‘Oh, do buck up, Parrish!’ Dulcie sent her a withering look. Eliza was barely eighteen, and far too sentimental. She regularly burst into tears while reading the soldiers’ letters from home. Sister despaired of her, and Dulcie just found her irritating.

Not all the soldiers had visitors. Some of their families lived too far away, like Sergeant McCray’s. Others, like Corporal Stanley’s, were too old and infirm themselves to travel. These were the ones who moved Dulcie, far more than the men involved in gushing reunions. It was so hard to watch them acting as if they didn’t mind, with forced laughter and fixed smiles. Some played cards or did a crossword, keeping their eyes averted from the visitors clustered around the other beds. But some of the younger ones couldn’t keep up the pretence and wept softly into their pillows.

Sergeant Trevelyan did neither. He sat bolt upright in bed as usual, staring around the ward with his usual look of grim determination, as if he was somehow challenging himself not to feel any pain.

‘You weren’t expecting a visitor, were you, Sergeant?’ Dulcie asked when she brought him a cup of tea.

‘No.’

‘I suppose it is rather a long way to travel up from Cornwall.’

‘It would be – if they knew where I was.’

Dulcie stared at him in surprise. ‘You haven’t told them?’

‘They know I’ve been injured, and that I’m in England.’

‘But why don’t you want them to know where you are?’

‘That’s my business.’

Dulcie had heard his sharp tone too often to be put off by it. She placed the teacup on his locker, beside his book. She had managed to coax him into borrowing a copy of David Copperfield from the little lending library that came to the hospital wards once a week. But from what she could see he hadn’t even opened it.

‘It might do you good to see them,’ she said.

Sam Trevelyan turned on her, his green eyes cold. ‘I really wish you would go and feel sorry for someone else, because I don’t need it.’

‘I was only saying—’

‘Don’t.’

She adjusted his bed tray, then placed the cup down in front of him. ‘I suppose you haven’t told them about your medal, either?’ Sam still did not reply. ‘I’m sure your sons would love to know their father is a hero—’

‘Don’t say that,’ Sam cut her short. ‘I’m no hero.’

‘How can you say that? You stayed out in No Man’s Land for over an hour, under rifle and bomb fire, bringing in the wounded. Everyone else ran, but you stayed put.’

‘There is no medal,’ Sam said.

‘But I saw it.’

‘I threw it away.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I didn’t want it.’ He said it in a low voice, not looking at her. ‘Anyway, why do I need a piece of metal to remind me when I’ve got this?’ He grimaced down at the dressing on his side.

Dulcie glanced along the ward to where Private Anderson was sitting up in bed, his wife at his side, his one arm curled around both his children. His face was suffused with happiness, all his earlier anxiety forgotten.