Sotto il mio bottino mi sento vacillar.

Che cosa mai sara die me?

Ma poi sorrido e penso a te-

A te, Lili Marlene, a te, Lili Marlene.

The battalion was on the march again and a file of veterans, careless of their comrades, were singing softly. They were dreaming, as they dreamed every day, of the blue hills of Sicily, of the blue glare of the sky and the blue Ionian sea, of the blinding white sunlight and the white walls of villas, of the black grapes hanging heavy on the vines and the orange trees in golden groves, of the mules and the great oxen and ancient shepherds with their pipes, of lizards sunning themselves on stones, and of the signorinas, the lovely, kindly signorinas.

The sky darkened and the wind began to drive a fine rain in their faces.

There was a break for lunch. The men relaxed by the roadsides, sitting on groundsheets, glistening gas-capes over their shoulders, eating their haversack rations.

Sergeant Ferrissey stood looking into the wood that bordered the road.

‘You look like a bloody poacher,’ Gonigle said to him.

‘I am a bloody poacher,’ said Ferrissey, ‘born and bred.’ He stood for a moment with his head cocked like an alert dog. ‘Who’s for some eggs?’ he asked.

‘What a bloody sergeant,’ said Gonigle.

‘And what a bloody corporal he’s got,’ said Ferrissey. ‘I’ll make a man of you yet, Golly. Comin’ for some eggs?’

A couple of the men joined them and they moved warily through the woods. Soon they could hear what Ferrissey had heard from the roadside, the noise of poultry. They came to a chicken-wire fence, with poultry runs a few yards beyond. To their right a path led to a one-storey house. They were hidden – scarcely hidden – from the house by a scanty fringe of trees.

‘You first, Golly,’ said Ferrissey. ‘Let’s see if you’re a soldier.’

Gonigle lay on his back with his head close to the wire. The others strained and lifted the wire a little. Gonigle pressed himself against the ground and squeezed through underneath the fence. He wriggled across to the poultry runs and disappeared inside. A few seconds later he emerged, still flat on his back, with the breast of his tunic bulging above him. He crawled back to the fence and passed the eggs from his tunic one by one to a private who slipped them into his tunic. Then he squeezed back under the fence.

‘You’ll do,’ said Ferrissey. ‘Who’s next?’

There were footsteps on the path. One of the privates, who was just getting down, straightened hurriedly up.

A woman was standing among the trees watching them. They stood in awkward silence, uncertain as to how long she had been standing there.