Both sides shot and bombed, blazed and raged. Equally distraught. Equally vicious. Reserves were moved forward. Allied men and boys, soldiers all, marched past fields where wild flowers grew and sheep grazed. The flowers trembled and the sheep raised their heads in humble amazement when shells dropped with a harsh, shrill growl and threw up the earth about them. The soldiers were equally startled at first but became accustomed horrifyingly swiftly. This time the Belgians and French were luckiest, if luck came into it, which Howard doubted it did any more. As far as he could make out, every one of them was luckless to have been born at this time, and damned no matter which side they were on. Even if they lived through this show, it seemed to him they’d be caught at the next. However, the men who had long since called the land their own had an edge; they were the most desperate, reckless and fraught. They did not have as much to gain but they had so much more to lose. Their houses could be burnt, their women raped, their babies murdered or, if left to live, forced to speak a foreign tongue and to be a subjugated race. It was motivation enough. The Germans were eventually pushed back and were forced to abandon the idea of crossing the Yser.

Howard read Clarke’s article about the German retreat and could not fail to notice that it betrayed a profound sense of relief. He described the Germans as having been smashed like a fallen wine glass.

‘Do you think those Daily Mail readers you have worked so hard to protect from the reality of the threat of disaster, and who might not have realised we were so close to an end here, might now be surprised by the utter relief and joy of your report?’

The Germans in northern Belgium are on the run and Dunkirk feels safe at last, Calais too and all the little towns and hamlets round about. You need to have lived in the midst of alarms such as the Dunkirk region has known this past month to realise the relief that is felt, the intolerable load that is lifted.

‘Do you think it’s too much?’ asked Clarke.

‘God, no. Leave it be. They need it.’

The two men were in the bar again. It seemed the entire town was. Tonight the landlord had dug out bottles of champagne and was selling them to the soldiers at a fair price rather than an inflated one. The men were ruddy with delight at their success. They had lived! Lived to see another day. They would drink too much and kiss the pretty French women – more than kiss if they were allowed. Why wouldn’t they want to get drunk and get laid? Feel life in their veins? They were gods for the night. Immortals.

The bar rang with the sound of laughter, bottle knocking against glasses, singing and seducing. Howard wondered if tonight he’d find a woman for himself. It had been a long time. There had been no one since he arrived in France. He was picking up the language and spoke enough to persuade a girl to be good to him; his looks alone could do that, even if he never uttered a word. They called him ‘the brooder’ and ‘the artist’, and looked at him with curiosity and longing, but somehow he had never felt inclined to pursue the opportunities that presented themselves. Perhaps because he saw the cruelty of the soldiers being immortal for a day. Somehow he thought he was last in the queue.