The land was bleak, barren save for the clumps of coarse coastal grass that covered the earth and a few stunted hawthorn and elder which had curled their roots on the rocky land and grew twisted with the wind. Every ten yards or so there were signs, Achtung! Minen! Joe’s hands were swollen, gave him pins and needles, sharp as an alligator’s teeth.

‘Even the SS call it the arsehole of the world,’ a man said. Joe turned. His neighbour wore a striped uniform, with a red triangle sewn onto his breast.

‘SS?’

‘Schutzstaffel. The worst of them all. Makes the OT look like kindergarten teachers.’

He smiled. ‘Ernst. Your name?’

‘Joe,’ Joe said. This was the first time he’d spoken to anyone that day and he was grateful. ‘Where are we going?’

The man tilted his head at a watchtower in the distance.

They marched on in silence. Joe saw a tough chain-link fence with razor wire coiled along the top, interspersed with round concrete towers. They approached a pair of large iron gates, above which were the words, Lager Sylt. Ernst hawked and spat when he saw the sign, turned to Joe. ‘Welcome.’

They filed through the gates, across a yard. The men lined up and Joe followed their lead.

‘Nein!’ He was yanked out of the ranks by one of the guards, pushed with the others who had arrived that day, filed into an office where a guard handed them a metal bowl.

‘Ein. Drei. Vier. Sieben.’ He wrote the number on Joe’s hand. 1347. They joined the others in the yard as the roll call continued.

Joe could barely think, or stand. No one spoke. Fatigue made mutes of them all. When it was over, the men filed into a narrow wooden building, stood in line with the bowls as another prisoner, a cook, Joe guessed, a large man with curly hair and a swarthy complexion, a green triangle sewn crudely on the breast of his jacket, tipped a ladle of grey, watery cabbage soup, and a slice of hard black bread into each bowl. Joe stood, shuffling forward. Sometimes the ladle, Joe noted, was full to the brim, other times, it was half empty. The cook didn’t care whether it all went into the bowl or dribbled down the side. He breathed like a raging bull. He has a temper, Joe thought. Vicious. His bowl was half filled. Joe said nothing. The men crammed the bread into their mouths and slurped the soup and Joe did the same, dust from his hands forming a film over the surface. It was lukewarm, tasteless, but he could feel it dribbling into his belly, making him sleepy.