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Bentley's first thought was to find Grace, but she had already left. Schützer was alone in the kitchen, drying up the tea things. When he saw Bentley's face he put down the tea towel and pulled out a chair for him.

"Vhat ist?"

Bentley sat at the table and buried his head in his paws. His explanation came jerky and muffled through his fingers.

"To marry? The fox who was here just now?" the Weimaraner asked at the end of it.

"Or anyone. Engaged by Christmas! Dash it, Otto, I can't do that to myself - or to a girl. Even to Julia Portman. I'll lose this place, and I didn't even know I wanted it!"

"Vhy can you not?" Neither of them noticed that Bentley had used his servant's first name.

"Because...because I'm queer."

The Weimaraner frowned and cocked his head.

"A poofter. A homosexual. Got those where you come from?" Bentley was too upset not to blurt out the truth to the kind, concerned face at his side. He didn't dare look round to see the effect his words had had, but he felt a paw rub his shoulder.

"Be calm, Bentley. Alles gut, mein Freund, alles gut." The amber eyes were warm and deep as a glass of whisky. Bentley looked up at the soft muzzle that hovered inches from his own, so close he could feel the dog's breath on his cheek. He stretched forward, imagining the touch of that velvety mouth against his.

Wait, what the hell was he doing? Here's a poor fellow snatched from a beastly hole, and you start molesting him as soon as he's installed? He's going to think you just wanted him as a personal plaything!

"Sorry - Otto - Schützer - sorry. Better get on, eh?" Bentley sprang to his feet and slid towards the door, keeping the table between himself and his servant.

"Herr Captain?"

"Yes?" Bentley asked hopefully.

"Thank you. For trusting me."

Walking out of the kitchen was hard. But Bentley was not yet prepared for the consequences of staying.

He walked into the village next morning, Schützer following at a respectable distance with a wicker shopping-basket. The Weimaraner could cook as well as clean - he had proved that with a stew for supper - and tomorrow, dash it, there would be bacon and sausages for breakfast.

The first person they saw was the vicar, bustling about in his surplice.

"Captain ffox! How nice to have you back with us. I have been praying for you." The red squirrel flicked his tail.

"That's awfully kind..." Bentley began.

"And you, my son - you are forgiven," he added to Schützer, who could only nod in reply.

"Funny thing, Padre," Bentley put in. "Apparently God was on their side too! No wonder the whole business got confusing."

The vicar's beady eyes acquired a frosty glint. "Indeed, Captain ffox. Indeed."

While Bentley, as the young lord of the manor, was greeted with cheerful recognition by shopkeepers and passers-by, his companion received suspicious looks at best, scowls at worst. As they walked past the church, Schützer's basket brimming with delicacies, someone spat.

Bentley spun round, a rebuke on his lips, and saw the cripple at the church gate wiping his muzzle with his sleeve. No point remonstrating; nobody with a full set of limbs had that right.

"I'm sorry about the locals, Schützer," he said when they were clear of the village. "Not very welcoming."

The dog shifted his basket from one paw to the other. "It is understood," he said. "Many have lost a son or a brother. What I don't understand is why you do not have this anger?"

"Oh, I'm angry. Angry with the greedy buggers who made the war inevitable - my lot as well as yours. But with my brother officers? Not on your nelly. You made the best of a bad job, old chap, the same as I did. I'm sure there were cruel Jerries - there were bad apples among the Tommies too. You weren't one of 'em, though, or my name isn't Bentley Pringle ffox."

That night, Bentley had the dream again: the one with the shell-hole, and the sniper, and the young badger Wills suddenly dead at his feet. He woke tangled in soaking sheets with no desire to return to his slumbers.

"Brandy," he said to himself, "and a slice of that game pie from supper. That'll do the trick."

He padded softly down familiar corridors. The servants' quarters had been out of bounds when he was a cub, yet somehow he'd kept finding his way to the cosy kitchen for titbits from the cook and, when he grew older, racy tales from the butler. Sent to bed without dinner, he had raided the larder in the small hours. He retraced those midnight steps and was soon cutting himself a generous piece of cold pie.

"Wer is da?"

Bentley jumped and swung round, holding the knife like a bayonet as the guttural voice dragged him back to the trenches. His foe stood in the doorway, wrapped in a cape, with a weapon raised above his head. Bentley dropped to a crouch, his training in paw-to-paw combat coming to the fore. The snarl which rose in his throat was matched by a deep growl from the figure in the shadows.

"Schützer?" Bentley managed.

"Captain ffox - I am sorry!" The Weimaraner dropped the poker to the floor with a clang, and they both jumped again.

"This won't do! You're shaking! Brandy!" said Bentley. Abandoning his plate of pie, he prowled into the scullery and returned with a bottle.

"Butler's secret supply," he explained. "Snaffle a couple of glasses, there's a good chap, and we'll go somewhere more comfortable."

A few minutes later, the fire in the drawing-room had been stoked to a roaring blaze by Schützer's improvised weapon and the two former soldiers were curled up in armchairs, sipping brandy.

"So, how did you come to be captured, anyway?" Bentley asked.

"Four men and I lost our platoon in the June push. My lieutenant was wounded and we surrendered so he should have help."

"So you must have been at Semy? I was with the Tenth, opposite you. Do you remember that huge oak tree?"

"Yes, yes! Ve vere so upset vhen it vas blown up at last. It was like a friend."

"Same here, old boy! Same here!"

They grinned at each other, delighted, and plunged into a torrent of reminiscences. They might have seen the war from opposite sides - might even have shot at each other - but their experiences of terrible food, sadistic drill sergeants and wet feet had been almost identical. Schützer, however, had spent the last year of the conflict imprisoned in Kent, doing menial labour under the piggy Major and worrying about the men he had left at the Front.

"The prisoners from our side are coming home already," Bentley said. He felt a pang of loneliness; Schützer must want to be away from this hostile country, but Bentley already knew he would miss him.

"Yes, but you did not lose," Schützer replied.

"I'm sure it won't be long. Got someone back at home? Wife? Girlfriend?"

The Weimaraner shook his head. "And my parents are gone. I wish only that I was not a prisoner. If I were free to go, I would choose to stay here."

"Really?"

"I like your country. And I like you, Captain ffox. You are the only one who vould accept vhat I am."

"German, you mean?"

"I mean...vhat vord did you say? 'Poofter'."

The level of brandy in the bottle had lowered considerably as they spluttered with laughter over a story or toasted a lost friend, and Bentley glowed with it. His paw reached out and rested on Schützer's knee.

The amber eyes, dancing in the firelight, looked into his, and the fox's neat black paw was covered by a large grey one.

"Otto. I didn't take you from the camp for this - I don't want you to think..."

"I know." The Weimaraner's muzzle clamped down on Bentley's.

Bentley ran his fingers through the short, plushy fur, shivering with the delight of touching a warm body. He could feel Otto's heart racing under the prominent ribs. A slight thumping noise puzzled him until he realised it was the dog's tail hitting the chair as it wagged.

They shrugged off their dressing-gowns and rolled together onto the hearthrug, still locked muzzle to muzzle. Once, the recollection of his strange courtship in the shellhole burst into Bentley's head like a flare. Otto held him and licked the tears from his eyes, and the ghost was gone.

It was nearly dawn when they crept to their separate rooms. Bentley slept like a dead fox, emerging just before nine. He found Schützer in the breakfast-room, serving Lady ffox with scrambled eggs from a silver dish, and wondered if he had even gone to bed.

The Weimaraner glided across with a warm plate on which three slices of bacon already reposed. He was the model of a respectful, dignified servant, but as he bent to set his burden down Bentley felt a knee press briefly against his.

"What are your plans for the day, Bentley?" asked his mother when Schützer had left them.

"Well, I - "

"Cancel them. Your cousin Wilberforce is arriving in the afternoon to spend Christmas with us. I want you to make him welcome."

"Oh, I say!"

"Bentley. I know you and your cousin had a...somewhat turbulent relationship in your cubhood, but you're not cubs any longer. Treat him with courtesy and dignity. Introduce him to Julia Portman." Her eyes glittered behind the lorgnettes. "Perhaps having your rival on the premises will spur you to action in that department."

Rather than reply, Bentley stared fiercely down at his plate and began to ram bacon and eggs into his muzzle. He had learned to eat fast in the trenches, and the habit would stay with him all his life; that breakfast, though, set an unbeaten record.

He spent the morning in his father's study, which still smelled of pipe tobacco and tweed jackets, wrestling with his temper. Luncheon improved his mood, and afterwards he took his servant by the elbow and marched him to the upper landing.

"Come on, Otto. We're going to make the Blue Room ready for Cousin Wilberforce."

The Blue Room was the largest and prettiest of the guest bedrooms. The walls were duck-egg, the carpet deep navy, and the four-poster bed had blue curtains and a blue eiderdown. Otto flung the window open to air the room, and stood transfixed.

"Oh, yes. Nice, isn't it?" Bentley joined him in gazing across the Chase. The trees had been allowed to grow wild in the war years, but the crooked shadows they cast seemed somehow friendly and fitting. What fun he and Grace used to have playing among the trees! Perks had built them a treehouse...dash it, he was getting sentimental again. Why shouldn't Wilberforce have Sandybanks, and raise a brood of jolly little cublings with games and treehouses of their own?

Because Wilberforce was an ass, that was why.

"Right, then. First, Otto, we're going to make Wilby an apple-pie bed."

"Ve put epple pie in his bett?"

His accent grew stronger when he was confused, Bentley noticed. Rather sweet.

"Anyone can tell you didn't go to an English boarding-school! No, no, we turn his bed into an apple pie!"

Bentley's apple-pie-bed-making heyday had passed more than a decade before, but he had not lost the knack. Deftly, he flipped the top sheet in half and drew it up, so the unsuspecting eye would see two sheets. Unwary feet slipped between them would meet an obstacle halfway down and probably claw a hole in the bedclothes.

"You don't like your cousin, isn't it?"

"Haven't seen him in four years, but I doubt he's changed. Absolute shower."

"He is...vet?"

"Vet? Oh! No, I'm the wet one. Wet and weedy, that's what he used to call me."

"Veedy?" The dog's ears flicked and he cocked his head, a picture of confusion

"Don't bother your head about it, Otto. I don't plan to! Now, come and help me look for a nice big spider to go in the bath."

He did not explain why, if he was no longer bothered by Wilberforce's cubhood taunts, he felt the need to play pranks, and the Weimaraner did not ask. Otto followed meekly as a suitable spider was found and conveyed to the bath in a toothglass, and the tooth powder exchanged for cornflour.

Only when Bentley stood on a chair to balance a bucket of water above the door did he protest.

"Your mother - "

"Will recognise the handiwork of her son and heir. Don't worry - you won't take the blame for any of this."

"I...I don't think this is quite kind, Bentley." He tucked his tail between his legs, as if expecting a rebuke for daring to venture his opinion.

"You're just not used to the English sense of humour, that's all. Buck up! Smile! That's better!" He squeezed himself through the gap in the door without disturbing the poised bucket; Otto followed, rather more awkwardly.

Portraits of ffoxes past glared down at them from the landing wall as they padded by, the oak floor slippery after Otto's diligent polishing.

"Whoop! Careful!" said Bentley, putting a paw on the dog's arm to steady him. "I say - know what I used to do when I was a cub?"

"Something terrible, I think?" Otto guessed. At this sign of a sense of humour, Bentley grinned and punched him on the arm.

"Take your shoes off," he ordered, removing his own and holding them in one paw. When Otto, puzzled but unresisting, did the same, Bentley grabbed his other paw and pulled him along the corridor.

"You can get up a bit of speed," he said, demonstrating, "then sliiiiiide! Come on! Follow-my-leader!"

Otto slid cautiously at first, before suddenly swooping like a skater, twirling right round and finishing with one leg in the air.

"My word, Otto! You're like a bally ballerina! And now, the grand finale!"

By this time they had reached the head of the stairs. Bentley vaulted onto the banister rail, kicked his feet up and slid all the way to the bottom as he had slid when he was a cub in velvet knickerbockers, his tail whirling behind him. Otto, after a moment's hesitation, followed.

The Weimaraner, however, had not had the years of experience which had taught Bentley when and how to brake. Otto caught up with his master a few yards from the end of the banister, striking him in the back and propelling them both over the newel-post to land in a bruised and giggling heap in the hall.

"OW! I say," Bentley squeaked, clasping his paws between his legs in an undignified fashion. "You're laughing, Otto! Good for you!"

The dog flung his head back, shoulders shaking. "How did you British ever vin this var?" he demanded.

"Cheeky sod!" exclaimed Bentley. He grabbed a grey ear and pulled the Weimaraner's head around, bringing the black velvet lips within reach of his own. Once they were there, it seemed a pity not to kiss them.

They might have lain all afternoon on the tiles, the doormat prickling Bentley's behind, if the doorbell had not rung. The pair sprang apart and up, Otto dusting Bentley's clothing and reaching to straighten his tie.

When the Weimaraner opened the great front door, he was a picture of dignity. A butler of his stature and composure, you would think, could never, even in far-distant puppyhood, have countenanced sliding down a banister. His task performed and their visitor admitted, he melted away up the stairs.

Bentley was not often deprived of speech. As he looked his guest up and down his mouth opened, but the ability to form words seemed temporarily to leave him.

"Hullo, Benty," Cousin Wilberforce said at last.

He was thin - thinner even than Otto - and he walked with a stick. His brush, about which Bentley could remember him being girlishly vain in cubhood, had a kink halfway along, where it had been broken and set crookedly, and there was a bald patch towards the base. His rust-coloured fur lay flat and limp.

"What are you gawping at, you frightful goof?" Wilberforce asked his cousin, but there was none of the old snap in his remark, and Bentley realised he would have given a good deal to hear it.

"What happened, Wilby?" Bentley asked humbly.

"Prisoner of war camp in Germany. Poor buggers ran out of food for their own kids by the end of it - they didn't have any to spare for us." He glanced around the hall. "Gad, if I never see another Hun again it will be too soon!"

Bentley's eyes narrowed at that, and the old resentment of his cousin threatened to return, but before he could speak Otto stepped forth from the shadows.

"Please," he said, clicking his heels. "I vill show you to your room."

Wilberforce stared at the grey apparition from hollow eyes

"Schützer here has been a prisoner in the camp nearby," Bentley said. "I sort of borrowed him."

"You? 'Borrowed'? Does that mean we can expect a couple of brigades surrounding the house in the middle of the night?"

The two cousins broke into identical smiles, and the tension was gone.

"I show you to your room," Otto said again, and Bentley saw a flash of understanding pass between them. For a moment he was almost jealous of their shared experience and the instant closeness it gave his cousin and his lover...butler, dash it! His butler!

He put out a paw to stop Otto. "I just need to, er, check something in the Blue Room first," he said.

"It is already taken care of," the Weimaraner assured him solemnly. As he bent to lift Wilberforce's valise, he winked over his shoulder at Bentley.