Why would I not strain toward this loveliness? The track we’re traveling down is hideous, compacted to ice, mud, filth. Half of the lads have been eating cabbage stalks stolen from frozen fields, thereby griping their guts. In the last village a guard kicked over a bucket of clean water given to us by an old woman. In the village before that, another guard shot a dog. The dog was yapping, it irritated him. We pile into barns, packed close for warmth but even so I woke up this morning with my companions Flying Officer William Barratt and Squadron Leader Meynard Hill frozen to death on either side of me, having given me the greatest gift of all, that of their body heat.

Why should I march any longer down this track when beside us this beautiful white expanse of snow spreads away over the hill? Tucked in the valley is a farmhouse, with firelight glinting in the windows and soup on the stove. A trestle table in the kitchen laid out with bowls and spoons and big tureens, and the soup will be full of butter and stock and chunks of fresh vegetables and meat, things I haven’t tasted for nearly two years. Come on, I urge my companions. It’s that way. And they’ve got soup. Nobody can see the sense of this, people are hanging on to my arms, pulling me back, they want to go on down this frozen track into the face of the blizzard. A hoarse female voice barks, Hypothermia, then derangement. Death may follow soon after.

Damn it, I say, you’re all fools.

Alastair Pearce appears in front of me, dressed for the desert in an airman’s jersey and shorts and his tanned knees strike me as very comical. Hahaha, Pearce, look at your knees, I say, but he takes no notice, points out over the field, shouting to me on shortwave, crackling and buzzing, Come on, Acton, no time to lose. For a dead man he has the liveliest eyes, they wink and blink as he speaks. Then he gives me a thumbs-up and puts on his goggles. Follow me, he buzzes, and takes off, his legs together and straight out behind him, his arms spread wide. Like a black moth under the low white cloud.

The sky fills with moths.

—

My eyes are as wide open as possible and still the moths ripple and surge and coalesce. Perhaps I was wrong and they’re not moths but starlings. The way starlings reel and swarm in the sky, it’s called something, can’t remember what.

Can’t see worth a damn, anyway.

Terrible fit of coughing. Oh, agony. Broken a rib for certain. More than one. Head’s excruciating too. But I can move my arms, legs, so my back’s not broken. Good. Hopefully broken rib won’t puncture a lung. Do not cough. Do not cough.

Ah, oh, more agony.