‘Th-thank you that would be nice.’ Ivy perched on the edge of a little chair with fancy gilt legs and as she looked about she could hardly believe that this was actually a hospital. There was nothing clinical about the place. In fact it looked like a small stately home. The floor was parquet, highly polished and gleaming softly in the weak sun that shone through the stained-glass windows on the impressive double front doors, and there were beautiful mirrors and paintings hanging on the wall. But even they couldn’t hold her attention for long, her thoughts were firmly on Marcus. Would he still want her and be the same young man she had waved off to fight for his king and country? She would know soon enough but the waiting was almost unbearable.

Walter, meanwhile, followed the nurse along the enormous hallway until they came to a door where she paused.

‘I just ought to warn you that many of the patients are traumatised,’ she told him gently. ‘Their physical injuries tend to heal far more quickly than their mental injuries so don’t expect too much too soon.’

He removed his hat and after nodding at her began to turn the brim in his hands. She opened the door and he stepped into what had once clearly been a very stately drawing room. There were large sash windows adorned with thick, velvet curtains that overlooked sweeping lawns and he imagined that the grounds would be quite beautiful in the summer. There were sofas and easy chairs set all about the room and as his eyes swept over the men sitting in them they finally found the one he was looking for.

One side of Marcus’s face was heavily bandaged and he had lost a frightening amount of weight so his clothes hung loosely off him but Walter would have known that shock of dark hair anywhere. Marcus was sitting in a wing chair by the window and Walter approached him before saying quietly, ‘Hello, son.’

Marcus’s head swung round and suddenly he was crying as he held his arms out to his father. There had been times over the last months when he had thought he would never see him again but here he was.

Walter knelt down and embraced him as tears ran down his cheeks then he drew a chair close and they joined hands. It was like holding the hands of a skeleton, he could feel every bone, but that was nothing that couldn’t be cured with some good, home-cooked meals once they got him home. He was alive and that was all that mattered.

‘Did they tell you I’d lost an eye?’

Walter nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, they did, but you can live with that, son. And I ought to tell you, Ivy is waiting outside.’

Marcus’s breath caught in his throat as he looked away before saying falteringly, ‘B-but I don’t want her to see me like this. I’m not the same any more. She won’t want a man who is half blind!’