He found himself speaking words that he had both read and invented: ‘I lived as a warrior before I was a man of letters. I wandered, I encircled, I slept in a hundred islands, I dwelt in a hundred forts.’

The words seemed good to him. Definitive. He put his hands to his chest and felt the beat of his hearts.

Timothy twice born. Timothy two heart. Dead and then recovered.’

He had stepped down from the tree towards dawn, shaking the dew off of his shoulders.

There was a whole world to explore.

‘Charge!’ bellowed Rocastle, and the boys set off across the field, bayonets fixed on the end of their (fortunately unloaded, because at least five of them were squeezing the trigger as they ran) rifles.

They impacted the stuffed sack targets, each tied into the shape of a man. Most of them carried through very well. A few made a cursory stab then ran off again, and a few got carried away, attacking the stuffing again and again. That wouldn’t do in battle. While that was going on, another man would be on them.

Alton, for some reason, had spun his rifle and slashed his target across the head.

Remarkably agile, but still not quite the thing. He’d have to take him down a peg for that.

He took a moment to glance at his watch. Where had Smith got to? The man had made a promise to be here. Do his standing in the eyes of the boys a power of good.

‘And halt!’ he shouted. ‘Now then, let’s see what we can do with that Vickers gun, shall we?’

Smith and Joan were lying back in the sunshine, elbow to elbow, looking into each other’s eyes.

‘I have to ask you,’ said Smith, ‘about Rocastle. You said there was some other problem with him. What was it?’

‘Oh, nothing terrible. He only asked me to marry him.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, early in our acquaintance, he thought that he would take the burden of widowhood from my shoulders. I told him that it was a very charitable thought, but that I could never love another.’

‘Do you still feel the same way?’

‘Of course.’

‘Oh…’

Joan looked at him seriously for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. ‘Your face!’

Smith’s frown left him and he returned a nervous smile. ‘So you were lying to Rocastle?’