There was a thing that happened when he came. We'd been waiting for about an hour, mostly in silence except for the rustle of another traveller shifting in their seat, or the occasional bitten back sob from Bêbe, followed by Fusel either sucking his lips or huffing his moustache. There was a tap from outside. You'd have thought it was a gun going off the way it made the soldier jump— he'd been leaning against the door smirking at everyone, and if he saw me looking he'd snap his finger and thumb in front of his eye and wink (because he's got my camera).

  In the sullen dormitory

He spat and he spluttered and walked up and down the ranks of bunks. He swore and coughed. His head down and forward, a glower on his brow, he was dark and sour and ill-lit by light from his lantern burning yellow. We called him long- knife, and cowered in our beds, waiting for him to pass. Because: if he turned; if he turned at your bunk; you didn't want to know, and hoped he picked the one above, below, just not you.