The Essex Marshes, Summer 1915

The body rolled in the current gently, as if still alive. It was facedown, only the back and hips visible. It had been floating that way for some time. The men in the ancient skiff had watched it for a quarter of an hour, as if half expecting it to rise up and walk away before their eyes.

“He’s dead, right enough,” one said. “One of ours, do you think?”

“This far up the Hawking? It’s a German spy,” the second man said, nodding, as if that explained everything. “Bound to be. I say, leave him to the fish.”

“We won’t know who he is until we pull him out, will we?” the third said and leaned out to touch the corpse with the boat hook.

“Here!” the first man cried out, as if this were sacrilege.

The body bobbed a little under the weight of the hook.

“ He doesn’t care,” the third man said. “Why should you?”

“Still and all-”

Turning the hook a little, he put the end under the dead man’s collar and pulled. Under the impetus of the hook, the corpse came out of the reeds obediently, as if called, and floated toward the skiff until the shoulder of his dark, water-sodden uniform bumped lightly into the hull.

“A bloody officer.”

“He’s been shot,” the third man said as the body shifted. “Look at that.”

“Turn him over,” the second man ordered, after peering at the back of the man’s head.

With some difficulty, that was done, and all three stared into the dead face, flaccid from hours in the water.

“None of our fishermen,” the second man went on. “Don’t know him atall. You?”

The first man shook his head. “I dunno. There’s something familiar about him. I just can’t put a name to him.”

“Let’s have a look,” the third man said, and reached out to clutch the front of the sodden uniform, pulling him close enough to thrust his fingers into the man’s breast pocket. He came away with a wallet stuffed with pound notes. He whistled in surprise.