'He's up the coast for a few weeks,' I told him.

'Ah,' he replied, 'you made me fifty pounds when you won the ladies' boxing last weekend. I'm very grateful.'

I smiled and thanked him but he wasn't paying me any attention – he was busy studying a map.

'We're going here, Corporal.'

I studied the chart. It was the closest to the front lines I'd ever been. To my shame, I found the perceived danger somewhat intoxicating. Landen sensed it.

'It's not as wildly exciting as you might think, Next. I've been up there twenty times and was only shelled once.'

'What was it like?'

'Disagreeably noisy. Take the road to Balaclava – I'll tell you when to turn right.'

So we bumped off up the road, past a scene of such rural tranquillity that it was hard to imagine that two armies were facing each other not ten miles away with enough firepower to lay the whole peninsula to waste.

'Ever seen a Russian?' he asked as we passed military trucks supporting the front-line artillery batteries; their sole job was to lob a few shells towards the Russians – just to show we were still about.

'Never, sir.'

'They look just like you and me, you know.'

'You mean they don't wear big furry hats and have snow on their shoulders?'

The sarcasm wasn't wasted.

'Sorry,' he said, 'Ididn't mean to patronise. How long have you been out here?'

'Two weeks.'

'I've been here two years,' said Landen, 'but it might as well be two weeks. Take a right at the farmhouse just ahead.'

I slowed down and cranked the wheel round to enter the dusty farm track. The springs on a Dingo are quite hard – it was a jarring ride along the track, which passed empty farm buildings, all bearing the scars of long-past battles. There was old and rusting armour and other war debris lying abandoned in the countryside, reminders of just how long this static war had been going on. Rumour had it that in the middle of no man's land there were still artillery pieces dating from the nineteenth century. We stopped at a checkpoint, Landen showed his pass and we drove on, a soldier joining us up top 'as a precaution'. He had a second ammunition clip taped to the first in his weapon – always a sign of someone who expected trouble – and a dagger in his boot. He had only fourteen words and twenty-one minutes left before he was to die in a small spinney of trees that in happier times might have been a good place for a picnic. The bullet would enter below his left shoulder blade, deflect against his spine, go straight through his heart and exit three inches below his armpit, whereupon it would lodge in the fuel gauge of the Dingo. He would die instantly and I would relate what happened to his parents eighteen months later. His mother would cry and his father would thank me with a dry throat. But the soldier didn't know that. These were my memories, not his.