Which was precisely what I did. Feisal cleared away some of the bigger boulders, leaving a space just wide enough for the three of us to lie down, huddling together for warmth. I expected John would make some rude comment about bundling but he didn’t speak at all. He was trying to keep his teeth from chattering, I think. We were all shivering; the air was cold and the blankets were too thin to be much use. Without discussing the subject aloud, Feisal and I put John between us. He fell asleep immediately. Not even the hard ground and the stench of donkey and the cold could keep my eyes open, but as I drifted off I was thinking longingly of Suzi’s great big furry white coat.

Against all the odds I slept for over six hours. It was the heat that woke me, the heat and a sensation of vague discomfort. When I pried my sticky eyes open I realized I had shifted position during the night; John’s head was on my shoulder and my left arm, which was around him, had gone numb. He looked like one of the better-preserved mummies, skin stretched tight over cheekbones and forehead, eyelids shrivelled and sunken, lips cracked.

I heard a gurgling sound and looked up through my loosened hair to see Feisal standing over me. His appearance wasn’t much of an improvement over John’s – or, I suspected, my own. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he offered me the bottle of water. I swallowed, or tried to – my throat was as dry as the sandy dust – and shook my head.

John slept for another half hour. When he opened his eyes I croaked out a cheery ‘Good morning.’ Removing himself from my limp embrace, he sat up and lowered his head onto his hands.

‘Did I ever mention,’ he said, ‘that one of your least lovable characteristics is that you are so bloody cheerful early in the morning?’

‘You’re usually pretty bloody cheerful yourself.’

He lifted his head. ‘On the occasions to which you refer I had excellent reasons to be – ’

‘Stop it,’ Feisal ordered. ‘Come and have breakfast, such as it is.’

Water and dry bread, oranges and hard-boiled eggs was what it was. There was no way of heating water even if we had had coffee or tea with us, which we didn’t. Chewing on the hard bread, I studied our surroundings: stony desert underfoot, steep rocky walls around. There wasn’t so much as a blade of grass, much less a tree, dead or alive. The pale limestone of the cliff opposite dazzled in the sunlight.

‘At least it’s not raining,’ I said.

John gave me a look in which amusement and exasperation were mingled. Feisal was not amused.