Discharged from hospital forty-eight hours later, Rob returned to the Base Personnel Depot. Restricted to light duties for a couple of days, he concentrated on settling in rather than the marital status of a Scottish nurse or the chance, however remote that he would see Susanna again. Light duties involved little more than peeling potatoes in the villa kitchen or washing up, after which he was free to do as he liked until an hour before the officers’ next meal. Although the depot officers were housed further down the road in a more sumptuous establishment judging from its exterior, they ate all their meals in the Officers’ Mess on the villa’s first floor.
Exploring the garden behind the barracks, he discovered a tangled web of overgrown shrubs and grass interspersed with tall pine trees.
