‘It turned my stomach, Ol,’ he said with a grimace. ‘Keep away from that field hospital unless you want to spew up your dinner. I saw men with arms and legs missing and others who’d been blinded. One was crying because they’d shot his bollocks off.’ He shuddered at the memory. ‘I don’t know how the stretcher-bearers can do their job.’

‘We do far worse to the Germans,’ insisted Cochran.

‘It’s not what I expected at all.’

‘War is war, Gatty. We’re not here to play ping-pong.’

‘The noise never stops — and I hate that terrible stink in the air.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘There was something else,’ said Gatliffe, ‘and it really scared me. They’re using poisonous gas, Ol. The Germans are attacking us with gas bombs.’

‘So? We’ll probably have gas masks to wear.’

‘I’d hate to be poisoned to death.’

‘Stop getting so upset, will you?’ said Cochran, irritably. ‘A fine bloody soldier you are — giving up before we’ve even started. We’ve already fought one battle at Ypres. That was last year and we won it.’

‘Yet look at how many thousands of our men were killed in the battle. And they were regular soldiers, blokes who’d fought in the Boer War and that. They were professionals, Ol. We’re just raw recruits.’

‘I’m not raw. I’m as good as any fucking Hun.’

Snatching up his rifle, he jabbed at an imaginary enemy then pulled out his bayonet before stabbing a second one. As he showed off his proficiency with rifle and bayonet, there was a zestful fury about Cochran that lifted his friend’s spirits. Gatliffe, too, picked up his weapon and went through some of the moves they’d learnt during bayonet drill. It felt good to have a rifle in his hands. Confidence returned. He looked forward to the time when he could fire at the enemy. With Cochran beside him, he was ready for the fight.

Tossing his cigarette butt to the ground, Cochran sliced it apart with a thrust of his bayonet. Like Gatliffe, he was having misgivings about his decision to join the army. While his friend was honest about his fears, however, Cochran suppressed his apprehension beneath a mixture of boasting and bravado. He would never show a hint of trepidation to Gatliffe because it would undermine his strong hold over his friend. Cochran was the acknowledged leader and he was determined to retain his leadership.

‘Know what, Ol?’ said Gatliffe. ‘You ought to be a corporal, even a sergeant.’

‘Nah!’ retorted Cochran with a sneer. ‘It’s a stupid idea.’

‘You’d be really good at it.’

‘NCOs are all wankers, especially the ones we’ve got.’

‘I could just see you with three stripes on your arm.’

‘You’re off your bleeding head, Gatty. There’s only one thing worse than being a sergeant and that’s being a fucking officer. Look at the idiots we got in command. You wouldn’t catch me mixing with silly sods like that. They all talk as if they got a plum in their gobs.’

Gatliffe scratched his head. ‘It was only a thought.’

‘Well, don’t bleeding think it again,’ said Cochran. ‘I’m where I want to be and I’ll stay right here, OK?’ A slow smile spread across his face. ‘If you want something to think about, remember what we did on that last night in London. She was an ugly little thing but she had a good body, I’ll give her that. I had a great ride on her and you could have done the same.’

Gatliffe was reflective. ‘I’m beginning to wish I had now.’

‘You got cold feet, Gatty, that’s your trouble.’

‘I was afraid that somebody would come and catch us.’

‘You didn’t want it enough, did you? Whereas I did,’ bragged Cochran, ‘and so I bloody well had it. That’s the thing about women. You got to grab them when you get the chance.’ His smirk broadened. ‘And there’s something special about virgins like her. It means I was the first. She’ll always remember me.’

Ruth Stein felt imprisoned in her own house. They never left her alone. When her mother was not watching her, she was kept under surveillance by her Uncle Herman or by a member of his family. She was not even allowed to sleep by herself. One of her cousins shared the same bedroom. Nobody ever mentioned her suicide attempt in so many words but it was neither forgotten nor forgiven. Everything they did was informed by it. At one and the same time, she was being punished for her crime and smothered by their collective love. It was agonising. Her father’s funeral was over now and they had entered a seven-day period of bereavement called shiva when Ruth and the other chief mourners did not leave the house. It all served to heighten her sense of incarceration. When she joined the others in the thrice-daily recitation of Kaddish, she could barely mumble the words.

Armed with their documentation, and carrying a pair of handcuffs apiece, Harvey Marmion and Joe Keedy took a train to Dover and boarded a ferry. Standing on deck, they were the only passengers not in uniform. Inevitably, Marmion thought about his son who had crossed to France with his regiment the previous year. Since then they’d only seen him once on leave. Paul Marmion’s letters from the front were eagerly seized on by every member of the family. They were not always comfortable reading. Joe Keedy had many friends who had enlisted in the army, several of them from the police force. But they were not in his thoughts at the moment. What interested him was the large number of horses on the vessel.

‘Is there still a place for a cavalry regiment?’ he wondered.

‘Somebody clearly thinks so, Joe,’ said Marmion.

‘I wouldn’t fancy charging at the German lines with nothing but a lance or a sabre. The enemy have got machine guns and rifles. What use are horses when bullets are flying about?’

‘They get our soldiers to the point of attack much quicker. It’s one of the things Paul is always complaining about — how painfully slow you are, trying to run across a field with mud up to your ankles.’

‘I keep remembering that poem we learnt at school.’

Marmion grinned. ‘I never took you for the poetic type.’

‘I’m not, Harv,’ said Keedy, speaking more familiarly now that they were off duty. ‘I used to hate having to learn all those verses. But this one stuck in my mind somehow. It was about the Crimean War.’

‘I know it,’ said Marmion. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade — it’s about the battle of Balaclava.’

‘They didn’t stand a chance against the Russian cannon. No wonder it was called the “Valley of Death”. I would have thought the days of a cavalry charge were over after that.’

‘Apparently, they’re not.’

‘You wouldn’t get me galloping at the enemy on a horse. I could be blown to pieces by a shell before I got anywhere near them.’

‘The same goes for the infantry,’ observed Marmion. ‘That’s why there’s so little movement in the war zone now. Soldiers on both sides are hiding in trenches for protection. Paul hates it.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘He joined up to see some action, not to be stuck in a hole in the ground with rats for company. Paul enlisted after the retreat from Mons. I was glad he missed that bloodbath.’

‘What about the rest of his soccer team? They all joined up together, didn’t they? How many of them are still alive?’

‘Seven,’ said Marmion, grimly, ‘though two had to be invalided home when they were badly injured in a mortar attack. According to Paul, neither of them will be able to kick a football again.’

War had suddenly become more of a reality for Harvey Marmion. Momentous events were taking place on the Continent but — while he was in London — they seemed to be a long way away. He’d had to rely on letters from his son and newspaper reports to give him some idea of what was actually going on. He was now travelling on a troopship with men who would be flung into action against a German army that had already made territorial advances on a number of fronts. Because of its strategic value, Ypres was being staunchly defended against German attack. If it fell, the enemy could move on to capture the vital Channel ports of Calais and Boulogne. Marmion realised what a catastrophe that would be. Latest reports indicated that British and French soldiers were putting up strong resistance in the second battle of Ypres. They were holding their own. Marmion was interested to see exactly how they were getting on.