Through a narrow gap between a dead man’s arm and a dead man’s leg, Jack sees the gates of a walled city slide past the cart. There are no signs, but he has heard the French soldiers speak of Calais more than once.
The trip has taken most of two days and he has not eaten in that time. He has toileted just once, at night, climbing down off the cart when the French soldiers were asleep. He tried to get to the caged wagon with the prisoners more than once, but there were always guards stationed around it.
He needs to urinate now, and does so, without shifting his position. The cart already carries the stench of excrement; a little more will make no difference.
The warmth of it is strangely comforting in the fabric of his trousers.
He has shifted around so that he won’t have to face Lars’s cold, sightless eyes. There is something accusatory in that gaze, and Jack feels responsible for the big man’s death, although he does not know why.
It is easier to turn the other way and stare at the back of a balding Frenchman’s head than to face those eyes.
They finally come to a halt outside a high-walled courtyard with a heavy, barred door. The clanking of chains comes from the front of the column and he hears McConnell’s voice swearing at someone.
He eases himself over the back of the meat cart and slips into a shadowy doorway. He waits until the rest of the column moves off, then crosses the road to a stable where a pair of gray horses eye him incuriously as he nestles in the pile of straw between them, keeping an eye on the building across the street. It has high walls and barred windows. A prison.
It is warm in the straw and despite his best intentions, after being awake constantly for two days, he sleeps.