I’m not, she thinks, I’m not, and tries to push the Englishman out of her mind. But he stays, a calm, sunburnt ghost, as she hunches under the sheets, knuckles pressed hard into her temples, concentrating on the ragged throb of her pulse. You’re safe. My word as a painter. And suddenly, it ends, the engines fading, the sirens working longest until their voices drop down through quarter tones to deep bass, to nothing. Footsteps in the street. Cars. The sirens start again. It’s real, she tells herself, and, strangely, perhaps it is the reality of it that finally soothes her panic. She falls asleep as the engines of yet another flight of bombers fade away in the direction of Salamis.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The ambulance runs out of petrol in the middle of Athens, just south of the Arch of Hadrian. Tom has been watching the fuel gauge since leaving Kifisia but it still claims that the tank is a quarter full. The gauge is a dud, like everything else. He gets out and bangs it with his fist. It chimes hollowly. His watch, working again, tells him that it is half past five. The sky is a luminous Prussian blue, with the outlines of buildings and trees beginning to etch themselves onto its fringes. Ahead of him, the road branches: the wide, palm-lined avenue of Syngrou, and narrower streets heading east and south-east. South-east is where he is heading. The Germans have already cut the road between Maroussi and Marathon. It was already too late for that escape route by the time the ambulances reached 26 British General Hospital. As he helped unload the wounded, the officer in charge was preparing his staff for immediate surrender. So he took an ambulance with the blessing of a distracted RAMC captain.

He gets out and looks at his map. Porto Rafti looks to be about twenty-eight miles away. It is perfectly obvious to him that he hasn’t a hope in hell of getting to the beach in time, or at all. He might as well stay here and wait for the Germans; there really isn’t any good reason not to surrender. To wait out the war in some safe, dull camp with all his limbs still attached. He knows that he won’t, though. Why not? he asks himself. But then he imagines his father’s face as he opens the official letter, the look of disgust as he reads the word ‘captured’. And then he remembers Daddy’s hands shaking as he told him a story. Work your guns, Collyer. Work your bloody guns.

‘Bit too easy,’ he says aloud.