Reaching the bottom of the gorge he held up his weapon to show he wasn’t a threat. He greeted the nearest of the soldiers, a tall thin trooper in British army combat trousers and a dirty, torn Afghan kameez, with his name, rank and former unit, because how could you begin to describe the unofficial status of their loose-knit bunch of maverick warriors? The mention of 22 SAS was always an effective calling card. But this time it barely seemed to have much effect, as though the soldiers were too stunned or confused to understand him.

‘What the hell are you people doing here?’ Ben asked.

‘Apart from getting shot at,’ Wolf said, joining them. ‘Thought you boys might like a little help. But hey, don’t all thank us at once.’

The tall thin trooper wavered on his feet and seemed to be trying to say something. Ben could see he wasn’t going to get much out of this guy. ‘Who’s the officer in charge here?’ he asked.

One of the others pointed weakly at the dark shapes of the bodies on the ground, and croaked in reply, ‘Lieutenant Draper. He’s dead.’

‘We can see that,’ Wolf said.

‘And who are you, soldier?’ Ben asked the one who’d pointed. But before he could get a reply, the tall thin one swayed right over on his feet, his knees gave way under him and he collapsed. Ben caught him before he could beat his brains out on a rock, and lowered him gently to the ground. Turning to the other two, he could see they weren’t far off fainting either.

‘Ben, these guys are sick,’ Wolf said, stepping back from them with a look of suspicion. ‘Some kind of fever or something. Could be infectious.’

But Ben sensed it wasn’t that either. His feeling was confirmed a moment later when the soldier who’d pointed out Lieutenant Draper croaked, ‘We’re not sick. We haven’t eaten in over a week.’

Holt and the others had joined them by now. Scraggs was calling back to the camp to say all was well and they’d radio back soon. ‘These poor sons of bitches are starving to death,’ Baldacci said.

‘Well, they’ve got two less mouths to feed now, I guess,’ Holt replied.

The soldier’s name was Colvin, Corporal Liam Colvin. In the gasping, breathless voice of someone very close to the brink of total physical collapse, he explained that their five-man detachment had been sent out from the main unit – or what was left of their main unit – to hunt for something to eat when the Taliban fighters had appeared out of nowhere and opened fire on them.

Ben said to Colvin, ‘We heard you talking over the radio. You were lucky we were in the area. Where are the rest of your men?’