‘Silly boy,’ he said. ‘Careless talk costs lives. See you on a pink cloud, duckie.’ He walked out, waggling his fingers over his shoulder, chuckling to himself.

Since we completed our six-week basic medical training, we have been split up into different groups with different duties. I’m a filing clerk, sorting out rotas and filling in order forms in the Station Sick Quarters. I think I was given this job because I have A levels. Stephen Poynter is a hospital porter, or ‘bedpan Johnny’. The SSQ is a busy place – it’s not just military personnel, but locals as well – and so he has his hands full. Wright of course is one of the very few who was picked as a trainee pilot, and spends most of his time out on the airfield. The flyers are like royalty. Even Kelsey treats them with a certain amount of respect. And Wright, from what I observe around the camp and in the NAAFI, is the king. Not only is he popular and good looking, he is also a champion boxer – and they take their boxing very seriously at Reville. He spends a lot of time in the gym, training for fights. I’ve watched him sometimes; people take an interest in his training, so there’s nothing particularly unusual about this. They know I’m an art student – Kelsey made very sure of that – and so sketching doesn’t draw a great deal of attention either. I don’t know what they’d make of some of the sketches I’ve done at the back of this diary, partly from memory, partly what I’d like to see, Wright in the showers, Wright without his shorts …

Today Wright came to see me in the SSQ office. My head was bent over the rotas, as usual, and I only noticed he was there because something was blocking the light. He was standing in the doorway, one arm crooked above his head, leaning on the frame, one leg crossed, resting on the toe of his boot.

‘Airman Medway,’ he said when I looked up, blowing a long thin stream of smoke out of the side of his mouth.

‘Yes, Airman Wright?’

‘The lads say you’ve been doing drawings of me.’

‘Oh.’

‘Have you?’

It was hard to read his face. The eyes were half closed, the lips slightly open around his cigarette. What did he want? Trouble?

‘Well?’

‘Yes, I’ve made a few sketches. I’m an …’

‘Artist. Yeah. So they tell me.’

He shifted his weight to the other leg, rummaged in his tunic and pulled out a packet of fags. ‘Want one?’

‘Not in here. Not allowed.’

‘And who’s going to know?’ He lit it from the butt of his, and handed it to me.

‘If the MO comes in …’

‘Tell him I led you astray.’ He perched on the edge of my desk. His thigh muscles fill his trousers. Clothes hang off most of us in the oddest ways. There’s a saying about uniforms here: ‘If it fits, you’re deformed’. Wright’s uniform fits like a bespoke suit, and he certainly is not deformed.