“Forgive me if my exuberance is somewhat subdued this morning,” said Harry. “I wish that newspaper contained less cheering and more hot chips.”

“This cake is stale,” said Francis. “And she knows that I can’t abide currants. I mean, have you seen? I could break rocks with that.”

“Just dunk it in your tea.”

Harry watched as his brother’s dirt-ingrained fingers picked at the fruitcake. “Jesus, Frannie. Have you misplaced your cake fork again?”

“Ye gods, spare me brotherly discernment.” Will held out his hand and ate discarded dried fruit. “At least we got something. Poor Wilkinson here got a jar of insecticide powder and a religious tract.”

“Bugger all,” confirmed Wilkinson with a nod.

“Ever wish that you’d been orphaned?” asked Francis.

“Dear God what art in heaven, please spare me from thy creatures all greatly bitey and small.” Will put his hands together and raised pious eyes skyward. His hair was plastered to his forehead. The smile glowed white in his grimed face.

Wilkinson shrugged and scratched his crotch. “It’s a rum do when you need the Evening News to know what’s going on,” he said. “Incidentally, I’m not averse to currants.”

“Here.” Will passed both the newspaper and the cake. “It’s ten days old, mind.”

“The newspaper or the cake?”

“Both.”

A shell landed some distance ahead. Mud rained down. The earth seemed to lurch and Harry found himself gripping hard onto his mug.

“Bloody hell,” said Will. “If I’d wanted shit in my tea, I’d have ordered it.” He rubbed his face, leaving stripes of mud down his cheeks.

“If Mother could see you now, you’d be sent to bed without cake.”

“Think of the color of the sheets.”

“Oh! Think of white, dry, hot-water-bottle-warmed sheets!”

“Where are we on this?” asked Wilkinson, leaving greasy fingerprints on the newspaper’s map of the new and old front lines.

Francis leaned in to see. “Funny, that, eh? Cartographer’s oversight? Godforsaken Shit Hole seems to have been missed off this map.”

“Godforsaken Shit Hole just north of Albert,” said Harry and pointed.

“Miles behind the line, then?”

“Not bastard far enough.”

Francis wiped his fingers on his tunic before he opened his letter. Harry watched. Francis seemed to be taking care not to fingerprint Edie’s yellow writing paper. “Lord Derby told the papers that the Manchester battalions have covered themselves with glory.”

Will looked down at his mud-splattered uniform. “Glory, eh? Is that what this is?” He sniffed his sleeve. “I’m not sure that I like the smell of it.”

The yellow notepaper radiated cleanness in the all-around grime and accentuated the trembling in Francis’s fingers. He looked up and met Harry’s eye. “Just cold,” he said.

“What I’d give for a hot bath.”

“Or a vaguely tepid one.”

“And a mademoiselle to scrub my back.”

“She sent you pencils,” said Will, retrieving them from the box.