‘Oops,’ said Dow. ‘That’ll be Ishri’s surprise. Shitty timing for all concerned.’

Another day Craw might’ve been horror-struck, but today it was hard to get worked up. A man can only feel so sorry and he was way past his limit. He swallowed, and turned from the giant tree of dirt spreading its branches over the valley, and struggled back up the hillside after Dow.

‘You couldn’t call it a win, exactly,’ he was saying, ‘but not a bad result, all in all. Best send someone off to Reachey, tell him tools down. Tenways and Calder too, if they’re still—’

‘Chief.’ Craw stopped on the wet slope, next to the face-down corpse of a Union soldier. A man has to do the right thing. Has to stand by his Chief, whatever his feelings. He’d stuck to that all his life, and they say an old horse can’t jump new fences.

‘Aye?’ Dow’s grin faded as he looked into Craw’s face. ‘What’s to frown about?’

‘There’s something I need to tell you.’

The Moment of Truth

The deluge had finally come to an end but the leaves were still dripping relentlessly on the soaked, sore, unhappy soldiers of his Majesty’s First. Corporal Tunny was the most soaked, sore and unhappy of the lot. Still crouching in the bushes. Still staring towards that same stretch of wall he’d been staring at all day and much of the day before. His eye chafed raw from the brass end of his eyeglass, his neck chafed raw from his constant scratching, his arse and armpits chafed raw from his wet clothes. He’d had some shitty duties in his chequered career, but this was down there among the worst, somehow combining the two awful constants of the army life – terror and tedium. For some time the wall had been lost in the hammering rain but now had taken shape again. The same mossy pile slanting down towards the water. And the same spears bristling above it.

‘Can we see yet?’ hissed Colonel Vallimir.

‘Yes, sir. They’re still there.’

‘Give me that!’ Vallimir snatched the eyeglass, peered towards the wall for a moment, then sulkily let it fall. ‘Damn it!’ Tunny had mild sympathy. About as much as he could ever have for an officer. Going meant disobeying the letter of Mitterick’s order. Staying meant disobeying the tone of it. Either way there was a good chance he’d suffer. Here, if one was needed, was a compelling argument against ever rising beyond corporal.

‘We go anyway!’ snapped Vallimir, desire for glory evidently having tipped the scales. ‘Get the men ready to charge!’

Forest saluted. ‘Sir.’

So there it was. No stratagems for delay, no routes to light duty, no feigning of illness or injuries. It was time to fight, and Tunny had to admit he was almost relieved as he did up the buckle on his helmet. Anything but crouching in the bloody bushes any longer. There was a whispering as the order was passed down the line, a rattling and scraping as men stood, adjusted their armour, drew their weapons.