In the water the men splashed about, swam in circles, said whatever the water suggested to them. The day was warm but the river was cold. One by one they came out and settled themselves in the grass. Medina dried himself with his shirt then spread his shirt over the points of grass. He did not know where Calley was and didn’t care. He made a pillow of his coat, slept. When he woke it was cooler and he dressed and joined the others by the fire. The women had made a soup, a broth. They gave him some in a mug. It tasted of herbs, of things picked from the hedgerows and wayside. Later, the brandy bottle came round. Some of the men smoked. There were songs, recitations. The day drained slowly into the river. Phyrro was lying with his head in a woman’s lap. His eyes were shut but he was speaking, his life spilling through him as a chain of words. People told Medina their names but they were like stage names—Diodorus, Zeno. None of them, he thought, was real. He gave his own name as Sancho.

Lounging at the edge of the circle, a fullness of ease he had not enjoyed since rooftop tertulias at home before the war, he looked across to the river in time to see the flash of a kingfisher, and following the line of its flight, the green ghost of it, he saw Calley standing in the shallows with his trousers rolled. It was hard to say exactly what he was doing other than staring at the water’s surface, its skim of golden insects. Then he stepped away from the bank, was still again, and after a pause took another step so that the water was well above his knees. Medina sat up, wondering if he would launch himself out into the river, begin to swim, to float, to sink. But if there was a moment when he considered it, it passed, and he turned and came back clumsily to the bank, clambered out.

Medina refilled his mug with the broth from the kettle. He took it down to Calley, who accepted it.

“All wankers,” said Calley mildly. “Every one of them.”

“Yes,” said Medina, who did not know the word and thought perhaps Calley had said “walkers.” Then he saw the bird again, darting from the far bank, as green as a scarab. He pointed but found himself pointing to nothing.

Calley nodded. “I could drop the big cunt with one punch,” he said.

“Yes,” said Medina.

“Fuck it. Even you could.”

Medina thanked him.

“I mean it,” said Calley. “I think you could.”

They grinned at each other. Calley sipped the soup. “Why can’t they make tea,” he said, “like normal cunts?”