The machine gun has stopped firing.
"Stoppage. Immediate action. Didn't I tell you, sir? This stupid boy is useless. Permission to give Latimer a beating, sir" Hutchinson says looking at the Headmaster.
"It's your class, Mister Smith" the Headmaster says, John turns silent for a moment.
"Permission granted."
"Right. Come with me, you little oik" Hutchinson and his friends lead the stunned Timothy away. Another boy by the name of Baines looks at John and I and sniffs.
"Anything the matter, Baines?" John asks.
"I thought. No, sir. Nothing, sir" Baines leaves.
"As you were, Mister Smith."
"Ah, Pemberton, Smythe, Wicks, take post" I turn to see Joan at the wall she walks up to me.
"Ah, Nurse Redfern" I greet.
"Er, I'll give you back your journal when next I see you."
"No, no, no. You don't have to" I smile.
"If you'll excuse me, Mrs Smith. I was just thinking about the day my husband was shot" Joan and I start walking together, leaving John with the Headmaster. Two workmen are hoisting an upright piano up to the first-floor window of the Ironmongers "his name was Oliver. He died in the battle of Spion Cop. We were childhood sweethearts. But you see, I was angry with the army for such a long time."
"You still are" I say with my hands behind my back.
"I find myself as part of that school watching boys learn how to kill."
"Don't you think discipline is good for them?"
"Does it have to be such military discipline? I mean, if there's another war those boys won't find it so amusing."
"Well, Great Britain is at peace, long may it reign."
"In your journal, in one of your stories, you wrote about next year. Nineteen fourteen."
"That was just a dream."
"All those images of mud and wire. You told of a shadow. A shadow falling across the entire world."
"Well then, we can be thankful it's not true. And I'll admit mankind doesn't need warfare and bloodshed to prove itself. Everyday life can provide honour and valour, and let's hope that from now on this, this country can find its heroes in smaller places" I smile a woman rings her bicycle bell as she peddles along. The men with the piano struggle as it dangles from a fraying rope "in the most" I see a boy standing next to me, with a cricket ball in his hand. Some more of the rope frays and the piano drops a bit "ordinary of, of deeds" she grabs the cricket ball, throws it at the scaffolding outside the Ironmongers, which falls and hits a plank that sends a brick flying through the air to knock down a milk churn in front of the perambulator, stopping it just before the rope finally gives up and drops the piano to the ground mere feet in front. The piano falls to pieces and the baby starts crying.
"Are you, all right? How's the little one?" A workman asks.
"Lucky."
"That was luck?"
"Nurse Redfern, have you found someone to take you to the village dance this evening?"
"Yes, of course I have."
*Time skip*
Joan and I are walking along a cart track. There is a scarecrow nearby.
"Oh, it's all becoming clear now. 'Seer' is the women you'd like to be, doing impossible things with cricket balls."
