“Good, Lovegod!” the lieutenant tells her charge as we wait between waves of birds. “Lovegod's doing very well, don't you think, Morgan?” You give a small smile which may be assent. “Pretty good for a wounded man. Show her your scars, Lovegod.”

The young soldier looks hesitant as he bares his shoulder happily not the one taking a hammering from the shotgun and shows you some grubby bandages. “And the rest; don't be shy!” the lieutenant growls, half scornful, slapping the fellow on his behind.

The young man has to undo his trousers, dropping them to his knees as his face flushes. Another thick bandage round one upper thigh (I had not even noticed he limped, though now I think about it, he did). His pants look even greyer than his bandages, and his face now darker still than both. I begin to feel sorry for the lad.

“Close one there, eh, Lovegod?” the lieutenant says, winking. The youth gives a nervous laugh and quickly does himself up again. You have looked away. “Lovegod had a narrow escape,” the lieutenant tells you, scanning the sky for more sport. “Shrapnel, wasn't it, Lovegod?” The soldier boy grunts, still embarrassed. “Shell,” the lieutenant informs us. “Could even have been fired by one of the guns we can hear now,” she says, eyes narrowing, nose raised to the wind. The two soldiers look puzzled and you give no sign. I concentrate, and there indeed, now I'm listening for it again, is that distant, nearly subsonic rumble of the faraway artillery. “Ah…” the lieutenant breathes, as another blur of tiny birds rush down from the higher slopes and circle in the air round the pool.

Several of the birds, only wounded. fall one wing fluttering, trapped in a tiny confusion of fallen, blasted leaves to land near your feet, hitting the ground to cheep and flap about with eccentric self concern, only to be stood on.