He could live with it all except the hunger. He barely thought of Trude now. Her suffering was over, at least. Starvation devoured him from the inside, as if the whale had not heeded Jonah’s prayers and was digesting him, bit by bit. He could only think of food. He and Ernst, and the others. They took it in turns to sneak into the Germans’ fields and pull a potato, sharing it between them, eating it raw, a mouthful each. They talked of nothing but baked ham and plum dumplings. They listed the ingredients, worked out the recipes, cooked them over the roaring ranges of home, roasted them in the oven. Argued, even, dried paprika or fresh hot peppers? Did you fry it first to release the aroma, or plunge it directly into the stew? They drank the best wines. Riesling. Weissburgunder. Spätburgunder. Trollinger. Vodka. Brandy. Poteen, Joe said. Poitín. Now, there’s a drink to put hairs on your chest.

Joe was digging foundations, trenches a yard deep and two yards wide, hewn and hacked from the rock with nothing more than a pickaxe and shovel. If they fed us more, Joe thought, we’d work harder, and men wouldn’t drop like flies. Six months, Joe reckoned. That’s how long it took to work someone to death. An extra slice of bread cost a cigarette, and sometimes that bastard cook, forgive me Lord, charged double. Cigarettes were in short supply, until the next Red Cross parcel. It wasn’t right that a man had to barter for his food.

The men were fearful of the cook. He had a temper and pointed teeth that grew in crooked rows, and he used them when crossed, sunk them into his victim and spat out the flesh. He’d snarl as soon as look at you. Even the guards, Joe noticed, gave him a wide berth. A wild shark of a man, that was for sure.

There was a raw, urgent cry. Joe looked up. The man next to him had fallen in the trench. The mixing machine on the edge of the footings was spewing out the wet cement, filling the dug-out ditch, moving fast.

‘No.’ Joe threw down his pickaxe. ‘Turn that thing off.’ He dropped to his stomach, crawled alongside the top of the trench, reached with his hand. The trench was at least three-feet deep, but if he stretched down far enough, and his neighbour up, they could do it.

‘Grab it,’ he yelled. The concrete was running like a lava flow, splashing Joe’s hand. He flexed his fingers. ‘Now.’ The man had no strength left, Joe could see that, not even a will, not in his eyes. He shook his head, let it fall forward into the cement. Joe saw a bubble, and that was all. He pushed himself up, stood face to face with an SS officer in a peaked cap. The officer said nothing, signalled. Keep pouring.