In addition to depicting Charley's own experiences of the war, the comic took the risk of going off on several tangents, temporarily shifting the focus to characters in different locations and time periods. The first and most successful tangent was the story of 'Blue', a British soldier in the French Foreign Legion who fought with them at Verdun in 1916 before deserting and making his way back to England (where he meets Charley). Another diversion was when the storyline turned to Charley's younger brother Wilf and his experiences as an observer/gunner in the Royal Flying Corps in early 1918. The final and least successful tangent was the story of Charley's cousin Jack Bourne, a sailor in the Royal Navy and the story of his ship HMS "Kent" and its participation in the Battle of the Falklands in 1914. Unlike the previous diversions, this new change of setting received poor feedback from readers and the editor of "Battle" ordered Mills to return the storyline to Charley in the trenches, much to Mills' disappointment who had originally planned to continue Jack's story on into the Battle of Jutland in 1916.