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Epilogue
In June 1914, Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, was 
assassinated by Gavrilo Prinzip, a Serbian terrorist, while parading through 
Sarajevo. That city was the capital of Bosnia, then under Austrian control. The 
Serbians also claimed Bosnia. 
The Austrians, angered by the killing and seeing an excuse to invade and conquer 
Serbia, sent the Serbians a list of demands. Some of these demands being 
completely unreasonable, the Serbians declined to meet them, offering instead to 
take the matter to the International Court at the Hague. Austria refused, and 
made preparations to invade Serbia. 
Russia was allied to Serbia. It started mustering men on its borders. The great 
nations, bound by treaty, saw their rivals arming. Germany, allied to the 
Austrians, knew that France was allied to the Serbians. And the French wanted 
the German-held provinces of Alsace-Lorraine back. Therefore the Germans 
attacked France first. To do that, they marched through Luxemburg and Belgium. 
And Britain had a treaty to protect Belgium. 
Which is how the Ninth battalion of the Norfolk Regiment ended up on the Somme 
in July 1916, Captain Richard Hadleman with them. He had in his pocket some 
letters from Alexander, who, to his delight, had been spared his great decision 
by being judged too old and unfit to go. His life back in Farringham was much 
the same, bar the blackout at night and the very occasional sight of a zeppelin. 


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Richard had spoken up at a Labour Group meeting in October 1914, declaring, for 
some reason, that it was the duty of every good Socialist to enlist and protect 
the workers of Belgium. He'd seen the effect that battle had had on those 
children huddling about the fire - though that whole time seemed like a dream 
now - but he'd thought that he was a man, that he could make a sober decision to 
go to war and fight to his own specifications. Alexander had seemed very wise on 
the matter, in bed that evening. He'd said that, though Richard might be killed, 
it was his life to risk, just as it was a conscientious objector's right to risk 
hatred and ignorance at home. The government didn't possess the soul of either 
man, he'd said. Only that of the man who found himself forced or jollied into 
joining up because it was the only thing he could imagine doing.
Even then, Richard hadn't been comfortable with that. 
Now he looked up at the absolute darkness above him and tried to scream, but it 
came out as a long, rattling choke. 
Next time he'd stay home. Next time. As if there were wars in Heaven or Hell, as 
if there was another battlefield he'd find himself on. The letters he held would 
have been enough, at any point, to have had him sent home. In disgrace, yes, but 
home, and what was disgrace compared to that? But he'd never shown them to 
anyone. 
It was 14 July, just past eleven o'clock at night, and Richard had been lying in 
the cornfield since the early hours of that morning, coughing up blood and 
liquids of other colours that disturbed him far more. It was taking him a long 
time to die. He had, oddly, been part of one of the few successful military 
actions of the war. 

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At 3.25 that morning, 20,000 British troops had rushed across no-man's land in 
the first-ever night attack, following only five minutes' bombardment. The 
Germans, used to the regular pattern of meaningless daylight sorties and endless 
night barrages, had actually been surprised. Five miles of their frontline had 
been overrun, the Norfolks firing as they ran along German trenches, bayoneting 
men as they woke from sleep. It had felt like a great victory, a breakthrough 
that might have brought this all to an end.
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. 

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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? 
Then on the horizon to the west, silhouetted against the sun, Hadleman saw the 
cavalry. Three divisions of them, tiredly organising themselves into formation 
squares on the other side of the great fields of corn that were growing wild out 
here in the wastes. The engineers laughed and made expressions of amazement. 
Hadleman's own troops started to speculate that this must be some kind of 
diversion, until Hutchinson quietened them. He and Hadleman realised the truth 
at once, that this was the crucial attack they'd been waiting for. It had taken 
all day to bring the horsemen up to the line. This offensive had been seen as 
the one opportunity this war had offered for an old-fashioned set-piece action, 
and those in charge had leapt at it. 
There came the sound of a distant bugle and the horses formed up. A sabre was 
raised, then dropped, and they accelerated forward. 

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The Norfolks watched in awe as the hundreds of horsemen raced through the corn, 
a great cry erupting from them. 'They must think that they've got a chance,' 
Hutchinson whispered. 'Maybe they can see something we can't.'
The noise made them all wince as it started up, the regular clatter of 
machine-guns. At first, it seemed that maybe it was only an isolated post, that 
perhaps the German line ahead that the cavalry were supposed to overrun 
contained an isolated weapon. 
But then the rattle became a great roar and the air around the cavalry darkened 
with metal. 
The first line of horses crumpled, their riders flying off their backs as they 
fell, some of them riding them down into a crumbling mass of man, animal and 
corn. The second, third, fourth, line fell as the guns scythed back and forth 
across the field. The momentum of the charge continued, hundreds of men spinning 
off the backs of their mounts, the bodies of those in front tripping and 
hindering the ones who came behind until the whole field was a mist of noise and 
metal and flying blood. 
'Retreat, for Christ's sake,' Hutchinson was whispering. 'Why does nobody give 
the order? Why don't they - ' 

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The first whistle sounded overhead and the soldiers threw themselves to the 
ground, their hands grabbing their metal helmets.
'Christ!' screamed Hutchinson. 'This is the one! This is the one Dean - Christ!' 

The shell landed noiselessly, for Hadleman, the sound too loud and close for him 
to hear. At least, that was his memory of it. 
Hutchinson died instantly. 
When the noise ended, Hadleman was lying in a pile of dead people, his head 
ringing from something distant. 
He pushed his way out, shouldering corpses off of him, and immediately choked on 
the air, his eyes streaming. He slapped for the gasmask at his neck, and found 
that, along with half his pack, it had been dragged off him. 
So, under nothing but instinct, he burrowed down into the men again, pulling 
their warmth back around him, until he was concealed in a dark burrow of flesh, 
with a little air. 
He stayed that way for maybe ten minutes, then had to surface. 

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He lay there amongst the limbs of those he knew, for some time, taking one full 
breath in three and coughing, aware that he was getting the end of the gas as it 
drifted away. That, and there was some bleeding in his jacket, a wound the pain 
of which rose and fell with his lungs.
He didn't even think of trying to get back to the line. He wasn't sure where it 
was any more, or even in which direction. If it wasn't for Alexander, he would 
be quite satisfied to die, knowing that the war he was fighting in was utterly 
futile. It was almost as if he'd proved a point of politics to himself. In this 
place, upwards of 400,000 British men were going to be killed. They'd lost 
20,000 just the other day. He sucked a grim smile. It was like rich countries 
deliberately killing themselves, leaving their battered remains ready for the 
revolution that would surely come, for who could return home without wanting to 
face those who had wasted good men thus? 
He raised his hand, and tried to sing 'The Red Flag'. But he was unconscious 
before he'd got past the bit about cowards. 



He woke again in the night to a noise. He tried not to make a noise, though he 
heard many distant cries, oddly hoping that it wasn't a German come to rob him. 
A face appeared over the low ridge above him, a muddied blond lad in a dull grey 
uniform. 'Good Lord,' he whispered. 'I knew there were some Norfolks out here. 
Richard Hadleman, isn't it?' 

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Hadleman blinked, the face wobbling in and out of vision. He tried to remember 
the name. 'Timothy? What regiment are you - '
'None, actually. Red Cross. A few of us are having a sniff about out here, 
because nobody quite knows who owns this bit at the moment, and we kept hearing 
shouts. Now, if you can move, I don't want to get my arse shot off doing field 
dressings. Mind taking the hand of a filthy conchie?' 
Hadleman reached up and felt everything give as Timothy Dean hauled him out of 
the pile of bodies. He stifled a shout. 
Timothy supported him by his shoulder and the two of them picked their way off 
towards the British line. Hadleman glimpsed familiar shapes a few hundred yards 
away. 'Got any jobs going?' he whispered. 
'You don't need to worry,' Timothy replied. 'You're going home.' 



The bells of Norwich Cathedral rang clear and sharp on an April morning in 1995. 
Snowflakes were falling steadily. Above the cathedral blew great billows of 
them, whipping around the comers of the dark building as if to emphasize the 
structure's harsh lines. 
From out of the building trooped a handful of very old men in uniform, supported 
by their relatives and children. The Norfolks who'd fought in the Great War had 
a yearly reunion in the city, though their numbers grew smaller every time. This 
might well be the last one. 

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By the door of the cathedral, at some distance from the marching men, another 
old man sat in a wheelchair, surrounded by his family.
'I don't know why you come here every year, Grandad,' said Richard Dean, leaning 
on the wheelchair's handles. 'What's there to see?' 
'Old friends' the pensioner whispered. 'Not from the war. From before.' 
'So why do you never talk to them?' Richard's wife Jane tucked in the blanket 
that had come loose about his legs once more. She ignored a glare from her 
husband. 'It might help if you didn't insist on wearing that.' She tapped the 
white poppy that timothy wore on his coat. 'It's not as if it's even Remembrance 
Day.' 
'I wear it because it stands for what I am. I can't ignore that for their 
friendship. Besides, I always hoped that I'd meet' His gaze wandered from his 
words again, lost in time. 
'Great-grandad! Don't go to sleep now!' A girl of eleven stood beside the 
wheelchair. 'Listen to this. I read that they once found a cow in an army cell. 
A cow! Where they'd had a prisoner! And when they took it off to be slaughtered 
with the other cows, it kicked and kicked and they had to force it to go in. 
Isn't that amazing?' 
'What have you been reading now?' her father sighed. The girl had become a 
vegetarian last summer, just in time for Christmas, and seemed to see old 
Timothy as some kind of role model. 
'You let her read what she likes.' The old man came to life again, and put his 
hand on the girl's arm. 'She's going to be a great scientist. Or an astronaut, 
or or all sorts of things.' 
'I'm going to be just like you,' the girl told him. 

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'Then you'll never kill anybody, even when everyone else is?'
'Never.' The girl was looking up at him, hushed, as if she was receiving a 
benediction. 
'And you will never be cruel or cowardly?' 
'Never.' 
'Then you'll live to be as old and as happy as my friends Alexander and Richard, 
who managed to avoid time's attention for' His own gaze wandered off again, but 
this time it found a focus. Two figures were standing on the comer by the 
cathedral grounds. Two figures that old Tim recognised from somewhere, maybe 
from a dream. They met the old man's eyes, then smiled satisfied smiles. Timothy 
started to laugh. 'For that's the thing about time, you see! That's the thing 
about time! It's like a big story, and it's never over! I remember, when I was 
very young, and Mother used to read to me in bed, I'd fall asleep before she'd 
stop reading. But the next night, she'd know where we'd been. She'd never lose 
her place.' 
And Timothy lay his head back against his grandson's hand, his cheek warm 
against the man's skin. He breathed deeply, and fell into what would turn out to 
be his final sleep. 
The white poppy had fallen from his lapel in his exertions, and was left, 
unnoticed, on the pavement as the Dean family went on their way. 
Just before they turned the corner, the little girl looked over her shoulder and 
saw the Doctor bending down to pick the poppy up. She looked at him curiously 
and he gave her a smile. 

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Then she was gone. The Doctor slipped the white poppy into his buttonhole. 'So, 
where do you want to go?' he asked Bernice, who was shivering in her dufflecoat. 
Earlier in the day, she'd consulted her Portable History Unit again, and 
discovered that, inexplicably, the casualty list for the Somme had changed. But 
then the thing had gone on the blink. The Doctor had refused to mend it again.
'Somewhere that sells hot chocolate and crumpets.' 
'After that.' 
'Perhaps we could go and do something good. Help somebody.' 
'We could go back to Guy.' 
'We could go back to Joan.' 
They looked at each other, and they might have looked sad. 
But instead they smiled. 
The Doctor took Bernice's arm. 'There's a place that springs to mind. A planet 
called Oolis. A few things need sorting out there. But it might be dangerous.' 
'Oh, will there be monsters?' 
They started to walk away. 
'Of course. The Oolians have wings, and beaks, and armoured battlesuits.' 
'And will there be villains? And deadly danger?' 
'Oh yes. And probably death, with or without a capital D.' 
'Then we should go there immediately. Who else is there to sort these things 
out?' 
'Who indeed?' 

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Benny shivered again. 'There's only one thing that I wouldn't want to face again 
in a hurry.'
'What's that?' 
'Snow. Does Oolis have any?' 
The Doctor glanced up at the snowflakes that sped by, and frowned. 'But if it 
wasn't for the snow, how could we believe in the immortality of the soul?' 
'What on earth do you mean?' 
The frown faded from the Doctor's face and he grinned again. 'Do you know, I 
haven't the slightest idea.' 
The two friends wandered off into the city to find tea and crumpets and warmth. 
And somewhere in the sky overhead, for an instant before they dissolved into 
mist, two snowflakes were the same. Long ago in an English spring. 

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