Showing Strange Meeting by Susan Hill

"Things like this don't happen often in a lifetime..."

John Hilliard, a young subaltern returning to the Western Front after a brief period of sick leave back in England blind to the horrors of the trenches, finds his battalion tragically altered. His commanding officer finds escape in alcohol, there is a new adjutant and even Hilliard's batman has been killed.

But there is David Barton. As yet untouched and unsullied by war, radiating charm and common sense, forever writing long letters to his family.

Theirs is a strange meeting and a strange relationship: the coming together of opposites in the summer lull before the inevitable storm.