That night I was on guard duty from ten till twelve, which meant that I was not startled awake, cursing, from my first sleep when the squad was woken at midnight sharp. No one had slept enough, of course, and after the first period of tense alertness we all lapsed into our chronic state of sleepiness as we moved on. At first we rode on twisty, hedge-lined field tracks where the wheels often stuck in dust six inches deep.

That night, for the first time, the moonlight was not as bright as it has been the previous nights. At Vetralla we joined the Via Cassia; it was chockfull of convoys falling back to Viterbo, but they were crawling at snail’s pace and finally came to a total standstill. What would become of them when, as would shortly happen, day broke and the enemy aircraft came? The squad was the only unit moving in the other direction; soldiers in the convoys jeered at us. “Where do you think you’re going?” they called, a snide stress on the you’re, and if some self-important character replied, “To the front!” there were irritated retorts, derision or simply laughter. Unlike the generals, the soldiers had already accepted defeat.

There was no more than a think strip on the right-hand side of the road for us to squeeze past the waiting retreat. As the day dawned, we turned off to the right, onto a white road. It was the first time we were moving in broad daylight, but the planes had not yet turned up. In the daylight my weariness ebbed a little and was replaced by a state I call my ‘windowpane felling’; at time like that, it is as if I were seeing everything through glass. We passed a blue lake visible through a garland of slender balsam poplars.

The road was constantly deteriorating and at points had been filled in entirely with stones. When we hit a gradient I deliberately sent the bike racing roughly over the stones, with braking. I could feel the back tire gradually losing air, and shortly after felt the wheel rim jolting. Flat, I thought. And then another thought: that’s the ticket.

I called out: “I’ve got a flat,” pulled out of the column over to the left, and dismounted. Werner, who rode alongside me, followed me over. Squad regulations stated that if anyone had a flat his nearest fellow had to help. The sergeant up front turned briefly and shouted across to me: “See that you’re not too long about it! We’re making for Vejano today.” Our commander was somewhere far ahead on his motorbike as usual. Feigning hasty work, I immediately upturned my bike on its saddle and handle-bars, as the squad raced past me.

I watched them disappear round a bend, the last of their wheels glinting and rattling. The trail of dust in their wake sank gently on the silent road.

It had really all gone very smoothly. Now I only had to get rid of Werner quickly.

He bent over the back wheel and began looking for the puncture. “With stones,” he said, “there are probably a lot of little holes in it. We really need a bucket of water to find them. It’ll take a while till we’ve mended this.”

“Why not go on with the rest.” I suggested. “I can manage on my own. Otherwise you’ll waste half the day on my bike.”

“No,” he answered, “I can’t do that. I can’t let you down like that.”

I sensed that he was restless and wanted to rejoin the squad. He was thinking that they would soon by at the “front”—at that time, we really did think there was some kind of front—and he would miss the action. Whether he genuinely wanted to get to the “front”, I do not know, but at any rate he wanted to stay with the squad, despite his occasional bouts of independence.

Suddenly I noticed that he was eyeing my suspiciously.

“You’re wanting to get some sleep, aren’t you?” he ventured. “But we can’t, not today. We have to stick with the others.”

“What do you take me for?” I returned reproachfully. If you’re going to lie, you have to do it properly. “Do you think I want to miss the action?"