There are twelve men in the room besides Tom, a full rifle section, and it is crowded. Tea is brewed. Men talk in low voices, cadge cigarettes. To Tom, it is as though he has spent his whole life in these places, with these people, waiting for the sun to come up. At first Tom can see nothing beyond the tree just in front of their position, but gradually, so gradually it seems like a malfunction of his eyes, the sky turns from slate to royal blue and begins to wash out, seeping light down into the square. The world – this is the whole world now, there doesn’t need to be any more of it – begins to take shape. A burnt-out Bren carrier rests in a circle of scorched grass in the middle of a small square. Near the burnt car, a mound of black earth next to a hole, a black slot in the grass, and to the right of the hole, a row of soft shapes. The first thing Tom sees is bare feet, the whiteness of them. Five bodies are lying neatly but the others are jumbled, forced into knots and humps, dismembered. So familiar, the dead. The human body, when emptied of life, when taken apart by high explosives or fire or bullets, becomes predictable, almost mundane. The lack of novelty is part of the horror, Tom has always thought. And now Zoë has been reduced as well, broken down into shapes and ugly, mediocre colours.

Tom grinds out another cigarette on the floor and stands up. ‘I’m going out now,’ he says. He climbs over the barricade and out into the sharp air. A few stars are still shining. Birds are singing. He walks across the paving stones and out into the grass, kicking silver sprays of dew, towards the blackened carrier, which he can smell now: burnt paint and rubber. Towards the pale row of bare feet.