fucking idiots smoke now. They’re dangerous as anything.’

‘Ah, get off,’ he says, waving a hand at her. ‘That’s not proven.’

‘It bloody is,’ she scoffs. ‘You haven’t asked before, so why now?’

He shrugs and eats. Sometimes you can’t smoke. Sometimes you can’t do the things you want. That’s life and what war means. ‘Beer and smoke at the end of the day is nice.’

‘Okay, I’ll ask, but you’re not smoking them in the bunker. Ben? What about you?’

‘Not bothered.’

‘Okay, well, if you think of anything, just say, yeah?’

‘Okay.’

The afternoon is as hard, if not harder than the morning. From eating they go on to the crash mats, where Harry and Safa seem to have the greatest fun in the world showing each other a whole range of killing moves while Ben takes a seat and zones out, settling into a festering pit of misery. When they finish he is summoned over and ragged about, learning nothing apart from that the crash mats are soft and when he goes down he stays down until one of them tells him to get back up.

Afternoon to evening and eventually, finally, and with everything hurting and his brain still numb, Safa brings it to a close. They eat again. Fruit and eggs. Vitamins, protein and fats.

Back in their section he freezes in the doorway to his room, seeing folded clean grey tracksuits on the bed next to new socks, underwear, wicking tops and trousers.

‘Well done, Safa,’ Harry booms from inside his room.

‘You got them then?’ she shouts from her room. ‘Ben, you found yours?’

He goes to snarl to tell her to fuck off and stop mithering and talking to him like a child, to leave him alone and not to bring new things because he is not staying. But he doesn’t say any of that.

‘Yes, thank you,’ he mutters instead.

‘Ben, you showering first?’ she asks, crossing from her room.

‘Ablutions,’ Harry calls out.

‘Okay,’ Ben says dumbly.

‘Need anything else?’ she asks, hovering there watching him.

He shakes his head. ‘No, thank you.’

‘Books or something? I remember Wikipedia said you loved to read—’

‘Safa,’ he snaps this time, glaring at her with a deep, bubbling anger threatening to blow, but all he gets back is a strange look that morphs into a wry smile twitching at her lips and the tiniest look of hope in her eyes.

‘I’ll get you through this, Ben Ryder.’ She locks her gaze on his. ‘Soak your muscles in the shower. Tomorrow will be harder.’