"He wanted a father, and for the same reason, he wanted to be a father. It was common enough, to see so much death and want a child. Common, therefore human, and he wanted it all the more. When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, a family line, connection. All around him men were walking silently with their thoughts, reforming their lives, making resolutions. If I ever get out of this lot...They could never be counter, the dreamed-up children, mentally conceived on the walk into Dunkirk and later made flesh...He would track down his father, or his dead father's story - either way, he would become his father's son."

Ian McEwan, Atonement