‘Before the harvest,’ said Tom. That was the only thing that worried him. He paid little heed to the battalion’s warlike preparations; he never wondered what might be in store across the water; certainly he had never known the breath of fear. But sometimes he felt a little anxious because he would be taken away before the summer was at its height, and just when Mister Hodge, who had so much to teach him, was getting interested in him. ‘I don’t think I’ll be with you for the harvest, Mister Hodge.’

Mister Hodge laughed heartily. ‘Never you worry about that, Tom, lad,’ he said. ‘You’ll have your own harvest to get in by then. Eh, lad? You deserve another pint for that. Drink up, Tom, boy, and I’ll get you one.’

‘I’ll be sorry for all that, Mister Hodge,’ said Tom solemnly. ‘I’ve never been on a farm like yours before. All this science. It’s a good thing for a farmer, knowledge.’

‘There’s always after the war,’ said Mister Hodge. ‘If your mother’ll let you stay away for a year or two more, I’ll be pleased to have you with me. Anyway, we shall be friends, shan’t we, and write to each other? You’re going to write when you’re away, aren’t you, Tom?’

Tom blushed. ‘If it’s all right with you, Mister Hodge. Oh,’ he said, as Charlie Benbow brought another pint along, ‘I haven’t finished the other one yet.’

They fell to talking about the war again. The newspapers told of fresh victories in Italy and of a great Russian offensive in the Crimea.

‘Old Staylin,’ chortled Charlie Benbow, wiping a spot of froth from his straggling moustache, ‘he’s the boy. He knows what he’s doin’ of all right. More than some of them over ’ere.’

‘They say,’ Tom butted in, eager to repeat a joke that was going the rounds of the Fifth Battalion and which represented almost the sum total of Tom’s political knowledge, ‘they say old Stalin’s sent a telegram to Churchill, askin’ if he sh’d stop at Calais or come on over here.’

They all laughed. Old Charlie thumped the table with his huge fist. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘he’s the boy all right. Told ’em to burn the crops, ’e did. Burn the crops, ’e told ’em. An’ they did.’

Tom laughed again, immoderately. He was light-headed with happiness. The talk flowed on around him, but he did not hear it. He was thinking only on Mister Hodge’s words. ‘There’s always after the war… I’ll be pleased to have you with me.’ To be a free man, and to work here, with Mister Hodge and Old Charlie and the others. There was no war for Tom Smith, and no thought of tomorrow’s battle in his mind; only after the war, and the job at Hodge’s Farm.