‘Cold air can rid you of prickly heat.’

‘For once you’re right, Pop. What’s the word you always use? Elementary. It gets so cold up here prickly heat is not a problem because exposure rids you of your life.’

‘Come on, it can’t be that bad.’ I was pretty chilled but no point admitting it. I lit a cigarette. Queenie never liked it hot. She would undo the top two buttons of her blouse, soak a handkerchief in cold water and put it on the back of her neck. Water would trickle down her front, the droplets disappearing into the pleat of her breasts. ‘It’s like living in an oven,’ she’d complain, lying back in a chair fanning herself with the newspaper. I’d tell her I liked it hot. The endless summer days when I was a boy. Sleepy afternoons of birdsong. Sitting out on the steps in the sun. The warmth on my bare legs waiting for Pa to come home. His smile as he sauntered up the road in his shirtsleeves. ‘Phew! It’s a scorcher today, Bernie.’ Cricket in the backyard and Ma’s lemon drink with four sugars. But a few months in India’s eternal heat had me dreaming of snow. Wintry mornings when lacy ice crazed the inside of windows. Misty breath condensing in the cold. The shocking dash from bed into clothes. Stamping up and down, nose numb and running. Blowing hot breath on to freezing fingers. Cracking ice with the heel of my shoe. Shivering. I missed shivering. But be careful what you wish for out in this godforsaken place. I was shivering now, cupping my hands round the cigarette tip. Clenching my jaw so my teeth couldn’t chatter.

That’s when we heard it. Coming out of the black night. Clear and piercing.

‘Johnny, come and help me, Johnny.’

‘Hear that?’ I said.

‘It’s Japs,’ Maxi whispered. Both of us were crouching now, grabbing for our guns. Useless. Pointing them around like boys in a game.

‘Don’t fire,’ Maxi said.

‘Johnny, my leg is broken. I’m over here, come and help me.’ Perfect English. ‘Johnny, Johnny.’

‘Sure it’s not the pilot?’ I asked.

‘It’s Japs. They’re just jittering us.’

‘They know where we are.’

‘No. If they knew where we were we’d be dead.’

‘Johnny, help me. Please help me.’

I pointed my gun. I was sure I could tell which direction it was coming from. Maxi put his hand on it, bringing down the barrel. ‘Don’t fire,’ he whispered, urgent. ‘They’ll know where we are if you fire.’

‘Help me. I’m over here. Come quick, Johnny.’

‘We’ll just sit quiet. Put out that cigarette.’

A moonless forest. Dark. Alien. Crowded with the unfamiliar. Phantom shapes. Peculiar sounds. Strange creaking, twittering, fluttering, squawking. Funny that the strangest and, I admit, most terrifying sound was the most familiar. A human calling for help. An eerie, resonant voice coming as clearly as if it was piped. The cold obliged me to shiver. Insisted my teeth chatter. But that voice – ‘Johnny, come here, Johnny’ – that voice trembled my hands.

Maxi sidled up to me. Shifting along our makeshift camp on his bottom. Quiet. Eyes alert as prey. Lifted out his arm to wrap his blanket round me, then back round him. Two vigilant heads swivelling. Our bodies wrapped as one, sticking together where bare flesh pressed.

‘Johnny, help me.’

Our guns were quickly erect, poking through the gap in the cloth, pointing different ways. ‘It’s all right, Pop. They don’t know where we are. They won’t bother coming.’

‘Can you be sure?’

Maxi tittered. His warm breath on my cheek, smelling of tobacco. ‘Sure as you can be with a Jap.’Wafts of body odour were puffing from the blanket. Rough fibres scratching our cheeks. Our body heat gradually warming the air in the cocoon.

‘Johnny. Johnny.’

The muscles of Maxi’s arm pumped against me (tense again). His knee nervously rubbing mine.

‘Johnny, come quick. Can you hear me, Johnny?’

Maxi’s chest rising with a held breath unexpectedly sighed relief. ‘It’s all right. They’re not getting any closer,’ he said.

The calling stopped coming so often. But neither of us felt like sleep. In all honesty we needed each other upright so the blanket would fit round. Maxi rested his gun on his knees.

‘I wish you’d brought a bloody blanket,’ he told me, close in my ear.

‘Sorry.’

‘I told you you’d need one.’

‘My fault I know. Sorry.’

Sitting in the desolate dark, we couldn’t even light a cigarette in case the glowing tip gave us away. Maxi began telling me about his plans for after the war. Couldn’t imagine going back to being a clerk on the railways. ‘I’ve got this idea. See what you think.’ He wanted to breed rabbits. Got it all worked out. A rabbit farm. Reckoned it would only take two to start. Not much initial outlay. Male, female, then sit back and watch. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘you know what they breed like?’

‘No.’

‘Like rabbits.’

‘I see.’

‘That was a joke, Pop.’

‘A joke, yes, I see.’

By the time the light came up we’d got it all worked out. I was even a partner. Doing the ledgers, profit and loss (taking care of the business side). Set up in Kent (just outside Ashford’s nice). Main line: rabbit for food (with ancillary products – pies, stews). Sideline: lucky rabbits’ claws. We decided against the rabbit stoles (like fox furs). Maxi didn’t think English housewives would like a dead fluffy bunny round their neck even if the floppy ears would make a lovely bow.

Sunrise – the most delightful sight. Ghostly mists hanging in the far hills gradually burned away. Those warming rays were as welcome as a first breath. Back to the job in hand. Rabbit farming folded up with the blanket. Still cautious, though. Whispering out of instinct. Shoulders stooped. Guns at the ready in case the Japs could see us better now.

The wreckage was hardly recognisable as a plane. Pranged into the hill and cartwheeled down taking the vegetation with it. A wing gone. Fuselage half the size it should be. Engine ripped out and fallen further down the hill. Propeller vanished. No bullet-holes that we could see. Fuel tank empty – evaporated, maybe. ‘Someone’s got to this before us,’ Maxi said. There were signs of a fire in a burnt clearing nearby.

‘Perspex, wheels, they’ve all gone.’

‘Another RSU?’

‘No.’

‘Japs?’

Maxi shrugged. ‘Locals probably. Get a good price for them.’

Such an inhospitable place. Hard to imagine anyone living nearby just ready for a Sunday stroll. No sign of the pilot. ‘Could have bailed,’ I said. Maxi looked doubtful – showed me why. Sleeve of a bush jacket was hanging in a tree. Jagged, bloody like some beast had just bitten it off. Although the three stripes on it were still clean and intact. I noticed my hands were sticky where I was touching the tree. Turned them over to find them covered in congealed blood. The side of the tree was dripping with it. Nothing said, but my job to look for remains. Only found the blackened edge of an identity card. Name, number burned away. Then another patch of blood. Maxi, inspecting the fuselage, shook his head. Tutted. Removed a few instruments, which he secreted about him.

No point hanging around, Maxi decided. Nothing more to find. I bowed my head to say a prayer before we left just in case this was a graveyard. Maxi was annoyed at first, itching to get away, but he soon joined me.

‘Shall we sing a hymn?’ I asked.

‘Yes, why not, Pop? How about “Over here, Japs. Sorry you missed us last night.”’

Point taken.

We were walking for a few hours, neither of us wanting to say the word lost. ‘That looks familiar. Yes, this is the way,’ more in order. Just about to breast the hill when we heard voices. Foreign. Close. Very close. Both of us were soon on to our bellies. Low in the grass (but there for anyone to see). Maxi signalled to be quiet, hand to his lip. My finger was on the Sten’s trigger – trembling again. I wondered if I looked as scared as Maxi. He was as bloodless as a corpse. I could feel the urine warming my pants before seeping into the ground. Powerless to stop it. I was a coward, I knew, but I didn’t want to die. Shot flinching on the ground, quivering like a girl. Could Queenie be proud of that? At least Maxi had sons who would gild their father’s story into something worthwhile. Maxi started mumbling to himself (prayer, perhaps). Voices, again talking gibberish. A cackling laugh. Maxi and I dared a quick glance at one another. Our last, perhaps.