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transported Dick Knightly’s helicopters through the gates, Flynn reached under his seat and pulled out a radio with a whip aerial. He gave the call sign of Captain Lewis’s platoon and asked for an update, repeating the question three times without getting a response, then clicking through channels until someone answered. After a brief conversation, he told Stone, ‘The guy I talked to is with the main column. They’re under heavy fire just a few miles away, a little place called Catocin Furnace. No one has heard from Lewis’s platoon.’
    ‘Let’s hope it’s still where it’s supposed to be. Point me in the right direction, Sergeant Flynn.’
    ‘See that clump of trees?’
    It was at the edge of the huge fields, silhouetted by a small fire.
    ‘There should be a country road leads straight to a railroad,’ Flynn said. ‘Lewis’s platoon was supposed to secure it.’
    A Jeep was burning beyond the clump of trees. It sat in the middle of the road, a chalice of yellow flame with dead men lying all around, some in camo gear, some in heavy woollen coats. As Stone drove past, a plane roared overhead and something screeched down and exploded on the ridge and lit up the whole valley. Stone crouched low as the Jeep was rocked by a solid thump of air and clods of hot earth rattled all around.
    ‘I thought the guerrillas were supposed to have sabotaged the local airfields,’ he said. His ears were ringing and he felt as if he was speaking under half a mile of water.
    ‘Looks like this thing is coming apart,’ Flynn said. ‘Maybe you could get this heap of junk moving. I feel kind of vulnerable sitting here.’
    Stone drove as fast as he dared down the dark road, headlights off. It climbed a small rise, dropped down, and there were lights up ahead, shimmering through a scrim of leafless trees, moving to and fro along the length of a train of cattle-cars halted on a single-track railroad. Soldiers were hauling back the doors of the cars and yelling at men crowded inside, telling them to jump down, telling them they were liberated. A massive brute of a locomotive stood at the head of the train, clouds of steam leaking from the joints of its pistons and a big red star splashed across the riveted flank of its tender. A small group clustered below its cab. Soldiers, three men in bib overalls - Stone guessed that they must be the train crew - and a burly man in a fleece-trimmed leather jacket.
    Stone told Flynn to stay frosty, and they both sat still and kept their hands in plain sight as Captain Lewis and three soldiers trotted toward the Jeep. Tom Waverly followed right behind them. He had lost his baseball cap and there was a bandage wrapped around his head, spotted with blood over his right ear, but he was cheerful and animated, saying, ‘You’re just in time, Adam. We’re going to use this train to outflank the unfriendlies and punch right through their lines.’
    Captain Lewis pulled the Browning from Stone’s holster, told him to put his hands on his head and step down. ‘What you think you doing here?’
    ‘What were you thinking, Captain, letting Mr Waverly ride along with you?’
    On the other side of the Jeep, Flynn was telling the two soldiers patting him down to take it easy, he was on their side.
    Captain Lewis said, ‘We are friends. He ask me for a favour, I should refuse him?’
    ‘If you really are his friend, yes, you should.’
    Tom put his hand on Captain Lewis’s shoulder and said, ‘Let me handle him, Gene.’
    ‘You will be responsible for him?’
    ‘You bet.’
    ‘Then you are also responsible for Mr Stone’s friend. If Mr Stone tries anything, his friend dies.’
    Albert Flynn said, ‘Wait a fucking minute . . .’
    Captain Lewis told Stone, ‘I move out in ten minutes no matter what. Do we understand each other?’
    ‘I’m here to talk with my friend, Captain, not cause you any trouble. ’
    Captain Lewis held Stone’s gaze for a moment, then turned and walked back to the