After the day looked won, towards late afternoon, Hadleman and his platoon had been sent to support a group of engineers running a telephone line from the Norfolks’ incredibly advanced position all along this new frontline. They’d formed a marching group, making their way through the overgrown fields between the trenches as the engineers spun their big reel of wire on a cart behind them, looking around them warily. They had to take cover and creep on some occasions when it became clear that they were in sight of the new German frontline.

The soldiers of Hadleman’s unit had been taken, as was the policy, from neighbouring towns and villages, and their associated OTCs, so it was hardly a surprise that he’d found himself commanding one Lieutenant Hutchinson. The young man was a good soldier, as Hadleman quickly found, having had a lot of the bile knocked out of him in his first actions. He still occasionally seemed to look upon Hadleman with contempt, but he never showed it to the men, who seemed to understand his distance and coolness more than Hadleman’s own frustrated efforts to muster or befriend them. There were few others of those boys who’d been at Rocastle’s academy. Perhaps it was because they were all to be officers, and were thus with other units, or perhaps, Hadleman liked to think, their experiences really had changed them. There had been some stink about Merryweather refusing to embark his platoon at the rail station, and them being forced on to the troop train at gunpoint. Alexander had reported a fine letter from Anand, now back home in his father’s kingdom. A troop of his father’s infantry had been sent to secure British supplies in the Gulf, but otherwise the war had not touched him and he remained wary of it.

So, it was thus that, towards the end of the day, Hadleman finally found the point that he’d evaded forced upon him, in circumstances where he thought he’d finally won.

There had been no great surge of relieved soldiers running past them up to the new positions. They’d passed a few reconnaissance patrols, who all indicated that some swift new offensive was about to happen. The sound of occasional battle was far ahead of them now, as the sun sank towards the horizon. They’d complete their work in an hour, the engineers assured him. Surely they wouldn’t be asked to go forward again then? Whatever attack was being organized to dive into the break in the German line and open it up wide enough for a conclusive push, it was already overdue. Surely, the mass march would be on before they’d got back?