He hadn’t heard Arthur come up beside him. He fished into his pocket for his cigarettes, pulled one out and offered it. They stood side by side staring at the dark, empty field opposite, their hands curled around the cigarettes, the smoke unfurling through their cupped fingers.

‘Thank you,’ John said. His voice was thin, strangled.

They rocked on their heels. His father used to do that. Perhaps he’d got the habit in the Great War. Brigadier Alfred Harris. He’d come back with a DSO and a leg full of shrapnel.

‘First time, was it?’ Arthur said.

John nodded.

‘You get used to it, you know. Water off a duck’s back in the end.’

John swallowed, took a drag of his cigarette. His throat was parched. Even if he had the words, he couldn’t spit them out. He could smell the vomit on his uniform, see the stains on his jacket. There was a clot of blood on his shoulder.

‘First time it happened to me,’ Arthur went on, ‘it sliced him in half. Corporal at the time, like myself, he was. Nice man. Family man, you know what I mean? Never did whores or anything like that.’

John heard him suck on his cigarette, the whoosh as he blew the smoke out and over the field where it hung like a ghost.

‘Always one for a lark, he was. Never took the officers seriously.’

John watched Arthur smile at the memory.

‘It was his idea to nick the rattan chairs out the sergeants’ mess. Thought why should those buggers have all the comfort? So in we went, while they were eating. Took out two, one each. I tell you, sir.’ Arthur began to laugh, turned to face John, his cigarette half smoked. He’s trying to cheer me up, John thought. He wanted him to shut up, but he couldn’t say. ‘Running out with them. Bloody awkward, chairs are. All legs. Tripping up the path. Mind you, we’d had a few.’ He took another puff. ‘Cairo, that was. Ever been to Cairo, sir?’

‘No.’ John’s voice had returned, but it had no force.

‘No,’ Arthur said. ‘I don’t suppose you would have. The pyramids are a sight, I tell you. I went on a camel there, too. Just the once.’ He sucked at his cigarette, then pinched it dead, threw it on the ground. ‘Filthy beasts, they are. Spewing green mulch out of their mouths. Smelly. How that man learned to ride them beats me. You know, sir, the one that liked the Arabs.’

‘T.E. Lawrence?’ John said.

‘Yeah, him. Mind you,’ the sergeant went on, ‘they can go for months without water? It’s all in their hump. Bloody clever.’

‘You still think they’re foul, though?’

‘Well, their breath is, sir. It’s because they don’t drink enough.’