Ball hung on to the hook with his right hand. Setting his red teeth together in a jagged grin, cheek-muscles clenching with determination, the pilot pulled sharply, lodging twine between the bones of his left wrist, and swallowed a groan. The fist opened like a starfish, sticking out dead fingers. An artery gushed. Ball tugged again and the hand came off, falling with a wet smack to the ground. Blood welled from the stump. Ball, free, hung from the hook, twisting his legs in agony.
Even Winthrop smelled the rich vampire blood. Troglodytes stirred in their slumbers, nostrils twitching, mouths watering, claws scratching lids. When he let go of the hook, Ball did not so much fall as slide down the wall. For an instant, Winthrop was afraid his comrade had exerted himself so much that the shock of clumping against the earth had knocked him unconscious.
Ball held his stump with his unhurt hand. Blood oozed between his fingers. Shamefully, he dipped his head and licked his wound, sucking his own juice like Isolde at the Theatre Raoul Privache. It was a perverse act among vampires, but clearly brought relief.
A troglodyte sat up stiff as a board, fencepost fangs sprouting from his mouth. It was Plumpick, a mad Scot with gentle eyes.
With a loose-limbed, liquid movement, Ball stabbed Plumpick's chest with his stump. The jagged edge of bone sank through the ribs and pierced the heart. Life died in the deserter's eyes and teeth crumbled like humbugs in his mouth. The weight of the dead vampire dragged Ball over and he was fixed in place over Plumpick's coffin.
With a quick fist-clench, Ball snapped his arm at the elbow and pulled free, leaving the spars of his forearm bones stuck through Plumpick's heart. He was coming apart fast.
Winthrop writhed on his hook, trying to edge up the wall with his shoulders and back. He knew he could not hope to duplicate Ball's stunt.
Ball silently and swiftly crossed the cavern, weaving between coffins, and stood before Winthrop. A man of his undead strength could easily take Winthrop by the hips and lift him bodily off the hook. A man of Ball's undead strength with two arms, that was.
It was awkward. Ball slipped his remaining arm between Winthrop's legs and made his hand into a seat which he jammed upwards. The slight, bent man stood up as straight as he could, making of his spine and arm a column which hoisted.
His bound wrists unhooked from their perch. His arms flopped down behind him and his whole weight fell on Ball, who staggered forward and bent at the waist. In a tumble, Winthrop landed on dirt. His hands were on fire and his bandaged feet stung.
Other troglodytes stirred. Ball, with no regard for injury, scooped up a fistful of red embers from a fire drum and tossed it into Svejk's coffin. A nest of straw caught fire in an instant. The Bohemian hopped and yelped in the smoke.
Winthrop wriggled like a worm. He twisted his wrists round to free himself from the barbed wire. The damned stuff came off in a curl, leaving scabby stigmata on his wrists. He found his boots and hauled one on, ignoring the pain in his knee, then hopped upright and thrust his foot into the other.
Ball had a firebrand and was waving it from side to side, keeping the troglodytes back. Mellors was up, furious but amused.
Winthrop and Ball had their backs to the tunnel through which they had come. If they turned and ran, the troglodytes would bear down on them and rend them a part. But if they stayed where they were, Ball's torch would soon go out.
Mellors hissed curses in Derbyshire dialect. Surprisingly, Ball returned the favour in kind. Svejk rolled in the dust, stifling the flames that licked around his bulk. His coffin still burned.
Winthrop saw the opportunity. Shoving the surprised Ball from behind with his shoulder, he pushed vampire and torch into the faces of the troglodytes, who cringed backwards. Winthrop advanced and took hold of the casket of burning straw, which he pitched upwards, scattering fiery matter across the cavern.
Ball got the idea and touched the torch to the nearest troglodyte, Raleigh. A dirt-starched uniform caught light in an instant, fire swarming up to a bird's-nest beard and long straggle of hair. A high-pitched screech burst from the vampire. In torment, he ran back to his fellows, colliding with them, tripping over coffins, spreading fire.
The netting hanging from the cavern roof caught. Flames swarmed over the mural. The paper elements of the collage burned in flashes. A heated case in a corner exploded, stored bullets popping. Winthrop took to his heels, dragging Ball away from the cavern. They ran upwards.
25
Dressing Down
'You are aware that under DORA it would be quite in order for me to have you shot,' Beauregard told Kate, meaning it. Under the Defence of the Realm Act, practically any lawfully constituted minion of Lord Ruthven had the gift of life and death over any civilian. 'Really, what were you thinking? If you were thinking?'
There was too much other grief to be dealt with in this sideshow, but here he was, lecturing like a cross schoolmaster. Kate looked groundwards and twitched her tiny nose.
'And it's no use impersonating a Beatrix Potter rabbit on the brink of tears. Miss Reed. Remember, I've known you ever since you were as wet behind the ears as you like the warm to think. You're fifty-five this year, dead girl.'
She tried a feeble fanged smile.
'There's no excuse,' he concluded.
As he dressed the reporter down, he was aware of Dravot's cold, deep-buried fury. The sergeant would cheerfully cut Kate's head off and use it for a football.
The mess at Maranique was not crowded. Surplus pilots had beetled off to their coffins for the day. Only Allard, the acting CO, was left to face the inevitable enquiries. On the squadron roster, the word 'lost' was chalked by the names of the men who had gone out but not come back.
Furious as Beauregard was with Kate, he was angrier with Winthrop. He had no business going up and getting shot down. After Spenser, he was the Diogenes Club's second crack-up of the young year. Something in this duty sent men off their heads.
Allard sat, scarf over his face against the sunlight that flooded through windowpanes, wide-brimmed hat pulled down. He seemed all beaky nose and penetrating eyes.
'There is no hope?' Beauregard asked.
'I've telephoned every other field in the line,' said Allard. 'It was possible some of the patrol might have come down somewhere else. That did not happen. Major Cundall's flight is lost.'
Beauregard shook his head and damned himself for a fool. Every one of the dead men could blame him.
'Might they be prisoners?' Kate put in.
'The Germans have claimed the victories,' said Allard. 'They have the serial numbers. It is almost certain they will be confirmed. They claim kills, not captures.'
'That's remarkably swift.'
'It usually takes a day or so, but they were right off the mark. The RE8 is claimed by Manfred von Richthofen. A package of personal items was dropped on the field at dawn. Courtney's watch and cigarette case.'
Gloom spread.
'Anything of Winthrop's?'
Allard shook his head.
'There can't have been much left of the lad then?'
His born-dead boy might have grown to be a man like Edwin. Had he lived, his son might now have been a dead man like Edwin, lost to the war. He thought of Pamela, dead in childbirth, never knowing what would become of the world. And he thought of Genevieve, eternally between life and death, perhaps knowing too much.
Kate was upset. The snooping stopped being a game when lines were drawn through the names of the dead. It was odd: she had been indignant about useless death for so long that this could not be her first practical experience of it. She had come through the Terror. She was working as an ambulance woman. She must have seen dozens die.