Keeping to the wider streets, they drive through a battered industrial area, much damaged by German and Allied bombs, its graffiti-encrusted walls pocked by much more recent gunfire. There are almost no adults about, but they pass groups of children climbing over rubble heaps and throwing spent shell cases at each other. As the jeep passes they stop and stare with vacant eyes sunk deep in dark, hunger-mined sockets. Eventually they cross a railway line. Tom looks at the map and sees that they have crossed into the kingdom of the refugees. They are in Kokkinia. A few streets further on, a man steps out into the street. He is carrying a German rifle, the barrel pointed a yard or so above McCall’s head. McCall brakes, not too hard, and props an elbow casually on the top of the door. More men step out from a ruined house, all holding guns and wearing ELAS armbands.

‘They won’t shoot us,’ McCall whispers out of the corner of his mouth. ‘They’ll just take us hostage.’

‘That’s a comfort,’ Tom mutters back. One of the men, not far out of his teens, has just cocked an Italian machine gun that could turn them into meat and scrap metal in a few seconds.

McCall holds up a friendly hand and, to Tom’s surprise, greets the men in Greek. The oldest man steps forward. McCall reaches under his seat and pulls out a carton of ration cigarettes – American Pall Malls – and hands them around. Safety catches click back on. There are smiles, and a short conversation. Tom can follow it: all those hours in that steamy kitchen on Moscow Road were worth it after all. McCall is asking directions to somewhere, to a church or a square. ‘Really?’ the ELAS man says. ‘I could tell you …’

‘We’re in a hurry,’ McCall says. ‘Is it safe up there?’

‘The fucking British are shelling Drapetsona and Keratsini. But north of Petro Ralli you should be all right. Let me send one of my boys with you.’

‘No, no, comrade. Thank you, but we’ll manage.’

‘Here.’ The man pulls off his armband and tucks it under one of the jeep’s windscreen wipers. ‘If anyone gives you trouble, tell them Captain Mavromichaeli of the 23rd Battalion says to leave you alone.’

They drive off. ‘You can speak Greek?’ Tom says, when the ELAS band is out of sight.

‘Sure,’ says McCall. He drives in silence for a minute or two. Then he takes out a cigarette and lights it one-handed. ‘My wife was Greek.’

‘You’re married, then, Mac?’

‘Was. She died in ’42. Cancer.’

‘Christ. I’m sorry.’