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the square and were being guarded by Ellis and Trask, who looked embarrassed. A woman was shouting angrily in Greek that Hal had no hope of understanding. Another woman joined in the shouting, some of the men too and the soldiers answered in English, as you might talk to animals, conciliatory and threatening at the same time.
    Ellis and Trask squared up to them, gripping their Stens in both hands. Sergeant McKinney stood nearby, with his legs wide apart and his chin jutting out, overseeing the whole thing with an air of comfortable immovability.
    Lieutenant Grieves came towards Hal out of a side street with two other soldiers. He hadn’t exactly been distinguishing himself with his leadership qualities in the last two hours; Hal hadn’t seen him since the damn thing started. ‘There you are, Grieves. Put those people in the church.’
    ‘Sir.’
    Grieves went off – shuffled off, thought Hal. The WOSB must have been having a slow week when they’d made him a lieutenant, a sneery grammar-school boy with chips on both shoulders and Bolshevik tendencies. No one liked drinking with him and he was hell sober. Hal had nothing against National Service boys as a rule, but Grieves, with his too-civilised-for-soldiering attitude, counting the days to demob, irritated him.

    It wasn’t a big village, no maze of streets and blind alleys to contend with, just the houses along the road and the square, and more houses in a modest sprawl up the hill with rutted goat tracks leading to them. Most of the villagers were in the church and every house searched.
    Hal looked into the back of the truck where a Greek boy, the one arrest, was sitting with his head in his hands. He was flanked by Tompkins and Walsh, who were sharing a fag. On the sandbags at their feet was a muddy stack of EOKA pamphlets, two good-sized clasp knives and a piece of piping, crudely welded closed at one end.
    The boy looked sideways through his fingers at Hal.
    Hal picked up the piece of piping, pushing the leaflets with it. They were familiar to him, distributed by EOKA in their thousands, and although he couldn’t read the Greek, he knew the meaning: ‘ We have nothing else to do but shed blood. ’ He examined the pipe, then put it down on the floor of the truck again. ‘Are these yours?’ said Hal to the boy, who didn’t answer. ‘Tompkins – was the pipe in the same house?’
    ‘Yes, sir, he had it hidden up in the fireplace.’
    ‘You’re sure it was this boy’s house?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Was he alone?’
    ‘His mum was there.’
    The boy looked about nineteen. Old enough to know better.
    Hal looked around him at the valley, where the mist was shifting, and then up the hill towards the church. He could see the people drifting back to their houses, and the rest of the soldiers coming down the hill towards him, lighting cigarettes and talking.
    He looked back at the Greek boy, who hadn’t moved. ‘On you go, then,’ he said to Tompkins. ‘Good.’
    Tompkins nodded and shoved the boy along into the dark of the truck, to make room.

    Kirby was smoking in the Land Rover, with his collar well up, and hunched down in the driver’s seat.
    ‘Kirby. Come,’ said Hal, and Kirby got out. He was a knock-kneed, heavy young man, whose every movement was reluctantly forced from clumsy limbs.
    He and Hal started up the hill together towards the mukhtar ’s house, as the trucks rattled away from them.

    Hal stood in the parlour, the mukhtar ’s housekeeper – or wife, or mother – poked the fire and the mukhtar maintained his silence.
    ‘What’s the name of the man we arrested?’
    ‘He’s a good boy.’
    ‘Name?’
    No answer.
    ‘You’re not doing him any favours.’
    ‘Your soldiers have damaged property here today. They have destroyed houses. They distressed the women.’
    ‘Any complaint you have can be made in writing to the British High Commission,’ Hal said.
    The mukhtar spat. The woman looked at the spit shining in the firelight on