Chapter Twenty Two – Surun

Pazu pulled up his breeches and buttoned up. He made his way out of the stand of trees to the lane, climbing the fence. That was the second time today, eating only mushrooms and berries and other wild plants Sheeta picked didn't agree with him, but it was all they'd had for three days now. He looked at the brown leaves plastered damp to the lane, autumn was coming, the first leaves falling. Those still on the trees were edged with brown, life was receding back into the branches, the trunks, the spines of plants, preparing for sleep. Winter was coming. They had managed to find barns or sheds the last three days and had been lucky, but today it was definitely colder. Brighter, sharper, colder. The kind of day you'd expect to see a hoar frost at dawn, making the world white and mysterious. Yesterday it had drizzled all day and been thoroughly depressing, nothing worse than being wet and not being able to get properly dry.

Since that night in the barn they had moved early, as soon as there was some light. Mists were common now as autumn drew on and that was good, they provided good cover. In the middle of the day they would rest, in a farm building if they could or in woodland if nothing else was available. They would cook and eat whatever they could find, and sleep. Then, at dusk they would break camp and press on through the night, stopping again in the small hours to rest more if a suitable shelter was available.

Always north. East and north.

They were filthy, muddy, wet and they stank. They looked like two vagabonds but Sheeta never once complained. He was so proud of her, she seemed willing to put up with anything. Yesterday had been the worst, in that foul drizzle they had come over a hill and their lane intersected a main road. Through the poor visibility they had seen something on the road, it looked odd. As they got closer they saw that the paved highway, running between high hedges, was packed with traffic, thousands of people, all heading south. They stopped at the road junction and watched. The column of people was never ending, to the north it stretched up the hill out of sight over the horizon, a mile away. To the south it disappeared around a curve in the road. The people just kept coming. Women carrying babies, old men, families, crying children, even mixed among them were a few wounded soldiers, limping and with rifles and equipment cast away. People pushed wheelbarrows piled with their belongings, or prams. The fortunate few had carts and horses although these all looked thin and worn, near collapse. Every face was the same: blank, drawn, haggard, exhausted, broken. At the side turning where they stood a man was sitting, back to the hedge, head down limp on his chest. Sheeta bent down and shook his shoulder. Getting no reaction she lifted his chin. His blank eyes and swollen lips crawled with flies. She cried out and jumped back, seeking Pazu's arms for comfort, wiping her hand on her leg.

Their route lay across this road but they couldn't get over, the mass of refugees was too much. A motor car came down the hill behind them and stopped at the junction. It was a grey painted military car, splashed with mud and with both front fenders torn off. Sheeta saw that there were several bullet holes through the canvas tilt. Three soldiers sat in it.

"Out the way, army messages to deliver. Move! MOVE!"

The driver eased forward into the crowd, so tightly packed was the mass that the vehicle actually pushed people aside with its wheels, people sluggishly stood, looking with blank eyes as the car pushed forward and joined the river. It slowly made its way down the road southwards, its horn honking continuously.

"Let's go."

Pazu led Sheeta away back up the hill. They wasted most of that morning getting across the line of the highway. Eventually, after following side lanes for two hours they came to a canal and followed the towpath eastwards. This passed under the main road and they looked up to see the endless stream of humanity pouring across the bridge above.

In the water of the canal Pazu saw two dark shapes floating. They looked like bundles of clothing. He took her hand, turned his face away and pressed on. This couldn't go on much longer. They were filthy, exhausted and hungry. They needed somewhere to stop for a couple of days, to get clean, eat properly and sleep.

--I--
---o-o-oOo-o-o---
I I

The field was packed with tents, army tents, row upon row, laid out at military intervals, in lines as straight as dominos. The soldiers went about their off duty tasks: cooking, cleaning equipment, playing cards, writing letters. For them this was their last relaxation before the push. Even the damp dull conditions couldn't depress the eagerness that lay over this huge camp, an eagerness to see the enemy and show him that Numenaor's men were nothing like the boys of Marinaer. Their officers had told them tomorrow. Tomorrow it would begin. The largest army Numenaor had ever sent to fight in a foreign country would advance tomorrow, on foot, on horseback, by armoured steam landship and by air. It was by air that Numenaor would make her presence felt.

Above the fields that air presence was at work even now, small light corvettes buzzed to and fro high up to the west, keeping the enemy airships away from the army gathered below. Beneath and eastward of the corvettes the larger but still nimble frigates cruised, ready in support should any enemy craft approach.

The slim silver aircraft negotiated the cleared air lane between the patrolling frigates and descended, passing low over the tented fields, banking for an approach to the grass airstrip. In the cabin the man with black hair lay aside the paper and tilted his head down, peering over his half-moon spectacles at the scene below. A strangely bookish action, as though he were a mild old schoolteacher and he'd seen a boy at the back of class talking. He watched the tents sliding below the aircraft. He didn't need to count them, or even estimate how many, or guess at the size of force gathered here in the stubble fields between Princeport and Stoak. Despite the bookish appearance of his spectacles, Colonel Surun wasn't the least bit mild, or remotely like a schoolteacher. The Colonel knew that gathered tightly in this triangle of land were six infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, three armoured steam landship regiments – ninety six mechanical nightmares the Restormellian army had no knowledge of - and over two hundred heavy artillery pieces. More than eighty thousand men. He knew the name of each unit that was to be hurled, tomorrow, at dawn against the enemy. It was his job to know.

Surun folded the newspaper, flicked a crease out of the arm of his green suit and lightly held the arms of his seat; landings in these skidplanes could be a little rough.

The steel bird touched down at the edge of the field and slid, its skates spewing dust and stones, a hundred feet until it came to rest near a green steamcar hissing gently by the gate. A tall thin man in a dark coat, round hat and dark spectacles stepped from the car to the skidplane door and held it open. The man in the green suit stepped out. He paused, looking around him, pulled down his suit cuffs in a sharp almost nervous movement and walked towards the waiting car. The tall man and a second, bigger man with a ginger moustache who had deplaned behind Colonel Surun, got in the car. It sped silently away.

Major General Beauhen stood, his back to the room, arms behind him, tapping his swagger stick in the palm of his gloved left hand. Below on the manor house drive, he watched a group of army drivers chatting to a young girl. She had come from the village to deliver milk. The subalterns gathered around her, vying to impress.

enjoy your lovers games boys, some of you will be dead tomorrow

Beauhen spoke, his back to the room.

"I cannot divert a single corvette, not one cavalry patrol, not even an infantry platoon to assist."
"Major General, I don't believe you have quite grasped the gravity of this situation."

The voice behind him was cool, laconic, infuriatingly offhand.

Beauhen turned around. The man who had spoken sat, relaxed in a wing backed chair on the far side of the large map table, his legs crossed, a cigarette dangling insolently from his limp white hand. Along both sides of the table orderlies stood, and behind them, against the walls of the large elegant drawing room, a forest of medals and ribbons and epaulettes was attached to the front of a herd of senior officers.

like barnacles on a ships arse, Beauhen thought.

The Major General looked at the green suited man. His un-military mop of shaggy black hair, the effeminate suit, the foppish red bow tie. The man looked like some rakish beau ready to stroll in a Sunday park.

I bet he likes his boys, Beauhen thought, the man's an insult to military operations

"Colonel, it is you who has not quite grasped things. I am in command of the largest military operation our nation has undertaken. Tomorrow our forces, land and air, will smash into the left flank of the enemy assault and roll him up and kick him off the end of the Greycastle coaling piers. I cannot detach even the smallest unit to go swanning off playing wet-nurse to your errant school children. It is out of the question."

The green suited man leaned forward, resting one thin elbow on the rosewood table by his side. His thumb elegantly flicked cigarette ash onto the Major General's carpet. He had been provided with a silver ashtray but studiously ignored it.

"Major General, these errant school children may be the key to unlock for us a military power so great that with it, Numenaor could destroy Restormel's entire army without a single one of your precious soldiers even stepping out of his tent. I'm speaking of an airship of some kind that destroyed Goliath in five minutes. A force that can build mechanical fighting machines, just one of which laid waste to half of Tepis Fortress in half an hour. The girl was seen speaking to the machine. It's likely she was issuing commands to it. This girl, this boy, were being pursued by Colonel Muska when he died. Given the reports from Goliath survivors and the Tepis garrison commander I assert that it is vital that we find them. More vital than any," he waved his hand gently towards the map table, "games you and your soldiers may have planned for tomorrow."
"I've read the reports and they conclude nothing that cannot be explained by enemy sabotage."
"Take a look at the photographs and drawings that Colonel Muska recorded of the mechanical man at Tepis. Look at the scientists reports. That machine wasn't made of any material we know. A form of ceramic armour that can withstand heavy calibre shells is not the work of Restormellian agents."

Beauhen walked around the map table, his ample stomach preceding him. On it wooden blocks outlined a large salient in the north-west corner of Marinaer filled with red markers. The blue markers of Marinaen units were scattered to the south of these. On the coast, in the north-east around Princeport and Stoak was clustered a huge grouping of green wood blocks.

The Major General stood before the green-suited man's chair.

"Whether that is the case or not, Colonel, the mechanical man isn't any use to me now. We seem to have – hm," he cleared his throat, "destroyed this invincible mechanism. And this ghost-airship of immense power may as well be at the south pole for all the help it will be in this war. I fight tomorrow," He cast a hand back, gesturing at the table, "In a week this will be over. Then your Agency can approach the War Department and ask for whatever resources it needs. But right now, if you'll excuse me, I'm rather busy."
"It seems probable, from their known movements, that the girl and the boy are making for the border. Right towards your little party tomorrow. It would be extremely, hm, how may I best put this? Inconvenient for you, Major General, if they were to be killed in the coming fighting."
"One thing you don't do, Colonel, is make veiled threats to me regarding my operations. And in war civilians die. Regrettable but unavoidable."

Beauhen turned to an orderly.

"Tell Colonel Surun's driver that the Colonel will be right down."

The tall man stood. He took a step to the map table.

"The Agency will file a report on how most helpful the army has been," he smiled, exposing even white teeth, "Enjoy playing with your toy soldiers, Beauhen. And your retirement. In the next war the Agency will be in command."

Surun drew on his cigarette and lowered his white hand. He stubbed it out on the map table and left the crumpled stained stub on one of the Major General's green wood blocks.

--I--
---o-o-oOo-o-o---
I I

It was mid-morning, the sun had burned away the mist and the sky was clear for the first time in several days. Good flying weather. They needed to get into cover and lay up until dark. Pazu looked at the landscape around him, the same world of farms, fields and woodland. He had no idea where he was. Assuming they had averaged fifteen miles a day since leaving the train they were now a good sixty miles from where they had been chased by the men in suits. The thing was that other than it being a night's slow travel from Rutsford, he had no idea where they were when they'd left the train.

They might be eighty or ninety miles north of Rutsford but knowing that was little help because they didn't know how far it was to the border. It seemed that all the signs at road junctions had been removed, they'd seen none for days. Taken down to confuse the invaders Pazu assumed. Other than the compass which led them always to the north and east, they were lost.

Pazu needed a town name and an idea of how far that town was from the border. He would have to risk going into a town and asking questions or buying a paper.

Three times that morning they'd hidden under hedges or trees when the sound of airships came near. The first time had been a flight of the small Marinaer scouts that reminded them of Dola's flaptors, they had slender fast beating wings and buzzed like wasps. Six of them passed over very low heading west. Later they had heard gunfire and seen a larger ship, apparently stationary some miles off, three smaller vessels buzzed around it cruising higher in a protective screen. The artillery of the big ship fired down at something on the ground. And lastly, the thing that had finally decided for them that it was best to seek shelter and stay hidden during daylight, a medium sized ship had come over very low, surprising them with its sudden appearance. From under a bush they had noticed that it looked lopsided, crumpled down one side and it seemed to fly crabwise and very slowly. One set of airscrews were not turning and the remainder seemed to be running on full power straining to keep the thing aloft. The motors pulsed roughly, erratically. It dipped low over woodland to the south and was lost to sight.

He had to get them to cover, to rest before they collapsed from exhaustion. Or were seen.

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14 - 16 March 2007

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