‘Come on outside,’ said Charlie, ‘get a breath o’ fresh air.’

They crept from the tent. Charlie reached back for the blanket and flung it over the wire fence to dry.

‘What’s frettin’ you, Alfie lad? Miss your Floss?’

Alfie shrugged his shoulders.

‘Come on, lad, tell your Uncle Charlie. Won’t do you no good keepin’ it shut up inside you. Talk cures all ills, my ma says. What hurts, Alfie?’

‘You don’t know what happened that last night before we came here. Me an’ Floss. Over the common.’

Charlie pushed Alfie back by the shoulders.

‘Did you, boy?’ he said delightedly. ‘Honest?’

Alfie nodded.

Charlie slapped his thigh. ‘Lord love me,’ he chuckled, ‘our little Alfie. An’ you think the end of the world’s come because you’ve ’ad a bit orf your girl. Is that what was worrying you?’

Alfie said, ‘She might have a baby.’

‘She might not,’ said Charlie. ‘Anyway, you ’aven’t done a murder, boy. They been doin’ that all over the world for years an’ years. Old Adam was the bloke that started it. Didn’t no one ever tell you?’

‘I want to marry her,’ said Alfie. ‘I was going into town last Monday to ask her mum; then we went and moved out of camp in the morning and here we are. What’s she thinking of me now?’

‘She’ll ’ave guessed what’s happened. If she ’asn’t, she’ll know soon enough.’

Alfie answered bitterly: ‘That’ll cheer her up, I bet. What they want to go and do this to us for? Why can’t I live my own life? I don’t want to go an’ invade somebody else’s country.’

‘No more do I, boy.’

‘Well, what did you come back to the battalion for?’

‘Look at it this way,’ said Charlie. ‘You’ve ’ad to stop living your own life for a while. Right? You want to get married, an’ you can’t. Right? Well, you’re not the only one, boy. In every tent in this camp there’s geezers in the same boat, an’ all along the coast tonight there’s millions more like them. Geezers who want to get married. Geezers waiting for their wives to ’ave a nipper. Geezers with their ma, or their missus, or their kiddie ill. Geezers with big ideas and ambitions. Geezers with businesses they ought to be keeping an eye on. And all of a sudden, bang, they’ve ’ad to turn their backs on these things.’

He chewed at a blade of grass for a moment.