‘My friend Constance has an interest in the military. What the hell’s going on in there, Major? Have you engaged an enemy?’

‘No, I wish I bloody⁠ — sorry, I wish I had.’

‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’ Hadleman started back up the road, hopping on to his bicycle.

Wrightson instantly caught the falseness of the comment. ‘Don’t do anything rash! There’s⁠ —’ But Hadleman was already out of sight. Wrightson sighed. He wasn’t sure what kind of lie he could tell about the barrier anyway.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ the soldier by the barrier to his right called. ‘Do you really want to know the position of Rippon?’

Smith led his class quickly through the corridors of the school to the library. ‘But this is mutiny, deserting our post!’ Hutchinson was protesting. He was the only one who still carried his rifle. The rest had been left piled in a corner of the dormitory.

‘Quiet!’ Smith growled. ‘I’m trying to save our lives. Bernice, the Doctor, how does he do what he does?’

‘It’s hard to say. It’s rather like judo, or Reversi. The opposition usually thinks they’ve won, and then he makes them see the situation in a different way, and it turns out he has.’

‘Hmm. Tricky.’

‘John,’ Joan began nervously. ‘You aren’t labouring under the delusion that you really are this Doctor, are you?’

‘Of course not!’ Smith held up his hand, and the troupe of boys halted in front of the library. From all over the school, the sound of small-arms fire could be heard.

‘It’s just a useful mental model. Now, something I’ve been wondering since I got here.’ He gestured with his umbrella at an elaborately carved panel above the library door. ‘What did you say that meant?’

‘Maius Intra Qua Extra?’ Joan laughed. ‘You mean you really didn’t know what the school motto meant?’

‘No,’ Smith mumbled, ‘it’s in a foreign language, isn’t it?’

‘Bigger on the inside than the outside!’ Hutchinson snapped. ‘It’s about books. Now, don’t you think we should⁠ —’

There came a vast explosion from one of the floors above. The boys all fell to the ground. Smith remained standing, tapping his teeth with the umbrella handle. ‘Yes. I see. How long’s the school been in this building? Twenty years?’

‘Yes,’ Joan picked herself up and took his arm. ‘Eighteen, to be exact.’

‘Then how old’s that inscription?’

Somewhat self-consciously, Benny took his other arm. ‘Older. The arch is needed to support the ceiling here, and you can tell the carving’s not been added later, because it extends further out than the edges of the arch. That was planned from the start.’

‘So the motto was originally that of the building. Rocastle took it on. Is it a family motto?’

‘No coat of arms,’ Alexander said.

‘It would be Rocastle all over to see it there and appropriate it,’ Joan added.