The Eternal War (25 page)

‘You seem, I don’t know – you may laugh at this – you seem to me like a Rip van Winkle. As if you’ve slept all your life. How is it that you seem to know so little of world affairs? Do you not read the papers?’

‘Like I said, me and Bob, we’ve been away in a priory. On our own. Me mother died recently so we came home to care for Sal. And, well, the three of us finally decided to … uh … to see some of the world together, you know?’

‘Well, you’ve not chosen the best place in the world to start your travels, Liam. The American War here may have ground to a halt in recent years, but …’ McManus looked cautiously around before continuing with a slightly lowered voice. ‘There are rumours flying about that that’s going to change.’

Liam perked up, his eyes off the smouldering coals. ‘What do you mean?’

McManus stroked his smooth chin. ‘It’s no big secret, Liam. This particular war is losing popular support back home. The British people are weary of it. War. It’s all anyone in Britain has known.’ McManus, warmed enough by the brazier, unbuttoned his tunic collar. ‘We have so many different wars going on at the moment, you understand? We’re fighting separatists in northern India, bandit militias in our African colonies, tribal war-bands in Afghanistan, Persia. I can’t tell you how many dusty little backwaters my lads and I have seen action in.’

He shook his head sadly, his eyes lost in the glowing embers. ‘And it’s always the same brutality, the same mindless cruelty. One tribe of savages hacking the next to bits. And always,
always
, it’s the women and children who die first. I … I’ve seen things, Liam, some quite horrible things.’

Liam regarded the young officer’s face, saw eyes that all of a sudden looked far older than they should. ‘You sound like you’ve seen more than enough fighting.’

McManus shrugged. ‘I can fight any number of battles. I can stand on a battlefield alongside my men and stare down another army,’ he smiled. ‘I’m a soldier,
that’s
exactly what I’m trained for. But …’

‘But?’

‘But … it’s the evil, it’s the sheer cold hate I see in our colonies, Liam … the
savagery
. They’re not even fighting
us
half the time; they’re too busy settling old tribal scores. Odd that, isn’t it? You’d think the people in these far places would unite together to fight the British redcoats. But they don’t …’ His words trailed to silence and for a while they listened to the wheezing and snoring of two dozen men asleep on the field.

‘I do sometimes wonder why we bother to keep this empire of ours. Why we’re there. It’s not like these places want the law and order we try to bring to them. They seem to relish their barbarity, what they do to each other. You can’t
educate
these people.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a nasty situation.’

‘Aye, well, I find it’s usually because some rich and powerful fella somewhere’s making money out of any nasty situation.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s probably why you and your lads are all over the place.’

McManus shrugged. ‘Perhaps. There’s always money to be made in a war zone.’ He finished his tea. ‘I do wonder why we’re in all these blasted places. When I lose men and I have to write home to their mothers or wives about how they died courageously for a good cause …’

‘You wonder what that good cause is?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘You know, a part of me says our boys should all return home. Leave these savages to it. If hacking each other to pieces is what they want, then who are we to impose our ways on them? But then … then, I remind myself that the ones who end up suffering the most are the children. When you see it for yourself, Liam … when you’ve seen what I’ve seen, it’s hard to walk away.’

‘But is it not wrong that you’re there in the first place?’ Liam cocked a brow. ‘There was plenty lads I knew who didn’t have much good to say about the British.’

‘For good or bad, we’re in the situation we’re in, and the truth of it is, Liam, we’re beginning to lose control of our colonies. We need more boots on the ground in Africa, in Asia Minor, in the Far East, and we can afford less boots on the ground over here.’

‘Does that mean …’ Liam looked at him. ‘Does that mean your side’s about to surrender?’

McManus looked at him pointedly. His silence was weighted.

‘So, hang on …’ Liam had heard some of the men earlier this evening muttering something about their regiment’s hasty redeployment to America. ‘That’s why you’re over here … to
finish
the war?’

McManus’s head tilted, the slightest of nods. ‘Our lads are stretched far too thinly. I fancy this particular war is one our government wants to be done with once and for all.’ He ran a hand through his blond hair, pushing a stray tress from his chiselled face.

‘A final push by the South … and then, I suspect, a hastily negotiated peace.’

CHAPTER 45

2001, New York

‘I’m not so sure this is such a good idea,’ said Maddy. The boat bobbed gently on the river’s tidal waves, its steam engine puffing smoke and coughing as it powered a churning paddle at the rear.

‘We’ll be just fine,’ said Devereau. ‘I know Colonel Wainwright; he’ll not order his men to shoot on us while we’re under a white flag.’

Maddy looked up at the rag fluttering from the small boat’s masthead. She wished the thing was a good deal bigger and somewhat cleaner – whiter and more noticeable. It looked more like a loose flapping sail than it did a flag of truce.

Two-thirds of the way across the East River, she could see the Southern front line in more detail now: trenches of reinforced concrete and bunkers with viewing slits from which protruded the long, thick barrels of fixed artillery. She could make out individual faces moving among the structures. A growing buzz of activity as they drew closer.

‘They’re going to blast us out of the water,’ she muttered.

Becks was beside her. ‘We have been within effective range for the last five minutes.’ She turned to Maddy. ‘And they have not fired.’

‘Well, I guess we take that as a good sign, then.’ Maddy grinned anxiously.

‘Affirmative.’

Presently, the boat finally approached a wooden jetty protruding past a graveyard of rusting and rotting hulls of long-ago bomb-damaged vessels lying beached on the silted banks of the river.

The pilot reversed the engine, churning water noisily behind them and slowing the boat down as a couple of soldiers up front waited at the prow to hop over the side on to the end of the jetty.

‘Just hope this isn’t mistaken as some sort of amphibious invasion,’ Maddy found herself muttering under her breath.

‘Negative,’ said Becks. ‘There are too few troops for this to be an effective assault.’

Maddy sighed. ‘Duh, really?’

The boat thudded gently against the jetty and the two soldiers dropped on to the creaking wooden planks, quickly securing a line to a mooring kleet.

Devereau was first on to the wooden planks. ‘Allow me,’ he said, offering a hand to Maddy as she prepared to jump down to join him.

‘Oh, what a gentleman!’ She grasped hold of his hand gratefully. ‘Thank you.’

Becks was next. Devereau offered her his hand.

‘I will not be needing assistance,’ she said, casually leaping down with a heavy thud of firmly planted trainers.

‘Obviously you don’t.’ Devereau shrugged. ‘Sergeant Freeman?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘You and half a dozen men along with us. The rest to stay on the launch.’

Maddy looked around.

She shivered. The morning was still fresh and cool, the clear September sky stained a beautiful salmon pink by the rising sun.

‘Don’t be nervous, Madelaine,’ said Becks. ‘I am with you.’

She grasped the support unit’s hand. ‘I’m fine,’ she lied, ‘just a bit cold, that’s all.’

Devereau joined them.

‘What happens now?’ asked Maddy.

Her question was answered with movement. At the far end of the jetty, a welcoming committee had assembled. She saw a dozen men in uniforms remarkably similar in design to Devereau and his men, only a dusty grey instead of a dark blue. Leading an escort of armed men was an officer in his late thirties, sporting a dark beard like Colonel Devereau, only clipped in a way that reminded Maddy of some jaunty, laughing cavalier.

A dozen yards short of them he stopped. With a theatrical flourish he whipped off his felt slouch cap to reveal long sandy hair, and bowed like an actor taking a curtain call.

‘Colonel Devereau! What a pleasant surprise!’ he smiled. ‘Unless I’ve completely lost track of the date … It’s quite a few weeks yet until Thanksgiving, is it not?’

‘Colonel Wainwright.’ Devereau stepped forward and extended his hand. ‘Indeed. I’m not over here to share our annual bottle of sherry.’

Wainwright shrugged. ‘More’s the pity.’

Devereau gestured towards Maddy and Becks. ‘I have with me a couple of … ladies, who are, shall I say … in need of some assistance.’

Wainwright cocked an eyebrow. ‘Assistance?’

‘Yes.’ Devereau took a step closer to the Southern colonel. ‘James –’ he lowered his voice for Wainwright alone to hear – ‘they have quite an intriguing tale to tell. Very … very intriguing.’

‘Something for my ears alone, is it, Bill?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Important, I assume?’

‘Very.’

Wainwright thoughtfully stroked the side of his face for a moment. ‘We shall have to be discreet, old friend … I’ve got
visitors
in this sector.’

‘British?’

He nodded. ‘Top brass … a routine inspection of our defence network going on in the sector next door to mine.’ He grinned. ‘I suspect they might take a dim view of my consorting with the enemy.’

‘Then perhaps we shouldn’t waste any time standing out here.’

‘Quite.’ He looked past Devereau. ‘Ladies! Pleasure to make your acquaintance! Bill … why don’t you come with me? As it happens I’ve just put some rather decent coffee on.’

Devereau allowed Maddy to take the lead in explaining her situation, with Becks clarifying the finer technical points every now and then – technical points as wasted on the Southern colonel as they’d been on the Northern colonel.

Wainwright sat poker-faced through half an hour, one expression on his face: a courteous tolerance. Like a friendly old man listening to a child’s tall story.

Maddy finished, and sipped cold coffee.

‘Well … that is a devil of a thing,’ Wainwright said eventually. He looked at Colonel Devereau. ‘William? What do you make of this?’

‘I would happily have locked her up and considered her to be one of your spies had she not shown me glimpses of her world.’

The Southern colonel’s tawny eyebrows rose with curiosity.

Devereau tapped a shoulder bag Maddy had cradled in her lap. ‘Show him the things you have brought along.’

Maddy nodded, dipped into the bag and pulled out a copy of
Wired
magazine. ‘I buy them occasionally. This is September’s issue.’ There was a stack of magazines by her bunk, September issues of gadget and games magazines. Every few days, since being recruited, she felt compelled to go out and buy some magazines to read in order to feel somehow still in touch with this world. God help her, she even had a few of those awful gossip magazines with nothing but pictures of drunken celebrities stumbling out of nightclubs and limos.

Wainwright flicked through the glossy pages of special-effects shots for forthcoming movies. Maddy pulled out another, a
National Geographic
. ‘This is better,’ she said, ‘more pictures of the real world and not just movies.’

‘
Movies?
’

‘Like the news-o-tropes, James,’ said Devereau. ‘Moving images with sound.’

‘Ahhh,’ grunted Wainwright as he reached for the magazine Maddy was holding out. He flicked through more pages, pausing on a photograph depicting the space shuttle
Discovery
launching from its pad in Cape Canaveral. And another showing the Earth from space.

Wainwright looked up at Maddy. ‘You are telling me this is true? That men … have stepped off this world?’

‘Oh yes! In fact, men have stepped on the moon.’ She smiled. ‘And that’s pretty old news in my time. Happened back in 1969.’

Wainwright shook his head suspiciously at pictures of the International Space Station being bolted together by a man wearing an impossibly bulky suit of what looked to him like white linen. Sceptical.

‘This is … quite a story.’ He stroked his bearded chin. ‘I certainly would like to believe a world like this exists.’ He offered Maddy a wistful smile. ‘I would want to believe that, but these pictures … they could be the work of the Union’s Propaganda Division, Bill.’

Devereau laughed. ‘You think my High Command could be this inventive? The fools can barely organize food parcels for my men.’

Wainwright shrugged. That much was true.

‘Well … I’ve got this too.’ Maddy pulled out her iPhone. She switched it on and turned the glowing screen to show the colonel.

He jerked in his seat, one boot inadvertently kicking the table and spilling slops of coffee. ‘Good Heavens! What in God’s name is that?’

‘Just a mobile telephone,’ she said. ‘Bit like a field radio, I guess.’

He gazed wide-eyed at the screen.

‘You’ve got radios, right?’ she asked. Wainwright looked at her. ‘Wireless communicators?’

Devereau had assured her they did, far better battlefield-communications equipment than his own regiment, who still relied on telephone-cable technology decades old and prone to frequently going down after Southern bombing raids.

‘Yes … yes of course.’ Wainwright reached a gloved hand out to touch her iPhone. ‘Such an incredibly small device.’

‘Oh, and it does a bunch of other stuff too. Plays music. Wanna hear some?’

His eyes glistened in the gloom of the bunker. He nodded.

She tapped the screen and a moment later its small speaker played a scratchy beat and a few garbled words of hip hop.

Both Wainwright and Devereau made remarkably similar faces: something halfway between a wince of disgust and a polite smile of pity.

‘This really is
music
, you say? Music from your time?’ asked Wainwright.