And then he somehow got merged into the rock in the wall? I’m having trouble believing that part.
Then again, he’d had trouble believing many things on their recent missions. That hadn’t stopped them being real, hadn’t stopped the unbelievable things from killing his men. As he sat in the gloom finishing his smoke, he resolved to be open to any and all possibilities.
They had sanitized the cave and the settlement — they only had the huts on the shore to do and they could go home. But his gut still remembered the feeling of imminent danger he’d felt before they’d blown the cave to buggery and it still hadn’t settled. He fought the premonition down and concentrated on trying to peer out the entrance into the snow.
Nobody dies on this trip.
The storm showed no sign of abating and the gloom deepened further, almost as dark as night under their canopy. The cold crept through their heavy snow gear and even with hoods up and goggles on, ice cracked at their lips. Banks kept them moving, rotating them around the tiny camp stove; he knew Wiggins had several spare fuel canisters in his pack but whether they would be enough to get them through a night wasn’t clear.
It’s going to have to be. There’s no way we can go out in this.
They were lost, a tiny dark bubble inside a sea of swirling howling white. Wind gusts tugged at their roof but the weight of new snow on top was holding it down for now. If that weight got too heavy, they would be in danger of it collapsing in on them — just one more thing to worry about as the storm continued to rage.
Time seemed to pass infinitely slowly; several times, Banks checked his watch only to find mere minutes had crawled by. They smoked too many cigarettes and drank so much coffee that after a while they were forced to take turns venturing to the open end of the shelter to take some bladder relief. Banks heard Wiggins shout something about the dangers of getting ‘your knob frosty’ but that was about the extent of any conversation as the hours crept along.
Finally around ten o’clock at night, the wind dropped several notches and although snow continued to fall, it wasn’t coming down with so much force and the howling abated enough that they were able to talk. Sergeant Hynd joined Banks at the entrance for a smoke and a coffee as they looked out at the weather.
“Good enough for a walk?” Hynd asked.
Banks shook his head.
“Not yet. I think it best to wait out the night if we can. We’ll be able to make good time once the sun is up.”
“More coffee and Wiggo’s farts it is then,” Hynd replied. “But you’ve been awfy quiet, Cap. What’s on your mind?”
Banks shared his theory of earlier, as to the nature of the thing they’d found in the cave.
“You think yon was a man, a soldier — one of us? And the scientists did that to him?”
“I think so. I don’t have another explanation that fits what we’ve seen, do you?”
“You mean they went and got themselves a fucking cave troll?”
Banks smiled, felt fresh ice crack at his lips that he melted away with coffee before replying.
“It certainly seems that way.”
“I can see why they wanted it hushed up; we can hardly get all high and mighty about the Nazis experimenting on folk when we were doing the same ourselves just a few years later. What were they trying to achieve?”
“Beats me. Some kind of super-soldier if I’m reading the clues in the journal right — something that would have put us out of business and have us retiring early to our pipes and slippers.”
Hynd laughed and waved a hand out at the weather.
“Right now that doesn’t seem like a bad idea, Cap.”
Wiggins made up another pot of the dried soup — Banks noticed that he had to replace the fuel canister in the stove. The corporal saw him looking.
“Three cans left, Cap,” he said. “Should see us through ‘til breakfast then that’ll be that.”
Banks had Davies and Wilkins check the canopy for any dry wood that they might use for a fire but he already knew, having checked earlier, that all the branches and foliage were too damp to burn; his order was more to keep them moving about than anything else.
Now that the wind had dropped more of the heat from the stove was being trapped inside their shelter and for the first time since taking refuge he started to feel, if not comfortable, at least not in danger of freezing solid.
He was on the point of relaxing when the attack came out of the night.
- 8 -
They heard it before they saw it, a roar like rocks clashing together somewhere out in the storm. Banks had enough time to unsling his rifle off his back, swing it ‘round, and point it towards the entrance before a looming shape filled the opening, plunging them into almost complete darkness. Instinct took over and Banks fired three quick shots into the thickest part of the shadows, the noise almost deafening as he hadn’t had time to put his plugs in. The thing in the entrance howled, a gravelly, rasping screech, and reached inside under the canopy. The next thing Banks knew, he was flying through the air, having been pulled out of the shelter, gripped by the left arm by something that felt like cold iron, and tossed aside. He was lucky to hit a snow bank; if there had been any rock at all when he landed hard, he’d have broken his neck and most of the small bones in his body. Even then he was badly winded, having to take a few seconds to catch a breath he thought would never come.
He managed to roll, amazed to find he still had his weapon in his right hand, and looked back to their shelter from a distance of almost ten yards. The snow obscured his view. The darkness made it more difficult still. Wavering dancing beams from three rifles was the only light but Banks saw enough to know that whatever the attacking thing was, it was huge. It loomed high above their makeshift canopy, tearing the foliage and branches apart, strewing them far and wide as it attempted to get at the men underneath.
Gunfire cut through the wind, muzzle flashes showing up bright in the gloom directly ahead. Banks ducked and rolled quickly as several rounds blew up puffs of snow just in front of him and kept rolling to his left until he was sure he was out of the line of fire.
That took long seconds and by the time he got himself up into a kneeling position to provide supporting fire, the attacker, still little more than a looming, dark, roughly human-shaped figure in the night, had torn most of their canopy apart. It reached inside, pulling one of the squad up and out, dangling the man by a left leg, shaking him around like a rag doll. Banks switched on his rifle light, hoping to illuminate a target he could aim for but the light had little effect against the swirling snow. He got to his feet and moved forward as fast as he was able through snow that reached up towards his knees, stopping only when he was sure of a clean shot that wouldn’t hit one of his men.
Even then he couldn’t risk a headshot, for the thing had the dangling man held up in front of it. Banks put three rounds into the attacker’s back in a line down the length of the spine. It didn’t even flinch. Banks saw more muzzle flashes, heard the crack of more gunfire, more concentrated now as if the defenders had got themselves organized.
And finally, the weight of fire had an effect. The captured man was tossed aside as unceremoniously as Banks had been seconds earlier and the attacker lumbered away, quickly lost in the swirling storm.
Banks quickly made his way over to where the discarded man lay sprawled in a snow bank. It was young Wilkins and he hadn’t landed as lucky as Banks had; the lad’s left leg lay at an impossible angle below the knee. Davies was over quickly, kneeling at the private’s side, and he quickly confirmed what Banks already knew.