The candle guttered as another shell landed somewhere beyond the trench line. Stanhope didn’t flinch. He hadn’t flinched for weeks — or perhaps he’d simply lost the energy to. The dugout shuddered, dust trickling from the low ceiling, and for a moment he thought the whole thing might finally collapse and bury them all. A small, treacherous part of him wished it would.

He stared at the whisky bottle on the table. The label had worn away from damp and touch; it was just glass and amber now — as familiar as his revolver.

“Another?” Osborne’s voice, quiet, steady as ever.

Stanhope nodded. The older man poured a careful measure. No judgment, no pity. Just that calm, schoolmaster’s kindness that Stanhope both leaned on and resented.

Outside, the line muttered — boots on duckboards, low voices, the heavy cough of a sentry trying not to show nerves. The attack would come soon. Everyone knew it. Even the rats had gone quiet.

Stanhope ran a hand through his hair, felt the grit at his scalp. “You know, Uncle,” he said softly, using the nickname the men had given Osborne, “when I first came out here, I used to think there’d be some kind of glory in it.”

Osborne smiled faintly. “We all did, I think.”

“Now it’s just…” He trailed off. “Keeping the fear from showing.”

A pause. Osborne looked at him, eyes clear in the dim light. “You’ve done more than that, Dennis. You’ve kept them steady. That’s worth something.”

Stanhope gave a short, bitter laugh. “By drinking myself blind every night?”

Osborne’s smile didn’t falter. “By being here.”

Outside, a flare went up — harsh white light spilling down through the dugout entrance. Shadows jerked across the walls. Stanhope turned away from it, his jaw tightening.

He thought of Raleigh — young, fresh-faced, full of that impossible belief that Stanhope was still the golden captain from school. The boy had written to Raleigh’s sister once, back when things were simple. He couldn’t bear the thought of her reading about what he’d become.

The flare faded. Darkness crept back in.

Stanhope lifted the glass, staring into the whisky. For a heartbeat, he saw the reflection of his own eyes — tired, hollow, older than his twenty-one years. Then he drank, and the reflection broke.

“Best get some rest, sir,” Osborne said quietly.

Stanhope nodded. He set the glass down carefully, like it was something fragile, and reached for his revolver. “Wake me if anything moves.”

He lay down on the camp bed, boots still on, listening to the distant guns. Between the explosions, there was a strange, fleeting silence — almost like peace.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember what that used to feel like