He was about to interrupt Caroline’s studying of a map to engage her in a discussion of animal behaviour and how natural it was to ascribe human characteristics to beasts when a huge explosion shook the earth.
The horses screamed and shied. Aubrey was on his feet, searching for the source of the noise, doing his best to stay upright while the wagon jerked like a boat in a storm. Caroline, too, stood but coped easily with the movement of the wagon as she looked toward the fortress.
George tossed the reins to Sophie and leaped from the driver’s seat. She called out as George darted along the flanks of the frightened beasts until they could see him and he could grab their bridles. His movements were smooth and certain, and he kept up a stream of low, soothing words, doing his best to calm the horses as they stamped, eyes rolling.
‘Aubrey.’ Caroline took his arm and pointed toward the fortress.
The magic neutralising tower was gone.
44
In the chaos, it took some time and some stern talking to convince the guards at the gatehouse that Aubrey should be allowed to see Major Saltin. George stayed with the still-agitated horses just inside the gates, attended by an equally agitated guard who actually seemed glad at having a specific duty.
Inside the walls, the compound was thick with smoke and dust, and with Gallian servicemen running about, singly and in squads. Shouting echoed from the buildings and the guard towers. No-one knew where Major Saltin was, either, and resented being stopped and asked such a thing when there were more important matters at hand.
Aubrey did wonder how running about and shouting was more important, but he decided not to press the issue.
The friends rounded the fortress chapel and then stood, stunned, looking at what had been the parade ground before it had become the site for the magic neutralising tower. Now, it was the site of a ruin. The tower lay smashed across the gravel, crushing a flagpole that had been on one corner of the parade ground. Several vehicles were on fire at the edge, near the barracks, and the rear section of a lorry was in very small pieces near the stub of one leg of the tower. A large section of one of the arms had fallen awry and had caved in the roof of a service building. Flames flickered from it; soldiers were cursing and uncoiling hoses that had lain unused for years. The greasy smoke added to the hellish atmosphere.
Aubrey was pressing toward the infirmary as a possible location for Major Saltin when the man himself emerged from the officers’ mess.
Aubrey waved. ‘Saltin!’
The Gallian put up a hand and peered through the smoke. Before making his way in their direction, he grabbed a hurrying corporal by the collar and spoke sharply to him.
‘It was sabotage,’ Major Saltin announced when he’d marched close enough. His face was blackened with smoke or soot. He waved an arm at the wreckage. ‘A baker’s lorry parked near the base of the tower exploded. The driver has been identified as leaving the fortress on foot just before the explosion.’
‘Casualties?’ Aubrey asked.
‘No-one killed, which is entirely fortuitous. Recruits were training at the far end of the field only half an hour ago.’
‘Infiltrators,’ Caroline suggested. ‘Holmland has had time to send teams into Divodorum for something like this.’
‘I know.’ Saltin grimaced, then wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, which only smeared the soot, leaving a long black streak. ‘We have had new people coming in every day, changing over, heading to the front… It has been difficult.’
‘Heading to the front,’ Aubrey said, ‘that’s what we’re about to do. We have a delivery to make to the Albion forces.’
Sophie was suddenly the cadet journalist again, notepad in hand. ‘Major Saltin, this leaves you open to magical attack. What are you going to do about it?’
Major Saltin straightened. ‘Our best, m’mselle. Reinforcements are starting to get through now, and we have some magical personnel among them. You can tell your readers that Divodorum will never fall.’
He saluted, then marched toward the burning building.
Sophie smiled, a little bitterly. ‘By the time my readers hear from me, they will know whether Divodorum has fallen or not. I ask because I hope to write about events after this war has finished.’
‘You do? George said something about doing the same thing,’ Aubrey said.
Caroline rolled her eyes. ‘Aubrey, Sophie and George have a plan to work on this together, after the war.’
‘So we gather what we can,’ Sophie said, ‘while we go about our duties.’
‘Aubrey and I shall help,’ Caroline said.
‘As long as we’re clear about what we don’t mention.’ Aubrey faltered at the stern looks from both young women. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Secrets, Aubrey?’ Sophie said. ‘What reason can there be for keeping secrets after the war?’
‘Why, I’m sure there must be… Military knowledge… Intelligence
…’
‘Be careful,’ Caroline said. ‘Just because we’re working for them, we don’t want to end up like them.’
‘Who?’
‘The hoarders of secrets. Those who know best. The ones who feel that they’re entitled to know things that the rest of us can’t be trusted with.’
‘You’ve just described most of the intelligence community. And most politicians.’
‘Exactly.’
45
The road from Divodorum to the front was choked. The lack of recent rain may have had benefits – Aubrey would have hated battling through churned-up mud – but it meant they ate, breathed and bathed in dust every inch of the twenty miles.
Complaining, however, would have been churlish. A stream of marching soldiers on the other side of the road, wounded and exhausted from fighting at the front, was a reminder of the dangers ahead.
Their way forward was determined by the stop-start progress of the column they had joined. Reinforcements to replace those fortunate enough to trudge back to the fortress, mostly, but also supply wagons and lorries, and a few private transports driven by those brave enough – or greedy enough – to risk being caught up in fighting in order to make a profit.
Commerce went on, Aubrey decided as he waved a hand in front of his face for the umpteenth time, an exercise in futility as it simply replaced dust-laden air with more dust-laden air. He wouldn’t have been surprised if that nervous-looking fellow with the wagon load of melons would be as happy to sell them to a Holmland unit as a Gallian or Albion one. The crisis-opportunity nexus was never more clearly demonstrated, and Aubrey couldn’t blame him.
Determining when they actually reached the front was a difficult matter. The battle zone wasn’t clearly marked with ‘Welcome To…’ signs. While the fighting was some distance away, the area that the military had colonised extended for miles back from the actual trenches and barbed wire. What had been farmland and woods was now dotted with tents and abuzz with activity as a khaki-coloured city had been thrown up.
What looked chaotic did have some sense about it, as evidenced as soon as they followed the melon vendor’s wagon off the road and onto a freshly made track into the woods. Military police appeared and asked for papers. The melon vendor’s credentials were obvious and he was waved through with instructions on how to reach the quartermaster, but the Gallian Military Police officers took some time to assess the papers George handed over. Eventually, after some consultation with officers summoned via a makeshift field telephone, they were directed to a farmhouse a few miles to the west, which was – according to last reports – the headquarters of the Albion military in the region.
The farmhouse would have been pretty, Aubrey thought, in normal circumstances. Without the soldiers camped out the front. Without the lorries lined up near the barn. Without the pall of war hanging over the place.