“How did you know Sampson?” Ron Waring asked. “You’re both artists, of course, but was your acquaintance one of long-standing, or more casual?” Franklin Johnson knocked back his drink before answering. “We used to be good friends,” he said. “Ten years ago, or so.” “Just after the War?” Ernest Carruthers asked. “You served together?” “No. They wouldn’t take Sampson: childhood consumption meant his lungs weren’t up to it,” Johnson replied. “The refusal rankled him. Once he told me some girl had given him a white feather, before the Conscription Crisis. When he was drunk he’d rave about it.” “Quite a few girls did that,” Poppy said. “The recruiters put them up to it. It was terribly childish and cruel, honestly, but it’s amazing what people will do for a dollar.” “But you had served?” Carruthers asked. “Was he jealous of you?” “I wouldn’t think jealous,” Johnson said. “There was nothing really glamorous about the trenches, after all. Still, I think he felt he’d missed out on the event tha...