The thirst had returned, and his head felt woozy from the morphine. He looked down at his watch. Only eleven o’clock. He had a long day ahead of him. He eased himself out of his shelter and managed to stand up. The morphine must have been wearing off because the pain shot through him again and he cried out. He started in fear at a loud noise nearby but then saw that it was only a pigeon flapping away from the jagged wall above him. Pigeons, he thought. Future food, if I have to stay here long. But I couldn’t cook it up here. Maybe Sofia could take it home, cook it, and . . . Stop, he told himself. I can’t put her and her family in danger. She had already told him that a whole village had been executed for helping the partisans. She would undoubtedly suffer the same fate for aiding a British pilot.

I must get away from here, he decided. Maybe hide out for a few days, just until the wound has healed and I’ve made a splint. Then I’ll go south.

He took the battered tin mug, then eased himself along the wall to the front door.

He gasped. Before him a vista stretched out in all directions: hill after hill, covered in thick forest, disappearing into blue haze, and in the distance higher mountains, their tops already dusted with snow. No sign of a big town, but some of the hills were crowned, like the one immediately before him, with a fortified village. It stood out now in clear three dimensions, highlighted after the rain, the houses clinging together as if afraid they might slip down the hillside. He stared at it with appreciation, admiring the faded ochre and green shutters of the houses, the graceful bell tower rising above the terra cotta tiles of the roofs, the crumbling walls built to keep out intruders. Smoke curled up from chimneys into the still air.

The hills close by were a mix of cultivation, neat lines of olives or vines cut out of thick woodland. Wild and tame, he thought. That summed it up. Then his gaze moved over to the west. Where part of the rock had been blasted away he could see the remnants of a track snaking up the hillside to the monastery. He could pick it out through the trees to where it met a road far below in a valley. As he watched, he saw three army trucks driving northward. He picked out the swastika on one of them.

There is no way I can escape at this moment, he thought. He was glad that the track had been blown away near the top. No German lorry would try to come back to this point. Thus reassured, he stepped through the doorframe and made his way carefully over the cracked and tilted stones of the forecourt. He found Sofia’s rain barrel full and overflowing and dared to take a long drink, praying the rain had not stirred up whatever might have been breeding in it. Then he looked around at the piles of rubble, wondering if there might be anything that could be of use.

He was clearly standing beside what used to be a kitchen. Shards of pottery lay strewn about, an occasional cup handle or curve of a basin revealing what the items had once been. But there was nothing whole and intact. In his current condition he didn’t dare to go further, to dig and potter among the ruins, but then he spotted a pillow, burned and with the stuffing spilling out of it. It was, naturally, soaking wet, but he carried it back in triumph, hoping it would dry out soon.

Once back inside he was overcome with exhaustion and barely managed to spread out the kapok from the pillow on one of the fallen beams before feeling that he had to sit down or he would pass out. He lowered himself with much grunting and swearing back into his little shelter, lay down, and knew no more.

When he opened his eyes again it was dark—the sort of absolute darkness you find only far away from civilisation. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. She wouldn’t come now, he thought. There was no way she could find her way up through the woods in this darkness. He felt an absurd sense of disappointment. Of course she couldn’t leave her family twice in one day. It would look too suspicious. Then doubts crept in. What if she had been seen? What if someone in the village had binoculars and had been spying on her? What if she had been turned over to the Germans and right now they were on their way to get him?

He broke out into a cold sweat. He had to speak to himself quite sternly to get a grip on his fear. Of course nobody had seen them from the village. When they had come up to the ruins, the clouds had been hanging over the hilltops. He had only just been able to make out the village. Not the sort of day that anyone would take their binoculars and decide to observe the countryside . . . unless you were a German sentry posted as an observer on a hilltop. The fear returned. He knew that he would never feel safe for even a minute, and was overcome with empathy for the inhabitants of that village, never knowing when the Germans would arrive claiming that they had helped a partisan, lining them all up in the village square, and shooting them all.

I should start making myself a splint, he thought, but could do nothing until it was light again. He certainly wasn’t going to use his precious cigarette lighter except for emergencies. And so he lay there, listening to night noises—the creak and crack of branches in the forest below, the hoot of an owl, the distant howl of a dog. It was going to be a long night.

He must have been dozing because he awoke to see a light flickering nearby.

“Signor? Ugo?” He heard the whisper and the fear in her voice.

“Over here, Signora. In the corner.”

He watched the light bobbing closer as he sat up and pushed one of the planks aside. She was wrapped as before in a big black shawl, and he could just see her eyes in the light of the candle-lantern she was carrying.

“Oh, you have built yourself a home,” she said, smiling at him. “How clever. When I did not see you and you did not hear the first time I called, I was afraid that perhaps you had . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence. She let the shawl fall over her shoulders.