Of course they were used to these absences. That was the trouble with the army, wasn’t it? When Wilfred returned from India for three months of home leave, they discussed whether Elfriede and the children should accompany him back. It was too unbearable to live apart like this. Certainly Margaret was old enough. But what about Johann? He’d settled happily into boarding school at Winchester, and he was expected in Germany over the Christmas and summer holidays. And the climate was so unsuitable for young children, disease so rife. In the end Elfriede and Margaret stayed in India only six months, during which time Elfriede miscarried twice, the second time off the coast of Ceylon during the voyage home. She never told Wilfred about that one. What use? The news would only grieve him. Another year passed, another home leave. Another excruciating separation. Then the war. The regiment hurried homeward, but only to embark for France. A few hundred miles of separation instead of several thousand. But what was the difference, really? Letters arrived sooner. Theoretically, Wilfred could be home in several hours instead of several weeks. But in exchange for these blessings, Elfriede now had this monstrous crushing fear, the terror that sometimes paralyzed her; a compound terror because Johann, visiting Germany as usual during the summer of 1914, accepted a lieutenant’s commission in the Germany army upon the outbreak of war. He’s on the Eastern Front somewhere. They don’t know exactly where. Some bloody steppe. His letters, when they arrive at all, are months late and contain no more than assurances of health and of his continued devotion to his mother, his sister, and his stepfather. Love thine enemy, that’s what the Bible says.