Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [2]
‘What is it now, Priss?’ sighed Grek, sinking back to the ground. ‘I told Liso that he was in command. So bother him. God knows he’s been desperate to be in charge for long enough.’ He looked up at his eager subordinate, narrow blue eyes scarcely blinking. ‘Bother him.’
‘With respect, sir…’ Priss’s voice trembled slightly. ‘Portrone Liso is unavailable. I was told to report to you for further instructions.’
Grek almost laughed, recognizing a buck when it had been passed to him. Once, he reflected sadly, Priss’s enthusiasm would have been commendable. Now it almost made him sick.
‘Further instructions, eh lad?’ He looked the smaller man up and down, resenting the starched stiffness of his breeches and tunic, the elegantly polished scales of his crest.
‘I could tell you to go off into there.’ He waved a claw at the impossibly deep jungle all around them. ‘Assess situations, devise strategies, formulate manoeuvres…’
Priss’s wide mouth formed into an excited smile, his tiny, pearl‐grey teeth biting into his lower lip.
Grek slipped a claw under his own chin and let his heavy head slump.
‘Prepare my bunk, soldier. I’m coming back.’
‘Sir?’
Grek snorted. ‘Oh, get out of my sight.’
Priss’s whole frame shrank with disappointment. He turned swiftly on his heel, scarcely bothering to salute, and tramped back towards the dug‐out. The thoughts buzzing inside his head were unpleasant, mutinous even, but increasingly difficult to ignore. Perhaps Portrone Liso was right after all.
* * *
Some time later, after a burst of mortar‐fire had caused him to take shelter in a particularly damp shell‐hole, Grek ploughed his way back to camp through the thick foliage.
Sheets of freezing rain pounded onto his head and he could feel pools of moisture forming around his clawed toes. He needed new boots but was far from sure whether the quartermaster’s stores had any supplies left at all.
He strode on, disturbing the low clouds of steam which hung around the boles of the gigantic, spindly trees surrounding him. Reaching for the too‐tight collar of his tunic, Grek almost jumped as a sentry stepped out in front of him. Hastily he smoothed down his uniform and made a frantic but vain attempt to disguise the salty stains blossoming all over the fabric.
Grek returned the sentry’s efficient salute.
‘Everything in order?’
The sentry was terribly young and no less eager than Priss. There was scarcely a trace of fatigue behind his wide blue eyes but there was a familiar sense of disappointment, almost contempt, about him as he set eyes on his commander.
‘All in order, sir.’
Grek put his claws behind his back in what he hoped would appear to be a convincing military swagger.
‘And yourself? How’re… how’re conditions? Morale?’
The sentry seemed nonplussed, embarrassed even. He looked away. The rain hissed in the uneasy silence.
Eventually clearing his throat, he replied, ‘Never better, sir.’
‘Good, good. You lads eager to get back home, I expect?’
The sentry’s mouth puckered slightly, thin lips curling as though on the point of sneering. He averted his commander’s gaze. Grek’s claws tensed behind his back. A trickle of cold rain scuttled from his crest to his chin.
Damn you, man. Answer me.
At last the sentry’s face settled into a fixed, expressionless mask.
‘Oh yes, sir. There’s nothing we’re looking forward to more.’
Grek nodded slowly. ‘Very good. Carry on.’ He turned and walked away, feeling the sentry’s gaze bore into his back.
The dug‐out was visible now across the muddied field of cleared jungle. Grek stooped instinctively as the familiar sound of shell‐fire erupted in the distance.
There were two entrances to the dug‐out. The first, worn down into a muddy track by the constant traffic of soldiers, was at the far end of the field opposite the jungle perimeter. The second, a simple ladder‐hole known as Number Seven, had been bored into the ground in the middle of the same field. Ladder‐holes One to Six had, over the years, succumbed to the fickle, shifting mud and collapsed in on themselves.
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