He’d never find out unless he knocked, though . . . would he? . . .

‘Open the door, will you, love? M’hands are full.’

There was a large black woman behind him, her arms full of sheets. Johnny nodded mutely and turned the handle.

The room was more or less bare. There was certainly no one else there.

‘I see you come up here every week to see your gran,’ said the nurse, dumping the sheets on the bare bed. ‘You’re a good boy to come see her.’

‘Uh. Yes.’

‘What was it you were wanting?’

‘Uh. I thought I’d . . . you know . . . drop in to have a chat with Mr Atkins? Uh.’ Inspiration seized him. ‘I’m doing a project at school. About the Blackbury Pals.’

A project! You could get away with anything if you said you were doing a project.

‘Who were they then, dear?’

‘Oh . . . some soldiers. Mr Atkins was one of them, I think. Uh . . . where . . . ?’

‘Well, he passed away yesterday, dear. Nearly ninety-seven, I think he was. Did you know him?’

‘Not . . . really.’

‘He was here for years. He was a nice old man. He used to say that when he died the war’d be over. It was his joke. He used to show us his old Army pay book. “Tommy Atkins,” he’d say. “I’m the one, I’m the boy, when I’m gone it’s all over.” He used to laugh about that.’

‘What did he mean?’

‘Don’t know, dear. I just used to smile. You know how it is.’

The nurse smoothed out the new sheets and pulled a cardboard box from under the bed.

‘This was his stuff,’ she said. She gave him an odd look. ‘I expect it’s all right for you to see. No one ever visited him, except a man from the British Legion regular as clockwork every Christmas, God bless them. They’ve asked for his medals, you know. But I expect it’s all right for you to have a look. If it’s a project.’

Johnny peered into the box while the nurse bustled around the room.

There were a few odds and ends – a pipe, a tobacco tin, a huge old penknife. There was a scrapbook, full of sepia postcards of flowers and fields of cabbages and simpering French ladies dressed in what someone must once have thought was a very daring way. Yellowing newspaper cuttings were stuck between the pages. And there was a small wooden box lined with toilet paper and containing several medals.

And there was a photograph of the Blackbury Pals, just like the one in the old newspaper.

Johnny lifted it out very carefully, and turned it over. It crackled.

Someone had written, in violet ink, a long time ago, the words: Old Comrades!!! We’re the Boys, Kaiser Bill! If You Know A Better ‘ole, Go To IT!!

And there were thirty signatures underneath.

Beside twenty-nine of the signatures, in pencil, someone had made a small cross.