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hidden themselves. Purely to enjoy seeing me frightened.
    ‘Hell, show yourselves!’I call in a half-shout. ‘This isn’t
funny
!’ Nothing moves.
Have
I lost them?
    ‘Old ’un!’I call softly. The sweat of fear runs down my face. Alone in partisan country in the middle of this horrible cactus forest.
    ‘Porta! Come out damn you!’
    No answer. And yet? Wasn’t that a voice? I call out again and listen. Nothing. The wind? Now and then I feel a puff of air touch my cheek. I realize, suddenly with horror, that I am alone. All alone! I’ve lost the unit and they me. They haven’t noticed me falling behind. Don’t even know yet, maybe, that I’ve disappeared. They’ll be back, though, when they find out. The Old Man won’t leave stragglers. They’d even go back for Krüger.
    I stand quite still, listening to the night. Only the odd breaths of wind, the rustling of the ants and the buzz of insects. I have often been alone before during this war but never like this. I always knew where the enemy was, and the direction of our own lines. In this dreadful cactus forest the enemy could beanywhere. A merciless enemy. Our own lines are far away. I don’t even know where. They might even have been broken for all I know and the Southern Army be fleeing back to Germany. I
must
try to find the unit. At the worst to get through on my own. I ready my Mpi and arm a hand-grenade. Keep your head, I tell myself.
Dorít bomb your own lot!
    They
can’t
have disappeared. I’ve been with the Old Man’s unit four years now, and what haven’t we been through together? Four years, day out and day in, on all kinds of fronts. All right we’ve been separated in field hospitals sometimes, but not for long. The
unit’s
my home! I feel safe there. Even when you’re lying comfortably in a hospital bed, you can feel homesick. Homesick for the unit out there in HKL 13 . When you got out and were sent back with three red lines across your papers – light duties and change of dressings every day that means – all your aches and pains disappeared at the sight of the well-known faces. And out you’d march to HKL with your unit. Even the lung-wound, which often came close to choking you in hospital, didn’t worry you any more. You were home again. Nothing else mattered. Your mates looked after you. Put you on the SMG or gave you the radio to look after. You could manage that with a lung-wound not quite healed yet.
    I won’t
let
these ties be broken just by getting lost in a blasted cactus forest! They’ll look for me as soon as they see I’m missing. Tango’ll turn round and see I’m gone and give the alarm. Tango was right in front of me.
    It’d be mad to continue on the line of march. We could easily miss one another. I’d better sit down and wait for daybreak. In the sunlight things always look different.
    I’ve not been sitting long when panic fear suddenly grips me. I get up and begin to walk forward slowly. All the time, it seems, I can hear voices. But it is only the wind. Battle instincts whisper warnings. I am not alone any more.: Silently I take up position alongside a cactus. My Mpi is at the ready. Silence. Nothing but silence. And a crushing darkness which seems as if it is choking me.
    How long I stand there ready for action I’ll never know. I decide to move on. From the darkness comes a rattle of steel onsteel. It grates on my tattered nerves like a gunshot. Silently I sink down and pull a grenade from my jackboot!
    ‘Hush, you great shit-house!’whispers Porta’s beautiful voice from the darkness.
    ‘Didn’t do it on purpose, bollock’ead!’Tiny’s bass rumbles, echoing, through the forest.
    Somebody laughs. Must be Barcelona.
    I’m shouting with relief inside, but the lump in my throat stops any sound coming out.
    I move forward carefully.
    ‘Halt or I fire,’ howls Porta from the darkness.
    ‘It’s me!’I scream.
    I’m home again. The Old Man is with them.
    ‘Where the hell you been?’asks Porta,