'Don't forget Courtney's supercargo,' Ginger said, gloomily.
Allard nodded, acknowledging his omission but implying he had already thought of it. He chalked a new name on the board. 'Winthrop'.
'Some hero from Diogenes,' Bertie explained. 'Poor blighter. First time up and he gets shot down.'
Kate almost said something but thought better of it. Dravot's fixed expression did not change. She knew the sergeant must feel as keenly as it was possible for him to feel that he had not done his duty. He was supposed to protect Charles's protege and had been unable to do so. If anything could hurt Dravot, that would be it.
When they had parted in Amiens, there had been something unfinished between her and Edwin. What was he doing in the air anyway? He was a staff officer, one of those stay-at-home souls never exposed to fire and blood.
'It'll be a devil of a job to replace that little lot,' Ginger said, contemplating the blackboard. There were more 'lost' columns than active pilots. 'Probably have to haul in a whole flight of Yanks. No offence, Allard. It just won't be the same.'
'Don't learn their names,' Allard said.
Ginger was devastated by the advice.
Kate had known too many truly dead, in the Terror and now in the war, to be entitled to feel any especial loss. But entitlement meant little. She had not earned the right to mourn, but she did. Her heart, starved of blood, ached.
24
Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire
Too exhausted to stay awake, too hurt to sleep, Winthrop hung on the wall like the Sunday joint. The pain in his shoulders, neck and knee was still sharp, but otherwise he was numb. His mind drifted, his senses slurred.
He and Ball were not immediately to be cut up and eaten. The troglodytes sat on their coffins and talked among themselves. Each retold his history as if blessing a class of children with a favourite fairy tale. Jules, an Austrian, recounted the story of his original separation from his unit. He had braved many perils before joining up with the tribe. Jim, the Frenchman, chipped in with his own variation on the theme, of desertion to escape the stake after ringleading a mutiny against General Mireau. Jim bitterly recalled the erosion of his patriotic fervour with each fresh injustice, inequity and corruption.
Winthrop shifted on his hook. Shards of pain speared through his shoulders. He bit back his impulse to yelp.
He could not pay attention to the deserters. Stories of privation, desolation and horror became scrambled and monotonous. Perhaps the narratives were embroidered with each retelling, incorporating favoured incidents from the stories of those who had passed on.
Though savage and socialist, there was order in this vampire community. Mellors said there were no ranks, but others deferred to him. He was called to arbitrate in disputes, to decide courses of action, to pass judgement on the likeliness of a particular anecdote. Had it not been for his counsel, the troglodytes would have torn Winthrop to scraps on the spot rather than husbanded him against future need.
Mellors was chieftain and the snouted Svejk his Holy Fool. After the story-telling, Svejk got up and acted out a story his audience already knew, the saga of the capture of the burned men from the sky, eliciting harsh laughter by aping the crooked Ball and the upright Winthrop. The creature had Ball's mangled voice exactly, and provoked howls of humour with his imitation.
Ball's eyes were red and awake in the blackened mask of his face.
When Svejk had finished his performance, Mellors stood up and walked over to the prisoners. He looked at Winthrop's swollen knee.
'Nasty twist,' he said, not cruelly. 'But nothing broken.'
He unlaced Winthrop's remaining flying boot and wriggled it off, then stripped away the thick, stiff socks. After being hung, Winthrop could not feel his feet but he saw them as purple and bulging.
'The blood has rushed to your feet,' Mellors said, prodding an engorged toe. 'Perfect.'
Mellors sprouted a barb from his thumb and pricked Winthrop's foot. There was a tingling and a dribbling gout of blood.
'There's a taste for everyone, lads. Queue up for your char.'
Svejk was first, lifting his gas mask for a quick guzzle. Winthrop felt a warm wetness on his foot. And sharp little prickles. By turns, the troglodytes came forward to lap his blood.
He had known vampires, of course. But he'd never before given blood. This was not what he had imagined. This was not pleasure or sharing. He had thought he might catch the eye of an elder and offer her his neck. Kate Reed seemed an interesting prospect. Or perhaps he and Catriona would turn simultaneously, tasting each other in a red communion. There would be fluttering curtains and moonlight, and tiny points of pain in a pool of pleasant submission.
Mouths battened on his feet, teeth tore, and his blood leaked. As he lost blood, there was less pain. His arms were ice-cold, his hands nerveless stone appendages.
Mellors looked up at him as the troglodytes fed.
'It's just nature,' the vampire explained. 'You can't complain of nature.'
If one of the creatures was in danger of supping too deeply, Mellors detached him and shoved him back to the pack.
'Hold steady, Raleigh. Not too greedy, now. Leave something for Voerman.'
A mad-eyed English subaltern made way for a young German with a long tongue. There was a doggy malleability to the tribe. They were probably a good fighting force. Winthrop felt as if his foot had been laid open to the bone by razors of ice. Finally, it was over.
Winthrop hung, drained and cold. One of the troglodytes produced a medical kit and expertly bandaged Winthrop's feet. As an afterthought, he took a poke at the knee, digging out fragments of grit, and bound it up tightly. When the medicine man had finished, he and Mellors were the only creatures out of their coffins. The others, fed if not satisfied, lay insensible under blankets or planks.
Mellors dismissed the doctor and checked Winthrop's wrists. With his full weight on the hook, he was not able to lift himself up and free. Ball hung like dried meat, twisted back and arms giving him a crucified appearance. His exposed eyes were unmoving. Satisfied, Mellors retreated to his coffin, hauling his camouflage cloak around him. In an instant, he was sleeping like a dead man. Winthrop fought exhaustion. His body weighed several tons. It dragged his mind down into the depths.
A stab of pain cut through his drowsiness. A barb gouged his wrist. The fires had burned to embers, lending the troglodytes' cavern a red-lit, infernal glow. The creatures lay unmoving in their coffins. Winthrop had no way of knowing what time, or what day, it was.
Something was moving. Unable to turn his neck, he swivelled his eyes, looking as far as possible to his left and right. Rats could not climb up to where he hung.
Ball was contorted on his hook. Winthrop realised the pilot's eyes were open and his mouth red. He had hauled himself up, further bending his already bent arms, turning on his side to press his hip to the wall. He had got his teeth to the twine around his wrists. No, he had got his teeth to his wrists.
Ball saw Winthrop was awake and gave a deliberate, silent nod. His mouth scraped at his left wrist, peeling back cooked skin to show red flesh. He chewed white tendons and exposed bone. As Ball bit deeper into himself, vampire blood dripped to the floor. Svejk snorted in his sleep. Ball was still for a moment, awaiting an attack, but renewed his efforts.
Winthrop felt useless. There was nothing he could do. The meat was gnawed away from Ball's wrist. His skeleton hand, gloved in flesh, flexed into a fist. The twine loop was loose but unbroken. Silver wire glinted inside the string. Only in this war would chandlers manufacture rope specifically for binding the nosferatu.