“Just my name will do. Please call me Abel.” I hesitate. “And you, ma'am?”

She looks, grinning, round her men, then back at me. “You can call me lieutenant,” she tells me. To you she says, “What's your name?” You sit, still staring at her.

“Morgan,” I tell her.

She remains looking at you for a moment, then slowly turns her gaze to me. “Morgan,” she says slowly. Then another cry comes from the group huddled on the road. The lieutenant frowns and looks that way. “Stomach wound,” she says quietly, two fingers tapping on the polished veneer of the carriage's door. She glances at the two bodies lying by the burning van. She sighs. “Just first aid stuff?” she asks me. I nod. She taps the buxom quilting on the inside of the door, then steps down and walks towards the group crouched ahead on the road. The knot of men opens, the soldiers making way for her.

A young uniformed man lies on his side in the centre of the group, hands clutched round his belly, shivering and moaning. Our lieutenant goes to him. She lays her long gun down on the road surface as she crouches, stroking the lad's head and talking quietly to him, one hand at his brow, the other doing something at her hip. She nods a couple of the others out of the way they retreat then bends down and kisses the young soldier full on the mouth. It looks a deep, lingering, almost passionate kiss; a string of saliva, caught in the sunlight slanting over the trees, connects them still as she pulls slowly away. Her lips have hardly left his when the pistol she has placed at the boy's temple fires. His head jerks as though kicked hard, his body spasms once then relaxes and some blood flicks up and out across the road. (I feel your hand on my shoulder, clutching at my skin through the layers of jacket, fleece and shirts.) The young soldier uncurls and flops loosely on to his back mouth open, eyes closed.

The lieutenant stands promptly, shouldering her rifle.