26
The three lorries were a ragtag assortment, but they were efficient and reliable. They made short work of any grade but the steepest, and laughed when two shallow streams needed fording where bridges had been blown up – but Aubrey found them to be the most uncomfortable mode of transport since their wild escape in the belly of a concrete elephant. The seats in the rear were hard wooden slats, dust was sucked into the passenger area with an efficiency household appliances could only dream of, and the suspension had the almost magical ability to amplify every jolt, bump and judder straight through the chassis into the spine of the unfortunate passengers.
During the journey, sitting in the rear of one lorry with his friends, Aubrey questioned von Stralick, trying to find out more information about the Holmland deployment.
‘Who’s in charge of this?’ he shouted to von Stralick sitting next to him. The back of the lorry was only covered by canvas, so the noise was appalling. Caroline was opposite, doing her best to talk to Sophie and Madame Zelinka, while George was frowning over a Holmlandish newspaper one of the Enlightened Ones had given him. Despite his extraordinary lack of ability with languages, George couldn’t ignore the prospect of a good newspaper.
‘This new push? Since it’s the army alone, the Supreme Army Command is rubbing its hands together at the prospect of glory and stealing a march over the navy. But inside that august body is the Central Staff.’
‘Central Staff? Sounds harmless enough.’
‘The Central Staff is the six most senior generals. It is responsible for the conduct of the war.’
‘Along with the Chancellor.’
‘The Chancellor takes care of the politics, but is cunning enough to realise that running a battle is a specialised task. He leaves the details to the Central Staff.’
Aubrey sat back. Canvas flapped at his back, and he barely noticed the concerned look Caroline flashed him.
‘You’re humming again,’ von Stralick said.
‘Just thinking. How far is it to Divodorum?’
Aubrey desperately wanted to contact the Directorate. He was acutely aware that they were in highly dangerous territory and that they had intelligence that could be crucial to the outcome of the war. It was his duty to let the Albion intelligence services know what was going on.
After discussing it with his friends, the decision was to get to their secret base in Divodorum and use the wireless installation there. The problem was that Divodorum was on the other side of the border. When Caroline, George, Sophie and Aubrey had made the dangerous crossing from Divodorum to Stalsfrieden soon after the Holmlanders attacked, it had been chaos. Avoiding patrols and supply lines had been a heady, perilous business. Trying to get three lorries across would have been impossible if not for the Enlightened Ones.
Madame Zelinka reminded them that, over the centuries, the Enlightened Ones had perfected the art of crossing borders unseen and unmolested. She’d put the matter in the hands of Katya, who had conferred with the passage specialists among the Enlightened Ones. The result was this circuitous journey, which was paralleling the Mosa River and taking them through wilderness that looked as if it had remained undisturbed for years.
‘How far? I have no idea,’ von Stralick said, ‘but I have a feeling that it might be an interesting journey.’
27
Many twistings and turnings later, all sloping downward and bringing them closer to the river through woods that looked impenetrable until one of the Enlightened Ones hanging out of the window of the lead lorry directed the way, they found what Katya assured them was a well-used crossing place – or had been, when the Romans had built the bridge. Now, the bridge was a crumbling ruin, to Aubrey’s eye, pilings well spaced and disguised by creepers and other tenacious vegetation. The Mosa was broad here, a hundred yards or more of deep, swift water, but Katya and half a dozen of her comrades darted off into the undergrowth while Aubrey and his friends wondered how they were going to get across, let alone the lorries.
The ropes and timbers that the Enlightened Ones returned with looked sturdy enough, but Aubrey wasn’t convinced, even when Madame Zelinka assured him that such materials were kept in caves on either side of such crossings, all over the Continent. Katya explained that it was a matter of bridging the approach with the materials, then, after a lorry had driven as far as it could, the next span was bridged while the span already crossed was disassembled to provide the material for the subsequent span. Once the lorry was safely on the other side, the materials were gathered and the process was to be repeated for the others.
Aubrey was glad to step back and let the Enlightened Ones take charge. The speed of their construction spoke of many years’ experience, and the way the lorry was driven over the narrow beams made Aubrey stare. When he came to walk across the same narrow beams, he appreciated the skill involved even more.
It took most of the morning, but the crossing was managed with only a few moments of terror from the more height-averse of the small band.
Material packed and stowed in a cave nearby, they were on their way to Divodorum. Caroline kept a space in the back of one of the lorries for Aubrey and, snatching happiness where he could, he was comfortable by her side. So much so, he fell asleep on her shoulder.
He was woken when the movement of the lorries became smoother. Divodorum was in sight and the town was almost unrecognisable.
The devastation shocked Aubrey and emphasised, more than anything else that had happened, how removed he had been from the realities of the war. Absorbed as he’d been by the need for survival, he had no grasp of what had been happening on a larger scale – but he’d been aware he’d been unaware, and it had grated on him.
With the lorries pulled off the road, screened by some quickly cut branches, they surveyed the city. ‘Divodorum itself has been under attack?’
‘Sorry, old man,’ George said, ‘I forgot you’ve been out of things.’
‘The Holmlanders used railway guns, pulled up near Stalsfrieden,’ Sophie explained, ‘and airship attacks, too.’
Mention of Stalsfrieden reminded Aubrey that the slab of mysterious Crystal Johannes had been taken there, and he wondered if a cross-border expedition mightn’t be in order, once they’d reported to the Directorate.
‘An aerial battle took place last week,’ Caroline said. ‘After days of Holmland airships dropping bombs on Divodorum, Gallia managed to scrape together a dozen dirigibles and two score ornithopters. They met a Holmland force and repelled them thanks to Major Saltin, but they suffered horrible losses.’
‘Major Saltin? He’s alive?’ While they were in Divodorum on their previous mission, news had come to them that Major Saltin had perished in an accident.
‘He survived his crash, but had to walk twenty miles, avoiding Holmland patrols, to get back to Divodorum. Since then, he’s been in the thick of things, of course. According to reports, he’s still in the city, rallying troops at the fortress, helping to handle reinforcements as they come in via train and sending them off to the front.’
‘The townspeople?’
‘Mostly fled. With the railway bridge down, a temporary depot has been set up on the other side of the river. Despite Holmland efforts, it’s still open. People are using the road bridge, but crossing the river and joining the train is the quickest way out.’
The more Aubrey studied the cityscape through his field glasses, the more signs of destruction he could see. Not just the obvious artillery and bomb strikes, but fire had raged through parts of the city too. He saw few signs of occupation apart from a lone figure hurrying along the embankment near the Divodorum docks. The way he kept looking upward, over his shoulder, was an indication that he fully expected death to rain from above at any minute.
‘We’ll just have to hope that our base is still intact,’ Aubrey said. He cleaned the lenses of the field glasses before he put them away.
