He glanced at me as he said the last, making his meaning clear. He might have accepted my service but he was a long way from trusting me. I couldn’t blame him, I thought as I followed the soldier out of the room, because I had every intention of running away at the very first opportunity.
Chapter 37
My new room was a small cubicle in the unmarried officer’s barracks, my guard informed me as he led me to a nondescript brown door in a corridor full of them, and although it was tiny, just enough room for the bed, wardrobe, shower cubicle and toilet, it seemed a palace after the cramped confines of the tent.
“The shower works,” he said, pointing to it, “we’ve rigged up the old gas boilers and we’ve still got gas left in the tanks, but for how long we’re not sure so get ‘em while you can. I’m going to find you some clothes, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He closed the door and for the first time in days I was alone, a once familiar feeling that now seemed strange. I also realised, now that I was in an enclosed space, how badly I stank. Stale sweat, grime and other less savoury substances covered my body and I decided to test the shower, part of me wondering if it was a crude joke on the part of the guard.
The water flowed, however, starting off cold but quickly heating, filling the small room with a cloud of steam.
Stripping off and throwing my clothes in the corner, I stepped into the stream of near-scalding water and sighed with relief as it battered my weary muscles.
I was still in there when the soldier returned, sticking his head into the shower cubicle regardless of my nakedness.
“Clothes are on the bed,” he said, “I’ll be outside the door when you’re ready.”
I nodded, hands cupped to cover myself. He withdrew and I heard the door close, and once I was sure it was safe I turned the shower off and grabbed a towel hanging nearby.
It was rough but clean, and once I was dry I ventured into the main room to see a pair of olive green combat trousers and a white t-shirt, both clean and pressed, as well as two pairs of sports socks and a pair of thicker green ones.
The underwear he’d found, however, was several sizes too big but I put it on anyway, feeling the cotton bagging up against my legs as I pulled the combats on.
Now that my body was clean I began to notice other things. My mouth, for example, tasted like someone had crept in and taken a shit in it overnight, while my face was covered with several days’ worth of stubble.
I rubbed condensation off the small shaving mirror in the bathroom and stared in shock at the scrawny figure looking back at me.
I’d lost maybe ten pounds, my cheekbones sharper than I’d ever seen them, framing the hollow pits beneath my eyes. My beard, which I couldn’t truly call stubble anymore, was growing in black but heavily peppered with white, while my freshly washed hair waved like a dandelion without grease and dirt to hold it down.
I grinned into the mirror, showing yellow teeth and gums that were beginning to bleed, as they always did whenever I failed to clean my teeth regularly.
In all, I was a mess. I looked like a parody of the man I’d been only a week ago, a caricature of the trendy Hoveite journalist who wrote such cutting articles about the darker side of mankind.
Inspection over, I opened the main door to see my guard lounging against the wall. He quickly straightened when he saw me.
“Need anything sir?”
“Yeah, a razor, a toothbrush and some hair wax.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure I can scratch something up, sir, but it might take me a while.”
“I don’t suppose it’s urgent. Do you know where I’m supposed to be working?”
He nodded. “There’s an operations room back in the admin building, I’ll show you.”
I paused as the door closed, looking for a key, but the soldier shook his head.
“Won’t need to lock it, sir. Nothing worth stealing anyway.”
I nodded and followed him as he led me back to the admin building, the sun pleasant now that I wasn’t breaking my back under its glare. As we reached the reception area, he turned the opposite direction from the conference room where I’d met the secretary and led me along another corridor to a large steel door which stood slightly ajar, the electronic keypad next to it now useless and replaced by two hulking soldiers with pistols holstered at their waists.
They nodded at my guard and stared at me, then stepped aside and let us pass.
The door opened into a large room, which by the shape and size of it I guessed once housed some kind of command and control centre.
There were still banks of monitors to one side, but anything electronic had been removed and now all the desks were littered with paper while uniformed staff sorted through stacks of reports, shipment details and whatever else they had to deal with.
It took me a moment to realise that all the staff in here bar two or three were women, the other men clearly holding positions of authority as they walked up and down checking work and signing off on orders.
A small number of women stood at ease just inside the door, but before I could wonder at their purpose one of them was handed a sheaf of papers and she took off out of the door at a jog, relaying them to wherever they needed to go.
The whole room smacked of military efficiency, and I was acutely aware that I stuck out like a sore thumb.
As I stood there uncertainly, a man with three golden pips emblazoned on his chest tab strode over and smiled, sticking his hand out.
“Malcolm King, I presume. I’m Captain Barnes, I run the command centre. The Secretary said you’d be coming, your desk is this way.”
He led me to a small area by the far wall already stacked high with papers, a pad, pencil and half a dozen pens set neatly in the middle.
“Hope you can do without typing,” he said with a smile, “believe it or not we’ve still got some old typewriters in storage but we’ve yet to find any ribbons for them.”
“This will do fine,” I said, finding the buzzing chatter of the room strange after two days of working in silence.
“Good.” Barnes pointed to a nearby desk where several soldiers were lined up with mugs in hand. “Tea and coffee over there, help yourself whenever you want it. There’s a toilet over in the corner, but if you need a number two then you need to use the chemical loo outside. Lunch is served in the canteen from twelve until two, I’ll make sure someone shows you the way. Anything you’re not sure of, come and find me.”
He smiled and walked away, immediately surrounded by staff who needed his signature or advice, leaving me to sit at my desk, the empty pad waiting for me to fill it with words that would explain to those outside why they had to work from dawn until dusk in horrific conditions while I sat in a pleasant room with everything I needed to keep me comfortable within arm’s reach.
Chapter 38
By the time I was summoned for lunch several hours later my pad was still empty. The luxury of just sitting in a comfortable room and doing nothing was too tempting, and I whiled away the hours by thinking up ways to escape. Part of me was thinking how nice it would be to stay here, if Melody were also with us, but the larger part of me balked at being part of any organisation that treated some so badly while pampering those towards the top.
Lunch was a cheerful affair, served in a utilitarian but airy canteen with large windows that looked out over the field of tents, people chatting to each other and laughing while they ate.
I sat alone, unwilling to try and force my way into any of the already established groups, and for their part the soldiers were happy to leave me to it.