Aubrey covered page after page in a large ledger, scrawling elements and operators, bringing together disparate variables that, at times, seemed to be surprised at finding themselves in the company they did. Dimly, he became aware that more lantern light was required in order to see his workings properly but, before he asked, George attended to the situation. Equally dimly, he knew that the dugout was a still centre in the middle of turmoil, with much hurrying and shouting just outside, and the more ominous noises of war – firearms, small and heavy, whistles and artillery – not far away.
Aubrey sweated, particularly, over the elements meant to control location and time. He wanted the entire War Cabinet and the Central Staff to arrive together, and they’d be coming from vastly different starting points. Trying to restrain these factors into a single manageable area was like trying to catch a cloud with a colander. His head ached but he ploughed on with no thought of giving up.
Enhancing the images of the men he wanted to transport was also the stuff of headaches, and once he had a solution to this he was then faced with the difficulty of splicing what was essentially a complete spell into the body of another. In what order should the components unfold? Was there one answer for this, or was it a matter of sorting through possible solutions for the one that was best?
False starts came more and more often. Sophie and Colonel Stanley began to murmur encouragement until even that fell away. Stanley became more of an office boy, handing Aubrey paper and sharp pencils, brushing away the debris from furious erasing. Sophie took on a proofing role, gently correcting any basic errors of expression that were creeping in more and more often as Aubrey feverishly scribbled down the elements that captured the vista of his conception.
His body became a distant thing, its discomfort shallow. Knots in his neck, pain in his fingers from gripping the pencil, twinges in the small of his back from bending over the table, trying to keep the spread of papers organised, but he ignored them all. They were insignificant.
In the middle of these demands, Aubrey found himself in an odd frame of mind. Mired in the pressure of finding a solution to a formidable problem, he was enjoying himself. The density of brain work was exhilarating. He felt alive and invigorated. He was anticipating potential obstacles long before they emerged and so was able to sidestep them, or even turn them around so they became strengths instead of weaknesses. As this mood continued he began to look forward to difficulties, for he was sure that he would be able to resolve them, and each resolution was a moment of extra joy, a spike of satisfaction that made him glow all the more fiercely.
Until he hit an obstacle that stopped him dead.
At first, he smiled and tried recatenating some elements, then he substituted operators in the spell to approach his desired effect in a different way, but he still found the obstacle in his way. He went back a few steps and completely recast a significant section of the spell. He was pleased with this as it actually tightened up some aspects of the duration of the actual transference, but after he’d completed this recasting, the spell still wouldn’t gel.
He took a step away from the table and rubbed his face with both hands. His vision blurred for a moment when he tried to focus on the entrance to the dugout, but he hardly noticed, so hard was he thinking.
It’s the simple things that resist our efforts to manipulate them , he thought as he turned back to the offending section. Nearby, Caroline murmured something to Sophie. They may have been words in Albionish, but Aubrey was currently juggling Akkadian, Demotic and Phrygian so he couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
The sticking point was the location point for the arrival of the Holmland warmongers. Aubrey had a neat area picked out. A hundred yards into no-man’s-land, almost directly in front of their current position, was a large double shell hole formed where two shells had exploded close together. From there, the Holmland trenches could be reached via a rough scramble through one of the rare muddy sections of no-man’s-land, then past the usual barbed wire emplacements, a shattered fence line, and the grotesque pock-marked landscape that had once been woods and farmland.
Aubrey had chosen this location because he wanted the Holmlanders to arrive there and suffer the horror they had been insulated from. He wanted them to experience what they had sent so many others into – but he wanted them then to escape and, once they’d understood what they’d created, he hoped they might reconsider everything. He’d come to appreciate that reality had a bracing effect on plans and he was hoping that the shock the Holmlanders were about to receive might make them think again about the course of action they had chosen.
A few hours in no-man’s-land should suffice, he’d decided, enough to make them think they were going to die. Perhaps he could organise an Allied military advance, or a raiding team or two, or even an artillery bombardment in the area. Surely this would inspire them to seek their own lines, no matter how difficult they might think the passage would be?
After that, a renewed artillery bombardment of Holmland trenches would hammer home the point. Aubrey could imagine the politicians and the generals arguing about their lives versus military objectives. At best, Aubrey was hoping for a retreat. At worst, a halt in the planned Holmland advance. Whatever the outcome, time would be gained, precious time to bring up Allied reinforcements.
So the location for the arrival of the Holmlanders was a key part of his plan – and here it was, proving more difficult than Aubrey had imagined. He wasn’t sure if was the necessary effect of bringing together a dozen people from widely spread origins, or if it was the difficulty alluded to by Colonel Stanley, the need for precise location elements in any transference spell, but nothing he tried addressed the issue of exasperating vagueness when it came to fixing the location point. When he ran through the most recent draft of the spell it had potential outcomes that included spreading all twelve men over a hundred miles or so, or having them arrive at daily intervals for nearly a fortnight. One hastily abandoned option would have had the Chancellor’s cronies appearing at different heights ranging from a few miles above the surface of no-man’s-land to a mile or so underneath it.
Vagueness, uncertainty. He couldn’t excise it from the spell, no matter what he tried. He gnawed at the elements for location and tried to constrain them, elucidate them, enhance them and define them, but nothing worked.
‘Aubrey.’
It took him a moment to recognise his own name. ‘Caroline?’
She stood, neat and sublime in her uniform, managing to convey both concern and utter confidence in his work. ‘George, Sophie and I agree. You need to walk away for a moment.’
Aubrey worked his mouth a little before answering. It felt as if he’d been chewing on ashes. ‘I do?’
‘It’s obvious you’ve come up against something you can’t sort out. You need a break to refresh yourself.’
‘But how did you know?’
‘You’ve been clenching your teeth. You only do that when you run into a problem that you can’t solve straight away.’
‘Ah.’ His jaw was aching, now that she’d pointed it out. He rubbed it and reflected on the observational powers of his friends. ‘How long have I been at it?’
‘It’s just gone past 2200 hours.’
‘Seven hours.’ His eyes were smarting. ‘I think I’ll step outside for a breath of air.’
George was immediately at his side. ‘Capital idea, old man. I’ll join you.’
Sophie smiled bravely at him from the other side of a steaming mug of tea. On the way out of the dugout, Aubrey saw Colonel Stanley slumped in a corner, snoring, his head propped on some excess sandbags.