Howard felt he could hazard a guess. ‘Death?’

The CO nodded and began to slowly pace the cell. His boots snapping down on the concrete floor beat out a rhythm. ‘Doing violence to a person bringing provisions to the forces?’

‘Death,’ Howard mumbled.

‘Committing an offence against the person of a resident in the country in which he is serving?’

‘Death.’

‘Breaking into a house in search of plunder? Discharging firearms intentionally occasioning false alarms? Causing a mutiny? Striking a superior officer?’

‘Death, death, death, death.’ Howard got it. War meant death. The military meant death. What had this to do with him?

The CO stopped pacing, the snapping heels silent. He turned, leaned towards Howard’s ear and whispered menacingly, ‘Wilful defiance of authority, disobeying a lawful command given personally by his superior officer?’

Now Howard understood.

Death.

They meant to kill him. He moved his head from left to right. Left to right. Slowly. But he couldn’t clear it. Couldn’t make sense of anything. ‘It’s just stupid. I don’t agree and I won’t be that man,’ he muttered.

‘What man?’ The CO sounded genuinely curious.

‘The man who just does as he’s told. Unquestioning.’

‘You are in the army, Private Henderson. Of course you will be that man. You are that man. You’ll be any man we decide. You must.’ The CO exhaled. Suddenly moved away from Howard as though he’d got too close. He pulled out a clean white handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘You’ve got a visitor. You’d better get shaved. Clean up. You stink.’

He wished they hadn’t let his mother come. He longed to see her but he didn’t want her to see him. Not like this. Prison life – scant food, regular roughing-ups, little sleep, hard labour – had taken its toll. His trousers slipped down, his ribs popped out of his blue-white skin and his chest rasped. It was impossible to smarten up sufficiently to disguise the effects of the prison walls, turned glassy with damp.

27

VIVIAN HAD WRITTEN to Aubrey to ask for permission to visit Enid’s son and to invite him to work on the farm. She’d slipped the request in towards the end of the letter, after she’d told him about Mabel eating stewed apple for the first time (messy, exciting), that she’d had the two farm horses reshod (expensive), and given him a full review of the recital in the village hall (dull, tinny, inexpert but at least a diversion). She hadn’t wanted to draw too much attention to the matter. Aubrey wrote back and stated that if she could, in any way, help persuade the man to do his duty then that would be a good thing. He’d offered to throw in his influence with the army if necessary but questioned whether she needed to travel to Richmond personally. He thought that Mr Pickering could go on her behalf, that it would be more seemly. She’d replied that Mr Pickering had been called up and was now in Flanders, so otherwise engaged. Aubrey eventually gave his permission but cautioned that she must try to avoid becoming ‘too involved’ in Mrs Henderson’s business.