While they waited for their tin mugs to be filled with the delicious brew, the twelve weary men chatted quietly among themselves. ‘You know what I bleedin’ hate the most about this job?’ muttered Baz Packham, about whom it was often said that the day he stopped griping about just about everything would be the day they found him dead behind his light machine gun, half-buried in a big pile of spent cartridge cases.

‘No, what’s that?’ Ben asked with a smile as he poured coffee and handed out the steaming tin mugs to each man in turn.

‘The miserable bloody places they send us,’ Packham said, sweeping an arm across the landscape as though to prove his point. ‘I mean, look at it. Rough as a badger’s arse.’

‘Yeah, in hessian knickers,’ said another of the guys, Boney Gallagher, not to be outdone. Liam McVicar joined in the fun with ‘You talking about my Missus again?’ and everyone laughed, all except for Jaden Wolf, who was lounged against a rock as though it were a satin pillow, with his rifle and grenade launcher between his knees. It was normal for Wolf to stay out of it while the rest of the lads bantered and joked around. He was a quiet sort of man who generally kept his thoughts to himself. But now he seemed to have something to say, frowning at Packham as if he’d lost his mind. ‘Something’s wrong with you, Baz. Open your eyes, for Christ’s sake.’

‘My eyes are open. That’s why I keep seeing your ugly mug.’

Wolf shook his head. ‘Breathe the air, man. Listen to the sound of the silence. These mountains are just about the nearest thing a plonker like you is ever going to get to heaven, that’s for sure.’

‘Why don’t you write me a fuckin’ poem about it, Jaws?’ Packham grunted. There was more laughter, but Ben thought he should intervene before the amicable dispute turned more serious. Packham considered himself a hardened dealer of death, and Wolf had never backed down from a fight in his life. Ben defused the tension by saying, ‘You always did have a hankering for the wild places, Jaden. I can resonate with that. I feel the same way.’

Wolf nodded. ‘Yeah, one day I’m going to make enough money that I can bugger off forever and nobody’ll see my heels for the dust. Going to get out. All the way out, and never come back.’

Ben asked, ‘You have a particular place in mind?’