The hedgerows on either side of him were displaying the jewelled colours of dark blue speedwell, golden marsh marigolds, dog violets intertwined with pale pink dog roses and the froth of white hawthorn blossom. Crows had built their nests in the treetops, pigeons and gulls were pecking in the lush grass of the grazing pastures, and despite the wind and the threat of rain, Ron could hear the beautiful song of a skylark high above him.

He knew there were quicker, easier ways to get to the hospital, but he loved this walk. He rarely met anyone, and the peace and solitude reminded him forcibly of why they were fighting a war, and how very important it was that they won it. He carried on walking as Harvey investigated the ditches beneath the hedgerows and whined in frustration as he saw rabbits feeding beyond that impenetrable barrier of bramble thorns and stinging nettles.

The woods behind Agatha Fullerton’s property stretched for five or six miles, and hidden deep within them was a dark, cold pool where Ron went hunting for eels – but that was not his mission for today. A high boundary fence ran between Agatha’s land and the large manor house estate that had once belonged to the Finlay-White family, but Ron had made a gap in it long ago, which he’d disguised with tree branches, and it had yet to be discovered. Perhaps, once he knew how things stood with Danuta, he’d come back, for there was nothing tastier than a bowl of jellied eel.

Ron was familiar with the tragic story of the wealthy Finlay-Whites, for he’d known the grandson, who’d joined the same regiment as him at the start of the last war, and like so many others, neither he nor his father had survived the trenches. The dowager had worn black from that day on, rather like Queen Victoria when she’d lost Albert, and having no heirs, she’d willed Holmwood House and the entire estate to the armed forces in memory of her lost loved ones.

Ron passed his secret gap in the fence with barely a glance and reached the top of the track to lean on the five-bar gate and look down at the Finlay-White Memorial Hospital for Injured Servicemen. Apart from the addition of a new west wing, the house didn’t look very different from when he’d once worked there as a part-time odd-job man and gardener. The bricks were mellow ochre, the many windows looking out from beneath fancy gabled roofs to sweeping lawns and neat flower beds.