“How bad is it, Jaak?” he asked, raising his eyes from the reports to look at the sergeant.
“Bad enough, sir,” Valtys replied, still standing ramrod-straight beside the colonel’s desk as though he thought he was on a parade ground muster. “Five of our sectors report coming under heavy shellfire from the orks. Another two report incidents of massed assaults. Then, we have received something like a hundred different reports from across all sectors of contacts ranging from raiding parties to an increase in the number of gretch snipers and scouts in no-man’s land. Looks like there’s a real shitstorm brewing, colonel, if you pardon my language.”
“Hhh. You are pardoned, Jaak,” Drezlen said, looking up at the non-com’s grizzled face with a quiet amusement born of long familiarity with his ways. “What about Sector Commands Alpha and Gamma? Are they having the same problem with flying faeces?”
“No and I have to admit that’s what put the wind up me, sir. Our neighbouring Sector Commands say they’re having a quiet time of it. Too quiet, if you ask me.”
“As though the orks were planning something, you mean?” Drezlen said, his face serious now as he gave voice to the thought hanging communally in the air between them. “Concentrating their forces here, as though they are about to launch a major offensive?”
“Yes, sir. Course, I know that’s not supposed to happen. I know General HQ say the orks aren’t smart enough to coordinate something like that. But I’ve got a metal pin in me, holding my left knee together from the time an ork shot blew a fist-sized hole in it. Ever since I got it, that pin has always started itching whenever the orks were up to something. And right now it’s itching worse than a red-arsed monkey that’s been sitting in a mound of firebugs.”
“I know what you mean, Jaak,” Drezlen said. “My gut’s the same way. All the same, I wouldn’t want to go to General Pronan asking him to order an alert based on the combined evidence of your pin and my digestion. I’ll need something a bit weightier than that. Get me the collated statistics and summaries for these contact reports ASAP. Then, I’ll go see the general and see if we can get him to take some action.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but the general’s not on site. He still hasn’t returned from the Staff Briefing at General HQ.”
“Spectacular,” Drezlen said, sighing in irritation. “The one time we really need the old man he’s off enjoying flatcakes and recaf with Grand Marshal Kerchan. All right, then. Looks like I’ll have to be the one to put my head in the cudbear’s mouth. Get comms to vox General HQ. Tell them Colonel Drezlen wants to put Sectors 1-10 through to 1-20 on Alert Condition Red.”
“You should try not to take it so much to heart, new fish,” Bulaven had said, going over to join Larn as he sat alone in a corner of the trench. “So, your great-grandfather killed a man and stole his ticket. What of it? It hardly matters now, does it? It was a long time ago, after all, and anyone it might have been important to is long dead by now.”
“It is not as though we meant anything by it, new fish,” Bulaven had said then, once it had become clear Larn was not going to answer him. “We were just talking is all. You have to find some way of passing the time in the trenches. So, sometimes we tell stories and afterwards everyone gives their opinion. You have to understand it is nothing personal.”
“Granted, maybe we should not have been so forthright,” Bulaven had said next, while Larn stared fixedly ahead and refused to look at him. “Your story was important to you, I can see that now. We should have been kinder perhaps.”
“Perhaps you are right, new fish,” Bulaven had said at last. “Perhaps it was a miracle and we are all full of manure. I am not a preacher. I don’t know about such things. But really, new fish, it is making your own life hard on yourself if you just keep sitting there in silence.”
“Ach, leave him, Bulaven,” Davir had said. “All your feeble-fabbling around the new fish is giving me a headache. If he wants to sulk, let him. Emperor knows, it’ll be a damn sight more quiet around here without all his stupid questions.”
Time passed. Sitting alone in his corner of the trench while Zeebers stood on watch and the others played cards, Larn found the heat of his anger had slowly cooled. With it, he became gradually aware of other things, sensations that until then had been masked from him by the intensity of the emotions boiling within him ever since the Vardans had defamed his great-grandfather’s memory and ridiculed his story of the miracle.
Emperor’s tears, but it is cold, Larn thought, suddenly realising he had been sitting in the same spot so long his backside had gone to sleep. Just as he was about to stand and stretch, to move about in the trench in the hope of getting his circulation working, some lingering residue of his anger stopped him.
I get up and move now the others will think I have forgiven them, he thought, hating how childish the thought made him feel and yet at the same time helpless to resist it. It would be like giving in, he thought. Like I was admitting I believed all the nonsense they talked before about my great-grandfather stealing the ticket. Then, his anger re-igniting at the thought the others might think him weak, he resolved to sit where he was in silence a while longer.
Of course it doesn’t really matter what they think, he thought after some further time had passed. It doesn’t matter if they think I have given in. It doesn’t matter whether they think my great-grandfather stole the ticket or murdered anyone. All that matters is that I know those things aren’t true. So long as I know that, they can believe whatever they like. Still, he was not content. Something deep inside him refused to let him move.
They have all been in this place too long, he thought at last. That’s what it is. That is why they see dark motives in everything and can’t accept the fact of miracles. Really, it is not even a matter of forgiving them. I should feel sorry for them. Not angry.
Then, just as he had all but finally summoned the will to swallow his pride and move, Larn heard the sound of a shrill whistle that seemed to come from the direction of the dugouts.
“Ach, at last,” Davir said, as around him the other men began to stand and collect their weapons. “It’s about time. I have been getting so hungry sitting here I was beginning to think about eating Scholar’s boots.”
“Really?” said Scholar mildly, checking to see if he still had his book with him. “And there was perhaps some special reasons you were considering eating my boots rather than your own, Davir?”
“What, you think I should eat my own boots and risk getting frostbite?” Davir said. “No thank you, Scholar. Besides, you have such big feet there would be plenty of boot to go around. Happily though, we seem to have averted that particular catastrophe. Time to get to the barracks and see what culinary pleasures are awaiting us.”
“Come on then, new fish,” Bulaven said, standing over Larn. “If you are last to the mess line there won’t be much left for you.”
“You mean it is meal time?” Larn asked.
“A meal, yes,” Bulaven said. “And a two-hour rest-period as well. They rotate us off the line in groups of ten fireteams at a time. One whistle means it is Barracks Dugout One’s turn. Our turn. Now, come on, new fish. The food will be getting cold.”
“Yes, come on, new fish,” Davir said. “Believe me, you think your day has been bad enough so far? Well, you haven’t tasted Trooper Skench’s cooking yet.”
After so long in the cold of the trench, the interior of Barracks Dugout One seemed warm and inviting to him now. So inviting, in fact, that Larn found he barely even noticed the stifling stench of smoke and stale sweat that permeated the air of the dugout. Inside, a line of Guardsmen had already formed up by the time they arrived. Waiting, with mess tins in their hands, as a lanky rat-faced Vardan trooper with only one arm dolefully served out portions of gruel from a battered and gigantic pot from on top of the stove.
“Ah, the inestimable Skench,” Davir purred as he reached the head of the line. “Tell me, good friend Skench — what delightful delicacy are you attempting to p
oison us with today?”
“Hhh. It’s gruel, Davir,” Skench said sourly. “Why? What does it look like?”
“Between you and me, I wasn’t entirely sure,” Davir said as he watched Skench ladle a steaming dollop into his mess tin. “Gruel, you say? And you have followed your normal recipe, I take it? Sawdust, spittle, and whatever dubious organic refuse you could lay your hands on?”
“Pretty much,” said Skench, humourlessly. “Though you can be sure I made certain you got an extra helping of spit in yours.”
“Why thank you, Skench,” Davir said, favouring the one-armed cook with his most irritating smile. “Really, you are spoiling me. I must remember to write to Grand Marshal Kerchan and recommend you for a commendation. If you got a nice medal it would give you something extra to put in the soup.”
“Hhh. Always the funny man, Davir,” Skench muttered, watching Davir walk away. Then, turning back to see Larn standing next in line, he squinted at him in wary hostility.
“I haven’t seen you before,” Skench said. “You a new fish?”
“Yes,” said Larn.
“Uh-huh. You got something funny to say about my cooking, new fish?”
“Umm… no.”
“Good,” Skench said, dropping a ladleful of greasy brown gruel into Larn’s tin, then nodding towards a pile of ration bars lying on a nearby table. “Make sure you keep it that way. As well as the gruel you get to take a ration bar. One bar, mind, new fish. I’ve counted them, so don’t try taking two. Oh, and if tonight you should have the runs, don’t do what the rest of them do and come round here blaming me. There ain’t nothing wrong with my cooking. We clear on that?”
“Uhh… yes. We’re clear.”
“Good. Then get moving, new fish. You’re holding up the line. And remember what I told you. There ain’t nothing wrong with my cooking.”
“This is disgusting.” Larn said. “Really disgusting, I mean. I thought the food they gave us in basic training on Jumael was bad enough. But this is ten times worse.”
“Well, I did warn you, new fish,” Davir said, as he shovelled another spoonful of gruel into his own mouth. “Such is Skench’s extraordinary mastery of the culinary arts, he can make bad food taste even worse.”
Having collected his ration bar, Larn now sat with Davir, Bulaven and Scholar among the bunks inside the barracks. Meanwhile, still occasionally glowering at Larn as though to assure him his feelings of hostility had not waned, Zeebers sat alone and apart from them against one of the dugout walls. Though, while he still wondered at the source of Zeebers’ strange antagonism towards him, Larn found he was more directly concerned at that moment with the small white shape he saw wriggling among the slop in his mess tin.
“There is some kind of maggot in my food,” he said.
“A Tullan’s worm-grub,” Scholar said. “They are quite plentiful hereabouts, new fish. And an excellent source of protein.”
“They add to the flavour as well,” Bulaven said. “But make sure you chew up your food properly. If the grub is still alive when you swallow it they can lay eggs in your stomach.”
“Eggs?”
“Don’t worry about it, new fish,” Bulaven replied. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. Gives you the runs for a couple of days, that is all. Course, if Skench cooked them properly, the grubs would be dead by the time they got to us.”
“Sweet Emperor, I can’t believe you act like it is normal to eat things like this,” Larn said.
“Normal?” Davir said, mouth open to reveal a mashed lump of half-chewed gruel. “In case you hadn’t notice you’re in the Imperial Guard, new fish. And in the Guard you eat what you can get. Anyway, you think this is bad you should’ve seen the whipsaw grabs we had to eat on Bandar Majoris.”
“Actually, I seem to remember they were quite flavour-some, Davir,” Scholar said. “Tasted a bit like ginny fowl.”
“I’m not talking about how they tasted, Scholar,” Davir said. “I’m talking about the fact they were as big as your leg with a metre-long tongue covered in razor-sharp barbs. Not to mention they were strong enough to tear a man’s arm off. And if you want know how we know that, new fish, just go ask Skench.”
“Don’t listen to him. He is just fooling with you, new fish,” Bulaven said. “It was an ork axe that did for Skench’s arm right here in Broucheroc, not a whipsaw grub on Bandar Majoris. Though we did lose a lot of men to those grabs.”
“Do you remember Commissar Grisz?” Scholar said. “Went behind a bush one morning to see to his daily bowel movement only to find he was squatting over a whole nest of the damned things. You could have heard his scream halfway across the planet.”
“Phah. Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Davir said. “Grisz always was a pain in the arse. No pun intended.”
“You ask me,” Bulaven said, “the thing I remember most from Bandar is Davir hunting the terranosaurs.”
“Ah yes,” Scholar said. “You mean the wager.”
“Ach, you’re not still going on about that, Bulaven,” Davir scowled. “Emperor wept. Once a man wins a bet against you, you never forgive him.”
“You should have seen it, new fish,” Bulaven said, smiling. “We’d been on Bandar a week maybe, at most. It is a jungle planet and there were these deathworlders. Ach, you tell it, Scholar — you always do a better job of it than me.”
“All right, then,” Scholar said, leaning intently forward. “Imagine the scene, new fish. It is midday: the jungle is hot and humid. We have come back into camp after being out on patrol when we smell the most delicious and mouth-watering aroma. Following our noses we find a group of Catachans are roasting a metre-and-a-half long two-legged lizard on an open spit. Naturally, we enquire whether we can join in their feast. But, being Catachans, they refuse. “Go catch your own terranosaur,” they say. Now, you thought that would have been the end of it. But Davir refuses to let matters rest. Soon, he begins bragging to us that he is more than capable of capturing a terranosaur just as the Catachans had. And, before you could say small man, big mouth we have agreed to enter into a wager with him on the matter.”
“He bet us he could hunt down a terranosaur, new fish,” Bulaven jumped in excitedly. “He bet us a hundred credits he could hunt one, kill it, and bring it home for dinner.”
“So,” Scholar continued, “armed with a lasgun, our intrepid, if diminutive, hunter goes alone into the jungle in search of his prey. Only to re-emerge two hours later, running back into camp in a panic as though he had a daemon on his trail!”
“Ach, you and Bulaven can laugh all you like,” Davir said, holding a hand high above his head like a fisherman describing the size of his catch. “But nobody told me the one the Catchans killed was only a baby, and that the adults were ten metres tall when full-grown. Or, for that matter, that they hunted in packs. I tell you: I only got out of that damn stinking jungle by the skin of my teem. And, besides, you have to admit I did what I said I’d do in the end. I did kill a terranosaur and I did bring it home for dinner. About three of them, in fact.”
“Only because you bribed someone in comms to let you call in an artillery strike against them!” Bulaven said, outraged. “Then, after the batteries had been pounding that patch of jungle for an hour straight, you got a search party together and brought back the remains of all the terranosaurs that had been killed by the shellfire. That doesn’t count, Davir.”
“Of course, it counts. What, you think I should have dug a pit trap like some idiot deathworlder and waited for one of the big dumb beasts to wander by and fall into it? I keep telling you, Bulaven: you should have been more specific about the conditions of the bet. You didn’t say anything about not being able to use artillery.”
The argument continued: Davir and Bulaven squabbling comically about the details of the decade-old bet while Scholar attempted to act as arbiter. As he listened to them, Larn became aware of how different the three men’s manner had become since the whistle had blown and they had come to the dugout. Here, the
y did not seem as gruff and intimidating. They seemed more relaxed. More at ease with themselves and their surroundings.
Looking around, Larn saw it was the same everywhere. All about him he could see Vardans talking, joking and laughing amongst themselves, their faces animated, their gestures more free and expansive. It was almost as though here in the dugout, for the moment at least, there were no orks. No constant threat of death. No Broucheroc. Here, the Vardans seemed almost like the people Larn had known back home. As though, momentarily released of the shadow of war and horror, they had reverted to their true selves.
As he watched them, Larn began to understand for the first time that each of the Vardans had once been like him. Each of them had been a green recruit. Each of them had once been a new fish and he realised there was hope for him in that thought. If each of these men had somehow learned how to survive the brutalities and privations of this place, then so could he. He would learn. And he would survive.
And then, comforted by that warm and happy thought, before he even knew it, Larn was asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
20:01 hours Central Broucheroc Time
A Mosaic Coloured in Blues, Greens, and Reds — A Dream of Home — A Bombardment Again — Zeebers’ Behaviour is Perhaps Explained — Sergeant Chelkar Rallies the Troops — The Myth of The Big Push
“You ordered us to Alert Condition Red!” the general roared, his voice so loud that the Guardsmen and militia auxiliaries seated at their work stations around them in the Situation Room gave a collective jump. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“If you would allow me to explain, sir,” Colonel Drezlen said, his expression tight as he stood facing the older man, fighting visibly to keep his own temper in check.
“Explain?” General Pronan thundered. “What is there to explain? You have grossly exceeded your authority, colonel. I could have you court-martialled for this.”
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