“Did you have any concerns about his peace of mind when he left? Was Lance Corporal Blythe quite himself?”

He had forgotten about the change of rank. For a moment he wasn’t sure who Lance Corporal Blythe was. “I hadn’t noticed any recent change,” he replied, wondering if that was true. He thought about his brother’s face at the station. How much older he had suddenly looked. How his eyes didn’t quite seem to be there. How he had worried about that man going back to be with Edie. Should he be concerned now for Edie?

Rose twisted the cap onto his fountain pen. There was ink on his fingers and parts of a camera on his desk. He’d had a new Autographic sent out from England, Harry knew, and had recently given his old Kodak to Francis. Wouldn’t Rose himself know if there was something significantly wrong with Francis’s mind, if something had broken in his brother’s head? Rose pushed his notebook away and looked up at Harry. “If you were a betting man, where would you say he is?”

“At home. With his wife. It makes no sense that he’d come back here only to leave again.”

“I can sit on Captain Frean for three more days. You do understand the seriousness of this, don’t you?”

“I do, sir, yes.”

“Very well. Let’s hope that Lance Corporal Blythe’s train has just been delayed. By ten days.”

HARRY WALKED BACK across the field. A band was playing behind the huts, men standing in groups and looking on. “‘She is watching by the poplars,’” they sang along, “‘Colinette with the sea-blue eyes. She is watching and longing and waiting, where the long white roadway lies.’” Two men in kilts were laughing as their feet picked out dainty steps. The sky behind, which the previous night had rained long-range shells, was now pink and perfectly serene. At another time he might have stopped and drawn the scene.

“What did Rose say?” asked Pembridge. He was sitting on the steps of the hut scraping mud out of the tread of his boots with a stick.

“That Francis is for it.”

“Do you think he’s still in England?”

He wondered if he should write to Edie. Could Francis still be there with her? If Francis wasn’t right in his mind, what would that mean for Edie? Could he find a way to get a message through to her to check that nothing had happened? But what if Francis was there and just meant not to be found? “Part of me hopes that he’s bribed his way onto a boat and is halfway to Argentina.”

Pembridge didn’t look convinced by this hypothesis. He handed Harry a cigarette and shrugged.

Armstrong, leaning in the doorway, whistled. “Is he that keen on corned beef?”

“He’ll lose his stripe at least,” said Pembridge.