He paused long enough to receive a nod of assent and a sigh of relief from each of his companions and took out his fountain pen. ‘Well, if we’re all agreed then,’ said Bonnefoye, ‘we can sign this recommendation and get it off to the Minister. The wheels of government moving as they do, and some of the conditions being a little out of the ordinary, it will be a few weeks before any action is taken as a result but I think we can say this is one soldier who’ll most likely be home for Christmas.’

Joe prayed they had come to the right decision.

Chapter Thirty-One

October 1926

‘Firing party, present arms!

‘Slope arms!

‘Volleys!’

From the graveside three fusillades were fired skywards in perfect unison to the vociferous astonishment of the neighbouring rookery. As the noise rolled away, a bugler of the Royal Fusiliers began to sound the Last Post. Joe, standing to attention, flanked on one side by Brigadier Sir Douglas Redmayne and on the other by Colonel Thorndon, listened to the piercing strains and felt his soul snatched up by the music and transported, solitary, to a distant place. The three men, handsome in dress uniform, saluted as one as the oak coffin began its gentle descent into the grave. Edward’s father stepped forward and scattered a spadeful of rich Sussex earth on to the coffin, then stood back.

Edward’s mother, frail, but straight and determined, approached and threw in a prayer book and, with a swift apologetic glance at her husband, added a small brown toy dog. The firing party marched off and the ranks of mourners broke up and began to mingle, offering each other comforting remarks. Mrs Thorndon made straight for Joe and placed a gloved hand on his sleeve.

‘Commander! I’m so pleased you could get here in time. We wanted to thank you for bringing the boy home. Douglas has told us of your heroic efforts, tracking him down to the Marne and digging about in the battlefield to find him and restore him to us. And to think we had imagined that the War Office had given up on our case! We should have had more faith in the Military!’

She directed a sweet, smiling apology at the Brigadier.

Sir Douglas bowed in silent acknowledgement and fixed his eyes thoughtfully on a flock of migrating swifts gathering overhead.

Mrs Thorndon looked around the quiet village graveyard, the only sounds the melancholy autumn fluting of the birds and the occasional damp plop of a falling leaf. The Sussex beeches surrounding the graveyard were aflame in a haze of red-gold, the grass still a lively green.

‘We would have been happy enough to leave him with his fellows in a French cemetery – it would certainly have been less complicated and less time-consuming, and they care for our boys so beautifully but . . . oh, Douglas, do you blame us? I know we’ve demanded so much of your attention . . . Do you think we are unbearably fussy to want him back here with us?’

‘Not at all, Emily. May all the brave lost souls have the luck to find their way home! I think every soldier deserves to be laid to rest in his native churchyard,’ was the hearty reply. Followed immediately by: ‘Where it’s possible, of course.’

As she drifted away Joe addressed a comment sideways to Sir Douglas. ‘I’ll be presenting my bill for services rendered then, sir?’

‘Bill? What bill?’

Joe was pleased to have startled him. ‘It’s a new thing. French entrepreneurial spirit. You have to admire them! They charge by the kilometre for retrieving a body from the battlefield and returning it. At the going rate you owe me . . . er . . . with conversion from kilometres and francs . . . fifty pounds.’

Redmayne grinned. ‘Take that in champagne, will you, Sandilands? Eliminates the paperwork.’

‘Maman, I’ve brought you some camomile tea,’ said Georges Houdart brightly. ‘Very calming! Just what you need!’

He carried the tray over to Aline who was sitting in a state of excited agitation by the window of the morning room from where she had a clear view down the drive. The beech trees were still glowing pale gold in the early October sunshine and scarcely a leaf had fallen to mar the neatness of the gravel.

‘Thank you, darling. Oh, and I see you’ve brought the last of the roses,’ she said, gently stroking the rusting petal of one of the few remaining blooms to be found in the garden. ‘How clever of you to remember! These are his favourites! Stay and have some tea with me, will you, while I watch. Oh, and Georges – call on one of the men to open the gate. They’ve left it closed and I don’t want the unwelcoming sight of a closed gate to be the first thing to greet him when he arrives.’

‘Yes, of course, Maman.’

Wearily Georges rang the bell.

‘Tell me – did Charles-Auguste remember to bring up a couple of bottles of the ’13 vintage?’

‘He did, Maman.’

Her eyes had been drawn back to the gate and the road to Reims beyond. ‘And what are we to have for supper tonight, do you know? . . . Calves’ liver? Are you sure of that? No! No! That will not do! He simply detests liver! You must go and speak to Cook and ask what on earth she thinks she’s about.’

‘Are you quite certain he doesn’t like liver, Maman? I thought he did?’

‘He hates it. But he adores game. It’s the hunting season. Surely a fine shot like you, Georges, can keep the kitchen supplied? You must hurry off and see what you can find. A rabbit will do if you can get nothing else.’

‘Maman,’ said Georges tentatively, ‘you can’t go on sitting here, waiting and watching. You’re making yourself ill. You’re making us ill! Uncle Charles is worried witless.’

‘Of course I shall wait! What else can I do? He’s on his way! He’s coming!’

‘I’m not quite certain, Maman . . .’ Georges spoke hesitantly, anxious to avoid bringing down one of her increasingly frequent screaming tirades on his head, ‘who exactly you are expecting to come up the drive?’

He hastily moved the hot teapot out of her reach and drew back. She did not scream and stamp at the mild challenge and hurl a cup at him as he’d come to expect over the weeks but turned to him, eyes wide with astonishment at the question, and smiled one of her old, loving smiles.

‘But – Edward, of course! Georges, darling, you haven’t forgotten Edward?’

Whiskers twitching with anger, the cat shot out of the kitchen the moment the door opened to release him, making clear his displeasure at being shut up in there for a whole morning. A morning when things had been happening in the house. Things he ought to have been a party to. Comings and goings, strange smells and sounds and currents of air. A disruption of his routine.

Holding his tail stiffly to indicate an extreme degree of pique, he stalked down the corridor and went into the parlour, heading for his chair.

He caught sight and smell of the interloper from the doorway and went to stand, fur on end, directly in front of the man lolling at ease in the armchair which had been empty for nine years.

He waited for a very long moment, assessing the situation, and then decided on his action. He leapt up on to the man’s knee, eyes narrowed, demanding and holding his gaze, hissing with rage, and one paw lashed out, claws exposed, to tear at the man’s flesh. The sudden pain and the trickle of blood down the back of his hand drew a startled cry. The cat paused briefly, then, judging the reaction he’d provoked adequate, he turned around several times, kneading the man’s thighs with unsheathed claws, and finally settled down on his lap. He began a rasping and unpractised purring.

‘There! That’ll teach you to stay away for years on end! What you’ve just undergone is the traditional feline punishment for going absent without leave. And well deserved too! I do believe Louis has missed you more than I have . . . Oh . . .!’