It’s early. 

Before sunrise. 

The sky is only just beginning to light. 

Just twilight and it begins. 

Distant at first. But the coming closer. 

Growing in number. 

Drawing nearer.

The howling.

It starts far away barely a whisper but the first howling voice is joined by another and another. 

It builds and builds until the inextrable sound sweeps like a wave towards us and surrounds us. 

The dawn chorus of howling. 

The crowing of the island’s feral cockerels. 

The sound keys a memory and a familiar voice echoes in my head. A dear familiar voice from days gone by sagely intoning, “ah, the Germans must be bombing London.”

“I remember when Chalky, Lackery and I were stationed in Yorkshire we always knew when the Luftwaffe were over London…” and one of Grandad Fred’s war stories about pheasants calling to one another flashes through my mind. 

His eyes filling with tears as he recalls long dead comrades and distant adventures and so do mine as I remember him.