Samuel tried to imagine how Chuck must have felt, all on his own surrounded by black men. The balance wouldn’t have seemed at all right, would it? Memories of his daddy and the Ku Klux Klan must have flooded through his brain – hooded white men surrounding a defenceless Negro. And knowing what those white men did to that Negro, Chuck must have been absolutely petrified.

Had they taunted him, Samuel wondered. Possibly. But they hadn’t tortured him. There had been no marks on his body to suggest any injury other than a cleanly broken neck. Perhaps you should consider yourself lucky, Chuck, he thought, your death might possibly have been more merciful than the future you would have suffered serving with the marines.

Samuel decided it was pointless pondering the subject any further. He couldn’t bring himself to feel any sympathy for Chuck Maxwell, and the true circumstances of the man’s death would never be known. You’re just another mystery, Chuck, he thought, another mystery among so many.

Two days before their departure for Port Moresby, Samuel spent the night at his billet in the city. The following day, the troops would be breaking camp and he would stay the night at Kelso.

Determined the prospect of their parting should not be maudlin, he and Amelia eked out every moment they could of their last night together. They barely slept at all. They made love, certainly, but they talked too, not about anything particularly consequential, but about their favourite books and music, his passion for jazz, hers for orchestral, and they discovered a mutual love of poetry. They talked and laughed and loved, and then at midnight, they ate sardines on toast in bed.

‘King Oscar tinned sardines,’ she said, relishing the taste, ‘a childhood favourite.’

‘Yeah, for me, too, as a kid,’ he said, ‘although I can’t remember the brand. I don’t think ours were King Oscar.’

The same thought occurred to them simultaneously, although she was the one to voice it. ‘We haven’t spoken at all of our previous lives, have we,’ she said, ‘of our childhoods or our families, isn’t that strange?’

‘Perhaps.’ He was thinking there was a lifetime ahead to do all of that, or rather he was hoping so. If the war didn’t claim him anyway. He waited until they’d finished the last of the sardines. Then putting the plate on the bedside table, he casually asked, ‘Does that marriage proposal still stand, by the way?’

‘Oh most definitely. I’m all prepared. Look.’ She held out her left hand, splaying her fingers.

‘No wedding ring,’ he said.

‘I took it off last night before you arrived. You didn’t notice, did you?’

‘I didn’t have time. There’s been so much happening.’

They kissed, aware of the taste of sardines.