France, 1918.

Dickon knew that for as long as he lived, he would be haunted by the sound of the shells. That sinister, high-pitched whistle; the breath of pure terror before the drop; then the explosion, deafening, and the frantic rush, the need, to shield oneself from it. Then, the relief that you hadn't been hit; not this time at least. And the building panic of the next one.

Phil had the same half-crazed look Dickon had worn during his first days at the front. The look of a boy who has no idea, whose training has not prepared him at all for the horrors he is witnessing; a boy slowly coming to the realisation that war was nothing, nothing at all like he had imagined.

"Get down!" he hissed at his younger brother, as Phil uncurled himself from the ball he had made and stuck his head out of the dugout as though to check that the sky was clear. At Dickon's words he shrank back, and a moment later the shrill, high-pitched whining began again. Phil groaned and covered his ears.

"Make it stop!" he begged.

Dickon grit his teeth, and stuck out an arm to drag Phil deeper into the dugout, sacrificing his own position to make room.

"It will stop," he growled, squeezing his eyes shut as another deafening explosion sounded, frighteningly near to where they sheltered. The walls of the trench shuddered and creaked, and Dickon felt the jangle in every single one of his nerves. From some way further down the trench there was screaming – that would haunt him too, those endless screams of pain – and above it, the familiar shouts for stretcher-bearers. Someone had been hit, then.

"Fucking Jerries," spat Dent viciously. "Those fucking fucks."

Phil was trembling, the shudders coursing through his entire body. Dickon seized his coat and dragged him even closer, so that he was practically cradling the younger boy against his chest.

"Phil," he said. His brother made no reply; his eyes were wild, darting back and forth like a trapped animal, and his teeth chattered noisily. "Phil, look at me. Look at me!"

He sounded angry, and his brother only shrank from him, then gave a pitiful whine as another shell hissed overhead. Dickon forced himself to take a deep breath, forced himself not to focus on his own terror, the fear bubbling up his windpipe and threatening to unleash itself in a scream of rage and frustration. He tried to remember the techniques he had used to befriend the wild animals back in Yorkshire, how he had moved and spoken to calm their fears. It had seemed so easy, back then.

"Kid's losing it," muttered Dust from his position at the very back of the dugout. "Better reach him quick."

Dickon grabbed Phil's chin with one hand, forcing him to look into his eyes. "Phil," he said again, as calmly as he could over the roar and shudder of another explosion. His brother met his gaze at last, wide and panting in sheer, unadulterated terror. "Phil, listen to me. You need to calm down."

Phil nodded, and sucked in a huge breath, as though by doing so he could swallow his own terror. Dickon knew the feeling.

"I – " he wheezed, still shaking. "I – "

"Don' try t' talk," Dickon told him firmly. There was a break in the bombardment, and he used the opportunity to lean forward and whisper in his brother's ear. "S' goin' t' be alrigh', Phil. I promise thee it'll be alrigh'."

Phil stared at him, swallowed, and nodded. Then the shelling began again, and the time for talking was over.

Dent's foot was a raw, pus-filled mess, covered in painful looking swellings and, on the inner side, a dark, moulding blackness. The smell that arose from it, akin to rotting meat, made Dickon gag.

"Pretty sight, innit?" said Dent wryly, catching Dickon's horrified stare. He examined the diseased foot with cold detachment, then took a penknife from his coat and began to scrape at the more dead-looking bits, his teeth bared in a grimace.

Dickon's heart thudded. He may not have been a trained medic, but he knew gangrene when he saw it. "Have tha' shown th' Officer?" he asked, wriggling his own toes as though to confirm they were still in working order. Besides a few blisters, they were mercifully unscarred.

"Course I 'ave," grunted Dent. "Bugger told me to steal a pair of thick socks from a Jerry and harden up."

Dickon winced in sympathy. He wanted to say that if it wasn't treated soon, he'd almost certainly lose the foot, and quite possibly a lot more. But he had a feeling Dent already knew that.

He realised his hands were trembling, and scrabbled in his pocket for the little block of wood, the only thing that seemed to calm his nerves these days. Taking a deep breath, he began the slow, meticulous movement with his knife, forcing his fingers to stop shaking so that he could carve properly. He was whittling a bird, almost without knowing it. A misselthrush.

"Heard we're goin' over the top tomorrow," remarked Dent, shoving his mangled foot ruthlessly back into his boot.

A familiar icy sensation trickled down Dickon's spine, settling to pool in the pit of his stomach. 'Over the top' had become synonymous in his mind with the stuff of nightmares, with horror and death and madness. Not only that, but this would be Phil's first time over. The lad was barely coping with the shelling; he didn't know what a run across no-man's land would do to him.

But he didn't say this. Instead he leaned back and looked up at the cloudy sky. "Should be able t' get yourself some new boots, then."

Dent grinned. "Aye, those fuckin' Hun-boots have got my name on 'em." Then he stood up, gave a characteristic spit, and wandered off.

In the silence that followed Dickon felt disgust with himself churn in his gut, at the joke he had just made. The Dickon of Yorkshire would never have made light of the murder of another so casually. He knew his ma would be ashamed. His mind turned inexplicably to Mary, and what she would think of him if she could hear him joke about killing a German and stealing his boots. He was even more unworthy of her now, he thought bitterly, and clenched the half-formed misselthrush tight in his fist.

Dickon broke the news to Phil himself, before the Commanding Officer could come round and make it official. To his surprise his brother took the news stoically, merely nodding once and going back to what he was doing, rolling a small marble back and forth in his palm.

"S'no' so bad," Dickon went on, wanting to make sure his brother understood. "Jus' keep as low as tha' can, an'… an' move from cover t' cover. But don' stay in one place too long, cause o' th'… cause o' th' shells."

Phil said nothing, and Dickon grew concerned.

"Jus' – jus' follow me," he said, trying to sound confident. "An' keep low, an'…"

"Why did tha' go t' war?" asked Phil suddenly, startling him. Dickon frowned.

"I was conscripted," he replied. "Tha' knows that."

"But tha' could've got an exemption," said Phil, still staring down at the marble, though his hand wasn't moving now. "Lord Craven would've got one fa thee. I heard ma sayin' so."

Dickon twitched, memories of that awful week resurfacing against his will. He had often wondered, in the months since, whether he had made the right decision. "Wouldna' been righ'," he said firmly. "I's conscripted an' I had t' go. You, on th' other hand – "

"I wouldna' come if tha' hadn'."

"Phil," he said, his voice cracking despite his effort to control it. "I – "

"I'm goin' t' die," Phil said in a dangerously flat voice. "Tomorrow. I'm goin' t' die. I know it."

Dickon seized his arm and shook him in frustration. "No tha's not," he growled. "Don' say things like tha'. Tha'll be fine." He had to be, he thought silently; Phil had to survive, because if he didn't, Dickon didn't know how he would go on.

"Are tha' goin' t' marry Mary, when tha' gets home?" Phil asked, fixing him with a piercing stare. Dickon felt a knot tighten in his chest.

"So… so tha' is goin' t' die," he attempted weakly. "But I'm goin' t' live an' marry a highborn lady?"

Phil nodded. "I think so. Ma allus said as tha'd marry 'er. She said as th' two o' thee were soul mates."

Dickon stared at his younger brother, bewildered at the sudden change in conversation and his strange, un-Phil-like manner. "I never heard her say such things," he mumbled.

"Tha's cause tha' werena there, twit," said Phil, and for a moment it was the old Phil talking, the one with the crooked grin and the glint of mischief in his eyes. Then a rat squeaked and scurried past, and a burst of artillery fire sounded in the distance, and the old Phil was gone, replaced by the new, twisted Phil who spoke of his own death with unnatural calmness and stared blankly ahead of him. "I hope tha' does marry her," he sighed. "I wonder if I'll be able t' see thee, from heaven."

"Stop that!" snapped Dickon. "I told tha' not t' say things like tha'. Tha's goin' t' be – "

"Fine, yes, so tha' keeps sayin'," said Phil without expression. He shrugged off Dickon's touch and tucked the marble into his coat pocket. "Well, we'll see, won' we?"

Dickon clenched his jaw, feeling the burn behind his eyes but refusing to let the tears fall. What could he possibly say? He had no words to make things right again.

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