Doctor Who_ Human Nature Part 32

So, it was thus that, towards the end of the day, Hadleman finally found the point that he'd evaded forced upon him, in circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sured 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 ma.s.s 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 hors.e.m.e.n up to the line. This offensive had been seen as the one opportunity this war had offered for an old-fas.h.i.+oned 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.

The Norfolks watched in awe as the hundreds of hors.e.m.e.n 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 ma.s.s 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 n.o.body give the order? Why don't they - '

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 sh.e.l.l 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.

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?'

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 n.o.body 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 a.r.s.e 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.

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 friends.h.i.+p.

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.

'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 corner 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.

Then she was gone. The Doctor slipped the white poppy into his b.u.t.tonhole. 'So, where do you want to go?' he asked Bernice, who was s.h.i.+vering 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?'

Benny s.h.i.+vered 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.