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Just at the moment we are happier than we would be in some luxuriously appointed lavatory, white tiles and all. The most a place like that could be is hygienic; out here, though, it is beautiful.

These are wonderfully mindless hours. The blue sky is above us. On the horizon we can see the yellow observation balloons[25] with the sun shining on them, and white puffs of smoke from the tracer bullets[26]. Sometimes you see a sudden sheaf of them going up, when they are chasing an airman.

The muted rumble of the front sounds like nothing more than very distant thunder. Even the bumble bees drown it out when they buzz past.

And all around us the fields are in flower. The grasses are waving, cabbage whites[27] are fluttering about, swaying on the warm breezes of late summer, while we read our letters and newspapers, and smoke; we take our caps off and put them on the ground beside us, the wind plays with our hair and it plays with our words and with our thoughts.

The three thunder-boxes are standing amid glowing red poppies.

We put the lid of the margarine tub on our knees and that gives us a solid base to play cards. Kropp has brought a pack. After every few hands we have a round of lowest score wins’. You could sit like this for ever and ever.

There is the sound of an accordion coming from the huts. Every so often we put the cards down and look at one another. Then someone says, ‘I tell you, lads…’ or: ‘It could easily have gone wrong that time…’ and then we are silent for a moment. There is a strong feeling of restraint in us all, we are all aware of it and it doesn’t have to be spelt out. It could easily have happened that we wouldn’t be sitting on our boxes here today, it was all so damned close. And because of that, everything is new and full of life – the red poppies, the good food, the cigarettes and the summer breeze.

Kropp asks, ‘Have any of you seen Kemmerich again?’

‘He’s over at St Joseph,’ I say.

Muller reckons that he got one right through the thigh[28], a decent blighty wound[29].