It was a 109 that had done for Alastair too.

He shrugged. “They can climb faster and higher than a Hurricane. Look into the sun and you’ll find a 109, sizing you up. What’s the prognosis?”

“We go day by day.”

“Bloody fool.”

Yes, but Peter was safe. The gap was narrow but he had scraped through. If he’d lost an eye along the way, even an eye and a half, what did it matter? Nothing could harm him now.

“I have great faith in the surgeon,” I said aloud. “And whatever happens, Peter will have Célia.”

He nodded slowly, stirred his tea.

“Where will you go to, James, with your plane?”

“Libya.” He pointed westward.

“I know where it is.”

That made him laugh. “It’ll be the spring this time,” he said. “Last year we were there in the broiling heat, with dust storms. And the year before. It certainly didn’t improve upon acquaintance.”

“So many times you’ve gone back and forth!”

The horror of it, and the waste: it chilled me.

“I know,” he said. “We’re like two dogs on chains. We fight to the end of our chain, get choked back, then the enemy dog advances on us, fights us all the way to the end of his chain. Now it’s our turn again.” He rubbed his face. “But this time we’ve got the Americans to help us. This should be the end of it.”

“Thank God for them.”

I sipped my tea. The winter sky was clear above us, blue, the breeze fresh, not as strong as it had been on the water.

“So tell me,” he said after a moment. “How has life been, for you?”

“Oh!” I said. “Guess what. I’ve been learning to drive a lorry. A friend—a family friend has been teaching me. James, you’re supposed to look amazed.”

I felt suddenly flustered, as if I’d stumbled over a trip wire. Why had I mentioned the lorry driving?

“I can’t think of any woman more likely to. Good for you,” James said, smiling. “You could join the WAAF.”

“Could I? I thought they were all British.”

“They’re recruiting locally now.”

“Oh.”

There was a silence.

James cleared his throat. “How about music?” he asked. “That tremendous pianist, friend of yours—is he still playing?”

I shook my head. “He left last June. They’re all in Cape Town now, the Shamas. Two hundred years in Alexandria and they were gone by the First Alamein. Along with half the Jewish families we know.”

“Will they come back?”

I made a moue. “Some of them, maybe. Not the Shamas.”

“So it isn’t the same anymore.”

“Nothing’s the same. I’m not the same.”

“No, I can see that. You’ve met someone, I think. Is he teaching you to drive a lorry, by any chance?”