by Dan Abnett
“Doctor?” Gaunt said.
“Sir?”
“See to Rawne, please.”
Gaunt’s arrival had marked a fresh influx of casualties, the majority of them Krassians and Alliance, but also a good number from at least seven Ghost platoons, including those of Rawne, Domor, Theiss and Obel. The injuries in Theiss’ and Obels’ units were mainly from shells. Some of these wounds, like Trooper Kell’s, were devastating. Others were insidious.
Trooper Tokar would be the first Tanith man to have to learn as a necessity the sign language used by previously blast-deafened Verghastites.
In Domor’s platoon, and in Rawne’s, the injuries were from close-quarters fighting. Milo, unharmed himself apart from a few bruises, carried in Trooper Nehn, who’d had his skull cracked by a trench club. Trooper Osket had lost an eye, and then had suffered the misfortune of grabbing a bayonet thrust at him. The blade had chopped in between his middle and third finger, right down through the palm to the base of the thumb. Corporal Chiria, one of the Verghastite girls in Domor’s outfit, had massive lacerations that would scar her plain but cheerful face forever.
Rawne was unconscious. Feygor and Ledan carried him in on an improvised stretcher made of duckboards.
“What do you know?” asked Dorden briskly as he started to cut away the major’s tunic and undershirt.
“Solid round to the gut,” said Ledan, three platoon’s corps-man. “Close range.”
“How long ago?”
“Two, maybe two and a half hours. It was mayhem in the trench. Bloody mayhem. I found him in a funkhole. Banda was holding on to him, but he’d passed out long before that.”
“Banda was brought in earlier,” said Dorden, washing the filth from Rawne’s stomach.
“I sent her up,” said Leclan. “In the first wave. I didn’t want to move Rawne. I called for a surgeon to come to him at the front, but the vox was down and the runners I sent never came back.”
“Feth!” Dorden said, examining the gunshot. “He’s lost a lot of blood. A feth of a lot.” He leaned over and grabbed Rawne’s dog-tags, calling out the blood type printed on them to a waiting orderly.
“Is Banda all right?” Leclan asked.
Dorden stopped his relentless work, and looked at Leclan. The man was frightened and worried. Corpsmen like Leclan were standard troopers trained to administer only the most basic first aid. They weren’t medics. They were just there to do the fundamentals until medics came. “Jessi Banda’s going to live. It was touch and go. But she’ll be fine.”
Leclan sagged visibly with relief.
“You did all right,” Dorden said, returning to his work.
“He’s not going to die, is he?” Feygor asked. The involuntary sarcasm injected into his voice by his augmetic throat made Dorden snort.
“We’ll see.”
“How’s the thumb?”
Beltayn looked up and saw Gaunt. He scrambled up from the ammo hopper he’d been sitting on and showed the colonel-commissar his bandaged hand.
“Hurt a bit when they reset it, but it’s fine. Doc Mtane says no heavy lifting, and absolutely no complicated vox work. In fact, he recommends a vacation somewhere where there’s no gunfire.”
“Nice try,” said Gaunt.
They were alone at the edge of the triage station, by the side of the trackway where long grass bushed out from broken fence posts. The sun had begun to come out its light turned sooty by the vapour of war.
A train of stretcher bearers went past, heading west. Gaunt sat down on the grass bank, and Beltayn resumed his seat on the old hopper. “You have the casualty lists?” Gaunt asked. Beltayn produced a data-slate.
Rawne had once joked, bleakly, that the Tanith spared Gaunt that one grim responsibility of commanding officers everywhere, the letter home. In truth, few Guard COs bothered to inform next of kin, though a handful of regiments were famous for the scrupulous way they did it. Gaunt had no one to write to, even if he’d felt the inclination. Tanith was gone, and most of the Verghastites who’d joined the Ghosts had done so because they were leaving no one behind.
Gaunt remembered the old days, when Oktar had charged him with composing the LIA notices for the families of the Hyrkan dead. After Balhaut, it had taken him the best part of a week.
Gaunt studied the data-slate.
“Sixteen platoon pretty much doesn’t exist anymore,” said Beltayn. “I suppose we fold the survivors into squads that need making up.”
Gaunt nodded. From the list, he realised that the Ghosts’ strength had dropped to less than one hundred platoons for the first time since Verghast. He felt his anger returning. War consumed manpower. That was one of the first things they drummed into you at the commissariate.
But this war… this war consumed manpower like a glutton. It fed on death, even though it was bloated and full.
“Can you get me a link to Van Voytz?” Gaunt asked.
“I can try,” said Beltayn.
As his adjutant began to set up his vox-caster, Gaunt got to his feet, and wandered a little way down the track. Columns of Aexe Alliance foot soldiers were moving towards him from the reserves, weary and dirty. More bodies for the war machine.
Gaunt saw a lone figure trudging his way, overtaking the toiling infantry ranks. “Captain Daur?”
“Sir,” Daur saluted. He was out of breath. He’d been jogging all the way from Rhonforq.
“The reserves are in safe hands, I trust?”
“Mkoll, sir,” Daur panted. “And you’re here?”
“It looked bad. The vox was down. I wanted to… to know.”
“It was bad. Over a hundred casualties. Thirty-six dead that I know of, including Maroy. Rawne may not make it, either.”
Daur looked away, gazing across the neglected fields and the withered woodlands.
“It’s going to chew us all up, isn’t it, sir?” he said.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Gaunt replied. “Be advised, Ban… with Rawne out, you have third ranking as of now.”
“Understood.”
“I want you to bring up five platoons early to replace two, three, eleven, twelve and sixteen. You call it. We’d best forget the standing rota. Any platoon that sees hard action gets rotated for fresh from now on.”
Daur nodded. “You want me at the front now?”
“I understand Colm saw some feth today too. I’ll drop him back in favour of you.”
“He’s all right?”
“Far as I know. But I want to go easier on him. He’s had a rough time these past eighteen months. He’s still not… not his old self.”
“That’s fine, sir,” Daur said.
“Colm will take the reserve, and you and I will lead at the front.”
“Yes sir.” Daur registered a certain pride. For the first time it would be Gaunt and a Verghastite in command at the sharp end. It felt like a coming of age. But his feelings were mixed. Rawne wounded, Corbec pulled back… would the Ghosts still be Ghosts without them?
When he first signed up, at the Act of Consolation, Daur had imagined a time when he’d be Gaunt’s XO. He’d all but willed death on Rawne and Corbec so that he could bring the Verghast strength to the fore.
Now it was happening, and he felt nothing but keen loss.
“Sir?” Beltayn called out. Gaunt strode over to his adjutant, who was listening intently to the phones of his vox-set.
“No luck with the general, sir,” Beltayn explained, “but I’ve spoken to his aide. You’re invited to dinner with the staff chiefs at Meiseq tomorrow night. Sixteen hundred hours. Dress uniform.”
Larkin wandered down the fire trench between stations 290 and 291, his long-las hanging from one hand and his Tanith blade hanging from the other. Troopers got out of his way. Mad Larkin was mad again.
“Larks?” Corbec called out, approaching him. “How you doing?”
Corbec had been shipping Sillo off to a triage station when word had reached him that Larkin was on the prowl. “He looks like he’s gone r
ight over!” Trooper Bewl had said excitedly.
Larkin blinked and slowly recognised Corbec. He glanced down at the weapons he was carrying as if he’d only just become aware of them, and carefully set them down on the firestep. Then he sat down next to them.
Corbec shooed the gawking troopers around him back to their duties and went down to Larkin’s side.
“Bad day, Larks?”
“Horrible.”
“It’s been tough all round. Anything you want to talk about?”
“Yes.” Larkin paused. He opened his mouth to speak the name “Lijah Cuu”, but stopped himself. So badly, he wanted to tell Corbec about Cuu. Cuu the maniac. Cuu the psycho. Cuu, who would have killed him but for the sudden shelling.
Cuu, who had killed Bragg.
But now it seemed pointless. Loglas, the only witness, was very dead. If Larkin brought a charge, it would be Cuu’s word against his. And Cuu had proved to be bulletproof up till now.
Larkin knew Colm would take him seriously. But he also knew that Colm was hidebound by the rules.
As soon as the shells started to fall, Cuu had fled, leaving Larkin alone. Larkin had been so terrified, arms up over his head, eyes closed, it had taken him a moment to realise Cuu had actually gone and only Larkin’s fear of Cuu was left behind.
No, there was no point, Larkin decided. The only way to be free from his fear was to face it. Corbec couldn’t help him. Gaunt couldn’t. The system couldn’t.
Lijah Cuu had to die. It was that simple. Cuu wanted the score settled, didn’t he? So it would be settled. Fething straight, sure as sure, one way or another.
“Larks?” Corbec said. “What did you want to tell me about? You look like you’re all upset.”
“I am,” said Hlaine Larkin. “Loglas died,” he confessed.
That was true, but it was also a lie. That wasn’t why Larkin was most upset.
But it was all Corbec needed to know.
SIX
ONE HAND GIVES,
ONE HAND TAKES
“I say, if they want to skulk, let them. I’d be interested to see great skulkers at work.”
—Colonel Ankre
That night, and the morning that followed, it was mercifully quiet in 55th sector. It was as if the tide of war had drawn out from that part of the line, slack, low.
It was flood tide elsewhere. Further south down the Naeme Valley, the 47th and 46th sectors were brutalised by twelve straight hours of heavy bombardment. A considerable stretch of the so-called Seronne Line, which ran east from the end of the Peinforq Sectors right across country to the Kottmark Massif, came under shellfire, and then armoured assault. The worst clashes were just south of the Vostl Delta.
To the north, there were intermittent light attacks and raids all through the night at Loncort and the Salient. Unconfirmed reports were circulating that sectors north of Gibsgatte had endured the biggest offensive of the year, and that battle still raged there.
The morning was damp and fog-bound. With Beltayn his only companion, Gaunt travelled north for Meiseq. Beltayn said little. He could tell Gaunt was in a foul temper, and didn’t want to provoke anything.
A staff car conveyed them as far as Ongche, where they boarded a despatch train bound for the north. The train was half-empty, and rattled along through misty farmland and rain-swept heath.
Prior to departure, just after dawn, Gaunt had made a final inspection of the First’s positions. Daur’s relief squads were at the front by then, though Corbec was to remain as line XO until Gaunt’s return.
At the end of his tour, Gaunt had made a call at the military hospital in Rhonforq, spending time with the injured and looking in on the critical cases. Rawne had survived the night though he’d required secondary surgery in the small hours to staunch internal bleeding.
Dorden was so fatigued by then he seemed almost asleep on his feet and the bruises he’d taken in the beating were starting to nag at him. Gaunt had been intending to ask the chief medic to accompany him to Meiseq, but one look at Dorden stifled the idea. Dorden was needed at Rhonforq, if only to get some rest Gaunt knew that Dorden was still angry with him about the discipline killings. He had a right to be, in Gaunt’s opinion. Gaunt had been in a dazed rage the afternoon before, weary with the pointless losses he’d witnessed at station 289. He’d just snapped.
As an Imperial commissar, Gaunt was unusual, quite apart from the fact that he held command rank. Commissars were universally feared. They were the Guard’s instruments of discipline and control, the lash that kept the soldiery in line and drove them forward. They were there to drum the tenets of the Imperial creed into the minds of the enlisted men, and then give them stark, regular reminders of that truth. Summary execution, even for minor violations, was acceptable stock-in-trade for a commissar. The great Yarrick himself had once said that it was a commissar’s job to be a figure of greater fear and threat to an Imperial Guardsman than any enemy.
That was not Gaunt’s way. Experience had shown him that morale was better served by encouragement and trust than by an unpredictable temper and a pistol. He’d had a good example in the form of his mentor, the late Delane Oktar. Oktar’s philosophy of morale had been based on trust and tolerance too. There had been times when a firm hand had been called for, a few more when action had worked better than words.
But Gaunt prided himself on his fairness, and knew that he was able to count men like Dorden as friends because of it. At the field hospital, he’d acted just like a typical commissar. Dorden hadn’t said anything, but Gaunt had seen the disappointment in his eyes.
As the train rattled north, he turned the incident over in his mind. There was no point setting the blame on fatigue. Fatigue implied weakness, and a commissar could never be weak. He realised it was more a matter of futility. He’d come into the Aexe war with reservations, and each step of the way to the front had confirmed his fears. War was not senseless of itself. Faced with the immortal obscenity of Chaos, humankind had a true cause to rally around and fight for. There was a greater good, a purpose, even here on Aexe.
It was the manner of this war that was senseless. The dismissive contempt with which the Alliance threw men and materiel at the enemy. The antique thinking that believed brute strength was the main determining factor behind victory. It made Gaunt angry to see this, angrier still to have the First caught up in it. The afternoon before, he’d been smothered by the futility, and it had worked its ministry on him.
Outside, the world went by. One world, just one of thousands, hundreds of thousands, that combined to form the greatest achievement in human history. The Imperium of Mankind. Many believed that the Imperium was so vast in scale, so huge in scope, that the actions of one man could not affect it. That wasn’t true. If everyone thought that way, the Imperium would simply collapse in upon itself overnight Each and every human soul determined their part of Imperial culture. That was the only thing the Emperor asked of a man. Be true to yourself, and all those myriad tiny contributions would combine to build a culture that could endure until the stars went out.
Beltayn was asleep, his head nodding onto his chest, his bandaged hand cradled in the other. Beyond the window pane, broken woodland flickered by, cut by hillsides dark with rain. A stream flashed like a drawn sword. Meadows lay invisible beneath cloaks of white mist. Uplands broke through fog like the tips of grey reefs. A lone, lightning-scarred tree stood vigil on a bare hill. A village slumbered, derelict. Clouds as thick as ruffled taffeta chased each other across the sky.
Gaunt woke from a recurring dream about Balhaut, and realised the train had stopped. The rain drummed down and gloomy woodlands surrounded the carriage windows. He checked his timepiece: an hour past noon. They should be in Chossene by now.
He got up and walked down the empty carriage to the door. Opening the window, he smelt the damp undergrowth and soil of the wood, and heard birdcalls and the batter of rain on the leaves. Other passengers were peering out. Down at the locomotive, engineers had dismounted.
The locomotive had broken down, one of the engineers told him. Repairs were beyond them. They were going to have to wait until a relief tender could come out from Chossene.
“How long will that be?” Gaunt asked.
“Three or four hours, sir.”
Gaunt shook Beltayn to wake him up. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve some walking to do.”
“What’s wrong, sir?” asked Beltayn sleepily. Gaunt smiled. “Something’s awry.”
The mists were beginning to clear as they trudged up through the woods, heading west on a little-used path. Pale sunlight shone down through the branches of the wood. The rain had stopped, but still rainwater fell, dripping down from the canopy. The air smelled of wet, and the scent of some wild-flower.
The engineer had given them directions. A village, Veniq, lay half an hour’s walk to the west. Someone there could provide the Imperial officer with transport, the engineer supposed. In his opinion, it was better to stay with the train. Help was coming. Eventually.
Beltayn had been in favour of waiting too. “We might walk for hours. Or get lost. Or—”
“If we wait for the relief tender, we’ll miss my appointment for sure. Meiseq’s still a good way away. We walk.”
The track was muddy and it was slow going. Beltayn insisted on carrying Gaunt’s overnight pack but, with his own kit and his damaged hand, he was over-encumbered and kept stopping to put something down and resettle his load.
The cool air was bracing. Gaunt realised he was raising a sweat, and took off his stormcoat, flopping it over his left shoulder. Behind them, back down through the woods, they heard a train whistle. If that was the relief tender, then they really had made a bad choice and wasted a lot of effort.
“You want to go back, sir?” asked Beltayn when he heard the whistle note.
Gaunt shook his head. This brisk walk through the empty calm of the wood was like a balm. His lungs were full of cool, smoke-free air and his nostrils full of flower scent. It was amazingly strong now. He didn’t know what it was. Little bright-blue flowers with odd-shaped petals covered the ground between the trees, showing over the wet moss and ivy. He wondered if it was them.
