‘Yes sir.’
‘Get the lid off.’
Thacker picked up an armful and moved to clear ground. The soldier extended the firing tube, flipped up the sights.
‘Take out the doors.’
The soldier’s colleague checked behind. ‘All clear.’
The air shivered, and the missile shrieked towards the Hall, propelled by a shaft of light. It disappeared inside, and a moment later, a flash, a rumble, and the front doors pinwheeled away.
‘Next target. First floor, leftmost window.’
The soldier was supplied with a fresh launcher.
‘All clear.’
The western edge of the Hall fell on itself. Slates flew from the roof like demented bats.
‘Again,’ said Thacker.
This time, the outer wall threw itself to the ground in a collapsing sheet of brickwork. Timbers split and floors fell. A blizzard of debris spilled out.
‘Good. Now, the banqueting hall.’
The missile there ignited the great pile of wood. Ruddy light began to dance through the windows of Henbury Hall.
The torrent of creatures had slowed to a trickle. Every time one appeared, it was immediately cut down by a hail of bullets to subside in a quivering, pulsating heap.
The fire took hold quickly and hard through the bone dry and desiccated building. It burned so fiercely and thoroughly that Thacker had to pull his troops back twice. Shapes, twisting and writhing, could be seen in the flames.
The gunfire died away, stopping of its own accord. Some men got to their feet, staring into the heat. Others lay their heads down and pressed their cheeks into the slick mud.
Thacker checked. No one had died.
‘I suppose,’ said Henbury by his ear, ‘I should be upset to see it go.’
‘How did you get out?’
‘I walked. One of the medics leant me these crutches.’
‘Someone’s going to be on a charge.’ Thacker turned back to the blazing house. ‘It was almost easy.’
‘Only because you had the men and the weapons. Before, there was me and Adams, a pistol and a shotgun. Not so easy, then. If we’d had a regiment and half a dozen gatling guns, I rather think we’d have made a go of it.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. My apologies. God, but they’re ugly.’
Henbury adjusted his grip on the elbow crutches, his hands still getting used to the plastic handles on the aluminium frame. ‘You used rockets. At the machine.’
‘I’ve tried to destroy it. I might even have succeeded. I’m rather assuming they hadn’t thought of anti-tank rounds in Pharaoh’s day.’
The house growled and shifted. A rush of sparks lifted up into the night sky, winking out one by one.
‘Still, it’s getting a good roasting,’ said Henbury.
‘Yes. Tempting to get out the marshmallows, but I shall have to organise my troops, check how much ammunition we have left. If it had gone on much longer, we’d have been down to bayonets.’
‘You wouldn’t have wanted that.’
‘So I understand. We lost one man to those monsters, and that was one too many.’ Thacker kicked the ground. ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’ll get someone to escort you back to your tent.’
‘Can I keep the crutches?’
‘As long as you promise not to go wandering off again.’
‘You have my word.’
Thacker walked slowly away, giving orders in a quiet voice as he went. Quite enough excitement for one night, he thought.
Dickson arrived just before dawn. He got Thacker out of bed to survey the damage with him. The embers of Henbury Hall were still glowing red hot, and neither man could approach too closely. Once in a while, something settled in the ruins, releasing a puff of ash and a tongue of fire.
The out-buildings had gone up, too. Their timbers had been baked beyond combustion point by the blaze, and had spontaneously burst into flames.
The air shimmered with heat haze, incongruous on a chill, overcast morning.
‘Was it really necessary?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Thacker, suppressing a vengeful smile. ‘There were hundreds of them, and they just kept on coming. For a while, I thought we’d be overwhelmed. One touch from them, and you’re dead.’
‘So you just mowed them down, then destroyed the house.’
‘Not quite how I remember it. I had the house blown up while we were mowing them down, not after. But,’ said Thacker, ‘you weren’t here, and so didn’t see how evil they looked. You’d have put a full clip through each one even though one bullet would do. That was our problem in a nutshell. I had to stop them coming out of the hall, and ultimately, the machine, before we had to resort to hand-to-hand combat. If that had happened, you’d be looking at fifty-odd corpses and the countryside swarming with Ankhani.’
‘I’m sure I’ll read it in your report,’ said Dickson, dryly. He tried to peer through the haze. ‘That’s the west end of the house, over there?’
‘You can’t see it. It’s buried under a section of roof somewhere in that area.’
‘Good riddance, you say, I expect.’
‘Robert Henbury thought it worthwhile losing his ancestral home for the chance of taking out the machine.’
‘Really? Somehow, I couldn’t see him moving back in. Thacker, that machine was important, desperately important. They’ll want your head on the block for this. You’ll get your Court Martial papers by the end of the day, just as soon as the lawyers can work out what charges to bring.’
‘And there I was thinking they were going to give me another medal I couldn’t tell my family about.’
‘I told you the machine had to be saved.’
‘The machine was how they got into the hall in the first place. I cut off their retreat and their supply line in one fell swoop. I did go to Sandhurst, you know.’
‘You were responsible for saving the machine…’
‘I was responsible for saving the lives of my men and the civilian population of this county. If this is the way this conversation is going, I’m going to end up punching you and they really will have something to court martial me over.’ Thacker turned away for a moment, then back again. ‘You didn’t see them, coming at us like a flood, like darkness itself was trying to get us. God only knows how the line held, but not one man ran. Not one. You should be proud of them. They did their duty and more, last night.’
‘Do you know how much shit I’m going to get over this? We’ve screwed the Americans around for two days, and we’ve bugger all to show for it.’
‘Dickson, I don’t care.’
They stared at each other, waiting for someone to blink. Thacker was damned if he was going to give in, and clearly Dickson felt the same way. Eventually, they were interrupted.
‘Mr. Dickson? The fire engines you ordered are here.’
‘Right.’ He broke away. ‘Major Thacker. I think your job here is done. You and your team can head back to Porton Down.’
‘As you wish.’ Thacker couldn’t have been more glad, but it would have been bad form to show it. He turned on his heel and stalked off, every step putting a satisfying distance between him and Dickson.
They’d loaded all their instruments on the back of a truck, and packed up the Warrior with the sensitive papers. Thacker’s men were clambering aboard a second truck, when he had a sudden, perverse thought.
Inside the tent, Henbury and Adams were dozing on their cots. They hadn’t had much sleep last night, and for the everlasting night before it, trapped in the Hall in some netherworld.
‘You’ve got a choice. You can stay here with Dickson, or you can come with me. It might be that I have to hand you back at some stage, but since possession is nine-tenths of the law, I can make that as easy or as difficult as I like.’
Adams sat up, and looked at Henbury.