He dropped to his knees for another man, keeping his head low. He recognised the young private, Gibbs. He was aged no more than nineteen years old and was fresh to France, having just completed his training in the summer. He’d been shot in the femur and repeatedly cried out, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ He grabbed the collar of Howard’s jacket and pulled himself into a semi-sitting position. Keeping his eyes trained on Howard, not looking at his wound, he yelled, ‘Have I lost my leg, have I lost my fucking leg?’ His voice hoarse with fear and panic; his spittle showered Howard’s face.

‘Not yet.’ Howard didn’t stop to think whether he could have been more comforting. He found Gibbs’s field dressing and hurriedly tied a tourniquet, then scrabbled in his bag, searching for water. ‘The RMO will be along soon,’ he muttered. They both knew it wasn’t true. Medical assistance would be hours away. He looked about for a crater to drag Gibbs into for protection and weighed up the wisdom of doing so. Moving him would almost certainly cause the broken bones to tear and rip the muscles inside the leg; there was the possibility of hitting an artery, which might lead to wound-shock and the swift and enormous loss of blood. If he left him here, the stretcher-bearers would find him eventually, put on a splint; they might save the leg and the man. At that moment, another shot took Gibbs. A small, clean black hole between the eyes. Howard picked up his rifle and carried on.

The land was open and he ran on until he was upon another line of trenches. They were already battered and baggy, littered with fragments of wire, piles of loose stones and sections of steel. The English soldiers who had slept in these last night must be far up the advancing line by now. Or dead. He rested for just minutes and then scrambled up and over again. He had managed five or ten more yards in the rain and the blackness, mud spewing up into his face, his mouth and nostrils, when he fell down a deep crater.

He slid on his back, feet first, and landed roughly on something soft. It took him a moment to register that his fall had been broken by two bodies. He was relieved not to recognise either man, especially as his right boot had gone into the gut of one of them; innards, fleshy and wet, clung to his ankle. Disorientated, Howard shook his head. The noise was still deafening and the crater was dense with darkness; he couldn’t see much at all. He considered how the men’s deaths had occurred. Was he at risk? Instantly he surmised that one of them, the one he’d put his foot through, had probably caught a shell up top and the second had dragged him into the crater. Perhaps they were friends, even brothers. He thought as much because moving a man with his belly ripped wide open – stomach, colon, intestines slopping about, exposed, red and raw – was an act of devotion, not a tactic. The man who had attempted the rescue had been shot in the chest; he had his own gun in his hand. Howard felt fear lick his soul. Slowly he turned to look for the assailant. With effort, he could just about make out a dead German, slumped at the opposite side of the crater. He had been shot in the head; the blood from what was left of his face was still flowing. If Howard touched him, he imagined the body would still be warm.