For all her front, I heard tears swelling inside her words. I looked over: she was blinking them back.

She was right. Mea culpa, Jessie. Mea culpa.

I realized then that she hadn’t forgiven me for leaving her.

Where was this Hannibal? Why couldn’t these ghosts make themselves useful for once?

80,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry

and forty fucking war elephants, armoured.

All decked out with banners and bells,

turrets holding archers and slingers,

trampling enemy tribes underfoot

who fled my trumpeting mammoths,

followed by my swordsmen, who ran in after

for the blood-squirting slaughter.

But it was no joke, mate, no joke

to face battalions of ice up ahead,

to stand on the tottering edge of a ledge

in snow storms and avalanches,

watch thousands of my men fall below,

with no bushes or rocks to hold on to,

just smooth ice and dissolving snow.

To see terrible despair in the face

of every hardened soldier remaining

– except yours truly.

Ice was replacing the marrow in my bones. How could I face death? I was just beginning to live. It wasn’t fair.

We weren’t quite starting, nor quite taking off. Jessie was inching us forward. Any minute we could be freewheeling. Over and out.

I had no goodbyes to say. My friends would miss me, but, well, yeah, they’d get over it. My parents had said their farewells. Jessie and I would go together.

Soldiers were up ahead. They had reached an impasse. The road was blocked by rocks, upon which logs were burning. To keep them warm? Standing apart from the soldiers was a dusky, bearded man, with tightly curled hair that sprang out like unruly corkscrews; he was built like a boulder himself, his features deeply ingrained. Minions ran back and forth relaying his orders. This was a man not to be messed with. This was, of course, this Hannibal.

When he looked at me, history ceased to exist. We were in the same place. We were in the same time. And I was calling for help.

Once the fire raged strong enough,

we poured vinegar over the rocks,

which helped them crumble

so my men could set to hacking them

with iron tools, and opened the road

for our three days of descent

to a lower plain and woodland,

to valleys, grazing ground and rivers,

where we made fires, set up camp

in a place more fitting for human habitation.

We never took Rome, but we harassed

those arrogant shitheads for 15 years.

Listen, if we could cross these mountains

with a tropical army and trumpeting elephants,

surely you can do it with one dodgy motor

(and one dodgy missus), mate.

‘We’re going to be okay,’ I reassured Jessie, who tutted and didn’t respond.