I hadn’t seen Donovan for a while, but, just when I thought he might have dispensed with my services or become too heavily focused on the growing crisis, he reappeared in our offices, something he had never done before, sniffing as he looked around, studying Corrine longer than was polite and speaking to me as if nothing had happened between us.

‘Good to see you, Mikey. Still shuffling paper? You’re going to have to leave it for a while because I need you to help me win the war.’ And, turning to Corrine, he said, ‘You mightn’t know it, but Mikey is Uncle Sam’s secret weapon.’

She smiled out of her unfailing politeness and lowered her head to her work, but I was conscious that others were looking at us and, reluctant as I was to spend more time with him, I didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of people I considered my friends, so I secured my desk and found him outside joshing with the guards and handing out cigarettes.

‘Have you got a jacket?’ he asked, and when I told him it was back at the apartment he drove me over to get it, explaining that we were meeting some important people and needed to look sharp. When we got there he followed me in, taking Madame Binh’s hand, kissing it and, to her obvious pleasure, telling her that his heart had never left. Then, as I unlocked my door, he told me his first billet had been the room at the end of the same corridor. I expected him to wait but he followed me and I saw him taking everything in, even running his finger across the spines of my books and angling his head to read the titles. I didn’t want him to touch them. Wanted them to be at the heart of what separated him from me. When I put on my jacket he brushed a bit of fluff from my shoulder and straightened my collar.

‘Do I need a necktie?’ I asked, trying to sound just the right side of sarcastic.

He shook his head and then, with a final glance round the room, went back out to the car. But he didn’t start the engine and, turning himself sideways, began to explain.

‘You probably know from the reports that flow across your desk about what happened in Danang, but in case you don’t, it went down like a house of cards and there was nothing but chaos – bloody chaos and a lot of things left behind, good people too, left to fend for themselves, and the ARVN trampling anything in their way to be on the boats or planes and save their own necks. People clinging to the wings and landing gear of planes, people drowning in the sea in a stampede to get on a boat. And, Mikey, as God is my witness, that’s what’s going to happen right here in Saigon unless we kick things into faster motion, stop trusting in some Hail Mary pass that Charlie’s going to sign up to a beautifully civilised negotiated settlement. If we can’t make those in charge here understand that, we’ve got to go round them, do whatever needs to be done until someone listens. You understand?’