‘Reinforcements,’ Aubrey repeated.
‘They are coming. High Command has sent a division. It arrives today. By train.’
Aubrey had visions of his remote sensing team standing forlorn on the platform in Lutetia, watching as a train pulled out, packed full of soldiers. ‘A special troop express?’
‘It is the quickest way to get here in numbers.’
‘I know of three people who also need to get here. How would I be able to find out if they’re on the train?’
‘They won’t be. All available trains are bringing troops this way. No room for visitors.’
‘These aren’t visitors. They’re essential.’
Saltin considered this. ‘You are suggesting that these people are part of your mission here?’
‘They’re joining us for the next phase.’
Saltin held up a hand. ‘Do not tell me. With this, the less I know, the better.’ He paced about the office for a moment, frowning. ‘The telegraph lines are still open. I can find out from the stationmaster in Lutetia.’
‘I’d appreciate it, Saltin.’ Aubrey rose. ‘And what about you? What are your plans?’
Saltin shrugged. His smile was small and weary, and even his moustache looked the worse for wear. ‘Divodorum will resist and I must do my part to help.’
‘But you’ll be ready to fall back when the time comes.’
‘If we need to. If we can.’ Major Saltin straightened his jacket, then frowned at the grease still on the back of one hand. ‘I have found that it’s difficult to know when the time comes. I am sure that many a soldier’s last thoughts have been, “I wish I’d left yesterday.”’
Nineteen
Cycling back to their base, Aubrey realised what had changed dramatically in Divodorum.
‘No children, George,’ he called as they swooped along the nearly deserted Haussman Street.
‘What?’ George angled around a dog that was standing in the middle of the road and looking mournful.
‘Families have fled. Women and children, at least.’
The city had the feeling of a place with no heart, a place waiting to be put out of its misery. The artillery bombardment in the hills sounded like giant footsteps in the distance, impossible to ignore.
Aubrey cycled on, grimly.
The factory was deserted when they arrived. For a moment, Aubrey stopped dead, looking around the emptiness, unwilling to think the worst, but finding it was presenting itself insistently, like a least favourite uncle at a family reunion.
George flapped a slip of mauve paper at him. ‘They’ve gone to the woods above the station. They want us to join them for lunch.’
Relief was one of the best feelings of all, Aubrey concluded. ‘Shouldn’t we be rationing our food?’
‘If we eat our way through the stores I’ve put down, that’ll mean we’ve been trapped here for a year. Which would suggest we’d have problems other than food to worry about.’
They found Caroline and Sophie on the grassy knoll overlooking the station, the place Aubrey had first surveyed Divodorum. A blanket was spread out and the two girls were chatting innocently enough, if one overlooked the field glasses sitting on top of the picnic hamper.
George picked them up. ‘Hard to explain these, what, if a suspicious Gallian police officer happens by?’
‘George, George,’ Sophie said. She rummaged in a knapsack and found a slim book. She opened it to show colour plates. ‘We are bird watchers, no? I am looking for a warbler. And a crake. And – how do you say this one? – a mallard?’
‘Well, I’m convinced,’ Aubrey said. ‘But what about your fallback, just in case someone else isn’t? Your story behind the story? You don’t want to be mistaken for Holmlanders.’
‘We’ve been sent by the Central Railway Company,’ Caroline said. She slipped off her royal blue jacket to reveal a high-necked white blouse underneath. ‘The firm is interested in passenger and freight possibilities in this area after the war, but wants to remain secret because of rumours that a rival company is in the area, sniffing along the same lines.’
Aubrey sat on the blanket and plucked a blade of grass. ‘Nicely done.’
While passing platters of cold chicken and salad around, they shared Saltin’s news. Sophie had never met the airman, but had heard of him. ‘He was a hero after you rescued him, George.’
‘Well, I say,’ George took a pickled onion from a jar, ‘Aubrey was there too. Quite helpful, he was.’
Aubrey let this pass, with a smile. ‘If the remote sensers aren’t aboard this train, we’ll need to decide what to do next. Communication, first, I’d say. Caroline?’
‘We can, tonight, but we must be careful. I have the impression that they’re out there.’
‘The Holmlanders? Of course they are.’
‘Listening, I mean, trying to intercept any communications.’ ‘You can tell that?’
‘It’s a feeling I get when I’m wearing the headphones.’ She looked into the distance, in the direction of the battle front. ‘It’s like the hollowness of the ether gets bigger, if that makes any sense. I can feel that someone is out there, waiting.’
Aubrey raised an eyebrow. He sometimes had that feeling, when he became aware that Dr Tremaine was in the vicinity, but that was due to the magical connection the rogue sorcerer and he shared ever since their first magical encounter.
He was grateful he wasn’t alone. Without George and Caroline, the unease about their circumstances would be oppressive. He could imagine a solo operator actually being glad of capture, relieved at not having to live under such uncertainty any more.
‘We’ll make the communication short,’ Aubrey suggested. A sudden, almost frantic increase in the artillery bombardment made him look to the northeast. The sound hadn’t been drawing any closer for some hours, but he couldn’t decide what that meant. Was it a stalemate? A Gallian success resulting in a Holmland withdrawal? He rubbed his hands together with frustration.
He went to canvass these possibilities with his friends when he noticed Sophie’s expression. While George busied himself with making another sandwich and Caroline searched in the hamper, Sophie had frozen, her face very pale, and she, too, was staring to the north-east at a redoubled barrage of artillery.
Her concern was apparent, but to Aubrey’s mind it was more than simply being worried about an imminent invasion. And while he didn’t doubt that she was fond of George, did it explain her willingness to remain in such a dangerous place?
‘You have another reason for being here,’ he suddenly said to her.
She turned, eyes wide. ‘What do you mean?’
‘In Divodorum. You have another reason for being here.’ As he said it, a number of pieces fell into place. ‘If your role with The Sentinel were so important, you would have been in contact with its office, or the editor. I’m sure he’d be interested in a story from one of his journalists on the front line.’
Sophie’s face fell. ‘We have been so busy.’
George patted her on the shoulder and gave her his handkerchief. He frowned at Aubrey. ‘I say, old man, aren’t you being a bit harsh?’
‘No, George,’ came a tiny voice from the other side of the handkerchief. ‘He is right. I should have told you.’ She caught her breath and looked up. ‘It’s my brother, Théo. He has enlisted, and I must see him.’
The tale she told them was complicated yet familiar and Aubrey finally understood what his grandmother had hinted at. Family troubles. Sophie’s brother was two years older than she was, but sounded years younger from the way he behaved. For some months he had been growing more and more hostile to his parents, arguing that his father had been treated poorly by his business partners because of some innate – and unspecified – weakness. Finally, he’d stormed out vowing to enlist, against his father’s wishes, and to fight for what was rightfully theirs.