Kropp divides a cigarette and hands me half. Tjaden gives an account of his national dish⁠—broad-beans and bacon. He despises it when not flavoured with bog-myrtle, and, “for God’s sake, let it all be cooked together, not the potatoes, the beans, and the bacon separately.” Someone growls that he will pound Tjaden into bog-myrtle if he doesn’t shut up. Then all becomes quiet in the big room⁠—only the candles flickering from the necks of a couple of bottles and the artilleryman spitting every now and then.

We are just dozing off when the door opens and Kat appears. I think I must be dreaming; he has two loaves of bread under his arm and a bloodstained sandbag full of horseflesh in his hand.

The artilleryman’s pipe drops from his mouth. He feels the bread. “Real bread, by God, and still hot too?”

Kat gives no explanation. He has the bread, the rest doesn’t matter. I’m sure that if he were planted down in the middle of the desert, in half an hour he would have gathered together a supper of roast meat, dates, and wine.