“It is as your dhuyumirrii says,” agreed Chandar. “Now you must keep Everson’s side of the bargain. The sacred scents must be returned home to the Ones.”
Palmer nodded to Hobson. The Sergeant sent a runner back to the lines.
Bearers brought out several ammunition crates carried on long poles thrust through their rope handles. They carted them over with less respect than they deserved, but more than the Army Service Corps usually mustered for items in its care.
Palmer opened the crates to show the repository of sacred knowledge, the ancient amphorae and jars packed with dried grasses. Chandar and the others touched their heads and thoraxes in signs of reverence. Chanting in veneration, the dhuyumirrii took up the crates and bore them like tabernacles before loading them into the battlepillars’ panniers for the journey back to Khungarr.
“SO THAT’S THAT, then,” said Palmer with relief as they watched the procession depart, banging their carapaces and chittering like a tiding of magpies.
“Oh, I doubt it, sir,” said Hobson.
“What do you mean, sergeant? There’s an understanding between us. We’re at peace with them now.”
“With respect, sir, we’ve made peace, yes. Now we have to keep it. We’ve still got to live with them, and I don’t think that’s going to be as easy as it sounds.”
EDITH STRODE INTO the hospital tent to find Captain Lippett. She had debated with herself all the way back from Khungarr whether to bring this up, but while there was a possibility of helping those under her care, she decided she would try. She took a deep breath.
“Doctor Lippett,” she said. “I’d like your permission to start medical trials of petrol fruit liquor on the blinded men.”
Lippett arched his eyebrows. “You do know that Lieutenant Everson has specifically passed an order forbidding its use for human consumption, Nurse?”
The words tumbled out before he could silence her again. “But Doctor, consider the anecdotal evidence of the tank crew and the efficacious effects of the liquor on the chatt. I think it could help those poor men blinded by chatt acid. It may not return their sight as they were used to it, but in time, might they not learn to see again in a different way?”
Lippett’s stern gaze held her like pins splaying open a dissection specimen. She knew it, she’d gone too far. Perhaps it was a pity after all that her newfound status didn’t extend beyond the chatts.
Lippet smiled faintly. “I must admit, Nurse Bell, the same thought had crossed my mind, too. Perhaps we should see about setting something up.”
Humming gaily to herself, Edith sauntered into her tent with the lightness of soul of one who had just crept in late from a jolly good evening out.
She didn’t care that the entire Khungarrii colony would now fall at its feet when she passed. Her exalted position didn’t matter a jot. She had been away too long and had work to do.
SERGEANT DIXON LOOKED up at the canyon wall and sized up the pile of scree at its base. The metal wall stood bright and impervious above him in the rock. A challenge.
He turned back to his men. “Lambert. Bring me the guncotton and a number eight detonator.”
Dixon and his men scrambled to the top of the scree slope where it met the metal wall and, several yards below, they packed the guncotton into the rocks as deep as they could, running a cable along the top of the slope to a large boulder that would shield them from the blast.
Sergeant Dixon blew his whistle.
Below, everyone moved back round the turn in the canyon, where they would be sheltered from blast. Two whistles indicated everyone was in position. There was one long whistle, and then Lambert pushed the plunger on the detonator. It sank with a ratcheted whirr. There followed the briefest of delays. The explosion echoed off the canyon walls, filling it with smoke, dirt and falling debris.
Then they waited for the raining clinker of rocks to stop and for the dust to clear…
CHAPTER NINE
EVERSON STOOD BY the lip of the Croatoan Crater. Across the far side, over a mile away, waterfalls half hidden by diaphanous mists plunged silently into the sunken world below. Nazhkadarr, the Scentless Place. The place that should not be, Chandar had called it.
He leaned forward and peered over the edge. To his right, the forest around them tumbled pell-mell into the crater. To his left, he could see the crumbled lip where the tank had gone over. He saw the gouged ruts it had made as it slid down the steep crater wall toward the dark hole in the jungle canopy.
Of Nellie Abbot, Napoo and the tank crew there was no sign. When the Fusiliers’ battlepillars reached the crater, he had expected to find them waiting. His first thought had been some sort of attack, but their camp had not been disturbed. Then they found the vine rope slung over the crater side.
Again he found his plans frustrated. Why did they have to fight for every bloody inch on this planet? This was supposed to be a simple operation; salvage the tank and pick up Jeffries’ trail. Now, even if they found the tank and managed to salvage it, there was no one to man the bloody thing. He’d gambled everything on this.
“God damn it!”
He kicked out in frustration. His boot clipped a small stone, and it skimmed over the ground, bounced once and skittered over the edge of the crater.
“I thought you said you’d ordered them to wait for the salvage party?” Everson snapped at Atkins, regretting it instantly. He watched the Lance Corporal shuffle uncomfortably.
“I did, sir, but Nellie, that is Driver Abbott, seemed very concerned about Lieutenant Mathers and Private Perkins, sir. We should have been here days ago. If it wasn’t for–”
“The mutiny, yes, I know. So they’ve gone down there?”
Atkins sighed. “Knowing Nellie, sir? Yes.”
Nellie Abbott. She had a stubborn attitude forged in suffrage. Which might have been fine if you were chaining yourself to the Town Hall railings. She might have had a point and he might have agreed with her, but out here? Couldn’t the damn woman just do as she was told for once?
Even Nurse Bell, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose the first time he met her, had become headstrong. What was it about this place and women?
The urmen treated their women as equals, sharing the work and the danger. Was that what happened when society started fraying at the edges? Wild Women?
Only Sister Fenton seemed to maintain a sense of propriety and decorum. Her exterior was stern, proper and unassailable. They had a saying in the hospitaclass="underline" ‘Laugh and the nurse laughs with you, if Sister enters you laugh alone.’ She could keep the girls in check, if she wished, but she seemed inclined to give them their head. Frankly, she was just an enigma.
“Bugger,” said Everson on reflection.
Atkins peered down into the crater. “As you quite rightly say, sir, bugger.”
“OH, THIS IS marvellous,” crowed Hepton, framing the sunken lost world of the crater, with thumbs and forefingers. “Jenkins, bring my equipment over here at once. We’ve got to get this before the light goes. Jenkins, where the bloody hell are you man?”
Private Jenkins staggered up, carrying not only his own battle order kit but the tripod for Hepton’s camera and several canisters of film. Shining with sweat, he dropped them on the ground, gasping.
“Careful with them, lad! Bloody expensive things, they are. I’ll have your guts for garters if you break ’em.”