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on me.’
    Erich allowed the words to hang in the air while he considered his response.
    â€˜Does she love you?’
    Günter shrugged. ‘She says she does.’
    â€˜And you believe her?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜Then your question is stupid. Of course you will be of use to her. More than you will be if you become a skeleton, force-fed on baby food.’
    â€˜What would you know of love, youngster?’
    Suddenly the man in the bed was sitting up as best he could, propping himself up on one thin arm, his breathing more ragged with the effort.
    â€˜What did you say?’ The doctor interrupted, alarmed by the sudden flash of anger. Erich gestured him to silence.
    â€˜I know enough from listening to the men in my division to understand that when someone loves, then a little thing like a missing leg is nothing. I know that when a man is facing a machine-gun-nest then some things, like the woman he will be leaving behind, are a lot more important to him than whether he has big ears or a missing tooth. And I know enough to realise that if a little wood-chopping accident is enough to make you useless in her eyes, then she probably doesn’t love you at all.’
    The words had poured themselves from him in an unexpected torrent and Erich’s hand flew to his mouth, steeling himself for Günter’s anger as what he had said sunk in. But the soldier stayed still, half propped on one elbow, regarding the boy not with anger but with quizzical amusement.
    â€˜And you know all these things, do you? At the tender age of twenty-two?’
    â€˜Actually, I’m seventeen. And yes, I do.’
    â€˜Ah. Well then.’
    Without further comment, Günter sunk back onto the pillows and nodded his consent to Alice, who began to spoon the congealing porridge.
    â€˜What was all that about?’ Doctor Alexander regarded Erich curiously.
    â€˜Nothing important, Herr Doctor.’
    â€˜You must have said something significant. I thought for a minute there that he was going to launch himself at you.’
    â€˜We discussed his wife.’
    â€˜His wife?’
    â€˜Yes, sir. I told him that she probably didn’t love him, and that he was most likely right to starve himself.’
    â€˜You didn’t, did you?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    The doctor smiled. ‘Erich, sometimes I really do think that you would make a better doctor than me.’
    â€˜Thank you, Doctor.’
    â€˜Only some of the time, though. So don’t go getting ideas. Now, how about going up to the mess and seeing about getting some tea?’
    â€˜Yes, Doctor.’

Eight
    Vinnie
    As the protective envelope of forest closed around him again, Vinnie began to shiver. The phone call had frightened him. He was back in the months of pain he was trying to put behind him.
    Waking in the hospital had been the worst moment. The impersonal click and quiet beep of the machines had been the first sensations to worm their way into his consciousness. Then the light, the subdued glow of a night lamp, and the harsher glare of the fluorescent-lit passageway outside, all muted by thin, blue privacy curtains. Finally the grunting snore of his father, slumped in a nursing chair at the foot of the bed. Sleeping and waiting.
    Then the pain. Rolling across him in waves somehow both distant and immediate. Awareness of sheets held aloft by frames, of raw skin constricted by thick, tight pressure, of fuzziness, of one eye and half his head swathed in slimy bandages, of not being able to think through the fog, to see, to breathe . . .
    Sleep again. Then daylight, oozing in through a narrow, wall-length window. Through it, the distant clock tower of the university was framed against an overcast sky. And his mother by the bedside, reading a magazine with the distracted air of someone looking at words and pictures on a page but not seeing anything. He’d studied her, then, for a couple of moments, confused and