[Imperial Guard 01] - Fifteen Hours

by Mitchel Scanlon - (ebook by Undead)

  He had been moving slowly now for hours.

  Crawling on his belly, painted from head to hind claws in grey clay with the long kustom barrel of his blasta wrapped in layers of grey sacking, he crept forward a centimetre at a time through the frozen mud of what the humies called no-man’s land. Slow, like a slaver hunting a squig with a grabba stik, he moved an inch and then waited. He moved an inch and then waited. He moved an inch then and waited. Over and over again, always careful in case his prey was watching.

  Suddenly, seeing a glint in the distance ahead of him, he stopped. Sure one of the humies’ spotters must have seen him, he tensed, expecting at any moment to feel the pain from a lasbeam or hear the sound of a shot, but neither of them came. He remained motionless. Until, as the minutes passed and he became convinced he was none the worse for wear, his journey began again. Moving slowly, inch by inch, across the frozen mud toward his destination.

  Finally, perhaps halfway across no-man’s land, he reached the lip of a shallow shell crater. For a moment he looked at it. Then, responding to some inner instinct he could have never named, he crawled inside. Out of sight now, he moved more quickly, crawling up the opposite slope of the crater to look through the sights of his blasta in search of a target. At first, nothing. Then he saw a head in a fur-shrouded helmet peeking out of a hole in the ground some way away and he knew the instinct had been right. He had found his kill.

  Breathing through his nose, careful not to make any sudden moves that might spook his prey, he aimed at it through his sights, his finger tightening incrementally on the blasta’s trigger. As he did, he felt a warm sensation rush through his head as something like a clear and coherent thought occurred to him.

  If he made this shot, the boss would be pleased…

  “You shouldn’t take it too much to heart what Davir said before, new fish,” Bulaven said. “He didn’t mean anything by it. It is just his way is all.”

  Bulaven was standing on watch on the firing step, looking out into no-man’s land with Larn beside him. Meanwhile, in the firing trench below them, the other men were mostly quiet. Wrapped in an extra greatcoat in place of a blanket, his muffler pulled forward to cover most of his face, Davir lay dozing with his back against some spare flamer canisters. Beside him, Scholar sat silently reading from the tattered pages of a battered and obviously well-used book. Only Zeebers was making anything much in the way of noise. Sitting on the trench floor, he could be seen sharpening the blade of his entrenching tool with a whetstone, the low scraping sound of the stone running over the metal added a malicious counterpoint to the occasional hostile glances he periodically made in Larn’s direction.

  “Yes, that is a good trick, new fish,” Bulaven said, noticing that Larn was looking at Zeebers. “If you sharpen the blade of your entrenching tool it makes a good weapon if you find yourself in hand-to-hand with an ork. Better than a bayonet, anyway. Of course, you need to be careful you don’t sharpen the edges of the spade head too fine. Otherwise, it can split if you actually have to dig the earth with it.”

  “Does it happen a lot?” Larn asked him, giving an involuntary shiver as he remembered his earlier encounter with the gretchin. “Going hand-to-hand with the orks, I mean?”

  “Not so much if we can help it,” Bulaven said, tapping the imposing bulk of the heavy flamer by his side. “For myself, when it comes to killing orks I prefer to use my friend here. Sometimes though, the orks get in close and it can’t be helped. Then you just have to kill them with laspistols, knives, spade heads: whatever comes to hand. But you don’t need to worry too much about that, new fish. Stay close to me, Scholar and Davir, and you’ll be all right.”

  “You will forgive me, Bulaven,” Larn said to the big man. “But it didn’t sound too much like that when you were talking before.”

  “Ach, I told you: you shouldn’t worry about that, new fish,” Bulaven said. “As I say, Davir didn’t mean too much by it. It is simply his manner to sound off from time to time, and you just happened to get in his way. Personally, I think it is because he is shortarse. He likes to talk a lot to make himself seem important. Trust me, you should just put it from your mind as though it never happened.”

  “And the fifteen hours?” Larn said quietly. “What about that?”

  In reply Bulaven fell silent for a moment, his broad and kindly features abruptly given over to an almost pensive brooding. Until, at length, he spoke once more.

  “Sometimes, it is better not to think too much on such things, new fish,” he sighed. “Sometimes, it is better just to have faith.”

  “Faith?” Larn asked. “You mean in the Emperor?”

  “Yes. No. Perhaps,” Bulaven said, his words growing as slow and thoughtful as his expression. “I don’t know, new fish. I used to believe in so many things back when I first became a Guardsman. I believed in the generals. I believed in the commissars. Most of all, I believed in the Emperor. Now, I certainly don’t believe in the first two anymore. And as for the Emperor? Sometimes it is hard to see His grace among all this carnage. But a man must have faith in something. And so, yes, I still believe in the Emperor. I believe in Him. And I believe in Sergeant Chelkar. Those are the two articles of my faith, such as they are.”

  “But there is something else, new fish,” he continued. “Something just as important as faith. Hope. Davir is wrong about that, you see. A man must have hope, or he might as well not be alive. It is as important as the air we breathe. So, no matter how bad things get, new fish — no matter how bleak they seem — you must remember not to give up hope. Trust me, if you can hold on to your hope, everything will be all right.”

  With that, Bulaven fell silent again and Larn found himself remembering his talk with his father in the farmhouse cellar on his last night at home. Trust to the Emperor, his father had told him then. And, now, Bulaven had told him to trust to hope. Though in his heart he knew them both to be good pieces of advice, as he looked out at the desolate and foreboding landscape around him they seemed of little comfort.

  A single shot rang out, the sound of it unnaturally loud after the silence. Acting on reflex Larn jumped back from the firing step in search of cover, only to fall backwards into the trench to land on top of Davir, causing the stocky runt to awaken in a flurry of profanities.

  “Marshal Kerchan’s bloody arse!” Davir cursed as he pushed Larn away. “Can’t a man get any sleep around here without some idiot jumping on top of him with two boots first! What, you have mistaken me for your mother, new fish, and you wanted a cuddle? Get the hell off me!”

  “There was a shot, Davir,” Bulaven said, still standing on the firing step, head crouched to peer cautiously over the trench parapet. “From out in no-man’s land. A sniper, I think. That is what the new fish was reacting to.”

  “He can react to it all he wants so long as he doesn’t keep leaping on me,” Davir said, grabbing his lasgun and stepping up to the firing step beside Bulaven to gaze wolfishly into no-man’s land. “So. A sniper, eh? Scholar, hand me your field glasses and we will see if we can find him.”

  Soon, Scholar and Zeebers had joined Davir and Bulaven on the firing step. Then, handing the field glasses to Davir, Scholar turned to look over his shoulder at Larn standing at the bottom of the trench behind him.

  “You should come up and watch this, new fish,” Scholar said. “It is important you learn how to deal with a sniper.”

  Taking his place on the step next to Scholar, Larn watched as the other men stared intently into no-man’s land, scanning for anything out of place. Until, indicating a shell crater perhaps three hundred metres away from their trench, Davir’s wolfish smile became a broad grin of delight.

  “There,” he said. “I see him. Keep your heads down — the little gretch bastard is already looking for his next shot. He’s not the brightest of sparks, however. He may have painted himself grey to blend in with the mud, but apparently, nobody told him a sniper’s not supposed to fire twice from the same position.”

  As th
ough in response another shot rang out, raising a clod of earth as the bullet struck the ground three metres to the left of the trench.

  “Ha! He’s not much a shot either,” Davir said, handing the field glasses to Bulaven beside him. “Really, I think we should consider sending a letter of complaint to the orks about the quality of the gretchin they choose for sniper duty. This one is so poor a marksman, killing him seems almost a waste of a lasblast.”

  “It is another one of the hazards here, new fish,” Scholar said to Larn. “Every now and again the orks will equip a particularly level-headed gretchin with a long rifle and send him out into no-man’s land to act as a sniper. Of course, gretchin are hardly renowned for their marksmanship, so mostly they are just a nuisance. But we have to take them out, all the same. Which unfortunately means that one of us here will have to act as bait.”

  “I vote for the new fish,” Zeebers said, sneering at him. “He is expendable, after all, and you never known when a gretch might get lucky.”

  “Very kind of you to volunteer him,” Davir said, his las-gun at his shoulder as he sighted in on the shell crater. “Especially since, if memory serves, it is actually your turn to act as sniper bait. Now shut your stinkhole and get out there. And make sure you give the gretch plenty of opportunity to shoot at you. I want a clear view of him so I can be sure of a clean kill.”

  Muttering darkly under his breath, Zeebers grabbed his lasgun and put his hands on the top of the trench wall to the side of him. Then, giving Larn a last poisonous glare, he pulled himself up out of the trench and jumped into the open. The moment his feet hit the ground he was off and running, zigzagging with his body half-crouched as he sprinted across open ground to the next nearest firing trench and threw himself inside to safety.

  “No,” said Davir, still peering through his sights towards the shell crater. “He is still in cover. Maybe our friend is smarter than we think. Or perhaps he simply finds Zeebers to be a rather scrawny and uninspiring target. Either way, I haven’t got a shot yet.”

  “Again, Zeebers!” Scholar yelled, waving toward the next trench.

  Discontent clearly visible on every line of his face even from a distance, Zeebers leapt from the trench again and ran zigzag once more toward the next trench in line.

  “He’s moving,” Bulaven said, gazing through the field glasses towards the crater. “Looks like he’s taken the bait.”

  “Quiet,” Davir hissed. “You are putting me off.” Then, exhaling slowly, he pulled the trigger, producing a single sharp crack as the lasgun fired.

  “You got him!” Bulaven said, passing the field glasses to Larn with a smile of exultation. “Look, new fish. You see that? He got him.”

  “Of course I got him,” Davir said. Then, as he clicked the firing control switch on his lasgun to safe, the wolfish smile returned. “Though it was a remarkably fine shot, even if I do say so myself.”

  Gazing through the field glasses Larn looked toward the shell crater, at first unable to distinguish any sign of the gretchin in the grey landscape. Then, he saw it: a small red stain lying across a grey rock at the lip of the crater. Abruptly, adjusting the magnification of the field glasses to take a closer look, Larn realised he had been mistaken. What he thought was a rock was in fact the gretchin’s head, the red stain being the contents of the creature’s brains as they oozed through the hole in its ruptured skull and dribbled towards the ground. The creature was dead, the only sign of its passing a smear of red against the all-encompassing greyness of the world around it. A bright splash of colour in the midst of a wasteland.

  “Did you see how Zeebers did it, new fish?” Bulaven asked him. “Did you see how he kept crouched and ran zigzag from one trench to the next, so he wouldn’t give the gretch too much of a target?”

  “Yes, I saw it,” Larn said, sensing some unwelcome portent in the concern evident in the big man’s manner. It was almost as though Bulaven was warning him about something. “But, why do you ask?”

  “Why do you think, new fish?” Davir grunted. “Because, now Zeebers has been kind enough to show you how it is done, next time we have a sniper it is your turn to act as bait.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  16:33 hours Central Broucheroc Time

  A Daily Dose of Hell — Further Musings on the Frontline — Friendly Fire — Intimations of an Unwelcome Burial — Another Consultation with Medical Officer Svenk — Corporal Grishen and Certain Failures in Communications — Sergeant Chelkar Finds a Way to Make his Point

  “Battery, make ready!” he heard Sergeant Dumat’s voice shouting in his earpiece. “Gun crews remove camo-covers and make ready to open the breech!”

  As though an army of quiescent insects had been provoked into action, in an instant the artillery park became a nest of activity. Everywhere, gun crews rushed to their posts to pull away camouflaged tarpaulins and make ready for firing. Watching as the camo-covers were discarded to reveal the huge and gleaming bores of the dozen Hellbreaker class cannons under his command, Captain Alvard Valerius Meran allowed himself a moment of pleasure as he saw the extra firing drills he had ordered for his men had worked. There was no sign of slackness, ill discipline or confusion in the workings of the gun crews. The entire battery operated with all the smooth efficiency of a single, finely tuned, well-oiled machine.

  “Load ordnance.” Sergeant Dumat yelled, the strident tones of the command carried to the ears of every man in the battery through the comm-beads inside the ear-protectors they wore to protect them from the sound of their guns. “High explosive rounds.”

  Standing in the shadow of the burnt-out building that served as his de facto headquarters, Captain Meran watched the four-man loading teams attached to each gun crew as they hurried to disappear into the tarpaulin-covered ammunition stacks beside each gun. A moment later they emerged once more, each loading team gently cradling the shining and deadly weight of a metre long high explosive shell between them. Then, carrying them to their guns, the loaders lifted their shells into the open breeches for the other members of the guns crews to ram them home.

  “Load propellant.”

  Again, delighting at every well-trained movement and flawless action, Meran watched as the loading teams returned to the stacks to fetch the heavy barrel-sized cylindrical sacks of cordite that served as propellant for the cannons. Grunting under the weight, taking even more care with the volatile cordite than they had with the shells, the loading teams lifted the sacks into the guns’ breeches, then retreated to their positions beside the ammunition stacks once more.

  “Close breeches. Set firing trajectories as follows. Horizontal traverse: five degrees twenty-six minutes. Repeat: zero five degrees two six minutes. Vertical elevation: seventy-eight degrees thirty-one minutes. Repeat: seven eight degrees three one minutes. Windage: zero point five degrees. Repeat: zero point five degrees.”

  And so the sergeant’s voice went on, repeating the bearings again as the gun crews worked the wheels and gearings of their guns’ aiming systems to adjust the Hellbreakers to the proper trajectories. Until, their preparations at last completed, the gun crews stepped back from their guns and awaited the firing instruction.

  Yes, Captain Meran thought. Just like a machine. Really, that was a most excellent display of gunmanship. It is a shame no one from Battery Command was here to see it. If they had been, they would have been sure to have given me a commendation.

  Briefly, he wondered whether he should order an extra ration of recaf for the gun crews by way of a reward. Just as swiftly he abandoned the idea. It might set a dangerous precedent to give the men any additional reward for simply doing their duty. No, it would be pleasure enough that they could all go to their beds tonight knowing they had performed their duties with admirable dispatch. Then, noticing his men looking towards him with expectant faces as they awaited the order to fire, Meran made an elaborate show of taking his pocket chronometer from its chain and opening it to check the time. 16:30 hours exactly, he thought with a smile, hand going
to the comm-stud at the collar of his uniform as he make ready to vox the command to Sergeant Dumat to give the order to let loose the guns.

  Time to give the orks their daily dose of hell.

  Perhaps half an hour had passed since they had killed the sniper. Half an hour. Yet still, having returned to the trench in the wake of acting as bait, Zeebers sat sullenly in a corner glaring murderously at Davir and the others. Most of all, he glared at Larn: his eyes full to the brim with hatred and loathing. Not for the first time, Larn found himself wondering how it was the man had taken so badly against him for no apparent reason. Though, given Zeebers’ current demeanour, he thought better of asking him outright why he hated him.

  Elsewhere in the trench, the others had resumed the same positions they had occupied before the sniper’s opening shot. Davir had his back against the spare flamer canisters and was wrapped dozing in an extra greatcoat once more. Scholar had returned to his book. Bulaven was still on the firing step, gazing out into no-man’s land on watch with Larn beside him. Now, with the passing of the brief excitement caused by the sniper, the big man had fallen as quiet as the others.

  So much has changed, Larn thought, finding the brooding silence of the past half-hour had at least given him time to think. A few hours ago I was with Jenks and the others, getting ready to make our first planetary drop and wondering what to expect. Even in our worst nightmares none of us could have thought of this. Certainly, Jenks wouldn’t have expected to die in his chair without even leaving the lander. Any more than Sergeant Ferres would have expected to he killed by a misfiring explosive bolt. The same goes for Hallan, Vorrans and Leden. It is like I remember that old preacher saying one time. You never know what the shape of your death is going to be until it has got you. And, by then, it is already too late to do anything about it.

  Sobered by the thought, shivering against the cold, Larn looked out into no-man’s land and tried to make some sense of how it was he had come to be there. Try as he might he could see no sense in it. No sense in the mistake that had brought him to this place. No sense in the deaths of his friends and comrades. No sense to the fact that it seemed his life was now under a fifteen-hour sentence of death. He could see no sense in it. No sense at all.