‘Something you said to Nurse Moore …’

‘So I did. I meant it, too. I would rather kill myself than go back to France.’ He paused, then said, ‘I suppose you think I’m a dreadful coward for not wanting to do my duty?’

‘Not at all.’

He was silent for a while. Grace looked down at his hands, clasping and unclasping. The skin around his nails was raw where he had bitten it.

How had no one noticed before? she wondered. Captain Jeffers always seemed to put up such a calm, urbane front, with his dry sense of humour and mocking observations.

Now she realised that it had been just that – a front.

‘I wasn’t always like this, you know,’ he said suddenly. ‘I was a captain of the cadets at school. A born leader, they called me.’ His mouth twisted. ‘If they could only see me now, eh, Nurse?’

Grace said nothing. After a moment, Captain Jeffers continued speaking.

‘We practised endlessly for the war at school,’ he said. ‘We all knew it was coming, and we wanted to be ready for it. All those drills, learning how to march, how to strip and clean and fire a gun … Frankly, we couldn’t wait. I don’t think the war could come soon enough for us. Especially me.

‘And then, when it did, I was first in line to sign up. Eighteen years old, and desperate to do my duty. If I’d known …’ He shook his head. ‘But I didn’t. None of us knew. We all thought it was going to be a great adventure, like the stories we read in the Boys’ Herald.’

He patted his pocket and drew out a packet of cigarettes.

‘Twelve of us joined up from my form, all commissioned as junior officers. Eighteen years old, and we suddenly found ourselves in command of men twice our age.’ He shook his head. ‘God, what were they thinking?’

He lit a cigarette and took a long draw.

‘I’m the only one left now,’ he said. ‘The last one to survive, Marshall, was killed at Cambrai. One of our tanks went over him as he was lying injured in No Man’s Land. Not their fault, of course. They can’t be expected to grind to a halt and sort out which men are theirs and which are ours in the middle of fighting, can they?’

He sat back, his head pressed against the tiled wall. ‘Marshall,’ he said. ‘Now there was a hero. It was his twenty-first birthday when he led those men over the top. And when I say led, he would have been out there in front, believe me.’ The captain took a vicious drag on his cigarette. ‘God only knows what he would make of me if he could see me now.’

The train was approaching, a rumble in the distance from the mouth of the tunnel. On the platform, people were stirring themselves, ready for its arrival.

Captain Jeffers dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his heel.