HARRY SAT ON his bed. Rose had disclosed that they were likely to be shifting north next week, up beyond Langemarck, where it was all marsh and gas. Perhaps Francis was right to have got away, then? Perhaps that’s all it was, and how could Harry blame him if he’d made that decision?

Beyond the windows of the hut they were encoring the chorus of the song. There was no noise of guns, and stars were just starting to show in the pink-tinted sky. He wanted to sit on the steps and draw it, to smoke Pembridge’s cigarettes, and to not think about anything more than whether his line was true and his composition balanced. He touched the drawing book in his pocket. The book that she had given him. But, if Francis was there with her now, and not in his right mind, shouldn’t Harry be doing something? Shouldn’t he at least check that nothing bad had happened? He had to write to Edie. His fingers stretched under the bed toward his haversack. It must have been kicked farther under. He knelt down on the boards and peered beneath the metal frame. His stretching fingers found only an old blanket. He lit a match but it illuminated just a spider’s web and a forgotten spoon.

Pembridge, out on the steps still, was singing about shining roses and the hush of the silvery dew.

“Jack, my bag has gone.”

“Don’t be daft,” said the older man.

They searched the cupboards, the latrines, and behind the iron stove. Harry thought about his sketchbooks, his pencils, his letters, his diary, and Edie’s red ribbon wound around it. They searched the recreation hut, the cookhouse, and the laundry.

“It’s gone,” said Harry. “Some bastard has offed it.”

“When did you last have it?”

“I don’t know. A week ago? A week and a half? I haven’t looked for it. I haven’t needed it.”

“Don’t worry, son. We’ll club together and sort you out.”

Harry thought about his drawings and his private words and the luck token that she had handed him. How could they club together and bring that back? How could that be sorted out?

“You should go and tell Rose,” said Pembridge. “It’s probably been taken by accident, or some sticky-fingered sod will just have pilfered your cash and your smokes and dumped the rest somewhere.”

Harry looked around the dim field. The band had finished playing now and groups of men—faces he knew and didn’t know—were milling about. He looked at the milling faces with a sudden new suspicion.

Pembridge put a hand on Harry’s shoulder as they walked back toward their hut. “Happen we head into the village and I shout you a chin-up beer?”