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failures of their lives.
    “And the time she decided to show us the cancan, and did a cartwheel that ended in the river!” Corcoran was laughing as he said it. “Matthew had to pull her out, and what a sight she was! Soaked to the skin, poor girl, and looking like a piece of water-weed herself.”
    “That was only seven years ago,” Joseph reminded him. “It seems like another world now. I remember that day vividly. We had fresh salmon with lettuce and cucumber, and egg and cress sandwiches, and apple charlotte for pudding. It was too early for berries.” There was regret when he said that. He loved raspberries. He could never pass the bushes in the garden when they were in fruit without taking a few.
    The mood changed suddenly. Both were returned to the present. They were lucky: safe and whole, and with people they loved. But even though Joseph considered how warm he was, it was as if the cold of the trenches were only beyond the door to the landing.
    “We’ll win,” Corcoran said, leaning forward with sudden fierceness. “We have the science, Joseph, I swear to you. We are working on an entirely new invention, something no one else has even thought of. And when we’ve solved a few remaining problems, it will revolutionize the war at sea. U-boats will cease to be a threat. Germany won’t strangle us. The shoe will be on the other foot; we shall destroy them.” His eyes were dark and brilliant with the knowledge of what could be, and the passion to bring it about. It was a kind of pride, but the love of it robbed him of all arrogance. “It’s beautiful, Joseph. The concept is as simple and as elegant as mathematics; it’s just the last few details of practicality we have to iron out. It will make history!”
    He reached across and put his hand on Joseph’s. “But don’t whisper of it to anyone, not even Hannah. I know she worries herself ill over Archie, like every woman in England who has brothers, husband, or sons at sea—but she can’t know yet.”
    Joseph felt a surge of hope and found himself smiling widely. “Of course I won’t tell her. That should be your privilege anyway.”
    “To be able to tell her will be one of the greatest rewards of all. But I’m glad you will be home with her for a while. Take good care of yourself. Allow yourself to mend slowly. Build up your strength again. You’ve done such a lot already, you deserve a little time to see the spring.”
    Ten minutes later, as Corcoran bade him goodbye, Joseph felt there was a new warmth in the room, an easing of pain. Instead of going back to sleep, or trying to read, he contemplated the reality of being at home for the blossoming of the year. He would see the lambs and calves, the first leaves on the trees, the hedgerows filled with flowers, and all of it untrampled by marching feet, far from gunfire—with nothing broken, poisoned, or burned.
    He thought quite suddenly of Isobel Hughes, to whom he had been obliged as chaplain to write and inform her of her husband’s death. She had written back, thanking him for his kindness. A correspondence had developed, only a letter once a month or so. Although they had never met, Joseph was able to convey his feelings of weariness—and his guilt that he could do so little to help. She, in turn, did not make futile suggestions, but gave him accounts of the village in Wales where she lived, providing little stories of gossip, even the occasional joke. It brought him a remembrance again of the sanity of village life where quarrels over a piece of land or a churn of milk still mattered, where people danced and courted, made silly mistakes and gave generous forgiveness.
    Should he write and tell her that he had been wounded and was at home for a while? Would she care or worry if she did not hear from him? Or would he be presuming on her kindness? He liked her very much. There was a gentleness and wry honesty in her letters he found himself thinking of more often than he would care to tell