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'Okay, you do that. I'll just wait here.' He plunged his hands into the deep pockets of his bright red anorak and started to whistle 'Men of Harlech'.

‘Right, I'll go over and ask. Right.' Jack went over to the post office and tried the door. It was locked.

He shook the handle as if this might somehow make it a little less locked. Peering through the wire-meshed glass, he searched amongst the American Express, Daily Mirror and 'It is against the law to sell cigarettes to under-16s' stickers for some indication of when it was open. Eventually he found it and discovered that the post office was shut between one and two o'clock. He looked at his watch and found that he had thirty-eight minutes to wait.

He stomped back over to David who had acquired a pint glass from somewhere.

'Oh shoot, David. How is it you've got enough money for that but you couldn't pay the full coach fare?'

'Llanfer Ceiriog.'

'What?'

'We're ... ' He took a sip from the glass. 'We're in Llanfer Ceiriog. Get the map out, Jack.'

Jack looked resentfully at David's drink as he swung his rucksack down on to the ground and rooted through the pockets for the ragged Ordnance Survey map. He unfolded it and tried to hold it so that the light breeze didn't blow it around and so that it presented the minimum surface area to the continual drizzle. He scanned the names, lines and symbols until he eventually found the boldly printed 'Llanfer Ceiriog' at the meeting point of three roads.

‘Here it is,' he said, pointing it out to David. He quickly relinquished his hold as the map was pulled away from him.

'Where? Let me see.' David waved the map around in one hand until it was reasonably easy to read.

He studied it briefly and then said, looking around, 'Which road did we come in on?’

Jack realized that he hadn't the faintest idea. 'Uh, it was one, wasn't it?'

'Yeah, I think you're right. Put on your pack, Jack. We go this way.'

Old Davy watched as the two young Americans strode along the road up to Emrys's valley and wondered why hadn't looked at the signpost in the middle of the junction. He didn't even flinch when he heard David's glass smash.

It was probably when they had been passing through a small utterly forgettable town, nestling happily in a twist of the Rhine that Jack had realized what a complete lunatic his travelling companion was. Jack had known David for quite some time and had thought that he had known him quite well for most of that time. The crossing of the English Channel seemed to have changed David's character irretrievably.

Maybe it was the drinking water.

To return to the town on the Rhine, however, it was a rather drab, dull and boring day and they had been making their way to a goats'-milk-cheese-tasting festival. They had been walking alongside a murky pool which had been cut off from the river by the drought afflicting the entirety of continental Europe, when suddenly, and with no warning, David had dropped his backpack and leapt head first into the oily, stagnant waters. Seconds later he re-emerged, spluttering and triumphantly clutching a lady's silk undergarment. And this was before he had spent five hour tasting free samples at a nearby vineyard.

After trying the German wine, of course, David had wandered around wearing the silk underwear on his head - but at that level of intoxication it was understandable. It was just the initial retrieval that had shaken Jack up.

Since then, Jack had had frequent cause to ponder on the condition of David's sanity. After a month of climbing ships’ funnels, lying down in Italian fountains, swimming in the North Sea at two in the morning and doing things to donkeys that even a Spaniard would balk at, it should have come as no surprise that David should suddenly fling a half-empty beer glass against a wall, slip out of the straps of his rucksack and leap head first into the thick, wet grass of the roadside verge. In fact it was almost an exact repetition of the underwear incident except that this time David arose clutching in one hand a rather startled-looking