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glanced up and saw Henri the sergeant, squinting as he tried to figure out exactly what he had caught the men doing.
    â€˜I heard about the dog,’ he said to one of the soldiers. ‘Was it the guard dog of this trench?’
    â€˜No, sir,’ the soldier said. ‘Several down along the line. But we gave it treats,’ he added hopefully.
    â€˜Give a dog treats when men are starving?’ he said. ‘Shame on you.’ His eyes had adjusted to the sunlight, and he now focused on us: two feline forms crouching in his shadow. ‘Get these pests out of here,’ he said. ‘They’ll spread disease.’
    My brave, thin soldier stepped forward and tucked us under his arms. ‘Sir, they catch the rats that bother us at night. And they lift our spirits.’
    In the direct sunlight, I knew my fur would give me away. Henri had jealously listened to Colette go into raptures about my varied colours and stripes too many times for him not to recognise me. I looked into his eyes and he stared back at me, and I knew I’d been discovered.
    â€˜If I see those cats again, anywhere near these trenches,’ he said, ‘I will personally shoot them, then shoot any soldier found to be harbouring them.’ He took another long look at me, letting his malice bubble up into his gaze.
    â€˜That’s her husband, isn’t it?’ the tomcat said when Henri had left.
    My paws were sweating again. ‘Yes,’ I said.
    â€˜Come back only at night,’ my soldier said. ‘You are not safe here anymore.’
    I purred and rubbed my cheek against his hand. Who was safe anywhere anymore?
    â€˜Let’s go catch a carrier pigeon for lunch,’ the tomcat said to me. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’
    â€˜I’m not the slightest bit hungry,’ I said. I could feel my pulse beating in my throat, a sensation Colette once described when she was upset. ‘I have to try to make it back to Paris.’
    â€˜I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to realise this is what we need to do. We’ll leave early tomorrow morning, at first light.’
    A cheer rose from the other end of the trench. The smallest turtle had won the derby, carrying its friend on its back. The turtle that had chosen to go around in circles had dug such a deep trench for itself that it had successfully disappeared from view.
    Going Home
    The tomcat insisted on night-hunting in no cat’s land, as he calls it. He asked me to join him but I lied and said I wanted to preserve my strength for the start of our long journey to Paris. Really I just wanted to watch my soldier and his friend sleeping hand in hand on my final night in the trench. It’s something I love to do with Colette: watch her sleep. If she wakes and catches me gazing at her, she offers me a treat, usually a moth caught between the windowpane and curtain.
    I worry that my soldier will not survive this war. Colette would be better suited to life in the trenches than most of these skinny boys. She is robust and fit, her muscles kept flexible by regular sessions in her private gymnasium on the rue de Courcelles. At first it was to match the other performers in the music halls, who used their bodies in such bizarre ways that she felt she ought to strengthen her own. Then it became part of her weekly routine, especially once Missy was in her life: the two of them would put on shorts and headbands and do all kinds of stretches and exercises that made no physiological sense to me but seemed to make Colette happy and strong. On holiday at Missy’s villa in the seaside town of Le Crotoy, the two of them would do their sessions on an outdoor gymnasium custom-built by Missy, shocking the passers-by.
    Two carrier pigeons, both male, have crossed the night sky bearing a crucial message and are now flying in ovals as they try to orient themselves. They hate the dark. It is bewildering to see a pigeon silhouetted