Farrell bent to reach into his case, and in an instant, Howard knew – perhaps he’d always known, just not believed. She had written. The world seemed to slant and then right itself as the sergeant drew out a two-inch-thick bundle of letters, tied with string. Bowler had intercepted them, kept them.

The letters Howard had written to her were lost out on the field somewhere, perhaps in that very crater where Bowler met his end, perhaps in the trench where he’d left the burnt soldier. Most likely he had dropped his pack as he dragged Aubrey back to base. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had the Fortnum and Mason tin; he’d been barely conscious of his actions, instead on some sort of automatic survival mode. He did remember considering dumping Aubrey’s boots, such was his desire to lighten his load. Was it possible that he’d been so desperate that he’d simply forgotten her? Just for an instant. Well, at least if not her, then the letters he’d written to her. Which had sometimes been the same thing these last two years. He knew the tin wasn’t in amongst the few bits the nurse had handed him as personal effects: his broken watch, a photo of his mother that he kept tucked in his breast pocket. When he’d first realised that his letters had gone, he’d wanted to howl. He’d cursed himself for not keeping them on his person, but the package was too bulky to allow that. Now it did not matter that they were lost. The battlefield had swallowed them but spewed up her far more valuable ones instead. He fingered the bundle with barely containable excitement. The sergeant noticed, perhaps even understood. He stood up, suddenly self-conscious and superfluous.

‘Right, I’ll leave you to it, then.’ Howard nodded impatiently. It wasn’t that he wanted to be rude to the man, but her handwriting was there. Just there. Tantalisingly close on the envelope. ‘I’ve other men to buck up.’

‘Of course.’ The two men nodded in a way that soldiers had developed. A look that conveyed respect, that wished providence, bid goodbye, hoped for but didn’t expect further acquaintance.

They were not in order. Some of them weren’t even dated. He didn’t care. He wanted to dive in; he’d make chronological sense of them later, using the postmarks. Now, he just had to consume. He had to have them.

They had been read before. Each of the envelopes had been carefully sliced open with a knife. He imagined Sergeant Bowler’s fat fingers, fast breath pouring over her words. He knew the man was in hell. Carefully he slid a letter out of its envelope.

He saw her hand across the paper and felt it as though she had swept his hair from his eyes. He glanced and caught the first words.

April showers have come in the form of storms this year.

He saw it in his mind’s eye as it surely had been, as it was. Vivian raising her eyes, expecting a pale blue innocent sky, finding instead a dark, brooding colour. Thick raindrops falling in heavy, fat blobs, the sort that were always a precursor to an almighty downpour. Vivian dashing to bring in the washing, locking the gate to stop it swinging and banging on its hinge.