He passed an envelope across the table and commented as Dickie glanced at the address and date stamp before he opened it up. “You can hardly be surprised you didn’t get one. You’re the only one of us not in plain sight. You have no forwarding address or even name. A. Vagrant, Halfway down the Great North Road, England doesn’t hack it. Not sure I’d resort to the life of a wandering man even if it guaranteed my safety. I could never go on the run. Though heaven knows we all had good reason to bury ourselves in anonymity. Mud doesn’t just stick, it swallows you and smothers you. I did consider changing my surname when I had sons to think about. It was lucky for us that back in Blighty, folk didn’t give a shit. By the time we got out of there, the old queen and the last century were dead and buried. People were throwing off their mourning weeds, shortening their skirts, widening their trousers and going out to have a good time. No one wanted to look back to a distant war. There were excursions to take, trains and bikes to ride, seas to swim in, picnics to have.” He gave Dickie a pitying smile and added, “Fortunes to be made. I did well in those Golden Years. I’m still doing well. And murky events that happened in the Transvaal I left back there in that benighted continent. We should never have been sent there anyway!”

“A gentleman in khaki ordered south,” murmured Dickie. “That’s what you were, according to Kipling. Not many of us were gentlemen when we came back north.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Oily’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “You did pretty well for yourself! Ordered east to the land of blazing sunsets, silks and perfumes, soft-footed khitmutgars at your elbow offering iced cocktails on the terrace . . . wasn’t it?”

“India. Land of Regrets,” Dickie spoke softly. “Not so much oriental romance—more a graveyard of exiles.”

“I heard a different story. We ex-military types, we love a bit of gossip. I heard you’d fallen on your feet—nice cushy peacetime billet, hobnobbing with the gentry. Learning high and mighty colonial behaviour . . . What was it they told me—you’d been made aide-de-camp to some high-flying colonel, or was it a brigadier? In your progress up the ranks, you’d been offered not so much a leg up as a red carpet. Well?”

The needling was failing to have its desired effect. Dickie merely smiled and said calmly, “A colonel, then a brigadier. Remember, swift advancement comes at a price in battle zones, Oily. Dead men’s shoes are never comfortable.”