“So you broke down their doors and hanged the men from a tree. As for the women—”

“Fuck off.”

“We were both at the inquiry,” said Medina. “Or have you forgotten that is the reason we are here?”

Calley said nothing. Neither man was particularly excited or angry. There was nothing important to be settled between them.

“In the morning,” said Medina, “we will find a boat.”

“You know where to look, do you?”

“It is an island. There will be a boat. It is the law of islands.”

“Bollocks,” said Calley.

“Even so,” said Medina. “I believe we will find one. We will be lucky.”

They cleared spaces for themselves either side of the fire, lay under their coats with their heads on their packs watching sparks lift into the night’s velvet.

“What are you called?” asked Medina. “Your Christian name? You cannot be just Calley.”

He waited. There was no answer. He had not been heard; it didn’t matter. Then, tossed over the fire as earlier they had tossed away their shells: “Andrew.”

Medina pushed himself on to an elbow. “Andrews?”

“Andrew,” said Calley. “There’s no fucking s. If it was Andrews there’d be two of me.”

Medina tried the name again.

“They called us after the parishes where we were found,” said Calley. “George for St. George’s. Giles for St. Giles. Girls called Agatha, Mary. We even had a Barnabas, a little red-haired cunt they ’prenticed to the sweeps. No way he’s still living.”

“I am Ernesto,” said Medina.

“You what?”

“Ernesto. Also, of course, a saint.”

Somewhere in the last of the night Medina rose and stood by the embers of the fire. He had got up quietly but knew Calley would be aware of him.

“Nothing,” he said. “It is nothing.”

He went out, bowing under the stone lintel, and though he had slept in a roofless house under the dragged light of the moon, he felt at once a new sense of space, the vast suggestiveness of the coming day. He walked down to where he had collected water for their supper, found the water with his fingers, cupped his hands, drew the water to his mouth and drank (it tasted of liquid stone). He was trying to reassemble his dreams but they slipped away like the water between his fingers. Friendship had been part of it. Had he not glimpsed the faces of his friends? But he had not been able to address them, to touch them, either because they were ghosts and he still living or they still living and himself a ghost. And now, he thought, my only friend is Corporal Calley, a lunatic from where they grow thieves like saffron. He grinned, then finding a grin was not enough he leaned back his head and laughed, silently.