Major Clayton was dead. He’d been in hospital outside London since the closing days of the war, fighting a different battle. Sometimes winning. More often than not losing. They had kept in touch until three months before, when Clayton had been too ill to write, and his sister had been too distressed to write for him. Dropping the telegram on the table, he gazed out his window. Clayton would be brought back to the Fen country for burial. Services would be held at two o’clock Friday next in the Church of St. Mary’s, Burwell. Only a few miles away. He intended to be there. He’d tried hard to put the war behind him. Avoiding weddings and funerals alike, refusing even to deliver the eulogy for men he’d known well. It would bring back too many memories, and he wanted them to stay buried, along with the dead left behind in the torn earth of Flanders Fields. Unable to explain, he’d simply cited ill health as his reason for declining.
