'You didn't like the last song I sang,' she retorted.

'Well, no, because it sounded to my ears like a rebel song.'

'It was a rebel song,' she said. 'Weren't you listening? About the student revolution?'

'Aye, but in case you hadn't noticed, we're currently fighting against a bunch of rebels.'

'So? Don't you want to hear their point of view?'

Harker stared at her, but she didn't seem to be joking. 'No,' he said clearly and slowly, just in case she was secretly an imbecile.

'That's very close-minded of you.'

'Eve, they are the enemy. I ain't paid to think about points of view.'

'Why? Because you might start questioning why you're fighting in the first place?'

'Careful,' said Charlie, ahead of her.

'Oh, come on, I'm your damn prisoner anyway. If I can't say it, who can?'

'No one,' Harker said. 'So shut up.'

'No, I won't. Why won't you even consider their point of view? They want what, to join the French Empire? Okay, I know it's abhorrent to you, and I'm British, too, I understand the whole Francophobe thing. But listen. They've got to have a reason. So far as I can tell, this whole country is on its knees. You're rationing everything, from clothes to food, you can't import anything much, because you can't afford to, because what do you export?'

Harker opened and shut his mouth.

'No, really, what do you export? What's your contribution to the world economy? Because listen, if you actually joined the French Empire, then maybe they'd be obliged to protect you, and share trade with you.'

'The hell they would,' Charlie said evenly.

'Why do the French even want to annex England? They must see something about this place that's worthwhile. Because from where I'm standing, we're broke and backwards, and it's just not even worth their bother.'

'They probably want to use us as a jumping off point to invade Wales and Scotland,' Charlie said.

'Why? What have they got? They're no better off than we are,' said Harker.

'From here they could probably invade Norway,' Tallulah opined. 'And they're a much more advanced country.'

'How come? I mean, what do they have in Norway? Snow and pines.'

'They have oil,' Harker said. 'Comes up out of the sea. Don't ask me how, sea must be black over there, but'

'Wait,' Eve said. 'Oil? Gas and oil?'

'How're they going to get gas out of the sea?' Harker said. 'Don't be daft.'

'It can exist in bubbles under the seabed,' Daz said. 'I'd imagine they use some sort of siphon arrangement.'

'Yes,' Eve said triumphantly. 'Look, don't you see? It's all in the North Sea. Gallons of the stuff. Right off the coast of England! And Scotland. You must have some rights er, the whole International Waters thing? I mean, what are your fishing rights?'

Harker blinked at her.

'Equal distance from both coasts,' Banks said, unexpectedly. 'Not much in the Channel or the Irish Sea, but probably a couple of hundred miles in the North Sea.'

This time Harker stared at Banks, and he wasn't the only one.

'Poacher,' he reminded them. 'Lot of money in fish, but all that boat stuff,' he shuddered, 'too bleedin' cold and wet for me.'

'Look,' Eve said, 'if you don't even know it's there, they could be taking it and you'd have no idea. That stuff is worth a fortune. I mean where do you get your oil from? What do you power your cars with? I know you don't have many, but what do you use?'

'There's oil under the ground,' Daz said. 'In some of the coalfields. Not far from here, actually.'

'Sir,' Charlie shot him a look, 'doesn't that come under the heading "classified information"?'

'What, that we run our cars on oil?'

'No, where we get it from.'

'Oh, leave it off, they probably know that already,' Eve said.

There was a short silence. 'How?' Harker asked.

'I don't know! Probably Google.' She scowled at his look of incomprehension. 'Look, oil refineries are big places, right? Fairly visible from an aerial view?'

'Are you saying they're flying over us and spying?' Charlie said.

'Well, yes, maybe. Or'

'Is that what you were doing?'

Eve stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. 'For the last time,' she said, 'I am not a bloody spy. I don't know how I ended up here or why it's so different from what I know, but I am not a goddamned spy.'

'But how do you know all this?'

She threw up her hands. 'It's common knowledge! Jesus Christ.' She started walking again stomping, to Harker's eyes. He noticed Tallulah frowning, and realised that to a nicely brought-up young lady, Eve's language might be considered a bit unnecessary. He grinned to himself. Personally, he loved a bit of unnecessary language, but it was always fun to annoy Eve. 'I hope you are not taking the Lord's name in vain,' he said severely. And the look Eve gave him could have cut glass.

He lit up a cigarette, which went somewhat soggy in the heavy mist, and thought about what she'd said. There had to be a reason the French wanted England. They wouldn't annex a poor, useless country, it'd cost them more than it was worth.

Harker belonged to England body and soul, but even he had to admit the place was hardly a land of milk and honey.

What did they have that France wanted?

If Eve was right, then there were reserves of oil and gas under the sea. He couldn't quite understand that, but then he didn't understand motorcars, and they existed sure enough.

What else? Well, it was a fertile land. Sunshine and rain, great growing for wheat and barley, vegetables, even fruits, although they had plenty of that in France, too. You couldn't grow anything exciting, like oranges or grapes, or even tobacco, dammit. The Americans had become very rich on tobacco, and on cotton, too although England imported her cotton from Egypt, thanks to some deal ex-Queen Diana had struck with her new boyfriend.

England had lots of coal. It ran most of the things that needed to be run, powered ships and mills, generated electricity for those who could afford their own generators and, ironically, ran the oil drills in Nottinghamshire. But was it enough, and good enough, to export? There wasn't, as far as Harker knew, anything like silver or gold in the ground, although there was some iron and tin. Hard to imagine anyone invading for the sake of iron, tin and coal.

Hard to imagine anyone invading England for, well, anything. And yet people did. The Romans, the Vikings had settled here; even the French, a thousand years ago.

And that'd be the last time, if Harker had anything to do with it.

Late in the afternoon Charlie brought his attention to a ruined priory, in the shelter of which they made camp and burned a couple of large fires to fight the mist off. Banks made another of his stews, which were very hearty but Harker was getting a little sick of them, and Daz handed Eve her guitar.

'I'm not sure that's a good idea,' she said. 'I might play something seditious.'

'Attempt not to,' Harker said, still irritated over the broke and backwards comment.

'Well, I don't know,' she said, sticking her chin out. 'I didn't think singing about something that didn't happen more than a hundred years ago was seditious, but you decided it was.'

'Eve'

'All right,' she said, a mutinous gleam in her eye, 'how about this? This isn't inciting anyone to anything. It's about silence. You should like it.'

And she started playing, just a couple of notes, up and down, up and down, and started singing about the sound of silence, which was a stupid thing if you asked Harker, because silence had no sound.

And then he listened to her words, and realised what she was singing about.

'All right, you've made your point,' he said, and she gave him a smug smile.

'I don't get it,' said Banks. Tallulah patted his arm.

'It'll come to you,' she said.

'I'm going to bed,' Harker said, chucking the butt of his cigarette into the fire. 'Play what you want.'

Damn her, how did she do it? The words were meaningless, they didn't make any sense.

And yet 'But silence doesn't have a sound,' Banks was still saying as Harker shut his eyes.

And yet, there was something pervasive about that song. Something that made him feel guilty, and he didn't know why.

'All right, all right, I'll sing something normal,' Eve said, and started singing some ditty about love. Harker listened for anything dangerous, found only vacuous sentiments, and settled down to sleep. He woke briefly when Daz came in, squinted at his watch and said, 'Did Banks go on guard?'

Daz nodded in the darkness. 'He's watching Eve. The others have turned in, too.'

Harker nodded and tried to go back to sleep, but Eve was still singing. To herself, he realised, not for an audience.

And it was beautiful.

She was singing about wishes, about leaving clouds behind her, about troubles melting away. A fine sentiment, Harker thought as he closed his eyes. Wishing never got anybody anywhere. If you wanted something, in Harker's experience you had to fight for it. Although lately, fighting didn't seem to be doing much good, either.

Maybe that was what she'd done. Wished upon a star and woken up somewhere ... how did she put it? Over the rainbow. Well, that was what you got for gliding over the river.

The longing in her voice was almost tangible, and being flippant wasn't working. I must be tired, Harker thought, because I'm beginning to believe her. She's singing about a better world, and I'm beginning to believe it's true.

Maybe because she sang it with such conviction. Such purity and strength. Probably the rest of the squad were feeling it, too. Probably it wasn't just him who wanted to go out there and make her feel better.

He wondered if she'd feel better if he went out there and kissed her silly.

No, probably not.

Dammit.

The morning brought more mist, which burned off around midday. By which time the squad had been moving for four or five hours, and Eve's throat was somewhat raw from singing.

Most of the things she sang were inconsequential, but every now and then she threw in something to annoy Harker. He didn't seem to like the one about where all the flowers had gone, or the one about the bells of hell, although she noticed he didn't stop her from singing them. He just complained.

'Can't you sing something uncontroversial?' he said.

'But all the best songs are controversial.' Eve gave a mirthless laugh. 'You want something bland, I'll sing a Grrl Power hit, although they're all so awful you'll be begging me to sing about the glories of revolution.'

'Go on, then,' Harker said, 'sing us one of those songs from your famous band.'

Eve sighed, and did, and about five bars in she could tell they all hated it. She didn't mind. She hated it, too.

Into the following silence, she said, 'See, I told you they were rubbish songs.'

'Then why'd you join the band?' Harker asked.

She sighed. 'Because I was seventeen and stupid.'

'Those two so often go together,' Harker agreed, and Tallulah, who had until recently been seventeen, wrinkled her nose.

Eve said, 'Okay. Here's one that's much more tuneful, I promise, and it's by Sheryl Crow, and she's an absolute poet.'

'Is it one of your "protest songs"?' Harker asked suspiciously.

'No.'

'What's it called?'

Eve hesitated. 'Letter to God.'

'No.'

'But it's not'

'I ain't bringing religion into this, Eve. No.'

'It's not about religion.'

'Oh, aye? A song with the word "God" in the title? What's it about, then?'

Another brief pause. 'Well, it's sort of protesting against'

'No.'