*
Tranter stared from the mess hall window, waiting for Toubec to return. Across the garrison infantrymen went about their business, several stepped from barracks toward the communication tower, two more had pulled up in a carrier and were stepping out, laughing over some matter. An officer stepped in their path and they stood to attention as he casually saluted and continued. They were all acting normally and yet, he thought, there was something in the air that was ubiquitously secretive.
‘“A set of lies agreed upon.”’ He said to himself, his breath fogging the glass.
‘Sorry, sir?’ Said the young private whom had previously been secreted in the shadows. He had left them and advanced toward Tranter when Toubec had departed.
‘Nothing, just quoting Bonaparte.’ Tranter replied, turning.
‘“History,”’ the young soldier mulled. ‘"Nothing but a set of lies agreed upon." That’s right, isn’t it?’ He joined Tranter at the window.
‘Something along those lines.’
‘I think ‘lies’ may be a strong word, don’t you?’ He said after hesitating. ‘There are many perspectives relating to why anything happens, and yet we take only one viewpoint and label it ‘the truth’.’
Tranter noted the kit bag at his feet. ‘Going on leave, are you?’
‘I’m being transferred to Southampton.’
‘Really! I was under the impression there was no form of transport capable of such vast distances.’
The young officer snorted with a smirk, then chose his words carefully. ‘I shouldn’t be saying this, sir, but you’re fighting a losing battle with Colonel Matloff. Whatever power you think you have over him from the government, he has more.’
‘What happens across the border, private...?’ Tranter said bluntly, extending his hand.
‘Private anonymous.’ He said earnestly. ‘Don’t think I’m going to turn my back on my staff sergeant and my company. They’ve been good to me here.’ He swallowed, and Tranter read the body language of a young man uncomfortable with his lot. Was that why he was being transferred? ‘I’ll be gone in under an hour, but... It shouldn’t be allowed, sir. I wanted no part in it anymore.’
‘Something happens across there, right? Something contrary to the iCDO treaty? Is it related to the manufacture of biological weapons?’
The private almost looked affronted. ‘You like quotes, sir?’ He replied, looking over his shoulder. ‘How about this: “Secret operations are essential in war; an army relies on them to make its every move.”’
‘Who said that?’ Tranter said as the answer struck him. ‘Sun Tzu? You’re well-read for a...’
‘Tarsier?’ The young man replied, referencing the large-eyed mammals the military were named after for the gas masks they wore. He turned to the border. ‘I requested to be transferred here because I’d not seen one before. A border, I mean. You see them all the time in photos, but they’re not the same, are they?’
‘No, they’re not.’
‘I hadn’t counted on it being so difficult to apply for the post here. It seemed that everyone wanted a commission, and I simply put it down to the fact that Stone Hill was popular amongst servicemen for the prestige of guarding one of the Great Borders.’ He hesitated a moment, lowering his voice. ‘The harder it was to be transferred here the more I started hearing things that made me realise that this border alone, this garrison alone, was a place of... Well, a place of benefits.’
‘What kind of benefits?’
An infantryman stepped into the mess hall. He nodded toward them casually, and then continued on his way, paying them no attention.
‘Just head down to building B3 and turn right, sir,’ the anonymous private said to Tranter suddenly, picking up his kit bag and exiting the hall. ‘You’ll find someone who can wire your message down there.’
‘Wait,’ Tranter said, ‘I need...’
‘They can help you down there, sir, I must catch my InterRail.’ He said, as the door swung to reveal Toubec. She turned to look at the flustered infantryman.
‘What the hell was that about?’
‘We need to talk,’ he said, directing her to a table farthest from the door.
‘An understatement.’
‘Where did you go? Who did you call?’
‘I had an idea, that’s all. It might be nothing but... Well, the phone line is terrible, I can't make any outgoing calls. What were you and the private talking about?’
He told her what had been said and she mulled on it for a while. ‘It made me think,’ she said finally, ‘when we first arrived, Matloff’s office was too... luxurious. That leather chair he was sitting in would have set him back half a year’s wage, it must be two hundred years old at least. And the rumours that Stone Hill alone is funding the manufacture of Rhinox, what does that say?’
‘So they’re receiving money to do something?’
‘It’s feasible... But,’
‘What?’
‘We’re not detectives, Tranter. If there’s something untoward here we need to inform the authorities.’
‘We will, but not from the garrison. We have to get across the border and find out what’s happening in Mortehoe. We need to find this virus and contain it before it’s replicated or makes its way into the populace. That’s our priority, not the corruption here.’
‘And if it’s related?’
He looked at her squarely for a moment. If the virus was related to the military then the private’s words of secret operations were all but a confession. ‘If that virus is militarised,’ he was sick at the thought, and could think of nothing but clichés to turn to. God help us all was forefront in his mind, though he left the sentence hanging as he recalled something he had seen on their journey to the garrison.
‘Regardless,’ Toubec said, wrenching him from his thoughts. ‘Until then we need to keep on pushing Matloff for some kind of concession. When all’s said and done we have to get out there. It’s as simple as that.’ She looked up at him and frowned. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’ Tranter replied distantly. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something staring him in the face about the whole situation. Something he had heard, or seen, on the InterRail.
Something important.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
South-easterly wind.
Eight knots.