23/5/00 The ghosts that walk beside us Today a postcard arrived from Les telling how he has met my army cousin, Richard, during a poetry tour of East Anglia and shared an Indian meal with him. “I was amused to note less of the army manner in him than I see in your good self,” writes Leslie, who hits a mark with this observation, what mark I’m not sure, but a mark nonetheless. For in career-soldiering lies what has been the most claimant of my alternate selves. I know there is nothing in me that relishes destroying or mutilating other…