At the end was the Brandenburg Gate. The Baedeker guide in the school library was dated 1923. It showed imposing classical buildings embracing Pariser Platz, the French and American embassies forming one arm, the Academy of Arts and the Adlon hotel in the other. Through the archway, the finest avenue in Berlin. Unter den Linden. John knew the guidebook patter off by heart, knew the place as sure as if he had been a native of the city.

‘They built big in Berlin, sir,’ Arthur said. ‘Fuck-off massive, if you’ll excuse the French.’

Their jeep drew close and John peered through the arches. The corpse of a lorry sat where it had died in Pariser Platz, cushioned in the rubble. The buildings either side were headless, gaping holes where their features should have been. Wire and bricks had been pushed to the side and more women were shovelling and clearing. The British victory parade was in three weeks. He swallowed hard. Difficult not to think that the Germans had brought all this on themselves.

They turned to the right, drove on past stumps of trees, what had once been a great forest, John recalled, pictures from the school Baedeker clear in his mind. Now the landscape was flat and bleak, broken by vegetable plots, and beyond that the ghostly silhouette of the Reichstag, the ribs of its glass dome buckled against the sky.

‘Breaks my heart, that does,’ Arthur said, turning away from the Reichstag and pointing to a battered sign pocked by artillery fire. Zoologische Garten. ‘I take it that means zoo.’

John furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Don’t get me wrong, sir.’ Arthur spoke quickly. ‘It’s not on a par with Belsen and all that. I’m not even comparing it. But, you know, it used to be a great zoo, one of the best…’ He dried up, sat in silence.

‘I’d always wanted to see it, that’s all, sir, since I was a nipper,’ Arthur said, his voice soft. ‘To think they built a flak tower here. That the Nazis held out here.’ He swallowed. ‘Here, of all places.’

They were moving left again, the spindles of a church tower before them, its nave caved in, buttresses bare against the void. They turned down another wide street, and the jeep stopped.

‘Where are we?’

‘Kurfürstendamm, I guess,’ Arthur said. They clambered out, the buildings here little more than bare knuckles on the ground. Music was coming from one of the cellars. John recognised it. ‘Rum and Coca-Cola’. The harmonies of the Andrews Sisters. Exotic. American. A group of Yankee soldiers with cropped hair and khaki uniforms came towards them, six abreast, arms on shoulders, veering left, right, swinging, singing. ‘Rum and Coca-Cola’. There were some British soldiers standing on the opposite side of the road in their battledress, champagne bottles in their hands. They cheered as the Americans passed, held out their bottles, whistled ‘Colonel Bogey’, sang.

Hitler has only got one ball.