‘To deny the enemy. Completely pointless, of course. The Greeks have been siphoning off rivers of it but there’ll be plenty left for Jerry.’ The captain stands up. He leans over the rail and looks up at the sky. ‘Bloody Stukas. Regular as a cuckoo clock. Should be another lot over any minute. Do you see that?’ He is pointing to a long shape in the water alongside the harbour wall, a hundred or so yards to the north. ‘Most beautiful bloody ship I’ve ever seen. Huge white steam yacht. The Hellas. Looked more like the Cutty Sark. She came in last night and started taking on a big party of New Zealand wounded. Then the Stukas came and …’ He coughs and sticks his hands deep into the pockets of his shorts. ‘Caught fire and rolled over with about five hundred men on board. The ones that got off: horribly burnt. It’s a bloody graveyard, this harbour.’

‘Captain Price!’ A Rangers colonel with a neat grey moustache and a shirt half unbuttoned to show a vividly sunburnt chest erupts from a doorway behind them. Tom turns and salutes. The colonel ignores him. ‘I have to go and see General Wilson,’ he tells the captain. ‘Have someone fetch the car, please.’

‘The car bought it last night, sir,’ the captain says laconically.

‘Damn. Damn! So it did,’ says the colonel. ‘Well, find something else.’

‘There are a couple of trucks waiting to take the AA batteries away. Everything else is buggered or disabled, sir.’

‘For God’s sake!’ Then the colonel sees Tom. ‘Who the devil are you?’ he snaps.

‘Lieutenant Collyer, sir. East Devon Hussars.’

‘Just driven down from Thermopylae,’ adds the captain.

‘Driven? So you have a functioning car, Lieutenant?’

Tom hesitates, but it is too late. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Stroke of luck. Have to borrow it, old chap.’

‘My unit will be expecting me back, sir,’ Tom points out as diplomatically as he can. But the colonel just shrugs.

‘Overtaken by events. I need your car.’

‘Of course, sir.’ Tom is cursing volubly inside his head, but there is nothing to be done. Five minutes later, Captain Price has started the car – his car – and the colonel has climbed into the back. ‘Shouldn’t be long,’ he says briskly. ‘You’re to wait here, Mr … Mr …’

‘Collyer.’

‘Wait here, Mr Collyer. You’re in charge, in my absence. Got that?’ He waves his hand. ‘Let’s get on, Price.’

‘Wait, sir! In charge? In charge of what?’ But the car has already veered around a pile of felled date palms and is disappearing up one of the narrow streets. Tom can do nothing but watch it go.