It was late afternoon when Vague Henri came to see Cale before he started the climb up to the Sanctuary walls.
‘Can’t believe,’ he said, ‘I’m trying to break back into that shithole.’ Cale looked at him.
‘I wanted to run your funeral arrangements by you.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘I thought we’d wrap you up in a dog blanket and dump you out of the crapper in the West Wall. If I can get a band together we’ll play “I’ve Got a Luverly Bunch of Coconuts”. You’ll like that.’
‘You’re not,’ said Vague Henri, ‘a very nice person.’
‘I’m telling you not to go on with this bloody bollocking bollocks, aren’t I? Those girls are dead and if you go up there you’ll be as dead as them.’
‘I’m touched that you care.’
‘I don’t care. Don’t think it. I just feel sorry for you, that’s why I’ve put up with you all this time.’
‘If I don’t go I won’t be able to sleep at night. That’s the honest truth. I’m afraid not to go.’
‘You’ll get used to it. You can get used to anything. And there are worse things than not being able to sleep.’
‘Can’t stop now – it’d look bad.’
‘I’ll have you arrested.’ It wasn’t a threat but a plea.
‘No. Don’t do that. If I found out they were alive I’d hate you.’
‘Why?’
‘I just would.’ Vague Henri smiled. ‘Give us a kiss.’
‘No.’
‘Your hand then.’
‘What if it’s catching, what you’ve got?’
‘Not you. You’ll be all right.’
‘But you won’t.’ He was angry now that he could see persuasion wouldn’t work. ‘You’re still a Redeemer, that’s it.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, you’re not a fucking swine, not you, but you can’t wait to sacrifice yourself for something. It all went into your head, all that camel-shit about …’ He stopped, unable to find the words. ‘You’re just another martyr – and don’t worry I’ve got a martyr’s funeral ready for you – we’ll sing “Faith of Our Fathers” … We will be true to thee ’til death … Remember that bollocks? Do you want it before or after the coconut song?’
‘You have been practising that, haven’t you?’
‘Just go – I can’t be bothered with you any more.’
‘I’ll be all right. I can feel it.’
‘Yes? Fine. Go away.’
‘I think you’d come with me if you could.’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘You say it because you have to say it, being you.’
‘That isn’t it. All things being equal, and if it didn’t involve a terrible risk to my own life, then yes, I’d help you. I like to see good deeds done, I do, but your price is too high. I can see I’m a disappointment to you – but the honest truth is that I’d rather live than see justice done.’
Vague Henri shrugged and went off to climb back into the Sanctuary.
Cale had felt exhausted before Vague Henri came to say whatever it was he’d come to say. Now he felt as if he’d been wrung out. After he’d taken the Phedra and Morphine to deal with Kitty the Hare he took Sister Wray’s advice not to use it much more seriously. He felt sometimes as if he was so weak that he might just stop breathing. When they were younger, Vague Henri had heard from one of the Redeemers that a sudden loud noise could kill a locust. They tried, dozens of times, but it never worked. Now he felt as if a sudden loud noise could see him off quite easily. All the more reason, then, to stay away from the Phedra and Morphine. But he knew he couldn’t get through the next twenty-four hours without it. Just once more, he thought. Wipe the Sanctuary clean and then off to the Hanse with all the swag and then it’s cucumber sandwiches and cake for ever and ever.
He had a couple of hours’ sleep, though his guard had to wake him, and then took exactly the dose of the drug that Sister Wray had instructed. By now he realized she hadn’t been exaggerating about its poisons building up – every week now, sometimes for half an hour at a time, he had the sense that someone was frying something in his head.
Half an hour later he was standing on top of the Little Brother as Hooke finished preparing his huge wooden tunnel for its final move onto the walls of the Sanctuary. The peak of the Little Brother had been built up by forty feet, so that the tunnel could be pushed downhill to the gap between the infill and the walls that the tunnel would bridge, allowing New Model Army troops to spread out quickly and in large numbers. There was no hiding the plan from the Redeemers so no guesswork was needed to see that they would do everything to stop the attack where it began. Establishing that bridgehead was going to be a murderous business. It was the attackers’ only weak point – something that wouldn’t be lost on Bosco.
The assault began as soon as it became light in order to give them all the daylight possible. Cale expected a disaster of some kind but, though there were a thousand decisions to be made, there were no earthquakes or sudden plagues, no mysterious parhelions to disturb the superstitious. There was only mounting dread at what was coming.
At just before five, Hooke came to tell him they were ready. Cale walked up the last few feet to the top of the Little Brother and looked across to the Sanctuary. His heart beat faster, his head felt as if it were bursting as he looked out over his former home, seeing the still shadowy places where he had spent so many thousands of days in fear and dread and misery. So much cold, so much hunger, so much loneliness. He stared for a long time. Such a shattering moment called for a great shout. But something caught his eye inside the Sanctuary, to the right. It was the quarter where the girls were kept. From its furthest edge a spidery line of smoke wafted gently into the air. He gave the slightest of nods to Hooke and it began.
‘Ready!’ called out one of the centenars.
‘Set!’
‘Go!’ A huge cry of HEAVE! went up. The enormous structure shook but didn’t move. HEAVE! Again it shook but again nothing. HEAVE! This time it shifted a few inches. HEAVE! Now a foot. HEAVE! Now two. Now properly onto the reinforced slope the tunnel went with the pull of the earth. But the worry was about stability not speed. Men rushed back and forth between the front and sides of the tunnel, calling to each other and to Hooke, looking for the rubble to give way and let the tunnel dig in or some other disaster they hadn’t thought of. A couple of times they had to stop and levers, thirty-foot long and by the dozen, were brought to lift the structure where it had cut into the still loose soil. But there was no attack from the walls. Cale would have been pouring everything he could onto the heads of the attackers. And all the time, one after the other, fires were started along the edges of the ghetto where the girls were kept.
‘Where are the Redeemers?’ asked Fanshawe as they headed into the hut where they kept the maps of the Sanctuary. Inside were half a dozen officers from the New Model Army and three Laconics, led by Ormsby-Gore. IdrisPukke was also there.
‘I don’t know, but they won’t be doing anything pleasant, I’m sure of that.’ He decided to change his plan. ‘I want five hundred of your men to go in right after the first rush.’
Fanshawe looked over at Ormsby-Gore. ‘All right with you?’
‘That isn’t what was agreed,’ said Ormsby-Gore.
In a formal sense there were no soldiers less cowardly than the Laconics. But in practical terms it was as if they were rather chinless. The problem was that it took so much effort and time and money to engineer one of these hideous killing machines, and there were so few of them, that though they were happy to die, they weren’t all that willing to fight. Each one of these monsters was as valuable as a rare vase.