He called for attention again and announced the next day’s orders. It was always the same on Saturday mornings; a nice, easy programme – Regimental Sergeant-Major’s Parade – an hour of glittering, crackling drill; then a long break at the canteen, with a lecture and a hut inspection to finish off the morning. After that they were free to leave barracks for the day.

The orderly sergeant backed unwillingly away from the stove and opened the door. ‘Good night, lads,’ he said, and left the hut.

It was quiet again in the hut, in the flickering red firelight, and very domestic. Most of the men talked quietly round the fire. A couple were squatting on their beds shaving; one or two were writing letters. A man named Bailey, who had gone to bed with a chill, was shivering and sniffling under his blankets. From among the card players on Charlie Venable’s bed came the clink of coins.

Alfie Bradley, the baby of the platoon, put his writing case away, slipped his fountain pen in his pocket and went over to watch the card players. He was small and thin, like a little whippet. He was fair-haired, and twenty years old.

‘Written to your ma, Alfie boy?’ asked Charlie Venable, without looking up from his cards. ‘That’s a boy. You be a good boy to your ma…’ he put his cards down on the blanket and raked in the kitty ‘…she’s the only good woman you’ll ever know, Alfie.’

Alfie flushed; he was sensitive about women. He lay in bed every night and listened to his comrades talking about their wives and the women they found; they were so casual, so confident, and it was so hard for him to hide from them the fact that life was still fear and mystery to him.

‘I don’t know,’ said Alfie timidly. ‘Some of the married chaps seem to have done all right.’

‘Ah,’ said Charlie Venable, ‘but what goes on when their backs are turned? Answer me that. Look at the married women down in the village. There’s not one of ’em straight. Think it’s different anywhere else?’

‘You don’t know my missus,’ said one of the men by the fire.

‘Maybe I do,’ said Charlie. ‘I been around.’

‘That’s not funny,’ said the man by the fire.

‘No offence,’ said Charlie amiably. ‘My little joke, mate.’

He shuffled the cards deftly and dealt another hand. ‘You’re right, though, Alfie boy,’ he said, ‘you find yourself a nice little girl an’ don’t take no notice of me. But don’t you go with none of them women in the village. You think of your ma, Alfie, an’ look for one like ’er.’

‘Can I sit-in?’ asked Alfie.

‘You help me play my hand,’ Charlie Venable advised him, ’and keep your money in your pocket.’

***

‘How’s it goin’, Baldy?’