Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [42]
Victoria thought of Wemus. His heart-warming infectious grin, his humour and good nature. She sipped her wine and frowned. Agus smiled charmingly, while President Sabit smirked from over his shoulder. Victoria’s frown deepened.
Agus looked thoughtful for a moment, and then stood up as if reaching a decision. He finished his wine with a single swig and signalled for Victoria to do likewise. ‘I want to show you something,’ he said, and there was a gleam in his eye.
He led her from the officers’ quarters and into the central courtyard of the barracks. Featureless grey blocks surrounded them on all sides. A few soldiers were smoking lazily in one corner, but jolted to attention when they saw Agus. He ignored them, leading her out through the main gateway and past the line of parked cruisers.
‘Where are we going?’ Victoria asked. The tall officer gave no answer, leading her down an alley lined with stalls and souvenir shops filled with exotica culled from the jungles, ready to be sold to eager Indoni and offworld tourists. They were all locked now, the street emptied by curfew. The alley ended in a brake of wind-bent palms, and Victoria could hear the shush of waves on a beach.
The most desolate beach she had ever seen.
Crimson sand, similar to the beach at Batu, dunes piled in weird formations like fat bodies huddled on the shore. A shore which disappeared in either direction far, far into the night. It was like the last beach – she was about to say ‘on Earth’ and stopped herself. The wind blew warmly upon her face with a tang of salt and weed. Stars peeped down from unfamiliar constellations, sprinkling their glitter into the dark sea. No moon, and Victoria guessed it was hidden under clouds – if there was one at all – and surely there must be. Did it matter?
Agus was watching her, his face grey in the starlight, eyes twinkling. He took her hand gently, and she accepted, awed by the strangeness of the beach.
They walked for a while, saying nothing, and despite the loneliness of the place, its solemnity filled Victoria with a sense of peace. She realized she had not thought of Jamie and the Doctor for quite some time.
Agus was pointing at dark shapes ahead of them on the beach, and for a moment fear returned. She could hear a moaning, keening sound, and it was coming from the squat shadows. Had the Indoni led her here for some horrible purpose?
He led her closer, and reluctantly she followed. She trusted him, and she did not know why.
The dark shapes gradually revealed themselves to be hulks of twisted metal half-buried in the sand. Rusting turrets jutting from submerged vehicles, buckled and twisted by fire or detonation. Ancient military tanks, sinking into the beach over the centuries, like the carcasses of once vicious beasts. The sound that had scared Victoria had stopped now, but the dread it had kindled remained with her.
‘The Earth-Indoni war...’ Agus said quietly, watching the tanks with pride and patriotic fervour. ‘You probably didn’t know a lot of it was fought on the beaches of Papul. You see, the Indoni have a glorious history of fighting for what they believe in. This island is ours by right; we have shed blood on these sands, defending its people from your armies. We are more than ready to defend this land again – this time from the savagery within that would consume it’
A low sighing lifted from nowhere as if to echo his words.
It was the sound that had frightened her earlier. She stepped back, pulling on the officer’s hand. The sigh was from the opening of one of the turrets.
The officer’s teeth gleamed in the starlight. ‘You are not the first to be afraid here. The ghosts of the long dead can have that effect. But maybe they are singing with us: with our cause’
‘Ghosts?’ Victoria glanced at him with trepidation despite the scepticism such proclamations automatically aroused in her.
‘Spirits of the men who died in those tanks, and who inhabit them still...’ His words tailed away as the eerie keening