“You have been here ten years as well?” Larn said. “I could barely believe it when Repzik said he had been here that long.”
“We all have,” Scholar said. “Me, Davir, Bulaven, Vladek, Chelkar, Svenk, Kell. All the men in the company have. The ones from Vardan, anyhow. Of course, there are plenty of replacements like you and Zeebers who have been here considerably less time.”
“Zeebers isn’t from Vardan?”
“Him? No, as I say, he is a replacement. Joined us about two months ago, give or take.”
“What about the rest of the regiment? Are there many replacements among them as well?”
“The rest? You misunderstand me, new fish,” Scholar said sadly. “Company Alpha is the Vardan 902nd. We’re all that’s left among the Vardans here. The others are dead.”
“You mean your regiment was wiped out?” Larn said horrified. “Out of an entire regiment, only two hundred men are still alive?”
“Worse than that, new fish. There were three Vardan regiments when we first set down in Broucheroc. But over time we suffered heavy losses. We lost the Vardan 722nd in our first week here, wiped out when General HQ ordered one of their now famous all-out assaults on the ork lines. The survivors were amalgamated into the Vardan 831st, who in turn eventually became part of the 902nd. Then, over the years, there were more casualties and the number of companies in the 902nd were reduced and amalgamated. Until, now, only Company Alpha is left. At last count I believe our current fighting strength is something in the order of two hundred and forty-four men, perhaps three-quarters of whom are from Vardan. Something like one hundred and eighty or so Vardans then, left from the more than six thousand men who first made planetfall in this city ten years ago. Really it is not so different from your situation with your own former company. It is a matter of attrition, you see. It’s the same for ever other Guard regiment in this city. Of course, having been on the frontlines so long, we’ve had it worse than most. I doubt there’s a regiment left in this city that is at any more than thirty per cent of its original strength. This is Broucheroc: here, everything is a matter of attrition. But then, given the name of the place, it is hardly surprising.”
“The name?” Larn asked, still stunned by the thought that the men he saw about him were all that was left from six thousand Guardsmen.
“Yes. A while back we spent a month dug in at an old bombed-out building that turned out to be a storage facility for some of the city’s oldest archives. I managed to read some of them before Davir and the rest used them for toilet paper. In the days before it became a city the name of this place was Butcher’s Rock, or Bouchers Roc in the local planetary dialect. Over time, as the city grew, its name was corrupted to the pronunciation we know now. Broo-sher-rok. As for the origin of the name, apparently the first settlement to be founded here served as the centre for the planet’s meat trade. Of course it still does, in a manner of speaking.”
“Still does?” Larn said. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“He means that this whole damned city is one big meat grinder, new fish,” Davir growled from the bottom of the trench. “And we are the meat.”
“You should tell the new fish about the promethium, Scholar,” Bulaven said from beside him. “It is better if he knows what we are fighting for.”
“Ah yes. The promethium,” Scholar said, taking the field glasses back from Larn and placing them in a case on his belt. “That is what the battle here is about, more or less.” Then, nodding towards Davir, he added: “Of course, I’m sure if you asked Davir he would tell you the war here is only about survival. Which would be right as well. But you cannot understand the broader issues of strategy here without knowing something about the promethium.”
“Strategy, my broad Vardan arse,” Davir said. “What does strategy mean to us? You think a man cares about strategy when he feels an ork blade go into his belly? You and Bulaven are fooling yourselves, Scholar. What, you think if it wasn’t for the promethium the orks would just go away? If that were the case I’d have found some way of giving it to them myself by now, never mind all this fantasising about killing generals. You make things too complicated, Scholar. The orks want to kill us for one simple reason. They are orks. That is all there is to it. Though by all means tell the new fish about your grand theories. I’m sure they’ll come in very handy next time the bullets start flying and he finds himself face to face with a horde of screaming green-skins. Though from what I’ve seen already, you might be doing him more of a favour if you told him to tie a string around his belt and tie the other end to his las-gun so he doesn’t lose it again.”
Grimacing in dismissive annoyance Davir returned his attention to the card game, leaving Scholar to go on with his lecture.
“The promethium, new fish,” Scholar said. “That’s why the orks are here and that’s what makes the city important to both us and them. Remember I told you this city started off as a centre for the meat trade? Well, that was thousands of years ago. In more recent times Broucheroc became a centre for the planet’s promethium industry. Time was when this city was little more than one giant refinery, where crude promethium would be brought from the drilling fields further south to be refined into fuel. Even though the pipelines that brought that crude here were cut long ago, this city is still rich in promethium. Billions of barrels’ worth, stored in massive underground tanks underlying most of the city.”
“But what do the orks want with it?” Larn asked him.
“Fuel,” Scholar said. “Ten years ago, just as we first made landfall here, it looked like the orks were going to conquer this entire planet. Until they started to run out of fuel for their armour. When that happened they laid siege to Broucheroc, hoping to seize the city’s fuel reserves. But we managed to hold out, and without fuel the ork assault elsewhere on the planet simply ground to a halt. Ever since then it has been a stalemate, with us trapped inside the city and the orks outside it trying to get in. A stalemate that shows no sign of ending anytime soon.”
“But what about the Imperial forces in other parts of the planet?” Larn said. “Or even Imperial forces from off-world? Why haven’t they tried to relieve the siege?”
“As for the Imperial forces elsewhere on this planet, it could be they have tried to relieve us, new fish,” Scholar said. “Certainly, if you asked General HQ they would tell you the city is on the verge of being relieved. However, seeing as they have been saying the same thing for ten years now, no one much believes them anymore. You will find that here in Broucheroc our commanders tell us a lot of things. That we are winning the war. That the orks are leaderless and on the verge of collapse. That the big breakthrough they have been promising us for the last ten years is finally imminent. You will find that after a while hearing the same old things, day after day after day, you simply learn not to listen. For myself, I suspect that our brother Guardsmen in other parts of this Emperor-forsaken world are in no better shape than we are. Not that I can say definitely whether or not this is the case you understand, given that the only part of this planet I’ve ever seen is Broucheroc. As theories go however, it seems no worse than any other.”
“But, of course, that doesn’t fully answer your question,” Scholar said, fully lost now in the flow of his own erudition. “As to why Imperial forces from off-world don’t intervene: I suspect the war here is simply not important enough to justify a full-scale landing. From time to time there are smaller more isolated landings — by a lander say, or a single dropship — but nothing that could be mistaken for anything even resembling a real attempt to break the siege. Sometimes, as in the case of you and your company, these landings turn out to be simple mistakes. Other times, it is as though some distant bureaucrat has finally decided to send us a few more troops or supplies in order to reassure us we have not been forgotten. For the most part, these occasional drops are as pointless and ridiculous as every other aspect of life here in Broucheroc. In the past we have been sent entire pods full of supplies, only to find when w
e fight our way to them the boxes inside the pods are full of the most useless things imaginable: paperclips, mosquito netting, laxatives, boot laces, and so on.”
“Remember when they sent us an entire drop-pod full of prophylactics?” Davir said from nearby. “I never could decide whether they wanted us to use them as barrage balloons, or simply thought the orks must have a fear of rubber.”
“A good example of what I was talking about,” Scholar said. “But anyway, I think that pretty much covers everything for now, new fish. Do you have any questions?”
“Never mind his questions.” Zeebers said, suddenly looking up from his cards to gaze at Larn with a sly and malignant smile. “You didn’t quite cover everything for the new fish, Scholar. There is still one thing you forgot to tell him.”
“Forgot?” Scholar said. “Really? I don’t think there was anything else of importance…”
“Yes there is,” Zeebers said, staring hard at Larn now with cold malice. “You forgot to tell him why it was Davir said you’d be wasting your time telling the new fish anything. Why all the things you told him already are probably totally useless to him. Why, come tomorrow, there’s likely only going to be four men in this trench, not five. Oh yes, I think you forgot to tell him something, Scholar. You forgot to tell him the single most important thing of them all.”
For a moment Zeebers paused, the silence growing tense and ugly as he stared at Larn while the others shifted uneasily in their positions as though suddenly uncomfortable. Then, the corners of his lips rising tightly in a gloating smile of victory, Zeebers smirked at Larn and spoke once more.
“You forgot to tell him about the fifteen hours.”
They were quiet at first. Scholar and Bulaven looked down at the ground in apparent embarrassment, while even Davir avoided Larn’s eyes as though feeling the same vague sense of discomfort as the others. Only Zeebers looked his way. Staring back at him, Larn found himself party to an unwelcome insight. Zeebers hated him. Though why, or for what reason, he could not even begin to guess.
“What is this fifteen hours?” Larn said at last to break the silence. “Repzik said something about it just before the last attack. And Corporal Vladek mentioned it as well. He said he would issue me with more equipment if I came back to see him again in fifteen hours’ time.”
Long moments passed and no one answered. Instead there was only more silence while Davir, Scholar, and Bulaven looked uneasily at one another as though mentally drawing lots to decide which of them would perform an unwelcome duty. Until at length, still refusing to meet Larn’s eyes, Davir finally spoke.
“Tell him, Scholar.”
In response Scholar fidgeted for a moment before, clearing his throat, he turned to face Larn directly.
“It is a matter of statistics, new fish,” Scholar said with a pained expression. “You must understand that in many ways every marshal and general at headquarters is as much a bureaucrat as the most pedantic scribe in the Administratum. To them war is not just a thing of blood and death, nor entirely a question of tactics and strategy. To them, it is as much as anything a matter of calculation. A calculation based on casualty reports, rates of attrition, the numbers of units in the field, estimates of the enemy’s strength, and so on, all the myriad facts and figures that, together, can be used to establish a mathematics of slaughter. Every day, from all over Broucheroc, these figures are recorded, collated and sent to General Headquarters for the bean counters there to work on them. As for this fifteen hours that Zeebers mentioned, it is one of the products of these daily calculations.”
“You are over complicating things again, Scholar,” Davir said. “It does no good to sugar the pill for the new fish. He asked a direct question, you should answer him accordingly.”
“It is a matter of life expectancy, new fish,” Scholar sighed. “Fifteen hours is the average length of time a replacement Guardsman survives in Broucheroc after he has been posted to a combat unit at the frontlines.”
“A replacement Guardsman?” Larn said, still unsure whether he fully understood what Scholar had just told him. “Like me, you mean? Is that what you are telling me? That’s how long you expect me to survive here? You think I am going to be dead inside fifteen hours?”
“Less than that, new fish,” Zeebers said, his tone smug and mocking. “You must have been here at least three hours by now. Leaving you only twelve hours left. Maybe less. Why do you think Vladek told you to return to him in fifteen hours? He didn’t want to risk wasting a lot of good equipment on a dead man.”
“Shut up, Zeebers,” Bulaven rumbled. For a moment Zeebers glared back at him until, seeing the angry expression on the big man’s face, he dropped his eyes to look down at the mud of the trench floor in sullen silence. “Tell him that isn’t the way it is, Scholar,” Bulaven began again, his expression softening and his voice almost pleading. “Explain it to him. Tell him we have every faith he will still be alive tomorrow.”
“What, you think we should lie to him?” Davir said to Bulaven. “Zeebers here may be an evil little shit with a big mouth, but at least he was telling the truth. You think we should treat the new fish like a child? Tell him that everything will be all right? That his kindly old uncles Davir, Scholar and Bulaven will keep him safe from the mean and nasty orks? Even after ten years of your fat-headed stupidity, you never cease to amaze me, Bulaven.”
“It wouldn’t be lying, Davir,” Bulaven said sulkily. “There is nothing wrong with giving a man some hope.”
“Hope, my arse,” Davir spat. “I keep telling you, fat-man: hope is a bitch with bloody claws. You’d think after ten years in this damned hellhole you would have learned that lesson by now at least.”
“All the same, Bulaven is not entirely wrong,” Scholar said, turning towards the others to join the discussion. “The new fish does indeed have some small cause for hope. True. General HQ may have calculated the life expectancy of a replacement to be fifteen hours. But that is only an average figure. Perhaps the new fish will be more fortunate. He could survive longer. He has already beaten the odds once already by surviving that landing.”
“Phah. Sometimes, Scholar, you can be as bad as Bulaven,” Davir said. “But where he witters on about hope and optimism, you act like you were still in the scholarium. You would do better to remind yourself we are in the real world here. Your talk of odds and averages is all very well, but this is Broucheroc. It doesn’t matter that the new fish survived the landing. Any more than it matters whether or not you and Bulaven try to coddle him. He is as good as a corpse already. A dead man walking. Trust me, the orks will see to that. There’s nothing they like better than a new fish, still wet behind the ears and ready for the gutting.”
“All I am saying is that we are perhaps being too literal-minded when it comes to talking about this figure fifteen hours,” Scholar said, all three of them so caught up in the heat of their argument now that they ignored Larn as he stood there listening to them. “It is not an absolute figure. It is only an average. Why, for all we know, the new fish might end up surviving days, weeks, even years.”
“Years?” Davir said. “You know you really are a wonder to me, Scholar. I’ve never seen a man talk so eloquently and at such length from his arse before. You think the new fish is going to manage to survive years in this place? Next you will be telling me you expect Sector Command to make Bulaven a general! You obviously haven’t seen the new fish in action—”
“Stop it.” Larn said quietly, no longer willing to be talked about as though he were invisible. “I’ve heard enough. Stop calling me new fish. My name is Larn.”
For a moment, as though surprised by the interruption, the other men in the trench simply blinked and turned to look at him in silence.
“What? You don’t like us calling you new fish, then?” Davir said after a time, sarcastically. “We have offended you perhaps? Your feelings are hurt?”
“No,” said Larn, uncertainly. “I… You don’t understand. I just think you should use
my name is all. My real name, I mean. Larn. Not new fish.”
“Really?” Davir said, gazing at him with cold eyes while Zeebers glared at him in hostility and Scholar and Bulaven looked at him in sadness. “Then, it is you who does not understand the facts of life here, new fish. You think I care what your name is? I have enough baggage in my head already, never mind learning something that will likely be written on a grave marker before the day is out. You want me to remember your name? Tell me it again in fifteen hours’ time. By then, perhaps it just may be worth knowing.”
CHAPTER NINE
15:55 hours Central Broucheroc Time
A Figure Moving Closer Through No-Man’s Land — Standing Watch with Bulaven — Matters of Gretchin and Human Marksmanship — A Splash of Colour Amidst the Wasteland — Lessons on How Best to Act as Bait
[Imperial Guard 01] - Fifteen Hours Page 11
