“‘Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, in the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, on the reef of Norman’s Woe!’” Francis exaggerated his enunciation and made exclamatory arms for Will’s benefit.

“Norman who?”

“Never mind.”

“Your man up there looks like he’s only bothered about sailors, though, doesn’t he? I mean, don’t you get the impression that he’s a bit exclusive?” Francis proposed. “I might take my landlubber prayers elsewhere.”

The face on the cross looked steadfastly out to sea, eyes fixed on the horizon and seemingly unmoved by the whispered prayers of the women who were kneeling on the ground below.

Harry nodded. “I don’t think he can hear them. He doesn’t look like he knows they’re there.”

Beyond, other men in uniform were sitting on the hillside staring out at the flint-gray sea. It struck Harry how so many of them had made this climb on such a windy day, to just stare back at the way that they had come, in silence. It was as if they were all mesmerized by the sea. Harry committed the oddness of the image to memory.

“But I almost forgot.” Francis threw his cigarette away and Harry looked at his brother in profile at his side. A curl of smoke left his lips and then he was turning to Harry and grinning. “I saw it in a shop in the town. It’s from both of us.”

Francis put his hand to his pocket and handed Harry a parcel wrapped in brown paper. “For me?”

“Well, go on, then. Open it. I saw it, and I thought of you.”

There was a small tin box inside the parcel. Harry lifted the lid and saw sticks of bright rich pigment inside.

“They’re pastels. I didn’t think you had any. Will and I put our money together. We decided that we’d had enough of your gloomy abstinence.”

“Was it that bad? Was it that obvious? Thank you. It’s really kind of you.”

Francis shook his head. “Stand together. Let’s have a souvenir.”

He stepped back, cradling his camera. Harry put his arm around Will as they leaned against the wall. They both made impolite hand gestures at Francis’s lens. “Get a ruddy move on!”

Francis’s face was all concentration. “My chuffing fingers are cramped with the cold.”

“It’s not that cold, you coward. Frannie, how you whine!”

“Hang on,” said Will. “Look out.” They watched as an officer approached Francis from behind, saw the alarm in his eyes as he turned, and then the relief with which he shook Michael Rose’s hand.