Don’t lie. Tell the truth, he thought. Part of it, at least. ‘I can’t do this if it means shooting people in cold blood like that.’
‘Good. Although it’s always puzzled me why the temperature of the blood is important. Hot or cold, I don’t like it.’
‘You shot Dr Tremaine.’
‘A special case, but if you make me think too long about it I’ll be very annoyed because I’ll start to feel inconsistent.’
‘Can’t have that.’
‘No.’
A Gallian-accented voice broke in. ‘So you’re being sneaky again?’
Aubrey turned to see George and Sophie looking at him. Between them were notebooks they’d been sharing, working on another writing project. Sophie was sleepy-eyed but alert.
‘I prefer “clandestine”,’ he said.
‘We approve,’ George said, ‘however you want to describe yourself. So if you’re not going to slaughter the Chancellor and his friends, how’s all this going to play out?’
Aubrey outlined the plan, simply leaving out the necessity for him to be the locus of the spell. ‘And the artillery bombardment is icing on the cake,’ he concluded. ‘The Chancellor and his friends will see what it’s truly like out here. Being the people they are, they’re bound to try to take command once they’re safely in their trenches. I’m wagering that this will create all sorts of chaos.’
‘Should win some time for reinforcements to get here,’ George said.
‘Neat and precise,’ Caroline said. ‘And it has the virtue of not turning us into murderers. And I fully understand the irony of saying such a thing in the middle of a battle zone, but there you have it.’
‘“War is confusion” according to the Scholar Tan,’ Aubrey murmured. ‘I used to think that he meant in tactics and battle plans, but I’m starting to understand just how wise he was.’
‘To more practical things,’ Caroline said, ‘what about resting, as you suggested?’
‘I’d love to, but the best thing to do is to get this under way before the colonel comes back. I’d like to spare him any repercussions.’
‘You’re assuming there will be repercussions,’ George said.
‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of repercussions to go around,’ Aubrey said.
‘Don’t worry, Aubrey,’ Caroline said. ‘We’ll take care of that.’
‘But before I start, I’ll need a large clear area in here. I have to work on the floor. And I need some powdered chalk for a restraining diagram.’
George was already starting to move boxes. ‘Good luck with finding chalk, old man. It’s not exactly High Street around here, if you haven’t noticed.’
‘Would flour do, Aubrey?’ Sophie said. ‘I saw a store dump just along the way.’
‘Perfect. I was going to stretch my legs a little anyway.’ He reached out and shuffled the papers together that held the final version of his spell workings. He stowed them in a satchel.
Caroline had a large box in her arms. She paused. ‘What do you need those papers for?’
Aubrey was so smooth, he picked up a few beats rather than missing one. ‘I thought I’d sit outside while you ready the dugout. I still have some memorising to do.’
It was only the slightest of prevarications. The spell was well and truly seared into his brain after all the work he’d done on it. What he’d actually be memorising was the best route to his selected shell hole.
He left his friends discussing the neatest arrangement of boxes and that gave him some hope. He simply couldn’t countenance the idea that his last memories of his friends would be of them arguing over the placement of makeshift furniture, so it suggested he must be coming back alive. If he had to have last memories of his friends, he wanted them to be heartfelt protestations about love, friendship and what a difference he’d made to their lives. Some tears would be acceptable, but he was afraid they would be more likely to come from George than Sophie or Caroline, so he scratched that from his imaginings. The phrase ‘life won’t be the same without you’ had a comforting ring and he contemplated that as he wandered along the duck-boards until he found the store.
The corporal in charge was suspicious until Aubrey showed his Directorate identification and after that he couldn’t be helpful enough. Aubrey settled for two pounds of flour in a brown paper bag. In the dim light of the store he made out a stamp that said it had come all the way from Antipodea. He was unaccountably pleased that as well as sending their strapping soldiers, the colonies were also sending foodstuffs. Loyalty indeed.
Aubrey found a nearby firing bay and had a quiet conversation with the captain of the Lancefield Fusiliers who was on duty. Captain Robinson was young enough to be impressed with Aubrey’s credentials and intrigued by the possibility of a magical trench raid, as Aubrey put it. He offered some suggestions to make the way easier, as well as some burnt cork for his face. He also gave Aubrey a password, at which Aubrey blinked, felt a cold wind on the back of his neck, and realised that he’d just avoided a horrible fate. If all went unaccountably well and he was able to crawl back toward the Albion trenches, he would have been in dire trouble without a password. Anyone approaching in the middle of the night was assumed, sensibly, to be a Holmlander up to no good.
A handshake, a slap on the back, a helmet thrust into his hands and Aubrey was up over the top and into no-man’s-land.
52
Aubrey had never felt so exposed. His imagination, never needing much prompting, immediately told him that dozens of snipers with supernaturally good night vision were all taking bets on which of them would be the first to bring him down.
Which would be an achievement, he thought, as he was as down as it was humanly possible to be. If he were any downer, he’d be moving in a subterranean mode. Wriggling along on his stomach, he’d positioned the sack of flour directly in front of his head, following the theory that a bullet would be better off hitting anything, foodstuff or not, before it hit him.
The next hour was a mixture of terror, panic and loss of skin. Periodic phantom attacks swept across the ruined landscape. Cavalry charges, waves of infantry, and even an elephant brigade at one stage. With each one Aubrey experienced the gut-wrenching trepidation that the phantoms had been designed to inspire. Every time a wave of attackers appeared from nowhere he huddled in shell holes or rolled up as close as he could to barbed wire barriers until he was sure that the shadowy figures weren’t real. Then he crawled on, pushing his bag of flour in front of him, and dragging the satchel with his precious notes behind him.
At one stage, Aubrey froze when, some distance away, a figure approaching his level of furtiveness made its way between two shattered trees. Aubrey watched as the stranger progressed in inches, swarming along on his belly. Since every movement was taking him close to the Allied lines, Aubrey decided that he was a Holmlander raider.
Aubrey’s heart, which had been running at a steady gallop ever since he left the Albionite trench, showed it was fully capable of a lift in tempo. Aubrey was tempted to blame the trembling in his hands on the sheer amount of blood being pumped about his body by the overactive organ, and not on fear – but he wasn’t that foolish. He was right to be afraid in a place where evidence of certain death was only too plain and too commonplace. Once again, though, all his rational thinking and appraisal had little effect on his body and its reactions. Accepting that being afraid was sensible was one thing. Trying to slow his heart was another.
Aubrey lay beside a mound of earth thrown up by an explosion and his hand moved almost of its own volition toward his sidearm. The range was extreme, so there was no point in his having it in his hand, but nevertheless something in him wanted to be armed in such a situation. Shaking, he made a fist of the traitor hand so that it couldn’t open his holster, and he peered toward the enemy raider.