like pain in his eyes. He took a deep breath, adjusted his forage cap and saluted formally.
‘May I have the colonel’s permission to leave?’
‘Oh, go on, damn you, get out of it!’ I said sourly and he saluted again, face grave and left.
I could imagine now how Burgoyne must have felt at Saratoga.
I was in no mood to face Mary after that and went out quietly through the garden. I spent the afternoon walking rather aimlessly along the cliffs, thinking about it all and didn’t return to the house till early evening.
There was no sign of her and I went out to the verandah. The sky was every shade of flame, orange and purple, the sun dropping vast beyond the rim of the world and there was silence as dusk fell, everything black, etched against flame.
Ravens, seven of them perched on the roof of the old summer-house. A sign, surely, a portent, but of what, I could not be sure. That was the writer in me, the part of me that wanted things to happen for a reason, to have a sequence to them, some meaning.
There was a stirring in the darkness and Mary said, ‘Can you tell me about it?’
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