"part3" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keith Brooke - Lord of Stone)
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- The Book of the World, ch.2, v.21. |
| They spent some time settling into their new surroundings, acclimatising themselves to chill of the newly arrived Winter. The days were generally dry and overcast. Roca Fesh explained that they were in the rain shadow of the hills: the clouds hit the far side of the range and were driven upwards and cooled, dropping their loads before they reached these parts. By Spring it would be a different matter though, with the Atlan winds bringing the heaviest rain of the year up from the Gulf of Serephes and turning gullies such as Pigeon Ravine into treacherous torrents. The nights were cold and Bligh knew they would get colder. Worst of all was when a hill fog stole up in the early hours of the morning, a bitter dampness hanging in the air sometimes until as late as midday. Anyone with consumptive tendencies would be laid low in such conditions, and the chorus of phlegmy hacking was often the first indication of fog to a soldier, emerging blearily from sleep in one of the dug-outs. It was on a morning such as this, a week into his stay at Pigeon Ravine, that Bligh pulled himself out of the cramped dug-out he shared, in rotation, with over twenty others. He was confronted in the trench by Bernie Rayner, rounding up men for a repair party. Normally such work would only be undertaken at night, but this morning's fog brought with it an unwelcome extension to the cover otherwise offered only by darkness. Gathering his rifle and some tools, Bligh and five others set out along the road. "We've got the easy job, today," said Ott Colomman, the young Traian leading the work party. "We're not even going as far as the bottleneck. We'll be almost as safe as we are in the trenches. Just a bit of exercise, that's all." After inspecting the section of road they were to repair, they set about gathering some boulders to roll and heave into the holes. It was hard work, and soon Bligh was bathed in sweat, despite the chill mountain air. After a short time, with no sign of the fog lifting, Colomman allowed his work party a break. Over the familiar bottle of brutally sweet wine, the talk was of when they would next be on leave and just how cold it could get up here in the Ephedreal Hills. Changing the subject, Aqbar Emmett said, "Have we all heard of the fellow at the next LA defences up the valley? I have been told he talks to the spirits of the dead." Aqbar was a convert to Jahveism who found much of the Elementalist religion of Trace distasteful to the extreme. Early on, he had tried to discuss this with Bligh, but had soon discovered a lack of sympathy; outnumbered by Elementalists and non-believers, he had stopped mentioning religion altogether. "My country has a grand tradition of ghost raisers and possessions," said Colomman, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Or it does if you ask the older generation. Isn't that so, Roca?" "It is not to be ridiculed," said Roca Fesh, missing the young man's light tone. "Some say this war is the great upheaval foretold in the Book of the World. A man who talks to the dead could be a link to the spiritual realm - " "You cannot believe that ... that blasphemy," spluttered Aqbar. "It is only a blasphemy to one who believes not in the divine dominion of the Six Lords but in the abomination of a God who is so remote he sends his son to do all his work." "Jah'veh is God as he is also God's son. He - " "Back to work, then," said Colomman quickly. "And keep the voices down - they may not be able to see us but that won't stop them shooting and hoping. "Crazy fool," he muttered to Bligh, as they returned down the slope to the road. "Doesn't Aqbar know when he's outnumbered?" Bligh remained silent. The whole question of religious belief puzzled him. He had spent his first fifteen years dumbly accepting the truth of the Bible and the divinity of God, Son of God. But Jahveism was a minority faith, even in Wederia, and as his contact with the world beyond the Brotherhood school had increased so his questions, and eventually sheer disbelief, had intensified. He recalled one lecture from Brother Benjahmine, the intensity of his teacher's speech. "When I first saw you I thought what a fine advocate for Jah'veh you could become," he had said. "There was a spark within you that I recognised and nurtured. You could have been so special ... " At that time, the last thing Bligh wanted was to be special. He wanted to be like the new friends he had made in town, he wanted radios and train outings to the coast and girlfriends. He just wanted to be in charge of his own life and he could not understand the burning desire in people like Brother Benjahmine to shape and mould the lives of others. He did not want to be special to anyone but himself. Several years had passed since he decided that God - or Gods - could never be a part of his life again. They worked on in the damp grey air and then, suddenly, Bligh realised that he could see the road disappearing fifty yards away, around the great crag that marked the tightest part of the bottleneck. As he stood, he became certain that the fog was thinning perceptibly. "Okay, okay," said Colomman, hurrying to gather his rifle and back-bag. "Time to go home." At a quick march they headed up the track, and with the fog almost gone they were chased by one or two shots from across the valley. Roca replied with a string of Traian insults, yelled at the top of his voice and Bligh found the defiance of his tone cheering. He felt that it had been a long day already, and it was barely mid-morning. They were not too concerned by the gun-shots coming from up the valley - it was not unusual for daylight to be greeted by the release of a few rounds. There was always the chance that a stray might take someone out and many of the soldiers, Bligh had found, were incurable optimists about their skill with a rifle. They even slowed along the way to spread out over the slope and gather a few scraps of firewood - birch twigs, barbs of gorse, anything that had not already been scavenged. Bligh let off a couple of rounds at a party of rock partridges, which suddenly burst into the air from within a yard of his feet. He was glad that he missed, because they reminded him of the gentleman partridges he had watched as a boy in the fields around Stenhoer. When the repair party reached the trench it was instantly apparent that something awful had happened. Immediately, Ott Colomman leapt down and hurried in the direction of a moaning cry that Bligh, with a hollow feeling in his chest, thought he recognised as young Erin Panniker's. At its top end, the trench opened out into a shallow circular pit that had been built up with a parapet of scree stone and mud from the valley bottom. From this watchpost you could see out over Pigeon Ravine, looking slightly down into the enemy trenches, and you could see across the hundred yard gap in the militias' own Line to the first post of the 94th LA where the man talked to the ghosts of those who had gone before him. Panniker was lying in this pit, his head propped up on the lap of Bernie Rayner. His coat had been cut open to reveal the gory mess that had been made of his left shoulder. Someone was making rapid work of binding his loose left arm to his body, while another held a wad of dressing to the wound. Bligh felt sick. He did not know what to do. Panniker's face was lined with tears and grime, his eyes jammed tightly shut. He must know he was likely to die. Holding the boy's good hand, Tolway Sench was mumbling a string of prayer. "The air that I breathe, the water that bathes me. The passion that moves me, the constant change that is life. The thoughts that I think, the ground that I walk upon ... " The Elementalist sacrament touched something within Bligh and he had to look away. It was only then that he saw Slowly Skett, lying on the other side of the watch-post, dead. A bullet had passed through his chest, spilling less blood than poor Panniker's shoulder. Bligh crouched by the old man and ground his teeth in an effort to hold back the tears. Sandy Brigg was holding Slowly's hand, but his face showed no emotion. "We were walking out on patrol, under cover of the fog," he said, as if he had to explain how he had survived unscathed. "We went right all the way up to the 94th, then out in a sweep through damn valley. We had listening to enemy trench, and stayed out for longer than we should have been doing ... The fog, it lifts and we are stranded from any cover. Even so, it is some time before they see us and then they shoot and shoot. I carry him back across my shoulders. He was friend." Just then Sadiq came along the trench, looking around in disbelief. Eventually, he stopped by Slowly, Bligh and Brigg and said, "At least they cannot blame it on me, this time." Bligh looked away. They moved Slowly to lie out of sight in the rough ground behind the trench and spent the rest of the day trying to ignore the groans of Panniker. By dusk, as everyone stood Twilights with rifles at the ready, Bligh felt sure he was not alone in being grateful that the boy would soon be taken away. Supplies came promptly an hour and a half after dark and they set out on the return trip with Panniker on a stretcher that had been constructed during the day. Shortly afterwards, a group of about twenty arrived from the 94th, their officer explaining that he had heard the 34th were running short and he felt forces should be redeployed. It took some time to organise the new soldiers and it was past midnight before Captain Elliam asked for some men to bury Slowly. Strangely, Bligh thought - Slowly had been so popular - there were few volunteers. Even Bernie Rayner was not, apparently, going to be involved, other than to send them out with directions. Perhaps it was not so strange after all: no one out here liked to think of death; Slowly's demise had not been directly referred to a single time in Bligh's hearing. "I'll go," said Bligh, and then Roca Fesh and one of the new soldiers said they would accompany him. The latter was a Wederian called Wink Hawley, He had acquired his nickname through the fact that one side of his face was a mass of torn, scarred tissue, the lids of one eye permanently stuck together. It had happened in a fire, he explained, as he walked alongside Bligh who was carrying Slowly's feet. Bligh did not enquire any further. He was not in the mood, although he clearly sensed Hawley's need to communicate. After struggling up a mountain track for some time, they came to the cirque where Rayner had directed them. It was as if some giant had struck the hillside with a mighty hammer blow, leaving a circular dent that was now lined with scree-falls of boulders and small stones. Out here in the hills this was the best way to bury a man, Rayner had said: cover him with rocks to hide him from the vultures and the stone cats. Bligh wondered how many others were buried in this hollow, how many of the small stones he pushed aside might, in fact, be bones. They covered Slowly over in silence, then Roca Fesh mumbled a few awkward words from The Book of the World into the cold night air. "I cannot believe it," said Bligh slowly. "But I can hope that death is not the end for a man like Slowly Skett." He turned away to leave the burial ground, but was brought up short by what Wink Hawley said next. "Oh it isn't. I can assure you of that. His spirit is free in the valley, just like all the others." They walked back in an awkward silence until Wink Hawley started to tell them how he had acquired his injuries. It was during an Army shelling of a troop train which had been taking him to the Front for the first time. Most of the barrage had been off-target but a single shell had hit a carriage loaded with drums of fuel. "The train didn't stop," he said. "The fire worked its way back to us and all the time the train was travelling at a hellish pace. We tried signalling ahead ... one boy tried running along the roof, but it collapsed under him and he was gone. We tried to disconnect our carriage but the linkage was pulled tight with the speed and it wouldn't shift. We ended up jumping clear, but not before ... " "I'm sorry," said Bligh, extinguishing the scarred man's story. He did not know what was expected of him. He wondered if Hawley felt this urge to explain himself to everyone he met: some self-conscious compulsion to justify his damaged features. "Oh, don't be," said Hawley. "It saved my life. The train was headed for Caspe. That fire may have killed half my Company, but it saved the other half." When they returned they had missed the allocation of that night's duties. Perhaps that was Rayner's way of thanking them for taking the burial of Slowly Skett out of his hands. They huddled around a brazier, trying to reawaken their deadened limbs. Hawley told them about his time in a military hospital. At first he had been so ill that they had left him in the corridor to die, but he had clung on for ten days at the very edge. "I was at a boundary between two worlds," he told them. "I felt malign forces vying for control of my body." He shook his head in the shadows. "The world of the dead scared me intensely," he concluded, "so I made a conscious decision to live." "You make it sound simple," said Sadiq, returning from patrol. Hawley just stared into the flames, until Roca Fesh changed the subject. They spoke sporadically, Hawley a new factor in their attempts to stave off the relentless boredom of trench life. Bligh found that he liked the Wederian, although not when he spoke of his ghosts, as he did the following morning. "They don't like your friend Sadiq," he said. Bligh knew what would follow. "The spirits," Hawley continued. "He must be aware of that. They think he's dangerous - do you sense it too?" |
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The new recruits from the 94th gave Captain Elliam the opportunity
to rearrange the Company into three Sections again, and this meant
that a regular rota of leave could be established. Four nights
later, Bligh set out on the three hour march back to Comeras.
It was well after midnight by the time he hammered at the door
of the small guest-house where Madeleine had been staying. He
felt tired and bitterly cold. He had not eaten since the previous
day.
Eventually a man came to the door, cursing and glowering at Bligh
in the light of the candle he held. The cursing grew louder when
he learnt that Bligh was only looking for Madeleine. The man went
back inside and a few minutes later returned with a fold of paper.
"She's gone," he said, and slammed the door.
Bligh had not considered the possibility that she would not be
here. He squinted at the note in the moonlight, finally deciphering
its content. My love, it began. I have a job. My room
is at 23rd Foundryman Street. Come to me, please. There followed
a set of simple instructions which Bligh followed across the centre
of Comeras.
He passed through the open door of a house, as instructed, and
went up a set of narrow stairs to the locked door of her room.
"Darling, darling!" she cried, when she saw who it
was. "I was so scared for you. You can hear the fighting
sometimes and I think of you every minute." She made him
sit on her little bed while she brewed him some anise tea. Then
she boiled more water which she used to fill a small iron tub
she heaved in from the landing. She mixed herbs into the water
and then pulled the clothes from his body and cajoled him into
the tub. It was so small he had to sit with his knees drawn up
to his chin while she scooped the scalding, sweet-scented water
over his body.
Mixed with the herbs, he recognised the scent of disinfectant
for the lice.
Madeleine scooped and splashed and rubbed his skin and all the
time he wished she would just stop. He had been at the Front.
He had buried one friend and for all that he knew Panniker was
also dead by now. He had discovered extremes to existence he had
never even dreamed of before.
"Please," he said eventually. "Please stop."
He took a towel and dried himself, wishing she would stop staring,
resenting the tears in her eyes. Feeling sick, he threw himself
angrily onto Madeleine's bed and wished he had waited until morning
to find her.
He must have slept for a while, for when he opened his eyes he
saw that the bath had been emptied and Madeleine was curled up
in a broken old chair. She was not asleep because her eyes opened
as soon as he moved the covers she had placed over him.
He moved to one side of the narrow bed and lifted the blankets
for her to slip in beside him. "It's hard," she said.
"I work in a bar that serves the soldiers. I queue for hours
for food and often get nothing. I can hear the fighting on the
plains and all the time I am wondering if the next soldier I pass
will drag me down and rape me ... it happens."
She did not need to add that she endured all this just to be
near to Bligh.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I buried a friend this
week." He had not planned to mention this - it was too obvious
a plea for sympathy - but it was out before he could contain it.
They spent the morning rediscovering their rusty patterns of
communication: the little looks, the expressions, the jokes. Madeleine
showed him the bar where she worked, the bakery where she was
known and could sometimes avoid the queues by having something
put by. They shared lunch while she worked and then Wink Hawley
and Sandy Brigg came into the bar and Bligh introduced them. Madeleine
was intrigued by Hawley's ghosts; she flattered Brigg for his
improving Traian and Bligh felt a surge of pride that his colleagues
should associate him with Madeleine. He squeezed her hand as she
served them another round of drinks and from her look he knew
that he had been forgiven for the night before.
"How a soldier needs his leave," sighed Brigg, and
for the first time since marching down from Pigeon Ravine Bligh
felt that he could agree. |
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- The Book of the World, ch.20, v.3. |
| After Bligh had spent most of the afternoon convincing Divitt Carew he was more likely to be robbed in Comeras than shot in Pigeon Ravine, the journalist agreed to come along. "At least we won't be going anywhere near that nut Domenech," said Carew, as they marched up into the hills under cover of darkness. Bligh recognised the name and recalled a laughing face; he could not remember when or where they had met. "Why do you say that?" he asked. "Oh, just the stories you hear. Most of it's probably untrue. He's in command of the 12th UPP, out on the plain. They say he drives his men until they break and he loses them continually. The turnover of personnel is so high, they say the only thing constant about the 12th UPP is Merc Domenech. He's one of these Elementalist types who thinks everything he does can be justified by The Book of the World, and so that means anything can be justified by that damned book ... " "What happened to all your journalistic detachment?" said Bligh. Carew had never opened up like this before. Bligh had told him about everything - his upbringing, his relationship with Madeleine, his beliefs, such as they were - but he still knew little of the workings of the journalist's mind. He could not see Carew's expression in the darkness, but he sensed a change of mood. "You have to forgive me," said Carew, returning to his familiar brusque facade. "I came across him before he joined up, that's all it is. First time I came down into Trace, I was doing a piece on the persistence of feudalism in the politics of the country. That's all it was, you know: feudalism in a modern guise. The patrician land-owners were the regional power brokers and they had things pretty much their own way, reporting upwards to the monarchy and keeping the Church and the Army in line with the judicious application of cash. There were all sorts of vested interests and one of them, on the fringes, was the Domenech family. Merc saw what was coming far sooner than most and so, to protect himself, he was in at the start of the UPP. I'm not saying he's a villain, or anything. It's just that he tries harder - he pushes people harder - because he has his background against him. He knows some people see him as having come across from the other side. It would have been a good story if the war hadn't overtaken it." After a period of silence, Carew continued. "He has race against him, too. This war's a race thing, you see. That's the angle I'm working on at the moment. The ruling classes - the monarchy, the war lords - they're all descendants of the Feorean invasion, two centuries ago. The resentment against that war has lasted all this time and this uprising is the Traians finally counter-attacking. Domenech's a Feorean name so he has that to fight too. It's ironic, really: here are all these Internationals fighting alongside the Traian people, when in racial terms most of them should be on the other side." As usual, Bligh disagreed with Divitt Carew but he chose not to argue. They were close to the bottleneck now, and silence could be the difference between life and death. Carew started to complain about the cold again, but Wink Hawley explained the necessity of quiet and he stopped instantly. As soon as they arrived Carew was asking a string of questions of anyone who would listen, including Captain Elliam, who seemed flattered by the attention. "Please, this cannot be attributed to me by name," he kept saying, "but I can tell you this much ... " There was more gunfire from the 34th LAs that night than Bligh had known since they had first arrived in the hills. A couple of Internationals even set out just before dawn to let off a mortar attack from the heart of no-man's land. No one admitted to Carew that this was not the normal run of things, and that the pre-dawn sortie had cut their stock of mortar bombs by a third. Bligh tried to sleep during the middle of the next day, but occasional salvoes of gunfire prevented him. At that point he resolved to give Divitt Carew a real taste of hill warfare. Leaving the dug-out, he found Bernie Rayner and said, "I'm going to take Divitt on patrol tonight, if that's acceptable." Rayner asked him what he was planning and promised he would make all the arrangements. Carew was squatting by the brazier in one of the watch-posts, questioning Sadiq Phelim about the loss of his two fingers in the grenade incident in Anasty. Bligh chewed at some oat bread and thought of what Carew had been saying before. After a time, he said, "Divitt, you talk about the war as if it's not a real, living thing: you say it's a racket, you say it's driven by greed and envy, you say it's a racial conflict. Even you can't be so cynical that you can't see the passion that is driving the people on. You must see that the class struggle is a war of ideals, it's - " "You're rationalising it all after the event, Bligh. This thing found an echo in you and now you're trying to justify it to yourself. You have a vested interest just like everyone else. No, let me explain - it's my job to have misguided theories and dump them on anyone who'd listen, after all. "So what is it that makes young Bligh X want to fight in the Traian revolution? Maybe it's his upbringing. Yes - his struggle with the Jahvean Brotherhood has inflicted deep wounds in his mind, wounds that are so severe he has spent his adult life unable to commit himself to anything or anyone. Am I on the right track, eh?" Bligh said nothing. He glanced at Sadiq, who shrugged but also remained silent. "Now you've got something you believe in, haven't you? Or at least you think you do, although you're not so well versed in the political ideologies people would say were at stake here. The war has found the place where your Jahveism used to reside - that's it, I'm sure - you've found a new source of faith, Bligh. The war is your new religion!" Bligh had stopped feeling awkward as it became clear that Carew was allowing his fantasy to become wilder and wilder. "Divitt," he said, in reply. "I've just remembered: Captain Elliam has asked that you come out on patrol with me tonight. He says it will give you a first-hand experience about which to write. Sadiq, will you come?" He resisted the temptation to laugh at the horror in Carew's expression. He imagined the journalist running through every excuse he could think of and finding none that would sound plausible. "We'll meet at dusk, okay?" |
| They left the trench an hour after Twilights. The night was dark and there was a light mist in the air. Bligh felt strangely calm, but he knew that before long the wall of pressure would rush up inside his head and swamp his senses, as it always did when he set foot in no-man's land. Divitt Carew had been waiting nervously in the watch-post with Sadiq and Sandy Brigg when Bligh arrived. He watched as the three soldiers smeared their bayonets with trench-mud. "Give the buggers blood poisoning," he said, and they had agreed although the real reason was to prevent the giveaway flash of moonlight or flare on clean metal. Now, passing through a gap in the wire, Bligh whispered to Carew, "If I die in this war, will you promise me you'll look after Madeleine?" Carew looked at him and said slowly, "Bugger off, Bligh." Sadiq and Sandy were already dim blurs in the darkness, although only a few yards ahead. They descended the slope below the trench, Bligh clutching his rifle to his chest and forever testing the safety catch with his thumb. As he had expected, the tension rose up as the ground levelled out in no-man's land. He felt exposed. His senses felt muddled and cloudy, just when he needed them to be at their sharpest. Sadiq and Sandy moved on in front and Bligh kept track of them as he made sure Carew did not get lost in the dark. He wondered how the journalist would respond if they came across an enemy patrol. "Come on," he hissed, taking Carew by the arm and hurrying him along. "Lets stick closer to the others." He felt as though he was being watched, as though the night was full of prying eyes that were marking him out - Bligh, and Bligh alone - and just waiting for him to make one fatal error. Eventually they reached a position where the ground began to rise sharply. Bligh could sense the hillside rearing up above them. With a series of gestures, he indicated that Sadiq and Sandy should stay here, while he and Carew proceeded on hands and knees. They crawled, inch by inch, up the slope, pausing at each dislodged stone. Eventually, they made out voices. Someone said something about a news-sheet story of the fighting on the plain and another said that news stories were always lies. There was general agreement at that. By Bligh's side, Carew had stopped. Bligh reached out and pushed him, then crawled farther up and tried to drag the shaking journalist. Probably scared that they would be detected if he resisted, Carew started to crawl again. They reached a lip of the slope, and suddenly Bligh could see into the trench, the soldiers illuminated by stumps of candles and the red glow of their brazier. He glanced at Carew and as he did so he tumbled forward into the trench in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. He wished he could see Carew's face, as the 'enemy' soldiers let out a roar of greeting and leapt up to haul him down alongside Bligh. In a moment, Sadiq and Sandy had come up to join them and eventually they calmed down. Divitt Carew was furious. He did not think it at all funny that instead of leading him over to the enemy trench they had led him a hundred yards up the valley to the next LA Company on the Line. When Bligh had stopped laughing, he was able to see just how angry Carew was and that calmed him down even more. He thought of excuses, of the need to relieve the tensions of trench life - this little episode would be repeated over and over for the rest of the war, he felt sure - but he knew they were all inadequate. In the end, he just clapped Carew on the back and said quietly in his ear, "I'm sorry, Divitt," but somehow he did not think that was enough. The affair was not mentioned the next day and then Carew left with the supplies run and Bligh felt gloomier than he had in the entire war. |
| Eighteen days on, Bligh was ready for his leave in Comeras. Winter had closed in remorselessly on Pigeon Ravine. The fogs had become less frequent but they had been replaced by occasional storms of fine, dry snow and the nights were so cold it was not uncommon for a frost to form on the clothes of a soldier on watch. Illness was a common feature of the trenches, but now the rheumatic fevers, the gastro-enteritis, the dysentery, had been replaced by frost-bite and kidney chills and the ever-present tuberculosis. The illness, the covering for sick colleagues, the boredom and the hunger, meant nerves were always at full stretch. Arguments over the most trivial items were frequent and at one point Bligh was not on talking terms with Bernie Rayner, Aqbar Emmett and Sandy Brigg, all at the same time. The prospect of leave had a magical effect and grudges were put aside in anticipation of the day to come. They marched out with the supplies run just after midnight and they reached Comeras in the early hours of the morning. Bligh bore Madeleine's ritual bathing of him with resignation. He was tired and he had had enough of arguing in the past fortnight. He wished she could simply see it from his side, but he stayed quiet and let her scrub him and pour scented water over him and pick the lice from their hiding places in the seams of his clothing. Normally Bligh paid little attention to Madeleine's chatter when he came back on leave, but tonight she mentioned Divitt Carew's return from Pigeon Ravine and he asked her how the journalist had seemed. "He was angry, I think," she said. "Although you can never really tell with him. You argued, didn't you? He said ... he said you were a young fool who didn't know how to repay friendship, but he wouldn't explain. What did happen?" "Just a practical joke at Divitt's expense, nothing more." He stood meekly as Madeleine dried him, but turned away when she started to kiss him. "I'm sorry," he said. He wanted her like mad, but he was angry at having to go through this meticulous grooming session and so, childishly, he did not want to succumb to her yet. "I've had a hard time," he said. "I'm tired." He dreamt that he was adrift inside his own skull. He was sitting awake, in Madeleine's little room, but his mind was floating in some dimensionless chasm and his senses seemed remote. It was dark but his eyes had adjusted and he could see everything in great detail. Beside him, Madeleine lay on her back, her breasts exposed to the night air where his movement had dragged the blankets aside, her nipples dark and shrivelled with the cold. He saw all this and yet he didn't, because it was not him looking but someone else - something else - and he was a mere passenger, receiving the information but simultaneously detached from it all. If this was a dream, he thought, then it was the most peculiar dream he had ever had. He drifted and focused again and Madeleine was awake and his fingers were probing her roughly. She moaned softly and eased her legs farther apart and whatever was controlling his body made him kiss her breasts, her shoulder, her armpit. He felt scared, but he did not feel inclined to do anything about it. His head was filled with a tremendous roar, like the wind in the hills, or a train on its tracks. Her thigh was pressed hard against his own, her shoulder grinding against his collar bone. Her hand started to run over his hip, his belly, his crotch, lingering for a second here, a second there, but always moving, moving. She turned onto her side and he dragged her leg up over his hip and he entered her and the roaring grew louder and Bligh, himself, grew ever more distant. When he found his way back to his senses, he was outside, alone, running naked through the streets of Comeras. Somewhere in the distance, the war rumbled on and lining the pavement there were thick knots of people, dressed in the ragged clothing of the war, their bodies shrunken and emaciated. Their eyes bulged from hollow faces and glinted in the moonlight, all fixed on Bligh as he ran. He sensed the chill of the night on his naked skin, but he was remote from all that and it did not seem to matter. All he could do was run, his feet getting bruised and broken on the rough cobbles. Someone cheered, and soon the sound was taken up by everyone watching. Bligh's breath grew ragged, desperate, and he wondered where Madeleine was - where was her room? - and then he realised that he was enjoying this sensation far too much, this feeling that he was a passenger in his own body and that nothing mattered for him any more. The feeling that he had been taken over by some magnificent presence. The roar of the crowd swirled around him - within him - and suddenly he struggled to pull himself clear, to reassert himself. He stumbled on the street and the roar of the crowd faltered. He sensed the power he had over these pitiful people and it scared him and that gave him the strength to pull away and he felt himself rising clear, recovering his senses, and he was sitting awake in Madeleine's narrow bed and she was lying by his side. "Thank you," she whispered, before settling down with her hand on his hip, her forearm across his crotch. "For what?" he wanted to ask, but did not dare. |
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'"I am innocent," said Stone, to the Fool. "They merely talk to me."' |
| Bligh muddied his bayonet and then wiped his hands clean. He had already loaded his special clip, holding cartridges that had the unmarked look which set them apart from the refills which were more likely to jam in the breech. He had not anticipated feeling so scared for an assault on a deserted trench. Overhead, a crag falcon cut across the darkening sky, its steely grey plumage giving it the appearance of a living blade. Bligh watched it head down the valley and within seconds it was gone. Perhaps it was Elliam's caution that was transmitting itself and being transformed into the tension of the soldiers. The Captain was treating this as a full-scale assault, whereas any other might simply have wandered over with a few men to take the trench in daylight. One Section of twenty men was to stay behind in their own trench. Another of thirty would hold positions in no-man's land, while the remaining thirty would go ahead into the enemy trench and clear it of booby-traps and anti-personnel mines. When daylight arrived, scouting parties would work their way up over the hill in order to determine exactly how far the Army had retreated. The first thirty men had already moved out and Bligh waited with his Section, chatting idly with Wink Hawley and Bernie Rayner. "Okay," said Ott Colomman, who was leading the Section. "Time to move." They advanced slowly across no-man's land. Bligh was alert to every sound, every smell on the air. Again, he felt the unnerving sensation that the night was watching him, and as the wind whistled through the valley he was overcome for a moment by images from his dream: the people in the street, bare stones under his feet, the roar of the crowd. He felt himself drifting away from his senses and it was as if his body was operating without guidance. He snapped himself back to attention immediately. It felt as if they took most of the night to reach the little green stream in the cleft of the valley, but Bligh knew it was no more than twenty minutes. They clambered across dry rocks and then spread out and waited. The silence was terrible once they stopped moving, and at each slight sound Bligh expected a sudden barrage of gunfire. After a time the enemy trench was picked out by the glow of candle and lamp light from within and Bligh knew that the advance Section was in occupation. The rest of the wait in no-man's land seemed interminable, but it did not matter any more. Bligh wondered what would become of the 34th. They were certain to be moved elsewhere, now that the Line had shifted. He realised that he would miss Pigeon Ravine. At some point in the night Bligh's Section moved in to the occupied trenches. A number of crude booby-traps had been found and cleared, but it was still important to be wary. Bligh felt bemused, standing in this trench with its perfectly revetted walls and neat dug-out bunkers. This, he felt, must be the standard to which all trench diggers aspire. It put their own defences to shame. The immediate problem was that the defences faced the wrong way. A high parapet shielded them from the valley, with loopholes at precise intervals along the trench. The parados, to the rear, was a gently sloping ridge of debris left over from the digging of the trench. It would afford the 34th little protection if the Army decided to regain the position. Already, a number of men were trying to improve these defences, but the sandbags of the parapet were too tightly packed to be easily dismantled and the ground itself, where it was not bedrock, was frozen hard. Bligh was out of the trench when the trap was sprung. As the sky began to lighten, he spotted Wink Hawley hovering by the wire and there was something about his attitude which made Bligh nervous. He scrambled up, glad of a break from the endless job of shifting rocks and sandbags. "What's up?" he said, as he came to stand with Hawley. It was hard to believe that it was a mere twenty-four hours since Bligh had been standing guard and Sadiq had come back from his patrol. "Surely you can sense it?" said Wink. "I thought you were sensitive to ... " Bligh felt awkward. "I'm no different to anyone else," he said defensively. "What do you mean?" "It's ... it's in the air. The spirits aren't settled, over here. They're flitting about like winter midges. They make me dizzy." As if to prove this, Wink clutched at Bligh's arm to steady himself. "It's just battle fear," said Bligh. He turned away from Wink, as if to return to his work, and instantly there was a flash and a muffled boom from farther up the trench. They flung themselves to the ground, finding cover on the valley side of the parapet. Three more blasts followed, clouds of smoke and dust marking the mines' explosions at regular intervals along the defences. As angry, bemused voices rose from the trench, heavy cracks of enemy gunfire started up and another mighty explosion shook the ground. Bligh peered over the sandbags and saw the hillside above them sizzling with the muzzle flashes of Army rifles. Hand grenades joined the mêlée and then the tinny clatter of trench mortars. With a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, Bligh saw how carefully the range had been determined, mortar bombs and grenades dropping with frightening precision to within a few yards of the trench. All around them, the trap that they had so dumbly entered was closing up. He aimed a few shots up to where the muzzle-flashes were most dense and then paused to reach down and give Sadiq a helping tug to get him over the parapet and into cover. At first, the Army seemed content to hold back and pick off as many of the LA soldiers as they could without risking themselves in open territory. As he watched from his position on the blind side of the parapet, Bligh saw Roca Fesh fall, clutching at his chest, he saw Aqbar Emmett flailing about, his face torn open by shrapnel. He saw others, too, falling in the confusion of the assault. Eventually he felt someone tugging at his shoulder and he turned and Wink Hawley was gesturing frantically that they must retreat. For a moment, Bligh thought that he should stay and provide some kind of covering fire but then a grenade overshot the trench and landed nearby, the vivid red glare of the explosion making him momentarily flash-blind, its heat and pressure wave pressing tingling, sensuous fingers to his face and neck. The blast brought him to his senses and he scrambled to his feet and ran for all he was worth, down the slope and across the rough ground of the valley bottom. The stream soaked him to the knees and for the last part of his terrified retreat his boots were heavy with its icy water. And all the time, as he ran, he thought of how he had been saved by Wink and his ghosts. "How many more are coming?" demanded Captain Elliam, over and over, of each soldier as he dropped back into the trench. Eventually one of them - Wink Hawley - answered. "Friend, I'm the last," he said quietly. Bligh looked around and realised that they must have lost thirty or more men in the ambush. He did not have long to dwell on the matter, as he realised that the sounds of enemy fire were drawing closer. He struggled back to his feet and dragged his rifle up to aim through the nearest available loophole in the LA's meagre parapet. In the dawn shadows he saw movement in the valley bottom and in a terrible panic he fumbled a fresh clip into his rifle and then began to fire on the advancing soldiers. He could see their neat green uniforms with gleaming buttons and buckles. He could see their faces, their expressions of rage and fear and sheer desperation, and in the occasional lulls he could not believe that he was here, shooting at them, trying to kill them. It seemed unreal. Somehow, they held the Army off until daylight. In the sharp winter sunshine it was impossible for the advancing soldiers to find cover and soon those that were able retreated across the valley, dragging the wounded, abandoning the dead to the rats and the vultures. Bligh remained at his position until long after the retreat was over. He did not know what else he could do. |
| By mid-day it was clear that the Army would not attack again until night-fall at the soonest. "Where's my runner?" demanded Captain Elliam irritably, striding along the trench and examining the features of everyone he found. "Where's my runner?" The Captain had worked his way through three bottles of wine that morning. "Where's my runner?" Eventually, Bernie Rayner explained that his runner had been lost in the fighting. "Lost?" said Elliam. "What do you mean 'lost'?" He was not making it any easier on his troops. Bligh pulled himself to his feet and went over. "You need a runner, Friend." Rayner glanced at him gratefully. "We need a message," he said to the Captain. Elliam took a pad and pencil from his jacket and spent several minutes trying to compose a report, but finally he gave up and instructed Rayner to do it. "Tell them what happened," he said, wearily. "Tell them our position and request reinforcement by tonight. Tell them ... tell them that I am entirely to blame." As Elliam wandered away, Rayner turned and said, "You're a good man, Bligh." In his smooth handwriting he wrote a brief note: '34th LA to Command: Lost 33 men in ambush, 4 injured and need evacuation. Request immediate reinforcement as Army advance imminent at nightfall. BR for Cap. Elliam.' He folded the note and wrote on it the name, 'Captain MW Domenech, Command, Comeras'. "You'll have to go over the hill," he said. "They'll have the bottleneck covered." Bligh took the note and tucked it into a pocket. Merc Domenech, again. He wondered why he kept coming across the man - it was as if their fates had become interlinked. He stopped himself, disturbed at how battle fatigue seemed to be affecting him. He struggled out of the trench and made for the track up the mountain side. Within seconds there were two rifle reports from across Pigeon Ravine, but he barely flinched. Such distant shots would only hit him by remote chance and he could not stir himself enough to care about such a possibility. He reached the track and started to climb. Paths like this one zig-zagged all over the Ephedreal Hills, covering ground that looked at first impassable. The mountain goats would use these paths, if any survived. Once, they would have been used by the goat-herds too. As the ravine fell away behind him - and with it the braziers and body heat of the trench - the cold closed in. The sky was a clear, pale blue now, and it seemed to be drawing what heat there was from the ground, leaving only frost and little patches of dry snow. There was no vegetation here, so close to the Line. It had all been scavenged long before to feed the braziers. These days, fuel parties would journey for as long as an hour, just to find supplies. He had not been climbing for long before the fatigue rose up and threatened to swamp him. He had not slept in a day and a half, and even then, back in Madeleine's bed, it had been broken by his vivid, disturbing dreams. Eventually the track petered out and he had to find his way by keeping the rounded summit of the opposite, Army-held hill behind his back. This course led him towards a shoulder of his own hill; from there he would drop and join the supplies road to Comeras. He walked up the slope, scrambled over the treacherous footholds of a scree, pulled himself wearily over a chest high disjoint in the rock. He walked on, growing more and more tired. The cold did not matter any more. What did was the ache in his chest, the pain of each deep breath of hill air, the weight of his rifle across his shoulder and back. His head was pounding, pressure building up relentlessly as if his skull was about to burst. Ahead, the crest of the hill seemed as distant as ever. He wondered why he was continuing. It was ludicrous to think he could get to Comeras, break through the disorganisation of Command and mobilise reinforcements to get to Pigeon Ravine by nightfall. He might as well just sit down for a while, recover his breath. Maybe he would even make better time if he rested and set out afresh. He did not know if that made sense, he did not care any more. He felt as if he was about to fall apart. He started to search for a sheltered spot where he could break his journey. It was then that he spotted the stone cat. It was resting nearby in a slight hollow, its tail flicking idly as if pulled by a puppeteer's wires. It must have measured six feet from head to haunch, its grey-brown, lightly specked body a mosaic of muscle, the embodiment of sheer animal power. Its neck was as thick as its head, the black folds of its lips drooped over a set of even, yellow teeth, and its tiny dark eyes stared at him from beneath the bulging ridge of its brow. He should have been terrified, to come to stand within a few yards of such a creature, but strangely he was not. He stared back and for minutes the two were locked together by their gaze. Gradually, Bligh began to see the creature as it really was: the fur matted along its flanks, mud spread up over its hind quarters, its bones jutting from a pitifully malnourished body. He felt its pain, its anguish at being reduced to such a condition. He felt the hunger growl in his belly and then he spotted a dark grey weal on the animal's side, the scar tissue where a bullet or a lump of shrapnel had torn its flesh. Suddenly he felt that he could see the world as it was seen by this beast, he could smell it, taste it ... he felt dizzy, felt a rushing sensation, and then he was looking back at himself and he could see his own wretched condition, the way his large frame now jutted awkwardly from a wasted, weary body, mud matting his clothes, eyes staring and wild. Everything was so sharp, all of a sudden. He stretched and felt the pulling pain as the shrapnel buried in his flank reminded him of its presence. He remembered the feeling of power, running across a valley bottom in the dead of night on the scent of a mountain goat. He remembered the sudden flash and boom and the sensation of flying through the air and landing in a heap, thinking he must be dead and then that awful, terrifying feeling that one side of his body was flapping open and something hard and alien was embedded in the muscle. Up above, he spotted a lammergeier - he thought of it as the bird with fire for a face - hanging onto a thermal, too distant for the man to see. He tasted the air, the scent of the man called Bligh, and his stomach growled in protest. He had not eaten in days, and then only hibernating insects he had scraped from the trunk of a dead tree. He stood, despite the lightning bolt of pain from his scar. He sensed the power still within his body and he knew that he could kill this man in an instant. He bared his teeth and Bligh felt that dizzy, rushing sensation again and he was back in his own body, stumbling, falling to the ground. He started to cry and through his tears he saw the stone cat as he had first seen it, a mighty beast of the hills, lord of its stony environment. And then, as if nothing had happened, the stone cat turned and ambled away, its shoulders rolling arrogantly, its tail still flicking. Within seconds it was lost to his sight. He tried to think about what had just taken place, but he found that he was unable. He could not even begin to understand it, the exchange, the momentary sense of communication, of power, of transcendence. He thought of the men back in Pigeon Ravine. They were depending on him. He pulled himself to his feet and resumed his trek. The crest of the hill seemed closer now, and his body no longer complained so loudly. He felt that he could make it, deliver his message. He had to. |
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- The Book of the World, ch.2, v.21. |
| They spent some time settling into their new surroundings, acclimatising themselves to chill of the newly arrived Winter. The days were generally dry and overcast. Roca Fesh explained that they were in the rain shadow of the hills: the clouds hit the far side of the range and were driven upwards and cooled, dropping their loads before they reached these parts. By Spring it would be a different matter though, with the Atlan winds bringing the heaviest rain of the year up from the Gulf of Serephes and turning gullies such as Pigeon Ravine into treacherous torrents. The nights were cold and Bligh knew they would get colder. Worst of all was when a hill fog stole up in the early hours of the morning, a bitter dampness hanging in the air sometimes until as late as midday. Anyone with consumptive tendencies would be laid low in such conditions, and the chorus of phlegmy hacking was often the first indication of fog to a soldier, emerging blearily from sleep in one of the dug-outs. It was on a morning such as this, a week into his stay at Pigeon Ravine, that Bligh pulled himself out of the cramped dug-out he shared, in rotation, with over twenty others. He was confronted in the trench by Bernie Rayner, rounding up men for a repair party. Normally such work would only be undertaken at night, but this morning's fog brought with it an unwelcome extension to the cover otherwise offered only by darkness. Gathering his rifle and some tools, Bligh and five others set out along the road. "We've got the easy job, today," said Ott Colomman, the young Traian leading the work party. "We're not even going as far as the bottleneck. We'll be almost as safe as we are in the trenches. Just a bit of exercise, that's all." After inspecting the section of road they were to repair, they set about gathering some boulders to roll and heave into the holes. It was hard work, and soon Bligh was bathed in sweat, despite the chill mountain air. After a short time, with no sign of the fog lifting, Colomman allowed his work party a break. Over the familiar bottle of brutally sweet wine, the talk was of when they would next be on leave and just how cold it could get up here in the Ephedreal Hills. Changing the subject, Aqbar Emmett said, "Have we all heard of the fellow at the next LA defences up the valley? I have been told he talks to the spirits of the dead." Aqbar was a convert to Jahveism who found much of the Elementalist religion of Trace distasteful to the extreme. Early on, he had tried to discuss this with Bligh, but had soon discovered a lack of sympathy; outnumbered by Elementalists and non-believers, he had stopped mentioning religion altogether. "My country has a grand tradition of ghost raisers and possessions," said Colomman, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Or it does if you ask the older generation. Isn't that so, Roca?" "It is not to be ridiculed," said Roca Fesh, missing the young man's light tone. "Some say this war is the great upheaval foretold in the Book of the World. A man who talks to the dead could be a link to the spiritual realm - " "You cannot believe that ... that blasphemy," spluttered Aqbar. "It is only a blasphemy to one who believes not in the divine dominion of the Six Lords but in the abomination of a God who is so remote he sends his son to do all his work." "Jah'veh is God as he is also God's son. He - " "Back to work, then," said Colomman quickly. "And keep the voices down - they may not be able to see us but that won't stop them shooting and hoping. "Crazy fool," he muttered to Bligh, as they returned down the slope to the road. "Doesn't Aqbar know when he's outnumbered?" Bligh remained silent. The whole question of religious belief puzzled him. He had spent his first fifteen years dumbly accepting the truth of the Bible and the divinity of God, Son of God. But Jahveism was a minority faith, even in Wederia, and as his contact with the world beyond the Brotherhood school had increased so his questions, and eventually sheer disbelief, had intensified. He recalled one lecture from Brother Benjahmine, the intensity of his teacher's speech. "When I first saw you I thought what a fine advocate for Jah'veh you could become," he had said. "There was a spark within you that I recognised and nurtured. You could have been so special ... " At that time, the last thing Bligh wanted was to be special. He wanted to be like the new friends he had made in town, he wanted radios and train outings to the coast and girlfriends. He just wanted to be in charge of his own life and he could not understand the burning desire in people like Brother Benjahmine to shape and mould the lives of others. He did not want to be special to anyone but himself. Several years had passed since he decided that God - or Gods - could never be a part of his life again. They worked on in the damp grey air and then, suddenly, Bligh realised that he could see the road disappearing fifty yards away, around the great crag that marked the tightest part of the bottleneck. As he stood, he became certain that the fog was thinning perceptibly. "Okay, okay," said Colomman, hurrying to gather his rifle and back-bag. "Time to go home." At a quick march they headed up the track, and with the fog almost gone they were chased by one or two shots from across the valley. Roca replied with a string of Traian insults, yelled at the top of his voice and Bligh found the defiance of his tone cheering. He felt that it had been a long day already, and it was barely mid-morning. They were not too concerned by the gun-shots coming from up the valley - it was not unusual for daylight to be greeted by the release of a few rounds. There was always the chance that a stray might take someone out and many of the soldiers, Bligh had found, were incurable optimists about their skill with a rifle. They even slowed along the way to spread out over the slope and gather a few scraps of firewood - birch twigs, barbs of gorse, anything that had not already been scavenged. Bligh let off a couple of rounds at a party of rock partridges, which suddenly burst into the air from within a yard of his feet. He was glad that he missed, because they reminded him of the gentleman partridges he had watched as a boy in the fields around Stenhoer. When the repair party reached the trench it was instantly apparent that something awful had happened. Immediately, Ott Colomman leapt down and hurried in the direction of a moaning cry that Bligh, with a hollow feeling in his chest, thought he recognised as young Erin Panniker's. At its top end, the trench opened out into a shallow circular pit that had been built up with a parapet of scree stone and mud from the valley bottom. From this watchpost you could see out over Pigeon Ravine, looking slightly down into the enemy trenches, and you could see across the hundred yard gap in the militias' own Line to the first post of the 94th LA where the man talked to the ghosts of those who had gone before him. Panniker was lying in this pit, his head propped up on the lap of Bernie Rayner. His coat had been cut open to reveal the gory mess that had been made of his left shoulder. Someone was making rapid work of binding his loose left arm to his body, while another held a wad of dressing to the wound. Bligh felt sick. He did not know what to do. Panniker's face was lined with tears and grime, his eyes jammed tightly shut. He must know he was likely to die. Holding the boy's good hand, Tolway Sench was mumbling a string of prayer. "The air that I breathe, the water that bathes me. The passion that moves me, the constant change that is life. The thoughts that I think, the ground that I walk upon ... " The Elementalist sacrament touched something within Bligh and he had to look away. It was only then that he saw Slowly Skett, lying on the other side of the watch-post, dead. A bullet had passed through his chest, spilling less blood than poor Panniker's shoulder. Bligh crouched by the old man and ground his teeth in an effort to hold back the tears. Sandy Brigg was holding Slowly's hand, but his face showed no emotion. "We were walking out on patrol, under cover of the fog," he said, as if he had to explain how he had survived unscathed. "We went right all the way up to the 94th, then out in a sweep through damn valley. We had listening to enemy trench, and stayed out for longer than we should have been doing ... The fog, it lifts and we are stranded from any cover. Even so, it is some time before they see us and then they shoot and shoot. I carry him back across my shoulders. He was friend." Just then Sadiq came along the trench, looking around in disbelief. Eventually, he stopped by Slowly, Bligh and Brigg and said, "At least they cannot blame it on me, this time." Bligh looked away. They moved Slowly to lie out of sight in the rough ground behind the trench and spent the rest of the day trying to ignore the groans of Panniker. By dusk, as everyone stood Twilights with rifles at the ready, Bligh felt sure he was not alone in being grateful that the boy would soon be taken away. Supplies came promptly an hour and a half after dark and they set out on the return trip with Panniker on a stretcher that had been constructed during the day. Shortly afterwards, a group of about twenty arrived from the 94th, their officer explaining that he had heard the 34th were running short and he felt forces should be redeployed. It took some time to organise the new soldiers and it was past midnight before Captain Elliam asked for some men to bury Slowly. Strangely, Bligh thought - Slowly had been so popular - there were few volunteers. Even Bernie Rayner was not, apparently, going to be involved, other than to send them out with directions. Perhaps it was not so strange after all: no one out here liked to think of death; Slowly's demise had not been directly referred to a single time in Bligh's hearing. "I'll go," said Bligh, and then Roca Fesh and one of the new soldiers said they would accompany him. The latter was a Wederian called Wink Hawley, He had acquired his nickname through the fact that one side of his face was a mass of torn, scarred tissue, the lids of one eye permanently stuck together. It had happened in a fire, he explained, as he walked alongside Bligh who was carrying Slowly's feet. Bligh did not enquire any further. He was not in the mood, although he clearly sensed Hawley's need to communicate. After struggling up a mountain track for some time, they came to the cirque where Rayner had directed them. It was as if some giant had struck the hillside with a mighty hammer blow, leaving a circular dent that was now lined with scree-falls of boulders and small stones. Out here in the hills this was the best way to bury a man, Rayner had said: cover him with rocks to hide him from the vultures and the stone cats. Bligh wondered how many others were buried in this hollow, how many of the small stones he pushed aside might, in fact, be bones. They covered Slowly over in silence, then Roca Fesh mumbled a few awkward words from The Book of the World into the cold night air. "I cannot believe it," said Bligh slowly. "But I can hope that death is not the end for a man like Slowly Skett." He turned away to leave the burial ground, but was brought up short by what Wink Hawley said next. "Oh it isn't. I can assure you of that. His spirit is free in the valley, just like all the others." They walked back in an awkward silence until Wink Hawley started to tell them how he had acquired his injuries. It was during an Army shelling of a troop train which had been taking him to the Front for the first time. Most of the barrage had been off-target but a single shell had hit a carriage loaded with drums of fuel. "The train didn't stop," he said. "The fire worked its way back to us and all the time the train was travelling at a hellish pace. We tried signalling ahead ... one boy tried running along the roof, but it collapsed under him and he was gone. We tried to disconnect our carriage but the linkage was pulled tight with the speed and it wouldn't shift. We ended up jumping clear, but not before ... " "I'm sorry," said Bligh, extinguishing the scarred man's story. He did not know what was expected of him. He wondered if Hawley felt this urge to explain himself to everyone he met: some self-conscious compulsion to justify his damaged features. "Oh, don't be," said Hawley. "It saved my life. The train was headed for Caspe. That fire may have killed half my Company, but it saved the other half." When they returned they had missed the allocation of that night's duties. Perhaps that was Rayner's way of thanking them for taking the burial of Slowly Skett out of his hands. They huddled around a brazier, trying to reawaken their deadened limbs. Hawley told them about his time in a military hospital. At first he had been so ill that they had left him in the corridor to die, but he had clung on for ten days at the very edge. "I was at a boundary between two worlds," he told them. "I felt malign forces vying for control of my body." He shook his head in the shadows. "The world of the dead scared me intensely," he concluded, "so I made a conscious decision to live." "You make it sound simple," said Sadiq, returning from patrol. Hawley just stared into the flames, until Roca Fesh changed the subject. They spoke sporadically, Hawley a new factor in their attempts to stave off the relentless boredom of trench life. Bligh found that he liked the Wederian, although not when he spoke of his ghosts, as he did the following morning. "They don't like your friend Sadiq," he said. Bligh knew what would follow. "The spirits," Hawley continued. "He must be aware of that. They think he's dangerous - do you sense it too?" |
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The new recruits from the 94th gave Captain Elliam the opportunity
to rearrange the Company into three Sections again, and this meant
that a regular rota of leave could be established. Four nights
later, Bligh set out on the three hour march back to Comeras.
It was well after midnight by the time he hammered at the door
of the small guest-house where Madeleine had been staying. He
felt tired and bitterly cold. He had not eaten since the previous
day.
Eventually a man came to the door, cursing and glowering at Bligh
in the light of the candle he held. The cursing grew louder when
he learnt that Bligh was only looking for Madeleine. The man went
back inside and a few minutes later returned with a fold of paper.
"She's gone," he said, and slammed the door.
Bligh had not considered the possibility that she would not be
here. He squinted at the note in the moonlight, finally deciphering
its content. My love, it began. I have a job. My room
is at 23rd Foundryman Street. Come to me, please. There followed
a set of simple instructions which Bligh followed across the centre
of Comeras.
He passed through the open door of a house, as instructed, and
went up a set of narrow stairs to the locked door of her room.
"Darling, darling!" she cried, when she saw who it
was. "I was so scared for you. You can hear the fighting
sometimes and I think of you every minute." She made him
sit on her little bed while she brewed him some anise tea. Then
she boiled more water which she used to fill a small iron tub
she heaved in from the landing. She mixed herbs into the water
and then pulled the clothes from his body and cajoled him into
the tub. It was so small he had to sit with his knees drawn up
to his chin while she scooped the scalding, sweet-scented water
over his body.
Mixed with the herbs, he recognised the scent of disinfectant
for the lice.
Madeleine scooped and splashed and rubbed his skin and all the
time he wished she would just stop. He had been at the Front.
He had buried one friend and for all that he knew Panniker was
also dead by now. He had discovered extremes to existence he had
never even dreamed of before.
"Please," he said eventually. "Please stop."
He took a towel and dried himself, wishing she would stop staring,
resenting the tears in her eyes. Feeling sick, he threw himself
angrily onto Madeleine's bed and wished he had waited until morning
to find her.
He must have slept for a while, for when he opened his eyes he
saw that the bath had been emptied and Madeleine was curled up
in a broken old chair. She was not asleep because her eyes opened
as soon as he moved the covers she had placed over him.
He moved to one side of the narrow bed and lifted the blankets
for her to slip in beside him. "It's hard," she said.
"I work in a bar that serves the soldiers. I queue for hours
for food and often get nothing. I can hear the fighting on the
plains and all the time I am wondering if the next soldier I pass
will drag me down and rape me ... it happens."
She did not need to add that she endured all this just to be
near to Bligh.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I buried a friend this
week." He had not planned to mention this - it was too obvious
a plea for sympathy - but it was out before he could contain it.
They spent the morning rediscovering their rusty patterns of
communication: the little looks, the expressions, the jokes. Madeleine
showed him the bar where she worked, the bakery where she was
known and could sometimes avoid the queues by having something
put by. They shared lunch while she worked and then Wink Hawley
and Sandy Brigg came into the bar and Bligh introduced them. Madeleine
was intrigued by Hawley's ghosts; she flattered Brigg for his
improving Traian and Bligh felt a surge of pride that his colleagues
should associate him with Madeleine. He squeezed her hand as she
served them another round of drinks and from her look he knew
that he had been forgiven for the night before.
"How a soldier needs his leave," sighed Brigg, and
for the first time since marching down from Pigeon Ravine Bligh
felt that he could agree. |
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- The Book of the World, ch.20, v.3. |
| After Bligh had spent most of the afternoon convincing Divitt Carew he was more likely to be robbed in Comeras than shot in Pigeon Ravine, the journalist agreed to come along. "At least we won't be going anywhere near that nut Domenech," said Carew, as they marched up into the hills under cover of darkness. Bligh recognised the name and recalled a laughing face; he could not remember when or where they had met. "Why do you say that?" he asked. "Oh, just the stories you hear. Most of it's probably untrue. He's in command of the 12th UPP, out on the plain. They say he drives his men until they break and he loses them continually. The turnover of personnel is so high, they say the only thing constant about the 12th UPP is Merc Domenech. He's one of these Elementalist types who thinks everything he does can be justified by The Book of the World, and so that means anything can be justified by that damned book ... " "What happened to all your journalistic detachment?" said Bligh. Carew had never opened up like this before. Bligh had told him about everything - his upbringing, his relationship with Madeleine, his beliefs, such as they were - but he still knew little of the workings of the journalist's mind. He could not see Carew's expression in the darkness, but he sensed a change of mood. "You have to forgive me," said Carew, returning to his familiar brusque facade. "I came across him before he joined up, that's all it is. First time I came down into Trace, I was doing a piece on the persistence of feudalism in the politics of the country. That's all it was, you know: feudalism in a modern guise. The patrician land-owners were the regional power brokers and they had things pretty much their own way, reporting upwards to the monarchy and keeping the Church and the Army in line with the judicious application of cash. There were all sorts of vested interests and one of them, on the fringes, was the Domenech family. Merc saw what was coming far sooner than most and so, to protect himself, he was in at the start of the UPP. I'm not saying he's a villain, or anything. It's just that he tries harder - he pushes people harder - because he has his background against him. He knows some people see him as having come across from the other side. It would have been a good story if the war hadn't overtaken it." After a period of silence, Carew continued. "He has race against him, too. This war's a race thing, you see. That's the angle I'm working on at the moment. The ruling classes - the monarchy, the war lords - they're all descendants of the Feorean invasion, two centuries ago. The resentment against that war has lasted all this time and this uprising is the Traians finally counter-attacking. Domenech's a Feorean name so he has that to fight too. It's ironic, really: here are all these Internationals fighting alongside the Traian people, when in racial terms most of them should be on the other side." As usual, Bligh disagreed with Divitt Carew but he chose not to argue. They were close to the bottleneck now, and silence could be the difference between life and death. Carew started to complain about the cold again, but Wink Hawley explained the necessity of quiet and he stopped instantly. As soon as they arrived Carew was asking a string of questions of anyone who would listen, including Captain Elliam, who seemed flattered by the attention. "Please, this cannot be attributed to me by name," he kept saying, "but I can tell you this much ... " There was more gunfire from the 34th LAs that night than Bligh had known since they had first arrived in the hills. A couple of Internationals even set out just before dawn to let off a mortar attack from the heart of no-man's land. No one admitted to Carew that this was not the normal run of things, and that the pre-dawn sortie had cut their stock of mortar bombs by a third. Bligh tried to sleep during the middle of the next day, but occasional salvoes of gunfire prevented him. At that point he resolved to give Divitt Carew a real taste of hill warfare. Leaving the dug-out, he found Bernie Rayner and said, "I'm going to take Divitt on patrol tonight, if that's acceptable." Rayner asked him what he was planning and promised he would make all the arrangements. Carew was squatting by the brazier in one of the watch-posts, questioning Sadiq Phelim about the loss of his two fingers in the grenade incident in Anasty. Bligh chewed at some oat bread and thought of what Carew had been saying before. After a time, he said, "Divitt, you talk about the war as if it's not a real, living thing: you say it's a racket, you say it's driven by greed and envy, you say it's a racial conflict. Even you can't be so cynical that you can't see the passion that is driving the people on. You must see that the class struggle is a war of ideals, it's - " "You're rationalising it all after the event, Bligh. This thing found an echo in you and now you're trying to justify it to yourself. You have a vested interest just like everyone else. No, let me explain - it's my job to have misguided theories and dump them on anyone who'd listen, after all. "So what is it that makes young Bligh X want to fight in the Traian revolution? Maybe it's his upbringing. Yes - his struggle with the Jahvean Brotherhood has inflicted deep wounds in his mind, wounds that are so severe he has spent his adult life unable to commit himself to anything or anyone. Am I on the right track, eh?" Bligh said nothing. He glanced at Sadiq, who shrugged but also remained silent. "Now you've got something you believe in, haven't you? Or at least you think you do, although you're not so well versed in the political ideologies people would say were at stake here. The war has found the place where your Jahveism used to reside - that's it, I'm sure - you've found a new source of faith, Bligh. The war is your new religion!" Bligh had stopped feeling awkward as it became clear that Carew was allowing his fantasy to become wilder and wilder. "Divitt," he said, in reply. "I've just remembered: Captain Elliam has asked that you come out on patrol with me tonight. He says it will give you a first-hand experience about which to write. Sadiq, will you come?" He resisted the temptation to laugh at the horror in Carew's expression. He imagined the journalist running through every excuse he could think of and finding none that would sound plausible. "We'll meet at dusk, okay?" |
| They left the trench an hour after Twilights. The night was dark and there was a light mist in the air. Bligh felt strangely calm, but he knew that before long the wall of pressure would rush up inside his head and swamp his senses, as it always did when he set foot in no-man's land. Divitt Carew had been waiting nervously in the watch-post with Sadiq and Sandy Brigg when Bligh arrived. He watched as the three soldiers smeared their bayonets with trench-mud. "Give the buggers blood poisoning," he said, and they had agreed although the real reason was to prevent the giveaway flash of moonlight or flare on clean metal. Now, passing through a gap in the wire, Bligh whispered to Carew, "If I die in this war, will you promise me you'll look after Madeleine?" Carew looked at him and said slowly, "Bugger off, Bligh." Sadiq and Sandy were already dim blurs in the darkness, although only a few yards ahead. They descended the slope below the trench, Bligh clutching his rifle to his chest and forever testing the safety catch with his thumb. As he had expected, the tension rose up as the ground levelled out in no-man's land. He felt exposed. His senses felt muddled and cloudy, just when he needed them to be at their sharpest. Sadiq and Sandy moved on in front and Bligh kept track of them as he made sure Carew did not get lost in the dark. He wondered how the journalist would respond if they came across an enemy patrol. "Come on," he hissed, taking Carew by the arm and hurrying him along. "Lets stick closer to the others." He felt as though he was being watched, as though the night was full of prying eyes that were marking him out - Bligh, and Bligh alone - and just waiting for him to make one fatal error. Eventually they reached a position where the ground began to rise sharply. Bligh could sense the hillside rearing up above them. With a series of gestures, he indicated that Sadiq and Sandy should stay here, while he and Carew proceeded on hands and knees. They crawled, inch by inch, up the slope, pausing at each dislodged stone. Eventually, they made out voices. Someone said something about a news-sheet story of the fighting on the plain and another said that news stories were always lies. There was general agreement at that. By Bligh's side, Carew had stopped. Bligh reached out and pushed him, then crawled farther up and tried to drag the shaking journalist. Probably scared that they would be detected if he resisted, Carew started to crawl again. They reached a lip of the slope, and suddenly Bligh could see into the trench, the soldiers illuminated by stumps of candles and the red glow of their brazier. He glanced at Carew and as he did so he tumbled forward into the trench in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. He wished he could see Carew's face, as the 'enemy' soldiers let out a roar of greeting and leapt up to haul him down alongside Bligh. In a moment, Sadiq and Sandy had come up to join them and eventually they calmed down. Divitt Carew was furious. He did not think it at all funny that instead of leading him over to the enemy trench they had led him a hundred yards up the valley to the next LA Company on the Line. When Bligh had stopped laughing, he was able to see just how angry Carew was and that calmed him down even more. He thought of excuses, of the need to relieve the tensions of trench life - this little episode would be repeated over and over for the rest of the war, he felt sure - but he knew they were all inadequate. In the end, he just clapped Carew on the back and said quietly in his ear, "I'm sorry, Divitt," but somehow he did not think that was enough. The affair was not mentioned the next day and then Carew left with the supplies run and Bligh felt gloomier than he had in the entire war. |
| Eighteen days on, Bligh was ready for his leave in Comeras. Winter had closed in remorselessly on Pigeon Ravine. The fogs had become less frequent but they had been replaced by occasional storms of fine, dry snow and the nights were so cold it was not uncommon for a frost to form on the clothes of a soldier on watch. Illness was a common feature of the trenches, but now the rheumatic fevers, the gastro-enteritis, the dysentery, had been replaced by frost-bite and kidney chills and the ever-present tuberculosis. The illness, the covering for sick colleagues, the boredom and the hunger, meant nerves were always at full stretch. Arguments over the most trivial items were frequent and at one point Bligh was not on talking terms with Bernie Rayner, Aqbar Emmett and Sandy Brigg, all at the same time. The prospect of leave had a magical effect and grudges were put aside in anticipation of the day to come. They marched out with the supplies run just after midnight and they reached Comeras in the early hours of the morning. Bligh bore Madeleine's ritual bathing of him with resignation. He was tired and he had had enough of arguing in the past fortnight. He wished she could simply see it from his side, but he stayed quiet and let her scrub him and pour scented water over him and pick the lice from their hiding places in the seams of his clothing. Normally Bligh paid little attention to Madeleine's chatter when he came back on leave, but tonight she mentioned Divitt Carew's return from Pigeon Ravine and he asked her how the journalist had seemed. "He was angry, I think," she said. "Although you can never really tell with him. You argued, didn't you? He said ... he said you were a young fool who didn't know how to repay friendship, but he wouldn't explain. What did happen?" "Just a practical joke at Divitt's expense, nothing more." He stood meekly as Madeleine dried him, but turned away when she started to kiss him. "I'm sorry," he said. He wanted her like mad, but he was angry at having to go through this meticulous grooming session and so, childishly, he did not want to succumb to her yet. "I've had a hard time," he said. "I'm tired." He dreamt that he was adrift inside his own skull. He was sitting awake, in Madeleine's little room, but his mind was floating in some dimensionless chasm and his senses seemed remote. It was dark but his eyes had adjusted and he could see everything in great detail. Beside him, Madeleine lay on her back, her breasts exposed to the night air where his movement had dragged the blankets aside, her nipples dark and shrivelled with the cold. He saw all this and yet he didn't, because it was not him looking but someone else - something else - and he was a mere passenger, receiving the information but simultaneously detached from it all. If this was a dream, he thought, then it was the most peculiar dream he had ever had. He drifted and focused again and Madeleine was awake and his fingers were probing her roughly. She moaned softly and eased her legs farther apart and whatever was controlling his body made him kiss her breasts, her shoulder, her armpit. He felt scared, but he did not feel inclined to do anything about it. His head was filled with a tremendous roar, like the wind in the hills, or a train on its tracks. Her thigh was pressed hard against his own, her shoulder grinding against his collar bone. Her hand started to run over his hip, his belly, his crotch, lingering for a second here, a second there, but always moving, moving. She turned onto her side and he dragged her leg up over his hip and he entered her and the roaring grew louder and Bligh, himself, grew ever more distant. When he found his way back to his senses, he was outside, alone, running naked through the streets of Comeras. Somewhere in the distance, the war rumbled on and lining the pavement there were thick knots of people, dressed in the ragged clothing of the war, their bodies shrunken and emaciated. Their eyes bulged from hollow faces and glinted in the moonlight, all fixed on Bligh as he ran. He sensed the chill of the night on his naked skin, but he was remote from all that and it did not seem to matter. All he could do was run, his feet getting bruised and broken on the rough cobbles. Someone cheered, and soon the sound was taken up by everyone watching. Bligh's breath grew ragged, desperate, and he wondered where Madeleine was - where was her room? - and then he realised that he was enjoying this sensation far too much, this feeling that he was a passenger in his own body and that nothing mattered for him any more. The feeling that he had been taken over by some magnificent presence. The roar of the crowd swirled around him - within him - and suddenly he struggled to pull himself clear, to reassert himself. He stumbled on the street and the roar of the crowd faltered. He sensed the power he had over these pitiful people and it scared him and that gave him the strength to pull away and he felt himself rising clear, recovering his senses, and he was sitting awake in Madeleine's narrow bed and she was lying by his side. "Thank you," she whispered, before settling down with her hand on his hip, her forearm across his crotch. "For what?" he wanted to ask, but did not dare. |
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'"I am innocent," said Stone, to the Fool. "They merely talk to me."' - The Book of the World, ch.9, v.68. |
| Bligh muddied his bayonet and then wiped his hands clean. He had already loaded his special clip, holding cartridges that had the unmarked look which set them apart from the refills which were more likely to jam in the breech. He had not anticipated feeling so scared for an assault on a deserted trench. Overhead, a crag falcon cut across the darkening sky, its steely grey plumage giving it the appearance of a living blade. Bligh watched it head down the valley and within seconds it was gone. Perhaps it was Elliam's caution that was transmitting itself and being transformed into the tension of the soldiers. The Captain was treating this as a full-scale assault, whereas any other might simply have wandered over with a few men to take the trench in daylight. One Section of twenty men was to stay behind in their own trench. Another of thirty would hold positions in no-man's land, while the remaining thirty would go ahead into the enemy trench and clear it of booby-traps and anti-personnel mines. When daylight arrived, scouting parties would work their way up over the hill in order to determine exactly how far the Army had retreated. The first thirty men had already moved out and Bligh waited with his Section, chatting idly with Wink Hawley and Bernie Rayner. "Okay," said Ott Colomman, who was leading the Section. "Time to move." They advanced slowly across no-man's land. Bligh was alert to every sound, every smell on the air. Again, he felt the unnerving sensation that the night was watching him, and as the wind whistled through the valley he was overcome for a moment by images from his dream: the people in the street, bare stones under his feet, the roar of the crowd. He felt himself drifting away from his senses and it was as if his body was operating without guidance. He snapped himself back to attention immediately. It felt as if they took most of the night to reach the little green stream in the cleft of the valley, but Bligh knew it was no more than twenty minutes. They clambered across dry rocks and then spread out and waited. The silence was terrible once they stopped moving, and at each slight sound Bligh expected a sudden barrage of gunfire. After a time the enemy trench was picked out by the glow of candle and lamp light from within and Bligh knew that the advance Section was in occupation. The rest of the wait in no-man's land seemed interminable, but it did not matter any more. Bligh wondered what would become of the 34th. They were certain to be moved elsewhere, now that the Line had shifted. He realised that he would miss Pigeon Ravine. At some point in the night Bligh's Section moved in to the occupied trenches. A number of crude booby-traps had been found and cleared, but it was still important to be wary. Bligh felt bemused, standing in this trench with its perfectly revetted walls and neat dug-out bunkers. This, he felt, must be the standard to which all trench diggers aspire. It put their own defences to shame. The immediate problem was that the defences faced the wrong way. A high parapet shielded them from the valley, with loopholes at precise intervals along the trench. The parados, to the rear, was a gently sloping ridge of debris left over from the digging of the trench. It would afford the 34th little protection if the Army decided to regain the position. Already, a number of men were trying to improve these defences, but the sandbags of the parapet were too tightly packed to be easily dismantled and the ground itself, where it was not bedrock, was frozen hard. Bligh was out of the trench when the trap was sprung. As the sky began to lighten, he spotted Wink Hawley hovering by the wire and there was something about his attitude which made Bligh nervous. He scrambled up, glad of a break from the endless job of shifting rocks and sandbags. "What's up?" he said, as he came to stand with Hawley. It was hard to believe that it was a mere twenty-four hours since Bligh had been standing guard and Sadiq had come back from his patrol. "Surely you can sense it?" said Wink. "I thought you were sensitive to ... " Bligh felt awkward. "I'm no different to anyone else," he said defensively. "What do you mean?" "It's ... it's in the air. The spirits aren't settled, over here. They're flitting about like winter midges. They make me dizzy." As if to prove this, Wink clutched at Bligh's arm to steady himself. "It's just battle fear," said Bligh. He turned away from Wink, as if to return to his work, and instantly there was a flash and a muffled boom from farther up the trench. They flung themselves to the ground, finding cover on the valley side of the parapet. Three more blasts followed, clouds of smoke and dust marking the mines' explosions at regular intervals along the defences. As angry, bemused voices rose from the trench, heavy cracks of enemy gunfire started up and another mighty explosion shook the ground. Bligh peered over the sandbags and saw the hillside above them sizzling with the muzzle flashes of Army rifles. Hand grenades joined the mêlée and then the tinny clatter of trench mortars. With a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, Bligh saw how carefully the range had been determined, mortar bombs and grenades dropping with frightening precision to within a few yards of the trench. All around them, the trap that they had so dumbly entered was closing up. He aimed a few shots up to where the muzzle-flashes were most dense and then paused to reach down and give Sadiq a helping tug to get him over the parapet and into cover. At first, the Army seemed content to hold back and pick off as many of the LA soldiers as they could without risking themselves in open territory. As he watched from his position on the blind side of the parapet, Bligh saw Roca Fesh fall, clutching at his chest, he saw Aqbar Emmett flailing about, his face torn open by shrapnel. He saw others, too, falling in the confusion of the assault. Eventually he felt someone tugging at his shoulder and he turned and Wink Hawley was gesturing frantically that they must retreat. For a moment, Bligh thought that he should stay and provide some kind of covering fire but then a grenade overshot the trench and landed nearby, the vivid red glare of the explosion making him momentarily flash-blind, its heat and pressure wave pressing tingling, sensuous fingers to his face and neck. The blast brought him to his senses and he scrambled to his feet and ran for all he was worth, down the slope and across the rough ground of the valley bottom. The stream soaked him to the knees and for the last part of his terrified retreat his boots were heavy with its icy water. And all the time, as he ran, he thought of how he had been saved by Wink and his ghosts. "How many more are coming?" demanded Captain Elliam, over and over, of each soldier as he dropped back into the trench. Eventually one of them - Wink Hawley - answered. "Friend, I'm the last," he said quietly. Bligh looked around and realised that they must have lost thirty or more men in the ambush. He did not have long to dwell on the matter, as he realised that the sounds of enemy fire were drawing closer. He struggled back to his feet and dragged his rifle up to aim through the nearest available loophole in the LA's meagre parapet. In the dawn shadows he saw movement in the valley bottom and in a terrible panic he fumbled a fresh clip into his rifle and then began to fire on the advancing soldiers. He could see their neat green uniforms with gleaming buttons and buckles. He could see their faces, their expressions of rage and fear and sheer desperation, and in the occasional lulls he could not believe that he was here, shooting at them, trying to kill them. It seemed unreal. Somehow, they held the Army off until daylight. In the sharp winter sunshine it was impossible for the advancing soldiers to find cover and soon those that were able retreated across the valley, dragging the wounded, abandoning the dead to the rats and the vultures. Bligh remained at his position until long after the retreat was over. He did not know what else he could do. |
| By mid-day it was clear that the Army would not attack again until night-fall at the soonest. "Where's my runner?" demanded Captain Elliam irritably, striding along the trench and examining the features of everyone he found. "Where's my runner?" The Captain had worked his way through three bottles of wine that morning. "Where's my runner?" Eventually, Bernie Rayner explained that his runner had been lost in the fighting. "Lost?" said Elliam. "What do you mean 'lost'?" He was not making it any easier on his troops. Bligh pulled himself to his feet and went over. "You need a runner, Friend." Rayner glanced at him gratefully. "We need a message," he said to the Captain. Elliam took a pad and pencil from his jacket and spent several minutes trying to compose a report, but finally he gave up and instructed Rayner to do it. "Tell them what happened," he said, wearily. "Tell them our position and request reinforcement by tonight. Tell them ... tell them that I am entirely to blame." As Elliam wandered away, Rayner turned and said, "You're a good man, Bligh." In his smooth handwriting he wrote a brief note: '34th LA to Command: Lost 33 men in ambush, 4 injured and need evacuation. Request immediate reinforcement as Army advance imminent at nightfall. BR for Cap. Elliam.' He folded the note and wrote on it the name, 'Captain MW Domenech, Command, Comeras'. "You'll have to go over the hill," he said. "They'll have the bottleneck covered." Bligh took the note and tucked it into a pocket. Merc Domenech, again. He wondered why he kept coming across the man - it was as if their fates had become interlinked. He stopped himself, disturbed at how battle fatigue seemed to be affecting him. He struggled out of the trench and made for the track up the mountain side. Within seconds there were two rifle reports from across Pigeon Ravine, but he barely flinched. Such distant shots would only hit him by remote chance and he could not stir himself enough to care about such a possibility. He reached the track and started to climb. Paths like this one zig-zagged all over the Ephedreal Hills, covering ground that looked at first impassable. The mountain goats would use these paths, if any survived. Once, they would have been used by the goat-herds too. As the ravine fell away behind him - and with it the braziers and body heat of the trench - the cold closed in. The sky was a clear, pale blue now, and it seemed to be drawing what heat there was from the ground, leaving only frost and little patches of dry snow. There was no vegetation here, so close to the Line. It had all been scavenged long before to feed the braziers. These days, fuel parties would journey for as long as an hour, just to find supplies. He had not been climbing for long before the fatigue rose up and threatened to swamp him. He had not slept in a day and a half, and even then, back in Madeleine's bed, it had been broken by his vivid, disturbing dreams. Eventually the track petered out and he had to find his way by keeping the rounded summit of the opposite, Army-held hill behind his back. This course led him towards a shoulder of his own hill; from there he would drop and join the supplies road to Comeras. He walked up the slope, scrambled over the treacherous footholds of a scree, pulled himself wearily over a chest high disjoint in the rock. He walked on, growing more and more tired. The cold did not matter any more. What did was the ache in his chest, the pain of each deep breath of hill air, the weight of his rifle across his shoulder and back. His head was pounding, pressure building up relentlessly as if his skull was about to burst. Ahead, the crest of the hill seemed as distant as ever. He wondered why he was continuing. It was ludicrous to think he could get to Comeras, break through the disorganisation of Command and mobilise reinforcements to get to Pigeon Ravine by nightfall. He might as well just sit down for a while, recover his breath. Maybe he would even make better time if he rested and set out afresh. He did not know if that made sense, he did not care any more. He felt as if he was about to fall apart. He started to search for a sheltered spot where he could break his journey. It was then that he spotted the stone cat. It was resting nearby in a slight hollow, its tail flicking idly as if pulled by a puppeteer's wires. It must have measured six feet from head to haunch, its grey-brown, lightly specked body a mosaic of muscle, the embodiment of sheer animal power. Its neck was as thick as its head, the black folds of its lips drooped over a set of even, yellow teeth, and its tiny dark eyes stared at him from beneath the bulging ridge of its brow. He should have been terrified, to come to stand within a few yards of such a creature, but strangely he was not. He stared back and for minutes the two were locked together by their gaze. Gradually, Bligh began to see the creature as it really was: the fur matted along its flanks, mud spread up over its hind quarters, its bones jutting from a pitifully malnourished body. He felt its pain, its anguish at being reduced to such a condition. He felt the hunger growl in his belly and then he spotted a dark grey weal on the animal's side, the scar tissue where a bullet or a lump of shrapnel had torn its flesh. Suddenly he felt that he could see the world as it was seen by this beast, he could smell it, taste it ... he felt dizzy, felt a rushing sensation, and then he was looking back at himself and he could see his own wretched condition, the way his large frame now jutted awkwardly from a wasted, weary body, mud matting his clothes, eyes staring and wild. Everything was so sharp, all of a sudden. He stretched and felt the pulling pain as the shrapnel buried in his flank reminded him of its presence. He remembered the feeling of power, running across a valley bottom in the dead of night on the scent of a mountain goat. He remembered the sudden flash and boom and the sensation of flying through the air and landing in a heap, thinking he must be dead and then that awful, terrifying feeling that one side of his body was flapping open and something hard and alien was embedded in the muscle. Up above, he spotted a lammergeier - he thought of it as the bird with fire for a face - hanging onto a thermal, too distant for the man to see. He tasted the air, the scent of the man called Bligh, and his stomach growled in protest. He had not eaten in days, and then only hibernating insects he had scraped from the trunk of a dead tree. He stood, despite the lightning bolt of pain from his scar. He sensed the power still within his body and he knew that he could kill this man in an instant. He bared his teeth and Bligh felt that dizzy, rushing sensation again and he was back in his own body, stumbling, falling to the ground. He started to cry and through his tears he saw the stone cat as he had first seen it, a mighty beast of the hills, lord of its stony environment. And then, as if nothing had happened, the stone cat turned and ambled away, its shoulders rolling arrogantly, its tail still flicking. Within seconds it was lost to his sight. He tried to think about what had just taken place, but he found that he was unable. He could not even begin to understand it, the exchange, the momentary sense of communication, of power, of transcendence. He thought of the men back in Pigeon Ravine. They were depending on him. He pulled himself to his feet and resumed his trek. The crest of the hill seemed closer now, and his body no longer complained so loudly. He felt that he could make it, deliver his message. He had to. |
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