I sit up. “I don’t go straight back to the front, Mother. I have to do four weeks at the training camp. I may come over from there on Sunday, perhaps.”

She is silent. Then she asks gently: “Are you very much afraid?”

“No Mother.”

“I would like to tell you to be on your guard against the women out in France. They are no good.”

Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child⁠—why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang short, boy’s trousers⁠—it is such a little time ago, why is it over?

“Where we are there aren’t any women, Mother,” I say as calmly as I can.

“And be very careful at the front, Paul.”