Out on the quay, away from the cool of the dark flat, the air was thick and heavy; the sky was white with heat and reflected off the still water in the harbour. The boats slumped, deflated, like punctured balloons, from the lack of wind.

‘Finally,’ said Peter. He was leaning against a street lamp, looking crumpled and hot, cigarette dangling from his hand, his shirt loose at the neck, and his tie askew. ‘Here, have some of this.’ The cigarette balanced in his mouth, he took a flask out of his pocket and handed it to Arthur.

‘I need this,’ Arthur said, pouring the burning whisky down his throat. It buzzed through his brain and jarred his senses.

‘Scared of a stupid dance?’ said Peter, laughing.

‘Nah,’ said Arthur. Handing back the hip flask, he watched a tiny drop of water fall onto his hand. He squinted up at the white cover of cloud. ‘I think it might finally rain.’

‘About bloody time,’ said Peter, offering him a cigarette.

He lit up. ‘Where’s Jack?’

‘Something at the base, he’ll be along later. Reckons he’s bringing his wretched motorcycle. The girls’ll love that.’ Peter sneered, as he always did at something alien, but Arthur could hear both the envy and pride in his voice. Jack was a trophy, something new and shiny to be wondered at and admired. Arthur felt a twinge of anxiety for Peter. He saw the way Peter reacted to Jack. More than the American’s novelty he was held up as an object of admiration, the perfect image of manhood. Peter had placed a lot of faith in him, as if Jack was the answer to a question he had been asking for a long time. But neither of them really knew him. Neither of them knew if they could trust him.

They swigged the rest of the whisky and set off wobbling and guffawing down the Holkham Road towards Harborough Hall, a mile out of Wells. They were boys again.

In the hot summers of the war they played at pilots. They kept a keen eye on the course of the Battle of Britain and chanted Churchill’s words to each other as their arms spun wide in the fields down to the woods and the North Sea, long after the real battle had been fought and won. Arthur was usually German, as he was younger. The two boys bashed into each other and hurtled, pell mell, into the wheat, laughing, legs flying.