“What’s more, the political leadership needs to understand that it’s all about people. Once you get rid of well-trained professionals, you can’t just wave your wand and expect them to reappear as if by magic, just because you need them again. Our forces are as formidable as they are because of our training. Day in day out, year in year out. Getting better at our jobs all the time. Just as in any line of work. But you can’t be a banker or a plumber and a reservist and train your heart out for a few weeks every year and then, come the crisis, expect to put your uniform on and hope to be a fraction as good as a professional. It just doesn’t work like that, however much the politicians wish it did and tell us it can. In battle you need to survive the first encounter and to do that you need to be a highly trained professional, who is part of a highly skilled team.

“History is full of ill-trained armies that broke when they hit smaller bands of professionals who knew their trade and had the right kit. Britain has understood that for the last few centuries and look where it took us . . . but no longer, it seems. Trouble is, and I’m sorry if I’m sounding too much the cynic, there’s no headlines to be had in well-motivated and well-supported soldiers just quietly getting on with their jobs . . .” Morland realized his voice had risen in agitation at what he saw as the betrayal of everything he believed in when he had joined the Army.

He saw Allenby give him a quizzical look and then, thankfully, she changed the subject. “And you, Tom. How do you feel about it? Your time in the forests . . . ?”

“Well, you know . . . It takes a bit of time to wind down and get back to normality. It’s good to be back with the Battalion . . . but I find I’m still spending time with the guys who were there with me. There’s no one else, apart from Marina Krauja and the Forest Brothers, who could begin to understand what it was like out there.”

“What about Marina? You must have got pretty close to her? She sounds like quite a girl.”

Morland was quiet for a moment. “She’s a great girl.”

“Will you see her again?” asked Allenby.

How best to answer Allenby’s question? Because it was a question he had been asking himself ever since his rushed farewell with Krauja as she had been unexpectedly put on a helicopter bound for Poland, while he’d been directed to an RAF C-130 Hercules about to head to RAF Brize Norton.