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On that first morning of peace, Bentley Pringle ffox woke from a dream of running across No Man's Land to a sunlit bedroom. He was wearing striped pyjamas that smelled of mothballs. A sporting print hung above the bed. He was home.

He had seen his men safe before leaving London, packing them on trains to sweethearts and parents and making sure they could all pay the fare. After a huge dinner at his club he had checked himself into the railway hotel at St Pancras, where he slept for fifteen hours; then, not knowing what else to do, he had boarded the train for Kent and Sandybanks.

He closed his eyes. In a few minutes, Wiggins would bring him breakfast in bed. The bacon would be just the way he liked it: the centre moist, the fat crispy. There would be two boiled eggs with golden, liquid yolks, and a line of toast soldiers for dipping.

Many minutes later, hunger drove Bentley downstairs in his old dressing-gown. His nose twitched, seeking bacon, but only the scent of burnt toast met his nostrils.

His mother, Lady ffox, sat alone at the head of the breakfast table in a mauve day dress and white gloves. She raised her lorgnettes to examine her son and heir.

"It is nearly ten o'clock, Bentley," she reproved.

"Good morning to you too, Mater! Here's your only cub back from the trenches!" Bentley bounded around the table to kiss his mother's muzzle. "Is this all there is?" he asked, snatching a slice of toast. "No eggs? No kidneys? No kedgeree? I used to dream of Mrs M's kidneys, out in France."

"Mrs Moss found employment during the War as the conductress of an omnibus," Lady ffox told him. "The pay is such that she sees no need to return to my service. Perks the gardener, has elected to remain in the Army, and I had word from Wiggins's mother that he had been killed on something called the Somme."

"Oh," said Bentley. He took a bite of toast. It was cold as well as burnt. "How are you managing, old thing?"

"Not well. And pray do not call me 'old thing'. I am your mother, in case you'd forgotten."

"Not a chance," muttered Bentley. He crunched his toast. The tea tasted weak after the soupy brews his batman had served him.

Lady ffox watched him for a while, then began to clear the table. As she passed Bentley's place, her paw brushed his cheek.

"I wish your father had lived to see you come home," she whispered.

Bentley braced himself for the customary diatribe - Your Dear Father Died Of Shame, You Sinful, Unrepentant Boy - but it did not come. Behind him, he heard the dining-room door swing shut.

After his morning bath, he inspected the rest of his ancestral home. It saddened him to see the grimy floors and windows, to open the doors of long-shut bedrooms where dust sheets shrouded furniture which had once been painstakingly polished. Finding a feather duster propped in the hall, he ran it along the busts of his forebears.

"There you go, Great-Great-Grandpapa," he murmured to the unsmiling marble head.

He was surprised at the depth of his feelings for Sandybanks, which since the summer before he went up to Oxford had felt more like a prison than a home. The old, suffocating world inhabited by his parents would surely change in this new era; he had come home from the War determined to have a part in changing it. Yet, somehow, he wanted Sandybanks to stay as it had been in his cubhood and for centuries before that.

His mother was struggling, though she was too proud to ask for help. She must be lonely, too. Lady ffox might be a crusty old bat, and in her way she had been no less cruel than her husband over the Tommy Destrier business, but Bentley admitted grudgingly that he loved her. She needed some help, and he would find it. Once Sandybanks was safe he could buzz off back to London, or perhaps abroad, with a clear conscience.

By lunchtime the dusty silence had become too much for him, and he decided to walk across the fields to the village. How full of life the English countryside was, after the barren, blasted wreckage of France! Little birds still sang in the hedgerows; trees stood leafless now, but would put forward fresh greenery in spring.

"Benty! Bent!"

Bentley jumped. There had been those at Oxford, and in France, who had named him Benty Bentley, and they had not been kind. But this was a happy voice - a voice which had called 'Benty, Benty!' when its owner was too young to say her Ls.

"Grace!" He turned and caught her around the waist, lifting her up. "Scrawny as ever, I see!"

The young tabby cat wriggled free. "Oh Bent - I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Bad luck, old thing!" Bentley smirked.

They walked on, paw in paw. His parents had disapproved, long ago, of his friendship with the farmer's daughter. Then came Tommy and a whole new stratum of disapproval, after which his fraternising with girls - any girls - had been positively encouraged. Grace had stuck by him through all that, too, as loyal as any sister.

"How's that young man of yours - Dewlap, isn't it?"

The look of pain and awful sadness that flashed into Grace's blue eyes made Bentley want to kick himself. He, better than anyone, should know that it wasn't always tactful to mention a loved one. There had been so many ways to die, so many lovers left grieving.

"I'm sorry. What a frightful chump I am," he said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. "Aren't I a chump? Wouldn't you like to tell me so? Would it make you feel better? Like that time at school when you threw the ink at me?"

"Chump," growled Grace, and he kissed her forehead.

"Well, Bentley. I see you've lost no time in making yourself at home."

They both stared guiltily at the figure on the path - a vixen in a pink frock and a green overcoat.

"My dear Julia!" Only a close friend would have recognised that Bentley's greeting was less sincere than the one he had offered Grace. "How are you and the rest of the Portman pack? Daddy must have made lots of lovely money out of this great big war we've had."

"It's lucky some of our sort have been able to maintain the standards. I hear your poor mother has been left without a single servant. Such a pity!"

It was a direct challenge, and Bentley could not resist. Nor would he allow anyone - other than himself, in private - to insult his mother.

"You heard incorrectly, Julia, old bottle-brush. Come to tea tomorrow and see for yourself."

"I should refuse, after such insolence - but as a courtesy to your mother, I shall attend."

"Splendid! Good day to you!"

"Good day, Bentley."

As soon as Julia had stalked out of sight, Grace batted at Bentley with her paw. "Bent, you great boob! What are you going to feed her?"

"Oh - spiders and string." Bentley shrugged.

"It's all very well for you to laugh, you cad, but your mother will never live it down. The few friends she has left will snub her. You simply must get someone in who can bake."

"I say, it's frightfully kind of you to offer!"

Grace flattened her ears and let out a hiss. "All right, Benty. Because I love you like a brother. But you'll have to find somebody else to serve it up on the best silverware, and that's not easy these days."

"Have things really changed so much? It all looks just as it always did."

"Bent...I should go back and help Mother in the dairy, but I'll be along tomorrow afternoon. And you'll see the changes for yourself soon enough."

She gave him a quick hug and scampered away. Bentley walked on, remembering far-off days when a red fox cub had romped through these fields with a tabby kitten. Life then had been gloriously simple, and simply glorious.

The windows of the village shops displayed posters celebrating Victory, and a one-armed veteran was begging outside the church. Bentley fished in the pockets of his suit - when had he last worn it? 1915, wasn't it? - and dropped the resulting handful of coins into the waiting bowl.

"Hello, old man," he said, but the cripple drew his cap down further over his eyes and grunted.

Even if he hadn't just given all his money away, there was nothing Bentley wanted to buy in the village. He walked on, heading for the river. Round a bend in the path, he found the change Grace had spoken of.

A high fence surrounded the big meadow. He saw corrugated iron huts, soldiers marching, and a parade ground. Then he saw a ghost.

The figure was standing quite still by the fence. He was all grey - grey fur, grey shirt and trousers - and he gazed at Bentley with luminous amber eyes.

The fur along Bentley's spine stood on end, and he felt his tail fluff up. The ghost - it was some sort of dog - raised a paw and waved.

Bentley waved back, and trotted rapidly past the apparition to the gate of the encampment. There, a sign that read 'North Kent Prisoner of War Camp' made everything clear. Always a nosy fox, he was seized by the urge to look round.

He walked up to the guards at the gate and saluted. "Captain ffox."

The guards returned the gesture. "Captain Bentley ffox?" one added. Bentley nodded.

"It's an honour to meet you, Sir. Read about you in the papers. Have you come to have a look round? Charlie, take Captain ffox to see the Major."

"A filthy lot," was Major Trotter's assessment. The Major was a magnificent Gloucester Old Spot whose uniform barely contained his girth. "Crawling with fleas and ticks when they arrived."

"Poor fellows!" said Bentley. "We were plagued by ticks in the trenches - I remember one time my skin was simply black with them. But you weren't at the Front, were you?"

The Major grunted. "Lazy bunch, too," he added. "Trouble is, there's not much for them to do this time of year. We hire them out to the farmers for planting and harvesting, but now they're just lolling around idle. I like them busy. Stops them planning to escape."

A plot began to form in Bentley's mind. "I say - I arrived home yesterday to find I was a little short in the domestic service department. You couldn't spare me one of the prisoners, I suppose?"

"It's highly irregular," said Trotter, "but I'm sure a soldier of your experience could keep him in line." He waved his swagger stick. "Any of 'em take your fancy?"

No good soldier deserved to be lorded over by this excrescence of a Major. Bentley would rescue one, at least. He looked over the men in grey, and his eye settled almost at once on the tall dog who still stared out through the fence at the world beyond.

"The hound there." He pointed.

"That one? Full of dumb insolence. Glad to be rid of him. SchütZERRRR!" squealed the Major. Soldiers jumped and shuddered, and the grey dog hurried over to them.

"Schützer, you're going with the Captain here. Collect a pass from the gatehouse, and no dirty tricks."

"No, Sir!" stammered the prisoner. He looked at Bentley with confusion and a little fear in those amazing eyes. "Kapitän Otto Schützer."

Bentley returned the salute. "Captain Bentley ffox," he replied. "Now let's get you out of this hellhole," he added in a whisper.

Outside the gates, Schützer looked around as though he could not believe his luck. He was skinny under the rough work clothes, and he trembled in the cold November air.

"It's a couple of miles, I'm afraid," Bentley said. "Can you walk that far?"

"I valk," came the reply. "I like valk."

"Good-o! I'll tell you all about Sandybanks and Mother along the way. By the way, I hope you don't mind my asking, but what sort of dog are you, anyway?"

He bowed and clicked his heels. "I am Weimaraner, Captain."

*

Bentley's mother was waiting in the drawing-room. "You might have had the courtesy to tell me you would not be back for luncheon...and what is this?" she asked.

Schützer bowed again, but this only produced a shriek of outrage from Lady ffox. "He's from the prisoner of war camp! As if it wasn't dreadful enough having that eyesore down by the river, bristling with foreign murderers, you've brought one into my home!"

"I've found you some help, Mater! You'll have nice clean corridors again - and hot toast!"

"No, Bentley. Absolutely not. You've gone too far. I'd rather get down on my knees and scrub the floors myself."

Bentley's eyes glittered. "You'd better get busy, then. Julia Portman is coming to tea tomorrow and you know what an eye she's got for cobwebs."

"Julia Portman? Tomorrow? Here?" There was a pleading note in the old vixen's voice, as though she were hoping that just one of these facts might not be true. At each question, Bentley nodded solemnly. His mother was silent for a long moment, then said "I suppose he had better stay, then. On trial. Twenty-four hours."

Otto Schützer dropped to one knee, took her paw and kissed it. "Thank you, Lady ffox, thank you, thank you!"

It would be hard to say whether Bentley or his mother was more astonished.

That afternoon, and the next morning, Sandybanks underwent a transformation. The oak banisters gleamed darkly; the brass stairrods sparkled; the black and white tiles of the marble hallway were like coal and milk respectively. Schützer, in an old outfit of Wiggins's that almost fitted, was similarly transformed into a splendid butler; no one could have guessed that earlier in the day he had been cleaning out the grate and covered in smuts.

It was a pity about the garden, Bentley thought as he looked out of the window for the Portmans' motor, but it didn't need much attention at this time of year.

The crunch of gravel heralded Julia's arrival. Schützer answered the door, relieved Julia of her hat and coat, and conducted her to the drawing-room, all in dignified silence. Bentley and his mother rose to greet her, then all three fell upon the spread of sandwiches, cakes and buns. Eggs and butter had come fresh from the farm, along with the cook.

"Topping, old girl, simply topping. Sure you won't pop out and join us?" Bentley asked, dropping briefly in to the kitchen.

"And let Julia Portman see me skivvying for you? Not on your life," replied Grace. "Otto and I are quite happy where we are, thank you."

"Oh, it's 'Otto' now, is it?" smirked Bentley, and left them to it.

Julia and his mother were whispering together when he returned. Soon afterwards, the younger vixen took her leave.

"Well, I think we can chalk that one up as a success," said Bentley. "You'll keep Schützer, of course? He's a treasure."

Lady ffox raised her eyebrows. "Indeed," she said. "I find it will be necessary to keep him. I will be expecting callers in the coming weeks."

"Oh?" Bentley sensed a trap.

"Bentley Pringle, I am an old woman. The time is coming when I shall take up residence in the East Wing and let Sandybanks go to the younger generation."

"Meaning me. Your only son."

"Meaning you, if you undertake to find yourself a wife. Otherwise, Sandybanks goes to your cousin Wilberforce."

The two foxes stared at each other. "You're not serious," said Bentley.

"I have to think of the future of the ffoxes, Bentley, and if you won't provide me with heirs, Wilberforce shall. There are plenty of suitable vixens looking for a husband. Julia Portman would be a good prospect, but the choice is, of course, yours. November is nearly at an end; I want you engaged by Christmas."