In the confusion, the rest of the squadron had retreated further back. Only one horse remained; Samson, Captain Mandeville’s own hunter brought out after his cavalry issue horse had developed colic. Captain Mandeville ordered Hughes to place me on Samson and to share the saddle. This, Hughes refused to do. Captain Mandeville called a command, and without so much as a nudge, that most magnificent of horses carried me away through the trees. I gripped the reins and was able to look back, to see Captain Mandeville and Hughes standing shoulder to shoulder, engaged in a fierce battle with the approaching twenty or so Germans.

It wasn’t until later that evening that we received word from the farmer who owned the orchard. He and his family had witnessed the fight from their house and had seen Captain Mandeville and Hughes fall. They were taken to the local doctor and his nurse, who rendered what medical assistance they were able, but both men succumbed to their wounds later that same afternoon; Hughes, of a haemorrhage caused by gunshots received to his leg, and Captain Mandeville from two wounds, one to the stomach, the other to his chest. They were buried in a local cemetery, since by that point, the village had fallen into enemy hands. We were assured they had received a proper Christian service.

I have more reason than most to be grateful to Captain Mandeville and Lance Corporal Hughes. Had Captain Mandeville not given the order to retreat when he did, many more men would have died that day, and were it not for his actions, I should be in a plot in a graveyard in northern France.

Captain Mandeville was the very best of officers; his utmost concern was always for the welfare of his men. On that day, he sacrificed himself so that I and the other men might live. That was a measure of the man.

Epilogue

22 AUGUST 2014

In a rural village in northern France, a young woman leaves a café bar. Blinking in the midday sun, she clutches a map that the landlady has drawn on the back of a paper napkin. She crosses the square where a group of old men play pétanque. Their faces are brown and cracked like the bark of the chestnut tree beneath which some take shade. The balls crack, throwing up a shower of sandy dust.

The men smile as they watch the young woman pass by. She is the stranger who arrived the day before to stay for a single night in the guest room above the bar. The previous evening, they all watched her slowly drink a glass of red wine. Today, in her pretty blue dress and with her hair neatly styled, she reminds them of how women dressed when they were young. For a moment, each man recalls the first woman he fell in love with.

Following the map, the woman navigates the back streets, emerging on to a side road. Opposite a terrace of neat houses with waffled orange roofs, she stops for a moment to steel herself for what she is about to do. She smooths out her dress and runs her fingers over her hair, before passing through the iron gates.