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wounds, as I intend to dress yours today. Your wound is healing up nicely, but I want you out of bed. As it is, you’ve been bedridden too long. Dr Raverat agrees. He says you’ve been too long on your back. I don’t like to criticize anyone, but I’ve already seen that soldiers and sailors don’t always get the best medical attention. The longer you stay in bed, the more likely it is that liquid will go to your lungs and cause pneumonia. In your weakened state, that could be very dangerous indeed.’
    She stayed for the rest of the day, getting me dressed, holding me while I made my way up on to the crutches, lifting me, touching me with infinite care. I felt myself slipping further and further towards her. She walked me round the living room in circles. Without her I would have tripped, and any time she relaxed her hold, I felt myself tilt and head for a fall. But her hands were always ready to catch me. Although I had no prosthetic limb, I slowly learned to balance on the crutches without one. An artificial leg, she said, would come later, perhaps in a week or two, but she wanted Dr Raverat to examine me before I even attempted to walk on one.
    She got me back to bed an hour before nightfall, which came just after five.
    ‘I want to get this car back to Dr Raverat,’ she said. ‘I don’t fancy driving without headlights on these roads. I’d probably drive straight into the lake.’
    ‘You’re welcome to stay here,’ I said. ‘We have enough for dinner.’
    She shook her head.
    ‘Thanks, but I have no choice. The doctor is going out on his rounds tonight. He likes to see his patients when they’re at home.’
    I frowned.
    ‘Surely they’d be in bed?’
    ‘Not all of them. Only the really sick ones. Most of them head out to work as soon as they’ve been given their medicine. They’re in reserved occupations and they don’t want anybody to start thinking they aren’t really necessary and sending them into the Army.’
    ‘Or the Navy.’
    She laughed. It was a lovely laugh, like water running over the stones in a brook.
    I wondered what it would be like to have a woman like that for my own, but my eyes fell on the crutches, which had been left near to hand.
    She said goodbye and Octavia came in. I hadn’t let her watch me on the crutches.
    ‘Don’t you think a wheelchair would be better?’ I asked her.
    She shook her head.
    ‘I asked Rose about that. She says it would only be an option if you had lost all of your leg. She wants you to try the crutches and not give in. I think she likes you.’
    Although all this was said in silence, her last words struck me as if she’d shouted in my ear.
    She came to the bedside.
    ‘Dominic, can I tell you something?’
    ‘Of course. You know you can tell me anything, dear.’
    She seemed thoughtful, possibly anxious. I couldn’t imagine what might have happened. Octavia has always been mature for her age, forced as she is to spend less time with other children than she might have liked. She said nothing at first, whether verbally or in gestures. Then she spoke without sound, using her lips to express with some care what she wanted to say. And she took out the paper tablet on which she could write in pencil and began to scribble.
    ‘When you were with Rose,’ she wrote, ‘I went out to buy some food for supper. I brought the ration book with me. There’s only one shop in Howtown, so I marched in and smiled at the lady behind the counter. She let me register for us both, even though I’m really young, but when she looked over what I’d written, including our address, she looked at me, as though I frightened her. Well, I know about funny looks from people, and maybe she’s never seen a deaf person before, but I thought it odd. She fetched everything I wanted and stamped the book, but even as I was leaving she kept her eyes on me.’
    ‘Well, I think you’re right, love. She may not have seen anyone like you in Howtown before. It’s a tiny hamlet. Was