In one of the abandoned anti-aircraft positions strung out along the harbour he finds a paraffin stove and a kettle, with mugs set neatly out on the ground around it. Ration boxes are scattered everywhere. Tom finds some tea and sugar, even a box of Huntley & Palmers digestive biscuits. The kettle is half full and he brews up. As he is pouring out the water, he hears an engine. Perhaps the colonel has relented – but no, there is a line of three ambulances coming around the long crescent of the harbour from the east. They stop in front of the Arethusa. Tom walks over. Wounded men, helped by medical orderlies and the ambulance drivers, are moving slowly down the gangplank. A medic is dragging a stretcher on which an Australian corporal lies, both legs encased in plaster. ‘Steady, mate,’ he is muttering. ‘Steady, mate.’ Tom picks up the other end of the stretcher. With the medic, he gets the stretcher case ashore and into an ambulance. They go back to the ship and carry off another stretcher, and another. A German fighter circles high overhead in the twilight and an anti-aircraft gun somewhere opens up at it until it turns leisurely away to the north. Tom finds he keeps glancing at the row of bodies from the Hellas.

‘Someone should bury them,’ he says to the medic, who just shrugs.

‘But who?’ The medic is making sure the stretchers are secure in the last ambulance. ‘Everyone’s left.’

‘Where are you going now?’ asks Tom.

‘To the hospital in Kifisia.’ The medic has a quiet, cultured voice. He went to a better school than me, Tom thinks. ‘But we’ll wait until it gets completely dark. We had some nasty moments on our way down here. The Luftwaffe have it all to themselves now.’

‘North? But the Germans …’

‘It was decided that the really bad cases should be left, sir. The Germans take good care of wounded prisoners.’

‘What about you?’

‘They’re in my care. I’m going to make sure they get to hospital.’ He raises his arms, clicks his fingers. ‘You know, I haven’t thought about what happens after that.’ The medic shrugs again. ‘And what about you, sir?’

‘I’m HQ Evacuation. This is all mine,’ Tom says, and starts laughing. The medic grins, and for a moment they are both laughing so hard that they have to lean against the ambulance for support.

‘Is there anything more absurd than the British Army?’ says the medic, catching his breath. ‘None of the jokes really do it justice.’

‘Would the men like a cup of tea? There’s a kettle and some mugs over there.’

‘I think they’d love that, sir.’