Calley made a noise, something connected to laughter but not laughter. Medina was familiar with the sound, knew it was intended to express astonishment that such a frivolous question should be asked, the kind of question that marked you out as a fool. He also knew that Calley liked to hear such questions, that he found a pleasure in them he would never admit to.

“There were other boys,” he said, “in the yard. I can’t remember our games. It was the time before we were fit for work. When our hands were not yet strong enough for the picking.”

“The yard?”

“The spike. The grubber. The workhouse on Saffron Hill.”

“Azafrán!” said Medina, into whose mind had come an image of the child Calley at play in fields of crocuses. “They grew saffron there?”

“They grew thieves there,” said Calley. “Did they grow saffron! Where do you think it is? Eh? Saffron Hill? It’s the middle of fucking London.”

“But once,” said Medina. “A long time ago.”

“There was a Vine Street too,” said Calley. “And a Field Lane. But there weren’t any vines or fields.”

Medina nodded. There was a long pause. Calley prodded the fire with his boot. Medina was playing a mussel shell like an almost silent castanet. Each man’s face was a thing of fire and shadow.

“What about you?” said Calley. “You must have been a soft boy.”

“Soft?”

“Had friends.”

“Yes, I had friends. And some of those I played with as a boy are my friends still. Some are in the army with me. If I am still in the army.”

“The famous Spanish cavalry,” said Calley.

“Yes. The famous Spanish cavalry.”

“With no horses.”

“With no horses.”

“I once saw a whole field of horses,” said Calley, “left behind by the French. They’d all had the strings cut in their back legs. So they couldn’t be used by us.”

“The war,” said Medina, “is very hard for horses.”

“I’m not saying they did wrong, mind. We did the same on the way to Corunna. What couldn’t be moved had to be tossed. Rules of war. Horses, cannon, wagons. All sorts. I saw a pair of commissary clerks throwing bags of money down a ravine. Spanish dollars. Swinging big bags of it down the ravine. I mean they were drunk as fuck but they were doing what had to be done. And I’ll tell you what, if they’d tried giving it away no one would have touched it. No one wanted money.”

“The retreat,” said Medina.

“Your lot were useless,” said Calley. “Worse than useless.”

“We had difficulties of our own,” said Medina. “The Army of the Left, the Army of the Centre . . . ” He shrugged.

“Your irregulars were more trouble to us than the French. Savages.”

“I fear we might say the same of the British army.”

“People closed their doors on us,” said Calley.