by Rod Rees
Reluctantly Gelbfisz opened his eyes to confront this new and terrible reality. He was tired, used up, but he did his best to hide this feeling of despair from his private secretary. ‘Remind me, Brecher, vot is zhe status of zhe enemy?’
‘They have completed the encirclement of the centre of the JAD, Rabbi. We still have control of the Blood Bank but we are surrounded.’
‘Food? Ammunition?’
‘Our supplies of both are now almost exhausted, but these are not the most pressing problem, Rabbi. It seems that the Shades have succeeded in damming the water pipes feeding the centre of the JAD. We estimate that, with the one million non-combatants sheltering in the centre, we will have exhausted our water reserves by this evening.’
Gelbfisz nodded. It was over. The nuJus had fought hard – desperately hard – but, outnumbered four to one by the Shade HimPis and pounded night and day by their mortars, the end – though protracted – had been inevitable. ‘Zhen my orders are simple: ve must fight until ve are no longer capable of fighting unt trust zhat ABBA is in a generous frame of mind mit regards to zhe granting of miracles.’
*
Pobedonostsev lowered his spyglass and smiled a very satisfied smile. ‘It would seem that we have now entered the endgame, General. The nuJu scum are encircled … trapped. It is time to administer the coup de grâce.’
Salah-ad-Din sighed and waited before replying until the noise of the last salvo of artillery had subsided. ‘His HimPerial Majesty is not of a mind to grant the nuJus the opportunity to surrender?’
The reply his question received came in the form of a derisive snort. ‘HimPeror Xolandi read your note with some amusement, General. He was perplexed as to why, when the glorious HimPis of the NoirVillian army have suffered such brutal losses at the hands of these traitorous nuJus, you would wish to spare them. The HimPeror feels that they should be punished for the cruel and underhand tactics they have employed against our troops.’
‘My suggestion that we offer the nuJus an honourable surrender was made simply to spare my soldiers further loss. HimPi casualties are already running at thirty per cent and it is my experience that those with no prospect of salvation – as the nuJus now find themselves – fight hardest. The nuJus have gone underground, inhabiting cellars and bombed-out basements, the rubble providing them with perfect cover when they launch their attacks on my troops. Taking the centre of the JAD from the nuJus will be a savage undertaking and costly in Shade lives.’
‘The HimPeror is becoming impatient.’
‘Impatience, Grand Vizier, is not conducive to the effective prosecution of war.’
‘Criticism of the HimPeror smacks of disloyalty.’
‘Not disloyalty, rather of reality. But if His HimPerial Majesty is displeased with the manner in which I have managed his army, I am willing to step aside to allow a more impetuous commander to take my place.’
The threat was made lightly but it provoked a reaction. ‘No, no, General Salah-ad-Din, you misunderstand. His HimPerial Majesty is not unhappy with the way you are prosecuting the war, he merely wishes it brought to a swift conclusion.’
Salah-ad-Din made a mental note to increase his number of bodyguards. This snake Pobedonostsev knew that his reputation within the army was unassailable and if he was to resign, a great many of his men would take that as a signal that he was making a bid for power. So on the grounds that it was better to have the general inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in, Pobedonostsev would do everything he could to avoid Salah-ad-Din resigning his post. But as dead men couldn’t resign, he was probably already plotting Salah-ad-Din’s assassination.
‘You should understand, Grand Vizier, that we are now engaged in what your friend Heydrich calls the Rattenkrieg … the rat war. I have analysed the battles fought during the Troubles and in Warsaw and I have come to the conclusion that as such wars progress, as the fighting becomes more and more intense, so the ambitions of the attacker shrink. Thus it is with us. When we began our assault our aim was to take the JAD. Two weeks later this was amended such that all our energies were directed to taking the Central District and depriving the nuJus of access to their Blood Bank. And today? Today we are fighting for a street and tomorrow we will be fighting for a courtyard … a corridor … a room. You see, Grand Vizier, our war has become a personal one. No longer is it a war conducted by artillery and steamer but one fought eyeball to eyeball, with fighters blasting at each other from distances of a few feet, grappling, biting, gouging at one another.’
‘HimPeror Xolandi has no interest in your difficulties, General, he merely wishes this war brought to a speedy and triumphant end.’
Salah-ad-Din glanced towards the Grand Vizier. ‘To ensure this it is necessary that the nuJu fighters lay down their weapons, which is why we should offer to spare the nuJu women and children if their fighters surrender.’
‘No,’ said Pobedonostsev firmly, ‘they must all die. We have an opportunity, General, to finally eradicate these nuJu scum … to cleanse the Demi-Monde.’
‘Very well, the cannonade will take two days—’
‘No!’ snapped Pobedonostsev. ‘The final assault must begin immediately: the HimPeror has noted your promise, General Salah-ad-Din, that the JAD will be subdued within forty days, and that promise falls due tomorrow.’
Salah-ad-Din nodded. ‘Then, if you will excuse me, Grand Vizier, I have to make my peace with ABBA. To destroy the nuJus in a single day will require a miracle.’
*
Burlesque and Odette were lying on the floor of a burned-out house that abutted the Portal trying to sneak a peek through a shattered wall at what the SS were doing across the road. Burlesque could hear shouted orders drifting towards him, and from these it was obvious that the StormTroopers were getting themselves ready to attack. Soon the Portal’s defenders would be fighting for their lives.
He signalled to Odette that they should pull back to the Portal and then froze. He could hear someone moving around in the room next to the one they were occupying: the SS had obviously sent out a reconnaissance patrol.
Not daring to speak in case he was overheard, Burlesque edged towards the room, unwrapping the strips of sacking from around the breech of the Sten sub-machine gun he had requisitioned from a dead SS StormTrooper as he went. With the whole of the JAD shrouded in a haze of brick dust and powdered plaster it was essential that none of it got into the workings of his gun, otherwise it had an annoying – and potentially fatal – inclination to jam. He gently cocked the weapon and he and Odette eased along the wall towards the room occupied by the SS, doing their best to step carefully to avoid kicking any of the cartridge cases littering the floor. In the JAD people fired at the slightest of sounds.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Burlesque manoeuvred his head around the doorway and then stood stock-still. The sounds he’d been hearing weren’t those of an SS patrol: on the other side of the room was a pig chewing at the putrefied carcass of a man. Burlesque couldn’t believe his eyes. It seemed impossible that a pig could have survived uneaten for so long in a starving JAD, though neither the Shades nor the nuJus being partial to pork might have had something to do with it. All he could think was that it had been the personal property of one of the SS officers, who had been saving it for when times really got tough.
Burlesque’s mouth salivated at the thought of a pork supper and he was just opening his razor knife to deal with the pig when there was a scuffing of boots and a puff of dust. Burlesque dodged back: there was an SS StormTrooper creeping towards the pig, knife in hand. He’d obviously spotted the animal and decided, like Burlesque, that it was ripe for the cooking pot.
Burlesque saw Odette pull a grenade out of the haversack she had slung over her shoulder. In their time fighting together in the Portal they had come to an understanding: Odette did the grenade work – she was stronger than Burlesque and could throw the things further – while Burlesque provided covering fire. The girl tugged the pin from the grenade and then wai
ted … and waited … and waited. Burlesque hated the way she cut it so fucking fine, but, as Odette delighted in telling him, the point was to have the grenade explode on impact otherwise there was a bloody good chance of the SS picking it up and lobbing it straight back at them. He still thought she cut it too fucking close for comfort.
With a grunt, she hurled the grenade through the doorway and Burlesque started blasting. Although his gun, like all Stens, was wildly inaccurate, for close-up killing it was devastatingly effective. He let fly with a full thirty-two-round magazine which sent the StormTrooper tumbling backwards head over heels. He also managed to reduce the pig to pork.
Odette’s grenade exploded. Confined by the thick concrete walls of the room, the explosion was ear-splitting and the amount of dust and smoke it threw up made it impossible to make out what was going on. Not that it made much difference. Burlesque slammed another magazine into the Sten and then leapt forward screaming and yelling as he let fly in the general direction of anywhere.
There had been four StormTroopers making up the patrol, two of them mashed by Odette’s grenade and two – and the pig – blasted to buggery by Burlesque’s Sten. Burlesque didn’t give the four bent and buckled bodies lying on the floor of the room a second look; all his thoughts were on his pork dinner.
*
Lieutenant, or, as he was now, Captain Benedict Arnold was sure his mother would be very proud of him. He had only been a lieutenant for three months but here he was receiving a battlefield promotion granted by Comrade General von Sternberg himself. Of course, Jake Smith getting himself fried alive had a lot to do with his elevation, but then in war one man’s misfortune was generally another man’s luck. And anyway, right now Arnold had more on his mind than Smith’s somewhat premature demise: standing in front of the general, he was feeling less than optimistic about both life and his promotion.
Von Sternberg took a long drag on his cigarette and then began. ‘Now that Captain Smith has, by virtue of his incompetence, seen fit to have himself killed, I am in need of a field commander who is able to prosecute the final attack against the Portal with passion and with imagination. I am of a mind to appoint you, Arnold, but I want to hear from your own lips that you feel yourself imbued with the necessary resolve to perform this task.’
‘I will do everything in my power to take the Portal, Comrade General. Rest assured—’
‘You see, Arnold,’ the general continued as though he hadn’t spoken, ‘the longer these terrorists defy us, the more embarrassing it becomes: embarrassing for the ForthRight, embarrassing for the SS, and, most importantly, embarrassing for me. The Great Leader, in his magnanimity, has provided reinforcements of five hundred men and four field guns, and, as you might imagine, to ask for such assistance is not something I have done lightly: the admission of failure it entails is enormous. To avoid further embarrassment, I have decided to award a bounty of five thousand guineas to the first of our fighters into the citadel and a thousand guineas a man when the Portal falls.’
‘Very generous, Comrade General. I am sure—’
‘Of course, whilst I believe that the carrot is necessary to put the requisite amount of fire in the bellies of our StormTroopers, it is also necessary to employ the stick. You will attack at dawn tomorrow, Arnold. You have one hour to secure the Portal and to eliminate all the gangsters cowering there. Failure to do this will result in your being shot for crimes against the ForthRight.’
Arnold saluted, spun on his heels and left the general’s office, wondering as he did so if the quartermaster had a miracle somewhere in his stores.
*
At the end of a very long and nerve-racking patrol it was a weary Josephine Baker who wandered into the Portal’s Rec Room to try to get a few hours’ sleep. She was welcomed by the delicious smell of roasting pork and to her astonishment saw that Burlesque was barbecuing a butchered pig over the flames of a fire burning in an oil drum in the middle of the room.
Burlesque started. He had obviously been so intent on his cooking that he hadn’t heard Josie arrive. ‘That yous, Miss Josie?’
For a moment Josie thought Burlesque was taking the rise out of her – she wasn’t used to men not digging who she was – but then she realised that camouflaged by a thick coating of dirt and cordite and with her face half-hidden behind the handkerchief fastened around her mouth and nose she wasn’t looking her most glamorous. But then everybody wore a handkerchief steeped in cologne as a face mask now: the stench coming from the dead bodies decorating the JAD – each of them black with feasting flies – was fearful.
‘Yeah, it’s me, Burlesque.’
‘Any news?’
‘Yeah, but none of it good. From what we could see we’re close to being encircled. The way I dig it, the reinforcements the SS have been waiting on have finally arrived.’
Burlesque gave a careless shrug. He seemed more worried about his cooking than he did about the SS. ‘That’s wot Odette an’ me reckon. It’s gonna get ’ot an’ ’orrible real soon. Lose any of your guys?’
‘Just the one. Hancock got deep-sixed near the barricades at the end of Eleazar Street.’ She moved across to the list of those defending the Portal pencilled on the Rec Room wall and put a line through his name. ‘There’s only fourteen of us left now: five Demi-Mondians and nine Real Worlders.’
‘Fuck it; we’ve all gotta die sum time. Come an’ ’ave some pork.’
‘Real pork?’
‘Cors it is. Me an’ Odette found a pig wandering around and requisitioned it. Gimme anovver ten minutes and I’ll be ready to serve it up.’
Josie shook her head in wonderment. Burlesque seemed to be indefatigable, never to tire or to despair. She gave him an appreciative peck on his cheek. ‘You’re one cool cat, Burlesque Bandstand.’
‘Get off, you randy Shade minx, you. Fine fing it’d be if Odette wos to wake up an’ catch you an’ me snogging. She’d ’ave your guts for garters. So why don’t cha make yourself useful an’ get all the lads and lasses up. If we’re gonna be sent to ABBA we might as well do it on a full stomach.’
The ‘lads and lasses’ were sleeping on the floor of the Transfer Room, which, because it was constructed of heavy-gauge steel, had survived the SS artillery fire and the explosion of the arsenal unscathed. Josie prodded them awake with the end of her boot and after a moment’s grumbling they staggered to the Rec Room. There was little left of the happy and confident fighters who had welcomed her when she had first come to the Portal, now their faces were gaunt with fatigue, every wrinkle highlighted by dirt, their eyes were sunken and their hands shaking so much that they struggled to light a cigarette.
Their mood improved when Josie started dishing out scalding hot tea and the pancakes Burlesque had concocted from a mixture of flour, water and pork fat. It was the first hot meal they’d had for a week and a fed soldier was always a happy soldier.
They were on their second helpings when two very grimy soldiers hauling a large ammunition box between them pushed their way into the room. ‘Good evening, everybody: special delivery courtesy of the Norma and Percy Postal Service. Moynahan thought you might be running low on ammunition. Make the most of it, though. It’s the last of the reserves we had up here when the arsenal blew.’
‘What’s the occasion, Norma?’ asked Josie.
‘It’s for a “Welcome to the Portal” party we’re throwing for the SS,’ answered Moynahan as he staggered into the room carrying a box of grenades on his shoulder. ‘My guess is that they’ll be coming at us in the morning, so there’s no point in trying to eke out our ammunition. If we’re gonna give them the turnaround, we’ll have to blast them with all we’ve got.’
The room went silent. This was the announcement all of those holed up in the Portal had been dreading. While they were facing a beaten-up regiment of SS there was a feeling they could survive, but now even that faint hope had gone. All that was left was the certainty of death.
‘How’re we doing with re-establishing the connect
ion codes?’ Norma asked.
A derisive snort from Moynahan. ‘No chance. Simmons fucked them over too good. There are a squillion combinations to try so Hoskins could be sitting up in the Transfer Room until hell freezes over and he’d still never find the right one.’ Moynahan took a long swig of the coffee Burlesque handed him. ‘No, all we can do is carry on fighting for as long as possible and hope that there’s a miracle with our name on it out there.’
‘Fuck ’em,’ said Burlesque loudly. ‘Iffn they come, they come but they ain’t gonna spoil my dinner,’ and with that he started dishing out his roast pork.
*
Moynahan was just digging into his pork when Maria came to sit next to him. ‘I would be most obliged, Dean, if thou wouldst educate me in the operation of this weapon thou callest the M-29.’
Moynahan found it difficult to mask his surprise. Maria had never taken part in the fighting, making herself useful instead by hauling ammunition, cooking and tending to the wounded. Moynahan had never asked why, simply assuming it was something to do with her calling as a Visual Virgin.
‘Are you sure about this, Maria? Isn’t killing against your order’s teachings or something?’
‘Visual Virgins find death abhorrent, Dean, because we see death. Death is a frightful thing and the pain and agony is writ large in a person’s aura.’
‘I suspected as much, Maria, that’s why I never made an issue of it.’
‘I know. Thou hast been most kind to me, Dean, but now, as the end approaches, I understand that such sensitivities are a luxury that can no longer be indulged. This is a fight for survival.’ Maria gave Moynahan a long look, then raised a hand to brush away some of the grime that decorated his nose. ‘I know from thy aura, Dean, of thy love for me and I know that that love is true. Thou art a good man, strong and noble. Thou hast been a faithful and loyal friend and a staunch and steadfast ally.’
She leant forward and kissed Moynahan gently on the lips. ‘I have come to love thee, Dean, though I have resisted this admission, my soul being much tormented that soon I will lose thee. But now I see that such reticence is ill thought. So I offer myself to thee, Dean. I wish thee to free me from my oath of chastity so that I might stand at thy side in these final hours, free of the curse of auralism. I would be proud to call a man such as thee mine.’