Tommy saw the man walking up the path to the cottage and didn't recognize him at first. Civilian clothes, a suitcase, a slight limp. It was the eyes that gave it away—blue, young, familiar.

Friedrich.

Tommy stood from the garden bench, brush falling from his hands. "Friedrich?"

The German stopped. Smiled. "Thomas."

They stood there, two former soldiers, one from England, one from Germany, facing each other in an English garden. Three years since they'd last met, in a prisoner of war camp. Five years since the desert. A lifetime of war between them.

"You came," Tommy said.

"I came." Friedrich stepped forward, extended his hand. "I wanted to thank you. Properly. Not in a letter. In person."