You’ve tried every way you know to destroy my dignity. Dignity is a man’s only possession in the end. You have failed to destroy mine but if you keep me here long enough I will lose strength and you will succeed after all. I will be worse than dead. A man can die but dignity can continue to inhabit his spirit.

And I am not dead yet anyway. I have things to do first.

Hate keeps him moving. He clamps his jaw with the anguish of the knee. He folds the blanket carefully over again and then rolls it neatly and drapes it around his neck. He gets the knife back into his teeth and crouches twice and straightens, experimenting. It is possible to mask the pain with hate: just think about the four of them. The muscles are working and that is what matters. He hooks his fingers through the chainlink mesh, testing it; he puts his toes into the wire and allows himself to sag, putting his weight on fingers and toes, feeling the metal cut into his flesh.

He knows it will have to be fast because he can’t hold long; the wire cuts too fast. He releases the fence and steps back a pace, secures the blanket around his shoulders and goes into his crouch, spreading his hands until the palms touch the wet grass.

There is a flicker of light along the cloud bellies and he hears the hiss of another car going up the road on the hill. He feels chilled in the wet; his toes curl in the grass.

He makes the leap with all his strength. The stab of agony in the knee shocks him faint; he hears his own grunt of pain and clamps his lips shut on the knife, cutting his lip. His stretching fingers fumble against the mesh and he scrabbles for holds with his toes. The wire cuts into him. All his two hundred pounds are distributed on a few pieces of narrow steel wire and the effect is that of razor blades.