The violence of the soldiers when they ‘captured’ the five of them was commented upon by some readers. But it isn’t over the top, any more than it was when Sammie behaved that way when he thought he was in enemy territory. Elite forces war games are far from ‘games’. And they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sammie’s reunion with his friend, Major Dolan, was originally going to be a preliminary to Sammie meeting up with the Major at a later date and setting up in business with him, making Sammie and Bo’s exit from the stories. I decided not to go down that line, but the reaction of the Major to his ‘dead’ friend remained. And I think Sammie’s reaction to his posthumous medal was about right.

The idea of soldiers being taken from elite forces around the universe to be turned into a fighting force for a war raging on the other side of the galaxy very slightly touches on ideas elsewhere. The cryogenically frozen army on Iceworld in the Seventh Doctor story, Dragonfire, or the Robomen of the Daleks come to mind. Beyond Doctor Who, the John Claude Van Damme thriller, Universal Soldier was going down that line. Even, to some extent, The Last Starfighter. Curiously, more than a year after this story went online, the recent episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures, Warriors of the Kudlack, came closer than any other story to this idea of kidnapping people to be soldiers. In that version, it was children rather than elite soldiers, but the principle was the same..

Would Sammie stay with the SAS or go with Chrístõ? Of course he went with Chrístõ – and Bo.

http://www.breconbeacons.org/

http://www.pbase.com/inti/penyfan

http://www.brecon-beacons.com/army-military-training.htm