One soldier had opened his eyes full wide then, and ran to a bush to be sick. His fellows calmed him, and he told them later how the noises had reminded him of something big and terrible, like being buried under a pile of metal and hearing faint voices, the language of which you don’t understand. They all felt lonely at the echoes, even Wrightson. He was an Eights enthusiast, and the clash of his stick on the air only made him wonder why he was here, why he wasn’t scudding across some bright, flat lake in the sunshine. The echo was like being lost at sea, a little shape rolling in waves that reared like mountains alongside you.

‘That’s the voice of God, that chime,’ Hodges had sighed, his gnarled old face beaming in the first real rays of the morning sun. ‘He’s coming back today.’

‘You may well be right.’ The major watched as what had been the bonnet of his van dissolved into an oxidizing cloud. He turned to the man in charge of the following truck. ‘Gas masks!’

The soldiers ran back into the trucks, emerging a moment later wearing the grotesque masks with their dangling filters. The major spent a few moments trying to persuade Hodges to wear one too, to no avail. ‘All right. Stanley, Torrence, with me. Let’s see how far we can get through this thing.’

Two soldiers shouldered arms and ran to Wrightson’s side. They walked up to the barrier, hands outstretched, and touched the smooth surface of the air. ‘Wonderful,’

Wrightson breathed. He’d been chosen for this job because he’d been part of the only unit in Britain to have been training under gas conditions. If this was the war he could look forward to… well, it was different, anyway. ‘Try and push through it,’ he ordered. The three men advanced, heaving against the barrier, their palms feeling the slight warmth of it.

‘Sir!’ called Stanley. ‘Look!’

A soldier was running towards them on the other side of the barrier, waving his arms urgently. ‘Ah, good, now we’ll get some answers,’ muttered Wrightson. ‘Hey there, who are you with⁠ —’ The thought died in his mouth as he recognised the Royal Artillery shoulderflash. Somebody from his own regiment in fact…

‘Oh my God,’ Stanley whispered. The man on the other side of the barrier was Stanley too.

‘Don’t touch it!’ he was shouting. ‘Don’t⁠ —’

The Stanley on this side of the barrier thought of himself for a moment, and then he was the dome, stretched across the countryside in an arc, and glad to be everywhere the dome touched at once. He resolved himself into being a hundred yards down the road, and saw his former self, that silly old thing, trudging up to the barrier. He ran forward, shouting for him not to touch it.