‘Poor bloody Greeks,’ says the major, ordering himself another poached egg on toast, with anchovies.

The Narkunda sails between low, brown islands. Further off, a golden-brown land spreads mountainous arms wide to receive them. White villages tumble like sugar cubes towards the bluest water Tom has ever seen. In the distance, a bay full of ships, and further off, a hill crowned with a broken cage of white stone. The major lets Tom, who is standing on a chair, peer at Athens through his field glasses. ‘Piraeus over here, Athens over there,’ the major explains. ‘You’ll be learning about it in school soon, old chap. Aristotle and all that.’ The broken cage is something called the Parthenon. Very, very old, and terribly important. The field glasses are heavy and Tom lets them droop down towards the harbour, Piraeus, which has come much closer. Inside the figure-of-eight of his vision, a screen of masts and funnels, and behind that, a quayside swarming with people. Surely those can’t be tents? A big flag, a red cross on white ground. Smoke is rising from cooking fires. It looks a bit like India to Tom, but India had never seemed broken. Chaotic, yes, sometimes scary. But India was always getting on with itself. This harbour, these people … Something is wrong here.

A motor launch comes alongside, a tall man in a white suit climbs down into it and is taken away to Piraeus. As Tom is staring after it, another ship chugs across the Narkunda’s bows. Wide and low in the water, it is trailing black smoke from its funnel, which drifts into Tom’s face, almost choking him with its carbolic reek. As he rubs his eyes, he looks down and sees that the decks of the ship are crammed with people. They are packed together, grown-ups and children, most standing, some sitting among a chaos of suitcases, bags and bundles, some just lying on the deck, crowded by the feet of the others. They are all dirty, all exhausted. Mostly women and children. Some of the women are wearing bright, modern clothes, but all stained and filthy; others are swathed in black like the nuns from the monastery in Kanjirappally, their faces all but hidden by scarves. Tom looks down in amazement. Faces turn up to him, blank, or pleading. Angry, perhaps, some of them. A woman is suckling her baby. When she looks up at the great bow of the Narkunda, her face is streaked with soot and tears.