Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [10]
Priss saluted and left. Was it Grek’s imagination or had his more decisive tone made Priss’s response a little more correct, his salute a little sharper?
He smiled, lay back on his bunk and gazed at the creaking ceiling. Outside, the ceaseless bombardment of Cutch shells punctuated the shushing of the rain.
The room was small and crowded, two bunks to each wall and a small cooking area. The open door in the far wall led into the network of tunnels which extended deep under the ground. It pleased Grek to have the well‐defended trench just outside the main entrance and the warren of dark tunnels behind.
Grek’s bunk had been inexpertly partitioned as a little gesture towards his rank, and ranged around it were various personal items. A battered mirror, a spare pistol, two very dirty dress tunics, a chipped basin and a long‐abandoned bowl of wax with which Grek had once polished his crest and scales for parade. A thick layer of dust lay over it now.
Grek closed his eyes and let himself sink onto the scant comfort of the bed. The sound of the rain now seemed oddly comforting. There was a strong, pungent smell of wet leather and damp which recalled the mustiness of childhood visits to the Temple.
Weariness began to leak into Grek’s brain and he felt, almost heard, his own breathing becoming heavier.
Dark, Dark and cold. Smell of old books. Stone pillars the size of giants. Plaster walls mottled with mould. Diffused sunlight through a coloured glass roof Youngsters milling about. Crowds outside, laughing, talking. His mothers fussing around him. Pressing fruit and strange wine to his lips. Then the long walk towards the shrine.
The shrine. Taller than five men. Three open windows pouring light onto its cracked marble façade. Precious stones cut into its pitted surface over generations. Surmounting it, a curiously dull, discoloured rock, set in copper and jet. Why was the least attractive stone given pride of place? ‘The most beautiful things are not necessarily the best,’ his mothers had said. More wine. More food. Then the Induction. The Faith. His tiny, delicate hide wrapped in layers of white muslin. Smell of incense and damp. The Shrine bathed in sunlight. The old attendant with the sagging crest and long grey face‐hair. And that night – when the headiness had left him and he had been placed with the rest of the litter and the night‐gas turned on – his brother had crawled close and whispered in his ear about…
Grek shot out of bed with a cry, claw scrambling for his pistol. Maconsa was standing by the bunk, smiling. ‘It’s over there where you left it, sir.’
Grek patted his old friend on the arm. ‘Good job you’re on my side.’
‘Isn’t it?’
Grek picked up the least distressed of his tunics and struggled into it. A series of cloth hoops were ranged around the hem and he began to drop miniature grenades into them as he spoke: ‘Status, Maconsa?’
Maconsa dug his claws deep into the pockets of his greatcoat. He had turned up the collar against the incessant rain and it framed his massive head like a cloth halo.
‘I’ve got fifteen in the infirmary. Average of three new cases every hour. I thought this armistice would give me a little breathing space.’
Grek buttoned up his tunic. ‘You know the Cutch, my friend. They’ll carry on to the very last minute. And the armistice isn’t definite yet.’
Maconsa nodded wearily. ‘Most of the casualties are from sniper fire anyway. Or shrapnel. Shelling seems to be dying down.’
As if to confirm this there was a sudden lull in the periodic crump‐ crump outside. Grek listened for a moment and then sat down on the bunk.
‘Well… if we’re patient and careful we might just get out of these jungles alive. So…’ He looked around testily. ‘Where is that idiot with my boots?’
Maconsa shuffled a little, uneasily. ‘Grek, what if we still haven’t heard from Porsim? What then? Would we have the authority to stop the war?’
Grek flexed his clawed toes, glad to have them dry, albeit