The coat smelled of George. Even in the reek of the sod hut, Jonathan could smell the steam-sweat of George rising from his own armpits.

George watched carefully. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. ‘Look at me,’ he said, ‘I’m built like a girl, ain’t I? Want to feel? Come on, give me your hand. They’re soft, like me, girls are. Come here. Come on—’

Jonathan hardly noticed George taking hold of his hand until he felt one of the girlish breasts beneath his fingers. The sense of physical shock was terrible; he yanked his hand back, suddenly at sea with his hatreds, awash in them, unable to find reason or direction. The skin of his cheeks went numb; his scalp shrank over his skull; he tried to expand his lungs. Nothing happened.

‘You have to know, my friend,’ George’s voice went on, ‘there ain’t anybody but me got a frock coat in mind for you. This is your one and only chance. Now. Here. With me. My coat: mine. No girls neither. Only boy’s tits. My tits. You see’ – the voice went on relentlessly – ‘this here hole in the ground where the animals shit – it’s where people keep tools and – well, things like you.’ Jonathan looked into the shiny, black eyes. ‘You wouldn’t get it in your head that somebody’s going to buy a frock coat for this here’ – George turned and slapped the cow on its hindquarters – ‘for this dung-maker? Now would you? What about this ox? A night with a pretty girl?’ He reached over and slapped Jonathan exactly as he’d slapped the cow. ‘You got to understand me. A man? Shit, you ain’t even human. Never will be. Your pa sold you. My pa bought you. You’re a commodity. Like a cow. Or a shipment of tobacco.’

The spirit of an army – that unity that reaches its peak in the migrations of insects – is no match for sheer weight of artillery: not on the human battlefield, nor on the insect battlefield, either, not even when the soldiers are the most experienced of fighters. Artillery blows soldiers to bits, and the bits, the heads, arms, legs, torsos, these themselves become cannonballs that explode on impact and kill whatever is in their path. Often the minced and scattered remains on a battlefield aren’t even recognizable as human. Jonathan did not remember George leaving. He had no idea how George got him out of the frock coat. He knew only that the coat was gone, that he was sitting on the ground unfrocked, alone, shivering in the heat, his face sticky with sweat – and with the certain knowledge in his heart that everything George said was true. Elementary. First-year stuff.

The cow lowed behind him.

He leapt up and flung himself at her; he beat her lumpen, hairy flesh with his fists. Then he swung around and beat the mare. Then the pigs. Then he picked up a stick and, tears streaming down his face, weeping for the first time in his life as a slave (and for the last time in his life for nearly half a century to come), he beat them all again. The animals bucked and kicked and bellowed. He went on beating at them until he fell exhausted to the ground.