"In a moment, everything you know and love can be ripped from you, and you can be left naked and alone in the dark," Jonathon Pevensie said softly, and closed the dead eyes of the man before him. He was aware of the stares from his fellow soldiers, but he didn't meet their gaze.

"Why?" asked Tommy, gesturing to the dead man. Tommy. A boy who was so young he could well have been Jon's own son…

"Because he's human as much as every man in this hole," he answered.

"He's the enemy," Tommy spat out. Jon sighed, and closed his eyes—though he could see little enough in the fading light.

"And he's dead. We respect the dead. He died with honour, defending his part to the end. He was a good soldier."

"You have too much sympathy for the blasted Nazis, Jon, I'd half say you was one of them," Reuben, a brawny man who had, since the beginning of the war, shown everyone how much he absolutely hated the Germans.

"He could have had a family," Jon murmured, his eyes not leaving the dead man's face.

"Yeah, he could have, but we here do," Reuben said, lifting the curtain and peering out the grimy, small window. "I have a wife and the children. I'd like to get home alive through all this. I know you're married. But the way you hesitate to kill just makes me wonder how much you actually want to live."

Jon looked at the other man's form hunched on the far side of the room, then to young Tommy, where he sat leaning against the wall, eyes closed, and lastly to Lukas, who stood next to the doorway—the door itself had been broken away long ago.

They were all that was left of their unit, and the last orders their commander had given them had been to head south, to the beach—they would be rescued there. There were times he doubted there would be help there. But still they kept going.

In hope.

And it was hope that kept him alive, through the bombs and bullets and blood, it was hope that kept him going. Going home. To Helen.