The atmosphere in the room was confused. The Germans, a mixture of naval captains and dockyard officers, joshed at tables on the periphery of the room. Roberts perceived in their deep and easy laughs an accent of hysteria, a tell, he reasoned, of the relief that follows the lifting of an immense psychological burden.5 The British officers, by contrast, sat in sombre quiet around a table in the middle of the room, contemplating the gravity of the victor’s clean-up task. The ecstasy of the vanquished; the misery of the vanquisher: the curious paradoxes of war.
