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wandered along to them soon after, yawned a bit, stood at his usual shambolic angle – looked so slack that you could pour him, carry him off in a bucket – and he said he would like to be part of a crew that laughed, which had set them off laughing again, nearly howling, this time Alfred and Hanson joining in, because this made the seven of them fit and seemed like the start of how they’d be and meant they were complete, crewed up.
    Not that they weren’t a lifetime away from knowing anything: they’d only had a round or two of training from madmen being rested between tours. Still, no need to worry, a lifetime wasn’t all that long.
    And they had so many ways to pass the time.
    â€˜Why don’t you do her, so? Why don’t you do the deed?’ Molloy, a little drunk one evening, maybe two weeks since they’d met, and punching Alfred’s arm, ‘If you have a lady friend.’
    There are things that you never imagine.
    â€˜You do have a lady friend.’ Molloy flushing a touch with the lateness of the hour and drink taken, but still mainly pale.
    â€˜I didn’t say I did.’
    There are things you should never remember.
    â€˜Ah, but you have to. No choice. Special circumstances with a war on and such.’ Face and hands white as paper and the eyebrows, eyes, mouth – the features all dark, as if they were drawn on, added in black ink.
    â€˜I didn’t say I had a lady friend.’
    â€˜Ah, you do, though. I heard. Straight gen. You’ve one and another one for Sundays, surely.’
    Pluckrose nudging in, ‘You mentioned there was a war on? You know that would explain all the fucking noise.’ This in the low, square saloon of the Duke’s Head, their earliest local. The Duck’s Head – what else would they call it?
    â€˜You’ve a foul mouth on you.’ Malloy smiling and making his eyes round: a touch cracked-looking.
    â€˜Thank you kindly, I do my best.’ Nodding in a way that made you think of other Pluckroses, ‘And tell me, Dickie . . .’ of admirals and judges and tall-headed men on horseback and hunting things, their long Pluckrose shins hanging down and their great, thin Pluckrose feet dragging on to the ground. ‘Tell me, dear Mr Molloy – with whom exactly are we at war?’
    â€˜The Eskimos, you heathen bastard.’
    â€˜Really and why’s that?’
    â€˜Because we’ve stolen their fucking penguins and now haven’t they gone and decided they want them back.’
    There are things that you never remember, because you are sensible and have studied unarmed combat. You defend yourself.
    â€˜But never mind that, so. You, Little Boss – will you do her or not?’
    You defend yourself.
    Wish her well if you have to and then get on. Not another thought.
    You will not hold a thought of her.
    You will defend yourself.
    Alfred sat up, dry and vaguely breathless. His pack was leaning against Vasyl’s on the turf, but there was no sign of Vasyl himself beyond a white mound of milk, ants working at it.
    Oh, well.
    He took a moment to imagine cleaning off his mind, washing it down with petrol, removing the stains. Sometimes this worked after dreams. The thing was to concentrate on something else and let them fade.
    I suppose I could manage the journey back alone – the camp’s about due west. I’d recognise the route, more or less. So flat around here, I’d be able to see it from a good way off. But if I went wrong, there are places out here you wouldn’t want to come across. Things left behind.
    No hurry, in any case. He enjoyed a long swig from the bottle of tea then stood, brushed at his trousers, thought how green the air was: a day’s sun raising the scent of live earth, animal heat.
    I don’t get out in the country enough. I don’t exercise any more. Still, I can change that. If I’d like.
    He’d no time to consider how, because