From the slopes on which the battalion was entrenched the Norman landscape seemed peaceful and asleep, the summer harvest flourishing richly on the flanks of its hills, its valleys dotted with grey old farmhouses and lovely spires. Even the scarred and pitted trees around the battalion were growing fresh foliage. Only the overpowering, sweet stench of the dead cattle that lay, bloated or decomposing, in every field, dispelled the pastoral dream.

Yet the front was not asleep. Every night the fields were aflicker with the ghostly movement of patrols creeping out from both sides to probe for information or to play at hit and run in the darkness, with a sudden panic of flares and rockets and small arms fire. Men and material were pouring into the forward area, day and night, disappearing into the shadowy shelter of the woods. The daily situation reports brought news of attacks on other sectors of the front; the men, crowding round the maps which the Intelligence Officer pinned up for them, saw the British line bulging gradually forward. Rumours flourished again, hopes and disappointments crowding on each other’s heels.

Each day the tension grew; to the men of the Fifth Battalion the faint rumbling of the guns each morning, as far away on the flanks yet another attack went on, sounded like the muttering thunder of an approaching storm.

‘Barney,’ said the patrol leader. ‘You and Smith search the house.’

Smith and Barnicoat moved cautiously in through the cottage doorway. The ground-floor room was empty. They climbed the creaking staircase, Barnicoat leading.

There was a door facing them on the top landing. Barnicoat kicked the door open, lunged forward and fired his rifle from the waist with the butt held under his elbow.

Smith followed him into the room, sniffing cordite fumes, and looked down at the wounded German groaning on the floor.

‘He went for his gun,’ said Barnicoat. He stood over the German and lowered the point of his bayonet to thrust.

‘Let him be,’ said Smith, laying a hand on his arm. ‘He’ll not hurt us any more. Poor devil’s not got many moments to live, by the looks of it.’

Barnicoat raised his rifle again. They turned to go out of the room.

Private Smith, in the doorway already, was deafened by the sudden thunder of a second shot. He turned, to see Barnicoat topple to the floor. The German, lying by the wall, had raised himself on one elbow and was glowering over his pistol.

Smith fired twice, then stepped forward and struck with his rifle butt. Three times he drove the butt downwards, with all his weight behind it. He stepped back, breathing heavily, and went across to Barnicoat. Barnicoat was dead.

Private Smith stood for a few moments, looking down at the two bodies with a puzzled frown. Then he tore a strip of peeling wallpaper down, wiped the mess from the butt-plate of his rifle, and went downstairs.

***