[Imperial Guard 01] - Fifteen Hours

by Mitchel Scanlon - (ebook by Undead)

  They were standing in the trench with shovels in their hands, Davir and Scholar beside them while Zeebers stood on the firing step on watch, trying to repair the damage done to the trench in the course of the shelling. Returning to their trench in the aftermath of the bombardment, the fireteam had arrived to find the explosion of a nearby shell had caused part of the trench’s rear wall to collapse, half-burying the trench interior in clods of frozen earth. Now, after half an hour of backbreaking labour the trench floor was mostly cleared, the excess earth having been piled out of the way into another corner of the trench.

  “Personally, I would say you are doing our homeworld a grave disservice, Bulaven.” Davir said, sitting on the end of his shovel and watching them as they moved the last of the fallen earth. “Frankly, my own recollections suggest Vardan was every bit as much a stinking hellhole as Broucheroc. Granted, we didn’t have all these orks to contend with there. I’m sure I don’t remember having to do so much digging back home though.”

  “I don’t seem to have noticed you doing too much digging here either.” Bulaven said. “Most of the time in fact you have been standing there and leaving all the work to others.”

  “Phah. It is a simply a matter of maintaining a proper division of labour,” Davir said. “Each man performs the task to which he is best suited. Which, in this case, means that you, Scholar, and the new fish do the don-keywork while I oversee your labours in a supervisory capacity. Besides, someone must watch to make sure the new fish can tell one end of a spade from the other.”

  “Not to mention your vital role in keeping us all warm,” Larn said, so annoyed now at the ugly dwarf’s constant insults that he found himself responding in kind without even thinking. “Emperor knows, if it wasn’t for all your hot air spewing about this trench we might have frozen to death long ago.”

  For a moment, shocked at his response, the others looked at him in silence. Then, abruptly, Scholar and Bulaven broke into surprised laughter. Even Davir’s face briefly cracked into a grudging smile. Only Zeebers seemed unmoved, scowling down at Larn from the firing step with the same hostile expressions he always wore.

  “Hah! Hot air!” Bulaven said, laughing. “That’s a good one. The new fish may not have been here very long, Davir, but you have to admit he got your number fast enough!”

  “Yar, yar, yar. Keep on laughing, pigbrain,” Davir said, his gruff demeanour abruptly restored as he turned to look at Larn in tight-lipped derision. “So, it seems our little puppy has claws. Very good, new fish. Well done. You made a joke. Ha, ha, you are very funny. But don’t let your head get too big now. The orks like nothing better than to see a new fish with a big head. It gives them more of a target to aim at.”

  The repairs continued. Having finally cleared the trench of earth, they laid down their shovels. Then, as Larn watched them, Bulaven and Scholar picked up an oblong sheet of metal lying across the trench floor and pressed it against the ragged hole in the trench wall, holding upright it as Davir took a wooden prop and used his shovel to hammer the prop in place to keep the sheet in position.

  “There,” Davir said, checking the hole was fully covered and putting his weight against the prop to make sure it was tight. “That should hold it long enough for us to finish the repairs.”

  “What now?” Larn asked. “We have cleared the floor. How do we repair the hole itself?”

  “How?” said Davir. “Well, first thing, you pick up your shovel again, new fish. You see that pile of earth over there?” he said, pointing towards the clods of frozen earth they had already moved over to the corner of the trench. “The pile you just moved? Well now, you take your shovel and move it back over here. Then, you use it to fill in the original hole. I know, I know, you needn’t say it. With all this endless excitement, who can believe that anyone ever told you that life in the Guard might be boring?”

  “I don’t understand how this is supposed to work,” Larn said later, his hands blistered through his gloves and his back aching from using the shovel as they refilled the hole in the trench wall with soil. “Even after we have filled the hole in, won’t the wall just collapsed again the moment we take the prop away?”

  “We don’t take the prop away, new fish,” Bulaven said, shovelling beside him. “Not at first, anyway. First, we fill in the hole. Next, we wet the soil. Then, we tamp it all down and leave it to freeze for a while. Then, after a couple of hours, we finally remove the prop and the wall will be as good as new. Trust me, new fish, it always works. You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve had to repair this trench since we first dug it.”

  “Wet it?” Larn asked. “Don’t we need a bucket then to fetch more water? We haven’t got much left in our canteens.”

  “Bucket? Canteens?” Bulaven said, pausing in his labours to look at Larn with raised eyebrows. “We are repairing a trench wall, new fish. We don’t use drinking water for that.”

  “But then, what do we use?” Larn asked, beginning to feel foolish as he realised the others were smirking at him.

  “What do we use, he says,” Davir said, rolling his eyes towards the heavens. “My broad Vardan backside. I swear, new fish, just when I was starting to think you might not be a total idiot you say something stupid and ruin my good opinion of you. If it helps you to answer your question, here are a couple of hints. One, it is always better to use warm water when repairing trench walls in frozen conditions. Two, every human being carries a ready supply of the stuff in question about their person.”

  “Warm?” said Larn, a new understanding slowly dawning on him. “You mean we…”

  “Ah, finally, he understands,” Davir said. “Yes, that’s right, new fish. And guess what? It’s your turn first. Now, get up there and start pissing. I only hope to hell you haven’t got a nervous bladder. Emperor knows, I have better things to do with my time than standing around here waiting for you to piss.”

  “What about your own world then, new fish?” Bulaven asked afterwards, as they sat in the trench waiting for the newly repaired wall to freeze. “You asked me about Vardan before. What was your own homeworld like?”

  Trying to think of an answer, for a moment Larn was quiet. He thought about his parents’ farm, the endless golden wheatfields swaying in the breeze. He thought of his family, all of them sitting at their places around the table in the kitchen as they made ready for their evening meal. He thought of that last beautiful sunset, the sky reddening as the fiery orb of the descending sun fell slowly towards the horizon. He thought of the world he had left behind, and of all the things he would never see again.

  It all seems so long ago and far away now, he thought. As though all those things were a million kilometres away from me. The sad thing is they are even farther away than that. Not just a million, but millions of millions of kilometers, however far it was we came in that troopship.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last, unable to find the words to say what he really felt. “It was different anyway. A lot different from this place.”

  “Hnn. I think our new fish is starting to feel homesick,” Davir said. “Not that I blame him, you understand, any place would seem rosy when compared to this damn stinkhole. You find me in a strangely magnanimous mood however, new fish, so let me give you a piece of advice. Whatever wistful longings you may harbour for the world of your birth, forget them. This is Broucheroc. There is no room for sentiment here. Here, a man must keep himself hard and tight if we wants to live to see tomorrow.”

  “Is that it then?” Larn asked. “I remember Scholar told me you were all that had survived from over six thousand men. Is that how you did it? By keeping yourselves hard and tight?”

  “Ah, now there you have touched upon an interesting question, new fish,” Scholar said. “How was it we survived when so many of our fellows didn’t? You can be sure it is a regular topic of conversation hereabouts. Each man has his own opinions. Some say that to have managed to live so long in Broucheroc at all, we must have been born survivors to begin with. Others
say it must have been a combination of fate and good judgement, or perhaps only a matter of poor dumb luck. As I say, everyone has their own opinions. Their own theories. For myself, I am not sure I put much store in any of them. We survived where others died. That is all I can tell you.”

  “I always thought the Emperor must have had a hand in it,” Bulaven said, his expression quiet and thoughtful. “That perhaps He was saving us for some greater purpose. At least, that is what I used to believe. After so many years in Broucheroc, a man begins to wonder.”

  “The Emperor?” Davir said, throwing his hands up in a gesture of frustration. “Really, this time you have excelled yourself, Bulaven. Of all the lumpen-headed stupidities I have heard pouring from your mouth over the last seventeen years since we were inducted into the Guard, that is without a doubt the most idiotic. The Emperor! Phah! You think the Emperor has nothing better to do than watch over your fat backside and make sure it comes to no harm? Wake up, you big pile of horse manure. The Emperor doesn’t even know we exist. And, if he does know, he doesn’t care.”

  “No!” Larn shouted, the sudden loudness of his voice in the trench startling them. “You are wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Then, seeing the others looking at him in bewilderment, Larn began to speak again. More quietly now, the words spilling heartfelt from his mouth.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to yell. But I heard what you were saying and… You are wrong, Davir. The Emperor does care. He watches over all of us. I know he does. And I can prove it. If the Emperor wasn’t good and kind and just, he never would have saved my great-grandfather’s life.”

  And then, as about him the others sat quietly in the trench and listened, Larn told them the same tale his father had told him in the farmhouse cellar on his last night at home.

  He told them about his great-grandfather. About how his name was Augustus and he had been born on a world called Arcadus V. He told them about his being called into the Guard, and how sad he had felt at leaving his homeworld. He told them about the thirty years of service and his great-grandfather’s failing health. He told them about the lottery and the man who had given up his ticket. He told them it was a miracle. A quiet miracle, perhaps. But, a miracle all the same. Then, when he had told them all these things word for word the same as his father had told him, Larn fell quiet and waited to hear their reaction.

  “And that is it?” Davir said, the first to speak after what felt to Larn like an age of silence. “That is the proof you talked about? This tale your father told you?”

  “It is an interesting story, new fish,” Scholar said, his expression ill at ease.

  “Hah! Story is right,” Zeebers said, looking sarcastically down at Larn from up on the firing step. “A fairy story, like parents tell their children to make them sleep. You believe that crap, new fish, maybe you should go tell your story to the orks and see if a miracle saves you then.”

  “Shut up, Zeebers!” Bulaven snapped. “You’re supposed to be on watch, not flapping your lips about. And it is not as though anyone asked for your opinion. Leave the new fish alone.” Then, seeing he had cowed Zeebers to silence, Bulaven turned towards Larn again. “Scholar was right, new fish. It was a very interesting story, and you told it well.”

  “Is that all you are going to say?” Larn asked, surprised. “You all sound like you think something is wrong. As though you don’t believe what I just told you.”

  “We don’t believe it, new fish.” Davir was blunt. “Granted, Scholar and Bulaven are trying to be soothing about it. But they don’t believe it either. None of us do. Frankly, if the story you just told us is what passes your benchmark for a miracle, you are even more of an innocent than you look.”

  “I would have expected you to say that Davir,” Larn said. “You don’t believe in anything. But what about the rest of you? Scholar? Bulaven? Surely you can see that what happened to my great-grandfather was a miracle? That it is proof that the Emperor watches out for us?”

  “It is not a matter of believing you,” Scholar said, lifting his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “It is just that even if we accept the details of your story are true, new fish, those same details are open to a variety of interpretations.”

  “Interpretations?” Larn said. “What are you talking about?

  “He is saying you are being naive, new fish,” Davir said. “Oh, he’s doing it in that scholarly way of his, of course — just tip-toeing around the subject rather than coming right out and saying what is on his mind directly. But he thinks you are naive. We all do.”

  “You have to understand our experience of life makes us see these things differently,” Scholar said.

  “But how is there any different way to see it?” Larn said. “You heard the story. What about the man giving my great-grandfather his ticket? Surely you can see that must have been the hand of the Emperor at work?”

  “Far be it for me to shatter your illusions, new fish,” Davir said. “But I doubt the hand of the Emperor had anything to do with it. No, likely the only hands involved in it at all would have belonged to your great-grandfather.”

  “I… What do you mean?”

  “He killed him, new fish,” Davir said. “The man with the ticket. Your great-grandfather killed him and took his ticket from him. That’s your miracle.”

  “No,” Larn said, looking quietly from face to face in disbelief. “You are wrong.”

  “Course I can see how it could have happened,” Davir said. “There’s your great-grandfather. He’s sick. Ailing. He knows winning the lottery is his only chance of making it out of the Guard alive. Then, when someone else gets the winning ticket, he realises only that one man’s life stands between him and freedom. And he was a soldier. He’d killed before. What is one more life in the grand scale of things, he tells himself. It’s a dog-eat-dog universe, new fish, and it sounds like your great-grandfather was a dirtier dog than most.”

  “No,” Larn said. “You’re not listening to me. I’m telling you, you’re wrong about this. You are sick, Davir. How could you even think something like that?”

  “It is the name, new fish,” Scholar said sadly. “Or the lack of one, I mean’

  “Yes, the name,” Davir said. “That’s what clinches it”

  “What are you… I don’t understand…”

  “They’re talking about the name of the man who gave your great-grandfather the ticket, new fish,” Bulaven said with a sigh. “It wasn’t part of the story. And you must be able to see that makes all the difference? I am sorry to tell you this, but that is what proves your great-grandfather killed him.”

  “The name?” Larn was floundering now, his stomach churning, his head dizzying as though the world about him had suddenly begun to turn strangely on its axis.

  “Think about it, new fish,” Davir said. “This man is supposed to have saved your great-grandfather’s life. Your great-grandfather must have known his name. He was a comrade of his, remember? A man who had fought side-by-side with him through thirty years in the Guard? And yet, years later, when your great-grandfather tells the tale to his son he somehow neglects to even mention the name of the man who saved his life? It doesn’t add up, new fish. Especially considering you told us your great-grandfather was a pious man. A man like that, if somebody does them a good turn they remember them in their prayers to the Emperor for the rest of their life.”

  “It does have the ring of a guilty conscience about it, new fish.” Scholar said. “Though, if it is any consolation to you, it also suggests your great-grandfather was not given easily to murder. If he’d been a more coldblooded man, presumably he’d have just told his son the man’s name and thought no more about it.”

  “Not really, Scholar,” Davir said. “Even though years had passed by then, he could’ve still been worried about his crime being found out. Maybe he thought it was better to let bad dogs lie, and never mention the name ever. Either way, it doesn’t really make any difference. Your great-grandfather killed t
he man, new fish, and stole his ticket. That’s all there is to it. So much for miracles.”

  “No. You’ve got it wrong,” Larn said. “There must be another explanation. One you haven’t thought of. Surely you can see that my great-grandfather wouldn’t have done anything like that?” But as Larn looked at them it was clear to him that was exactly what they did believe. Davir, Scholar, Bulaven, Zeebers. All of them. Looking at the faces of each man in the trench, Larn could see their minds were made up. There had been no miracle. No example of the Emperor’s grace. To them, it was a simple matter. His great-grandfather had killed a man, then lied about it afterwards.

  “No,” Larn said at last, hating how weak his voice sounded and way it wavered. “No. You are wrong. You are wrong and I don’t believe you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  18:58 hours Central Broucheroc Time

  Sector Command and the Portents of a Coming Storm — Larn Sulks — Davir at Last Finds a Reason to be Cheerful — Meal Time in Barracks Dugout One — The Culinary Arts as According to Trooper Skench — A Discussion as to the Advantages of Artillery in the Hunting of Big Lizards

  “Here are the raw contact reports for the last half-hour, sir,” Sergeant Valtys said, holding out a sheaf of papers as thick as his thumb in his outstretched hand. “You said you wanted to see them immediately, before they were collated.”

  Sitting at his desk in his small office at Sector Command Beta (Eastern Divisions, Sectors 1-10 to 1-20), Colonel Kallad Drezlen turned to take the papers from Valtys and begin to read them. There must be two hundred reports here at least, he thought. Each one recording a separate incident of contact with the enemy. Two hundred, when usually at this time of day we would expect to get no more than eighty or so in an hour. It looks like the orks are getting restless hereabouts and that is never a good sign. Something must he coming.