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The novel is mostly set in Kent during 1916 and 1917, but there is a prologue – and epilogue – which take place in 1940. The title character is a fourteen year old lad called Freddie Lovegrove. He is, for someone living in a rural village, well educated, but he lives with his nearly blind mother and, with no father and no money coming into the house, he gets the job of village postboy.

The grandest property in Eagley is Tendring, a house occupied by Suhina and Stephen Harkness. Suhina is Indian, and Stephen is manager of a local munitions factory. He was badly wounded in the Boer War, and lives in constant pain. They had three sons, but the elder, Arthur was killed in 1915 in the Batlle of Aubers Ridge. The two other boys – Edward and Tristan – are both fighting in France. Tendring has two housemaids, Harriet and Phoebe. We soon learn that Phoebe is pregnant, but the deeper significance of this is not revealed until near the end of the book.

Tendring becomes a temporary convalescent home for wounded soldiers, and the first three arrive. Jack merely has an injured foot and is a possible malingerer. Gabriel is physically sound, but has extreme shell shock. Christopher Ellis, the third man, is hideously wounded. He has lost both his hands, and has a terrible facial wound.

Suhina Harkness has befriended Freddie and he, in turn, is fascinated by her. The attraction is not sexual, but he finds her exotic and is drawn to her deep emotional intelligence, and spends as much time as he can at Tendring.

There are pivotal points in the book, and the first is when Freddie agrees to be amanuensis to Christopher. He writes a letter addressed to Christopher’s wife Anne in their Nova Scotia home. The letter is loving, but makes no mention of Christopher’s injuries. Freddie takes the letter back to the post office, fully intending to post it later. Next, Freddie is working late, and he intercepts a motorcycle despatch rider who has a telegram addressed to Major and Mrs Harkness. When he takes it to Tendring and hands it to Suhani, she learns that Edward Harkness was killed in the fighting for High Wood, on the Somme.

Freddie’s fortunes have become inextricably mingled with those who live at Tendring. While on a woodland path to the house Freddie discovers the horrifying sight of Christoper Ellis’s body, hanging from a tree. After the dreadful discovery, Freddie is in the depths of depression, but is dramatically brought out of his reverie:

“First his face filled with hot blood when he suddenly remembered he hadn’t posted Christopher’s original letter; it was still under the blotter, waiting. Second, it had not occurred to him until now that it was impossible for a man with no hands to hang himself.”

The police have already reached that conclusion and, after a witness at Tendring said they saw a man with a limp out in the dark on the night Christopher died, Stephen Harkness is arrested on suspicion of murder, but is released when Suhani lies that he was with her, in her bed, all night.

Freddie is ever more conscious that his job has transformed him into The Angel of Death, and when another letter from the military arrives for Tendring, he takes it home with him. When, after much agonising, he steams it open, his worst fears are confirmed. The private memorial in Eagley churchyard to Arthur Harkness must now be altered to include the names of his two brothers. He makes the fateful decision not to deliver the letter, and the consequences are immense.

This book bears the hallmarks of tragedy, whether  believe that what happens Is the result of personal flaws, or intervention from ‘The President of The Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase’ that Hardy referred to at the end of Tess of The D’Urbervilles. For Suhani comes redemption and – although much later, and only partly – Freddie too, but for Stephen Harkness the downfall is absolute, and Stephen Frost leaves the truth of the death of Christopher Ellis as an enigma.

This is a book which dwells on physical pain caused by battle, but also the mental pain of a marriage disintegrating, the agonising dilemma of a teenager trying to be kind but, in doing so, inflicting cruelty. Sometimes it is unbearably poignant, but riven through with a deep vein of compassion.

The Best Postboy In England deserves to sit on the shelf alongside other epic accounts of The Great War and its consequences. Books such as as Covenant With Death (John Harris,1961), Regeneration (Pat Barker,1991) Birdsong ( Sebastian Faulkes,1993) and The Photographer of The Lost (Caroline Scott, 2019). It is published by Burnt Orchid Press and is available now.