The Fire-Watcher

Edward Sutton is twenty-four, kept back from the war to keep the fen's pumps turning, and he tends St Botolph's — the great wool church that rides above the levels like a ship run aground — the way he tends everything: because it is there, and it needs doing, and he is the man that does it. He does not believe a word of what the church is for. He keeps it beautifully all the same, like a good watch that no longer tells anyone the time.

Then the raids come east, the bells fall silent, and the rector asks him to take a turn on the roof through the winter nights, watching for fire.

And a man who sits long enough in a high place, in the dark, with the whole sleeping world laid out beneath him — finds he is not as alone up there as he bargained for.