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supplies, so try and get some rest yourself.’
    â€˜Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
    â€˜If you need me I’ll be with Major Crabbe.’
    â€˜His bearer has set up his tent next to the Dorsets’ cook fire, sir.’
    â€˜Thank you, Dira. Good night.’
    John found Crabbe sitting outside his tent, staring down into the flames. He saw John and handed him a flask. John opened it and sniffed the contents.
    â€˜French brandy from our mess. I told my bearer to hide the flasks in the contaminated laundry sacks in case the Turks searched us. That one is yours.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ John buttoned it into his shirt pocket.
    â€˜Not drinking tonight?’
    â€˜I swallowed enough brandy to last me a lifetime a year ago. Given my absence of sense in those days I don’t recall thanking you properly for taking care of me.’
    â€˜Wasn’t just me. It was Charles, Smythe, even Leigh, Bowditch, Grace and …’ Crabbe hesitated before saying the names of the dead, ‘Harry, Amey …’
    â€˜I miss him.’ John didn’t have to say who ‘him’ was.
    Crabbe knew John had been closer to his cousin Harry than most men were to their brothers. ‘Harry would find something to get up to even here.’
    â€˜Probably annoying the Turks to the point where they’d start shooting us,’ John suggested, not entirely humorously.
    â€˜There are worse ways to go. Like dying inch by inch on a long dry march over the desert.’ Crabbe rose from the stool his bearer had foraged from one of the carts. ‘I’m for bed. My bearer made a cot up for you in my tent as your man was busy helping Dira.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ John reached for his cigarettes.
    â€˜Don’t stay out too late. Damned mosquitos are out for blood and they’ve brought their forks and carving knives. I doubt we’ll get any rest tomorrow.’
    â€˜I’ll turn in shortly.’ John struck a match, lit his cigarette, and looked around the camp. Most of the officers had managed to bring their tents but the men were sprawled on the ground around their camp fires. He considered what the brigadier had said about Maud. Had he stayed with the Expeditionary Force simply to avoid her?
    If Maud had remained faithful when he’d left India – if she hadn’t been pregnant with another man’s child when he’d been shipped downstream with fever last year – if she’d told him she still loved him …
    He suppressed the thoughts almost as soon as they arose. There were simply too many ‘ifs’. A vision of Maud as she’d looked the first time he’d seen her in the officers’ mess in India came to mind.
    Maud’s gown had been gold silk decorated with amber beads. He’d described her afterwards in a letter to his mother as looking like ‘a Botticelli angel who’d stepped off of an Italian altarpiece.’ There was no denying Maud’s beauty, but for the first time he wondered if that was all he’d ever seen in Maud? Had he simply fallen for a pretty face?
    He tried to recall conversations they’d shared but the only ones he could remember were about trivialities, furnishings, food, balls, parties, Maud’s gowns … Maud had been so young when they’d married. He’d been ready to resign his commission and settle down to the life of a rural doctor in his native West Country, but would Maud have settled for life as a country doctor’s wife?
    He finished his cigarette and tossed the stub into the fire. The question had become academic after war broke out. Who knows what they would have done if Britain hadn’t declared hostilities and called up the reservists? In all probability Maud would have chafed at the boring routine of life in an English village after growing up in India and Mesopotamia. She might have sought out excitement in affairs just as she’d done when he’d left