He put his kitbag on the bed, pulled out his service dress and hung it in the cupboard, sorting the rest of his clothes and placing them on the shelves. At least here they’d have their laundry done, have cooks and a proper mess, running water and lavatories. Luxury after the sessions on the roads and bivouacs and billets along the way from Normandy to Berlin and all stops in between. He’d been run off his feet in Kiel. They all had. Navy. Air Force. Rockets, torpedoes. Blimey. The Germans might not have the A-bomb, but they could deliver, at speed, long-distance, on target.

He should write to his parents. They’d be worried sick about him, and he couldn’t put it off any longer. He pulled out a notepad and pen from his bag and sat at the table.

So sorry I haven’t written for a while. I’ve been a bit busy. What he did was top secret, so he couldn’t say anything about that.

‘Nothing goes beyond these four walls, is that understood, Lieutenant? Your job is to translate, and to forget.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Gravity, friction, velocity. Equations churned and concepts swirled like rapids in a flood. Exhaust, propellant, combustion. No wonder his head reeled at night. And I’m rather tired. He paused, not sure what else he could write. Germany is finished. Difficult to see how it can recover from this. He hoped that would pass the censor. Everywhere you go are defeated people, and displaced people and refugees. His parents wouldn’t have any sympathy for the Germans. If truth be told, nor did he or any of his men, not after Belsen. Or Celle. Finding all that evidence, those terrible experiments, and now they were in Spandau, where it had begun. G-agents. Tabun, sarin. Odourless. Tasteless. Deadly. He couldn’t write that, either. We’re glad the war is finally over, though there’s still a risk of hotheads who won’t give up, taking potshots – so-called Werewolves carrying on behind our lines. I lost one of my corporals that way, but the rest of us escaped. No need to worry, though. That’s all in the past. He paused, chewed the end of his pen. Better not say that at all. His mother would go frantic. He screwed up the paper and began again.