1917, SINCERELY YOURS

between the crosses, row on row

"I KNEW YOU knew her," Tom led the way and tried to talk to Will behind him, "You don't kiss nurses hands who you don't know,"

Will didn't want to talk about it, in fact he didn't think he had the mental energy to talk about Clarice. He turned the bundle around in his hands and he read the one bit of writing on the outside; William. The soldier put it deep in his pocket on the inside of his jacket, he would move it somewhere safer later.

"So how do ya know then? Didn't take you for someone who meets the nurses behind the field hospital after a long day," Thomas had been caught by William doing it one day and had always wondered why his friend had been hanging around there, "But you know I wouldn't-"

"It was the Somme," Will told him and he noticed Tom's pace for a split second slowed but soon regained its cover, "I know her from the Somme."

"I'll leave it then," Tom replied and he swallowed the saliva in his throat, "I'm sorry mate."

"It's life Blake, all it is is life." Will told him and instead they talked about what the General could want them to do and the thought of friendships and women and home was locked far away as they pushed past soldiers nursing rifles and cleaning old reopened wounds.

--

"How long will it take you to get there?" General Erinmore questioned Blake in the meeting room deep within the maze of the trenches and he pointed to the map in front of him.

"I don't understand sir," Blake started but a scowl from General Erinmore made him look at the map again, "That's in German territory sir."

"Was in German territory," Blake and Schofield let their face portray their emotion, "Don't get your hopes up. It was a strategic withdrawal to their new line. Colonel Mackenzie is in command of the 2nds, right there," He pointed to the British line, "He believes he has the Germans on the run, that if he can turn the tide - he plans to attack the line tomorrow morning,"

General Erinmore placed aerial photos in front of them, "But he hasn't seen these aerial photos,"

The emotions on the pair of soldiers faces turn further into their solemness, Schofield furrowed his eyebrows and glanced a look at Blake. Blake's eyes didn't move off the photos. Schofield had been keenly aware of Blake's presence next to him since the General had mentioned the 2nds, the battalion that Blake's own brother was stationed it.

"Three miles deep, defences and artillery unlike anything we have ever seen and we have no way to warn them, cut communications lines. Your orders are to get to the 2nds at Croisielle Woods, one mile south of the town of Ecoust,"

Erinmore handed them a letter, the outside was written on a typewriter and it had the infamous red stamp of Army Command, "Give this to Colonel Mackenzie, it's a direct order to call off the attack. If you do not, it will be a massacre of over sixteen hundred men and your brother among them. Any questions?"

"No sir." Blake said without catching Schofield eyes, he grabbed his own letter and settled the matter.

-----

They had to survive. That was the thought Will chose to focus on as he stared up the ladder that would take him into No-Mans Land, there were a million more that were vying for his attention but he had to pick one. They had to make it.