“You look well, Harry. They stitched you tidily back together?”

“A few souvenir scars but otherwise as good as new. You got leave too?”

Pembridge held up his white paper.

“Lucky sod.”

“He needs it.” Pembridge nodded toward Francis. He was just clambering down from the wagon. Harry waved toward him.

“When did you move up here?”

“Only a couple of days ago. We were west of Arras for a fortnight, being prepared for ‘conditions prevailing in the Passchendaele sector.’” He made quotation marks with his fingers and an officerly voice.

“And in English?”

“Mud. We’ve had a lot of lectures about looking after our feet.”

It was just coming on to rain again. The crowd of men was quickly dispersing. Harry stepped back under the shelter. A transport column was grinding its way up the road behind. Rain glistened off the roofs. “Where’s the camp?”

“Up to the northwest. It’s pretty lively. Supply depots and munitions dumps all around. They’ve started shelling it. The roads are something to see. It’s like Piccadilly Circus.”

“Have you ever been to Piccadilly Circus, Pembridge?”

Harry turned around as he heard his brother’s voice. Rain was coursing off his cap.

“Francis.” They shook hands. “It’s good to see you.”

“It was nose to nose on the road as we came in. Rather be heading in our direction than yours.”

Harry was struck by how much older Francis looked. There were new hollows in his cheeks, and his eyes seemed to have shrunken back. When Francis put a cigarette to his lips Harry noticed how ingrained the dirt had become in Francis’s fingers. For an instant he thought of those fingers on Edie’s white throat.

“New camera?”

“It was Rose’s.”

“He doesn’t give me photographic equipment,” complained Pembridge. “He gave me latrine duty last week.”

Harry laughed. “You’ve got ten days?”

“Aye,” Francis replied. “I might not get out of bed.”

He imagined Francis, a few hours on, sitting across the table from Edie. He imagined Francis’s hands in her hair. He imagined them in the same bed. “Give Edie my regards,” he said.

“I will.” Francis’s eyes met his own for the first time. “Did you see her?”

Harry was suddenly very aware of Edie’s ribbon around his own throat. Had Francis seen it? “Edie?”

Francis nodded.

He felt the weight of his brother’s assessing eye. “She came to see me once at the hospital. She brought me in a bunch of flowers and a bag of licorice rock, but she ate them herself—the sweets, not the flowers, that is.”

Pembridge laughed. Francis looked at the railway lines.

“Get a feed in town before you go back,” said Pembridge. “You can buy anything here.”

“Send us a postcard,” said Francis.

“‘Wish you were here’?”

“Hardly.”

“We’d better go and get our train.”

“You do that. I’m glad that I saw you,” Harry said.