He glanced to either side of him. The beds were rammed in close together in regimentally straight lines along both sides of the hospital tent. It was hard to determine how old the man was in the bed to the right of him. His whole head, even his eyes, was heavily bandaged with only his lips showing and he was lying so still that he might already have died. Burns probably, Tom thought with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The young chap in the bed to the left of him was shouting feverishly, and once the nurse had prepared Tom for theatre and taken away the bloody bowl of water, Tom tried to comfort him. Poor lad, he couldn’t have been any older than eighteen or nineteen and the wire cage across his legs told its own sorry story.

‘Calm down, old chap,’ Tom said kindly. ‘Shall I call the nurse for you? Are you in pain?’ He was suddenly ashamed that his own complaint seemed so trivial.

‘I’ve lost me legs,’ the boy sobbed. ‘An’ yet I swear I can still feel ’em.’ He turned tortured eyes towards Tom, whose heart went out to him. ‘What’ll I do now? My girl back at home won’t want me like this, will she?’

‘She will, son, if she truly loves you,’ Tom tried to reassure him but the lad’s head wagged from side to side.

‘No. My Molly’s a looker, a little beaut. She’ll not want a cripple! An’ I … I want my mum!’

Stretching his hand out as far as it would go, Tom managed to stroke the boy’s arm. Words seemed so inadequate.

The discomfort in his foot was getting worse now. Strange, that – he hadn’t felt anything while his feet were freezing but now that he was becoming warmer for the first time in weeks, the pain was setting in.

When he awoke the next morning to the sounds of the big guns booming, he blinked, wondering where he was. Then a young nurse’s face swam into focus and she smiled at him tiredly.

‘Your op went well,’ she told him as she tucked the covers around him. ‘And you’re one of the lucky ones. There’s an ambulance due here today to take the injured to the nearest port so’s you can be shipped home.’

Tom returned her smile groggily then glanced towards the bed on the left to see that it was empty and neatly made with clean sheets and blankets.

‘The young chap that was there last night – where is he?’

The nurse sadly shook her head. ‘He didn’t make it. It was the shock, you see?’

Turning his face into his pillow, Tom sobbed. When was this bloody senseless war going to end? And how many more young lives would it claim before it did?

The voyage back to Blighty on the hospital ship was appalling. There were no painkillers available and now Tom’s heavily bandaged foot felt as if it was on fire. He quickly became hot and feverish. As the boat was tossed about like a cork he began to vomit and a nurse fetched a doctor to him.