He raised a hand.
‘Stand easy, everyone, please,’ he said.
He moved down the rows of steel-framed cots, pausing to speak to as many of the wounded as he could. He signed How are you? to Nessa, and she grinned back and replied with her voice.
‘Ready to fight,’ she said. Like many Vervunhivers, she’d lost her hearing during the Zoican War, and the sign language they had developed had proved vital to both their scratch company operations against the Zoicans and, later, to the stealth manoeuvres of the Tanith First. Chief Scout Mkoll had long ago adopted Vervunhive scratch-signing as the regiment’s non-verbal code.
Recently, though, in personal circumstances, Nessa had been trying to use her voice more again. The words came out with that slightly nasal, rounded-out quality of a speaker who can only feel the breath of their words, but they touched Gaunt immensely.
‘I know you are,’ he replied, without signing.
She read his lips and answered with another smile.
Gaunt stopped at Major Pasha’s bedside and talked for a while, assuring the senior officer of the regiment’s new intake that her companies were in good order.
‘Spetnin and Zhukova have things well in hand,’ he said, ‘and they are meshing well with the established commanders. Spetnin is a good fellow.’
‘Not Zhukova, then?’ Pasha asked.
Gaunt hesitated.
‘She’s an excellent officer.’
Pasha sat up and leant forwards, beckoning Gaunt close with a conspiratorial gesture made with hands that had choked more than one Zoican throat in their day.
‘She is an excellent officer, sir,’ Pasha agreed. ‘But she is ambitious and she is beautiful. Not beautiful like her.’
Pasha nodded her chin towards Nessa, who had gone back to her reading.
‘No?’ asked Gaunt.
‘The dear, deaf girl does not know she is beautiful. Ornella does. That is why your dear deaf girl is a marksman trooper, and Ornella Zhukova is a captain.’
‘What are you saying?’ Gaunt asked.
‘I’m saying, Zhukova’s a brilliant troop leader. Just treat her like any other cocksure ambitious male. Don’t be fooled by her lips and breasts.’
Gaunt laughed. He liked Major Yve Petrushkevskaya immensely. She was a tall, strong, haggard veteran. He hadn’t known her long, and it couldn’t be said that they’d served together. Pasha had been miserably wounded in a hull-breaching accident before the Salvation’s Reach fight had begun in earnest.
But Gaunt was sure she brought something to the Ghosts that was yet to be properly valued. A powerful, presiding, maternal force. A different wisdom.
‘In truth, sir,’ she said, settling back on her pillow, ‘I feel… ashamed.’
‘Ashamed?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Taken down before I could fire a shot in anger,’ she replied, her mouth forming an almost comical inverted ‘U’ of a frown. ‘Not a distinguished start to my service under your command.’
‘You’ve got nothing to prove, major,’ he said.
She tutted at him.
‘Everyone always has everything to prove,’ she replied. ‘Otherwise, what is the purpose of life, sir?’
‘I stand corrected. But enough of this “sir”, please. You’re one of the seniors and particulars. “Sir” in front of the troops, but “Ibram” to my face like this.’
‘Dah,’ she replied, holding up her hands in distaste. ‘Formality is discipline.’
‘Gaunt, then?’ he said.
Her mouth made the doubtful, inverted U shape again.
‘Maybe that.’
He could tell she wasn’t comfortable. He’d tried to be open, but the sentimentality was not to her liking. He changed tack.
‘Listen, major,’ he said quietly. ‘I need to be able to count on you.’
‘Yes?’ she whispered, craning forwards.
‘We have a drive problem. A bad one. We may not get home. In fact, we could pop back into real space at any time.’
He kept his voice low.
‘If we do, we could be at risk.’
‘Attack?’ she asked.
‘Yes. If we’re boarded, we may have to protect ourselves section by section. Will you run the infirmary for me? Rally all able-bodied to the defence?’
‘Will you send a crate of rifles down here?’
‘Supplies are limited, but yes.’
She nodded.
‘Of course. Of course, I will,’ she said. ‘Count on me.’
‘I already do,’ he said.
She blinked in surprise and looked at him. He held out his hand and she shook it.
‘Keep it to yourself, but get ready,’ he said.
He got off the edge of her bed and turned to go.
‘I will, Gaunt,’ Pasha said.
A few cots down, Elodie was playing regicide with her husband. Ban Daur still looked very frail and weak from the injuries he’d taken. They had been married en route to the Reach.
‘Captain. Ma’am Dutana-Daur.’
They looked around. Elodie started to get up.
‘I’m just saying hello,’ Gaunt said. ‘Don’t let me interrupt.’
‘It’s kind of you, sir,’ Daur said.
‘If I can’t stop in on one of my best,’ Gaunt said. ‘How is it, Ban?’
‘I’m doing all right. I’m still bleeding inside, so they say. Some mending to do.’
‘You’re strong, Ban.’
‘I am, sir.’
‘And she makes you stronger,’ Gaunt said, looking at Elodie. ‘I know love when I see it, because I don’t see it very much.’
‘You flatter me, sir,’ said Elodie.
‘Ma’am,’ Gaunt began.
‘Elodie,’ she said firmly.
‘Elodie,’ he corrected. ‘As you stand by and progress with this regiment, you will quickly come to know that I never flatter anyone.’
Towards the end of the first compartment, Gaunt encountered Doctor Kolding, who was conducting rounds. He was checking on Raglon and Cant, who were both recovering from serious injuries.
‘I’m looking for Curth,’ Gaunt said.
‘I believe she’s in the back rooms,’ Kolding said. ‘Can I help with anything?’
‘No, she‘ll brief you,’ Gaunt replied. He paused.
‘Kolding?’
The albino turned to him.
‘Sir?’
‘Support her.’
‘I am doing so.’
‘The loss of Dorden is massive.’
‘I barely knew him and I am aware of the magnitude,’ Kolding replied. Gaunt nodded, turned and walked into the offices behind the ward.
In the first, he found Captain Meryn, stripped to the waist, sitting forwards over the rail of a half-chair as Curth’s orderly Lesp went to work on his back with his ink and pins.
‘Sorry, sir,’ Lesp said, getting up.
Gaunt shook him a ‘no matter’. Lesp was well known as the company inker, a man of skill and, as an orderly, hygiene to match. Gaunt had long since stopped trying to curtail the non-codex efforts of the Tanith to decorate their skin with tattoos.
‘My apologies, sir,’ said Meryn curtly, reaching for his shirt. ‘It was downtime and I thought–’
‘There was a company officer call, just informal,’ Gaunt said.
‘I wasn’t aware,’ Meryn said, and seemed genuinely contrite.
‘It’s fine. It was informal, as I said. But get Kolea to brief you. There may be trouble coming.’
‘Of course,’ said Meryn.
‘What ink are you having?’
Meryn paused.
‘Just… just names,’ he said.
‘Names?’ Gaunt asked.
‘The Book o’ Death,’ Lesp said, half smiling, then regretting it when he saw Gaunt’s expression.
Gaunt signalled with a rotating finger, and Meryn turned to present his back. Meryn’s torso was tough and corded with muscle. Down the left-hand side of the spine, Lesp had been noting a list of names in black ink. They were the names of the men in Meryn’s E Company who had fallen at Salvation’s Reach. Meryn had lost a lot, too many perhaps, to the Loxatl during the final evacuation.