‘Really? Do you mind if I pick your brains on that, sir?’
Which is how Aubrey sat up the front of the lorry with Stanley and the driver, while the others were relegated to the canvas-covered back. It was slow going through the maze of tracks cutting through the woods and negotiating the ridges and the rocky creeks. As well, they were constantly being blocked by slow-moving supply wagons and lorries, twice having to back off the road to allow traffic in the other direction. A depressing number of ambulances, both official and makeshift, nosed their way through the marching soldiers, a reminder, if any needed it, of what could lie ahead.
Finally they debouched into a wide open area sheltered by a rocky outcrop. The large tents of a field hospital were the site of most activity, but the easternmost side of the glade had become a transport station with lorries unloading boxes of ammunition and foodstuffs.
‘This is as close as we can get by motor,’ Stanley said. He bounded out of the cabin and peered about. Lorries, carts, ambulances, and many, many soldiers were packed into an area the size of a football pitch. A few troopers, more phlegmatic than the others, had started campfires and were making tea or coffee.
Aubrey had never seen so many slumped shoulders in one place at one time. The men had the weariness about them that came from extreme privation. Some twitched at unexpected noises; others didn’t move even when their name was called. War was grinding them to pieces.
Stanley hurried about with papers in hand, looking more like an accountant than ever, until he found the officer he was looking for. The officer disappeared toward a neat line of tents and came back with a squad of infantrymen. The sun was drifting below the tops of the hills by the time the squad had unloaded the magic neutralisers, strung the crates in intricate rope cradles, and begun shuffling in the direction of the trenches.
Aubrey and his friends were on their feet instantly, and followed.
The certainty that they were heading in the right direction came not from sight – although the trees became sparser and more shredded as they picked their way over ground that was broken by large holes thrown up by artillery shells – but through hearing. The sounds coming to them were faint, growing stronger and oddly punctuated, but unmistakably that of war. Aubrey’s uneasiness grew as machine guns chattered insanely for minutes at a time before falling silent. He heard shouts in Gallian and Albionish and, more chilling, Holmlandish.
The enemy was that close.
Stanley led them through a defile where a creek had once run and then motioned for them to crouch. Spread out before them was the battlefield.
The place where Gallia and Holmland had fought to a standstill in the early days of the confrontation had once been a narrow valley, a gap between ridges of the rather grandly named Grentellier Mountains that separated Divodorum from Stalsfrieden.
The Grentellier Mountains were really more a series of low hills and ridges, lines of them running roughly north-west to south-east. One main road crossed this region, somewhat to the south of where Aubrey and his friends now found themselves; it was the route between the Gallian city and the Holmland one.
The valley snaked along, widening and narrowing as it went, varying somewhere between one and two miles across. The hills on either side were studded with artillery emplacements, wherever engineers could drag them. The valley floor itself had been transformed from a narrow wooded corner of the countryside into a maze of trenches, bunkers and barbed wire.
Aubrey felt small in the face of this theatre of war, but he knew that this was but a small part of the battlelines that stretched for miles in either direction.
‘This is a crucial chokepoint,’ Stanley said. He was crouching on one knee, sweeping his binoculars across the eerie scene. ‘We must hold here. If we don’t, the Holmlanders will pour through, double back, and chew into the rear of our lines.’
Aubrey’s imagination, only too willing, provided a vision of the world looking down on this tiny patch. The attention of the powerful, the eager, the invested was, for a time, turned here.
‘What’s this place called?’ he asked.
The officer lowered his field glasses and indicated to his right. A hundred yards away, a mound of rubble stood near the remains of a pond. ‘We call it Fremont, after that farmhouse over there.’
‘That’s not a farmhouse,’ George said. ‘That’s a ruin.’
Stanley shrugged. ‘It was a farmhouse. Fremont was the name of the family who lived there, apparently.’
‘Family?’ Aubrey asked. ‘Where are they now?’
Stanley had the good grace to look guilty. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Safe in Divodorum, I hope.’
Aubrey wondered if, one day, the Battle of Fremont would rate a paragraph in a history book, or if it would be a chapter of its own.
Sophie tapped Aubrey on the shoulder and pointed. ‘Look.’
Against the setting sun, it was hard to make out but the tiny spot resolved itself gradually. ‘An ornithopter.’
‘Holmlander,’ Stanley said after using his field glasses. ‘I thought we’d shot down most of their observers.’
The ornithopter was travelling toward them. Caroline shaded her eyes. ‘He’s having trouble controlling the side slipping in the wind.’
Aubrey took Caroline’s word for it. ‘Do we have any aircraft in the area, sir?’
‘Not many,’ Stanley said. ‘The last I heard was that we were anticipating a squadron or two.’ He made a sour face. ‘“Expect them at any time” was the official phrasing.’
The ornithopter was flying very high. Aubrey assumed that it was the better to observe the entire battlefront. The guns of the Albionites and the Gallians were silent for the moment. Such a tiny target was impossible, they all seemed to agree, not worth wasting ammunition.
It was a sensible, rational military decision, but an optimistic rifleman obviously had other ideas: a shot rang out.
Immediately, the ornithopter lurched sideways, as if skidding on the surface of a frozen pond. Then it dropped, spewing a trail of smoke and flame.
‘Remarkable,’ Stanley breathed.
‘He’s doomed,’ Caroline said. ‘His tail control is gone. Fuel tank too. He might be able to glide it in, if he’s very, very good.’
Good, or determined, that’s just what the pilot was attempting. Aubrey found himself twitching and wincing with every jerky movement of the aircraft. The wings beat frantically as the pilot tried to kill his airspeed while retaining some control. The propensity of the machine to plummet like a stone while he was attempting this was a significant handicap, but he wasn’t giving up.
Aubrey realised he didn’t care if the pilot was Holmlandish, Gallian or from another planet entirely. Silently, he cheered him on. His hands curled into fists as the ornithopter stuttered and attempted to roll, which would be certain death for the operator – as opposed to the most probable death that awaited if he could glide the machine into a landing.
‘You can do it,’ George muttered and Aubrey knew he wasn’t alone. He glanced at all of his friends and saw they were united in urging the pilot to success. Even the infantrymen of Stanley’s squad were watching intently, clearly hoping the pilot would succeed.
The ornithopter twisted, then tilted to one side. Suddenly, in his attempt to right the craft, the pilot sent it hurtling across the lines.
It was heading straight toward them.
Aubrey couldn’t help it. Even though he was crouching, he ducked as it flashed overhead at tree-top level, a black shadow against the sky. Caroline cried out and the machine, larger than life, stalled and slipped sideways before the nose lifted a little. It was no good. The ornithopter laboured and banked slowly in the direction of Divodorum, then it clipped the tallest trees skirting the road. The sound of the impact could be heard even at this distance.
Smoke rose from the site of the crash and Aubrey sank until he was sitting, aghast at what he had just seen, on the hard dirt.
Aubrey’s father rarely spoke about his war experiences, but since, at the time, his deeds had been
