When all the marines were ashore, alive and dead, the boats transported medics and stretcher parties to the beach. Then they began landing supplies: ammunition, drinking water, food, drugs and dressings. On the return trip the landing craft brought the wounded back to the ship.

Chuck and Eddie, as non-essential personnel, went ashore with the supplies.

The boat skippers had got used to the swell now, and their craft held a stable position, with its ramp on the sand and the waves breaking on its stern, while the boxes were unloaded and Chuck and Eddie jumped into the surf to wade to shore.

They reached the waterline together.

As they did so, a machine gun opened up.

It seemed to be in the jungle about four hundred yards along the beach. Had it been there all along, the gunner biding his time, or had it just been moved into position from another location? Eddie and Chuck bent double and ran for the tree line.

A sailor with a crate of ammunition on his shoulder gave a shout of pain and fell, dropping the box.

Then Eddie cried out.

Chuck ran on two paces before he could stop. When he turned, Eddie was rolling on the sand clutching his knee, yelling: ‘Ah, fuck!’

Chuck came back and knelt beside him. ‘It’s okay, I’m here!’ he shouted. Eddie’s eyes were closed, but he was alive, and Chuck could see no wounds other than the knee.

He glanced up. The boat that had brought them was still close to shore, being unloaded. He could get Eddie back to the ship in minutes. But the machine gun was still firing.

He got into a crouching position. ‘This is going to hurt,’ he said. ‘Yell as much as you like.’

He got his right arm under Eddie’s shoulder, then slid his left under Eddie’s thighs. He took the weight and straightened up. Eddie screamed with pain as his smashed leg swung free. ‘Hang in there, buddy,’ Chuck said. He turned towards the water.

He felt sudden, unbearably sharp pains in his legs, his back and finally his head. In the next fraction of a second he thought he must not drop Eddie. A moment later he knew he was going to. There was a flash of light behind his eyes that rendered him blind.

And then the world came to an end.

(v)

On her day off, Carla worked at the Jewish Hospital.

Dr Rothmann had persuaded her. He had been released from the camp – no one knew why, except the Nazis, and they did not tell anyone. He had lost one eye and he walked with a limp, but he was alive, and capable of practising medicine.

The hospital was in the northern working-class district of Wedding, but there was nothing proletarian about the architecture. It had been built before the First World War, when Berlin’s Jews had been prosperous and proud. There were seven elegant buildings set in a large garden. The different departments were linked by tunnels, so that patients and staff could move from one to another without braving the weather.