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episodes in any detail. He could really only remember what had happened before and what had happened after.
    There had been the quick, clever boy at the village school, who had mocked him once too often. And then there had been blood on Charlie’s knuckles afterwards, and no more mocking.
    And the second time had been more like tonight, even though he had had a rifle in his hands then, not a cranky old twelve-bore.
    Not unlike this very night, though it had been much warmer, as was only to be expected in foreign parts. Almost as dark, anyway, except that they’d been fools that time too, and showed a bit of a light to guide the patrol.
    Charlie’s eyes picked up the glimmer of the torch inside the Old House the moment he came out from the lane on to the springy turf of the lawn. They’d drawn the curtains now, but it was a powerful bright light, that was sure. Only trouble, it was in a first-floor room—he knew the downstairs pretty well, but wasn’t so sure of the lie of the upstairs.
    And there’d been more smell the last time, the rich smell of farmyard middens. But then it’d been a farmhouse, longer and lower than this one, huddled into the ground almost. There was talk in the platoon that the farmers kept all their money in boxes under their beds, not trusting the foreign banks—which showed they had some sense, Charlie had thought, seeing as he didn’t trust the banks at home either—and also that it was all in gold francs, too. By the time of the raid Charlie had privately searched several farmhouses with those gold francs in mind, but either it was an old wives’ tale or someone had been there before him; personally he doubted the story, for all the farms seemed to him poor and rough, without a decent suite of furniture between them, not at all like those he was used to in Sussex, where farmers were usually men of substance and very often gentlemen, too.
    Still, they didn’t ought to have treated that old farm the way they had, throwing the grenades through the windows and kicking in the doors, all shouting like savages.
    Charlie knew he had shouted with the rest, and kicked too, but that had only been because he’d been angry, red, raging angry at being drilled and marched one way, then marched another way, and forced to cower in ditches in terror of bombs and bullets, with never a chance to get his own back. But it’d never do to kick in the door of the Old House, even the old kitchen door and even if it hadn’t been solid seasoned oak, which he reckoned wouldn’t reward anyone’s boot. And anyway—she’d given him a key, he had it somewhere, thought Charlie confusedly, fumbling for reality in his mind while he searched his jacket with his free hand.
    He had to get it right, just like the sergeant had taught him, making him repeat it until he had the meaning by heart: First you creeps up quiet-like, to take ‘ em by surprise—then you goes in noisy, to frighten the bollocks off ‘ em !
    And first he did get it right, with the key hardly scratching the keyhole it entered. But no amount of care could stop the lock clicking unmistakably, or the latch clattering or the hinges creaking—it was as though the whole door had turned against him, bit by bit, damn it.
    Charlie clutched the twelve-bore against his chest and stood irresolutely, listening to the absolute silence of the house ahead of him.
    It was a silence which confused him far more than it frightened him, until the memory of the flashing light in the upstairs room came back to him—the evidence of his own eyes.
    The time had come to be noisy!
    With a furious growl and in total darkness Charlie launched himself across the kitchen. The first chair in his way went spinning; he banged into the edge of the table, driving it back so that it overturned another chair. But the table’s position orientated him to the passage door. Three more skidding paces, hobnails skittering on the stone floor, brought him against it. Behind him something