A/N Sorry for any bad grammar. Whilst writing out the French bit Word changed the grammar to French grammar (Which is a little like German grammar. Maybe they're the same). I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or glad that my deliberately terrible French was good enough to be recognised by my laptop. And also you may be wondering who Frederick is. Well, if you've read 'The Other TimeRider' you may have noticed that Diana says that Freya and Tom had been TimeRiders longer than her, and that she was their second operative. Freddie is operative number one.
Freddie sucked in a breath and held it. He stared at a specific mud clot in front of him and tried to think happy thoughts
What happy thoughts? This was war. Real war.
They'd made it sound good, made it sound heroic, glamorous and brave to fight for England like this, but this wasn't what he expected. Mud, mud, mud. Rain, blood, lice, bad food. Oh! And more mud.
And now they were going in to battle. He'd only been out here, by the River Somme, for a few weeks and already he faced imminent death. Well, he faced imminent death every day. Going to the toilet could cost you your life these days.
"Frederick," Someone nudged him. He wasn't sure who it was, maybe Ed but it was hard to tell. Everyone had brown hair, from the mud. Everyone had brown clothes, from the mud, and God be darned if he could see the man's face past all that mud! Freddie grunted in response.
"We're moving. This is it" Freddie took another breath and clutched his bayonet closer.
Just before he could move forward, someone grabbed his arm strongly to stop him.
"Frederick" They said softly, a contrast to how people normally talked these days; loud, to be heard over the sounds of death and its acolytes.
"Ed? I said I'm-" Freddie turned to see it wasn't Eddie, but an old man. Too old to be in the army. And he wasn't even wearing uniform. A French civilian?
"Sir, you have to leave the area immediately, we're going to battle, and you'll be injured! Uhh…Parlez-vous Anglais? Um...Tu…tu…Aller! Ne pas bien! Tu aller!" Frederick said in faltering French. It had never been his strong subject at school. But the man shook his head.
"I'm English" He said with a strange look on his face and Frederick couldn't help but sigh in relief. "I'm here to take you away. If you go to battle now then you'll be killed, I promise. Take my hand and you'll live." Freddie looked at the hand but shook his head.
"Sorry. If I die…then…Then I will have died serving the King. No greater honour" He said firmly, but not quite so resolute on the inside.
"You'll be serving a much greater power if you come with me" The man insisted.
"Greater than the King?" Freddie remembered the answer to this one from school. "Only God is greater than the King" He said, hoping that if the old man was religious he wouldn't pick up the sarcastic boredom in his voice.
"Serving mankind. You could save the Earth many times over if you come with me" Freddie looked to his unidentifiable friends marching away without him and he admitted to himself he was scared. Slowly, hesitantly, he took the old man's wrinkled hand in his mud coated one and nodded.
