CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

RETREAT

 

 

THEY DID NOT stalk. They did not listen for the whistle or the echo of a whistle. An echo of a whistle meant nothing. Silence meant nothing. Them could be anywhere at any time. Them were in the tunnels of Track Nine.

“Us, we move fast,” said Oscar so Wild as the war band dropped down onto the track at the Westhafen platform. They did not check and cover. They did not walk the track to listen. They did not hunt. They were in retreat.

They kept formation three abreast, with Vanessa Hell to the rear. Oscar so Wild took the centre position in the first rank. Dorothy Barker took the left flank and Evelyn War the right, in the second rank.

Many more Zoo Pack had been lost to the Them than Hackers; they had stood for longer against the beast. Conan Doyle, who had been shot through the leg, was the slowest of the Aux, but he had bound his leg and was fit and strong.

He managed to move well, but with an awkward gait. He walked on Wild’s left and kept up a good pace. Vanessa Hell and Frank Brangwin, with their cumbersome clothing and the weight of their weapons, had set the war band’s pace for the jog down Track Six on the way out.

Hell was almost as slow as Doyle, particularly with the extra weight of fear, guilt and grief that she was carrying. The two of them set the pace back to Leopoldplatz.

No consideration was given to the noise they made. No one cared how much scraping and kicking Doyle did with his wounded leg, or how much clanging Hell’s tanks made. It didn’t matter. Speed mattered.

They made good time, urging one another on. They staggered to a near-halt only once, bunching up in the tunnel when Conan Doyle’s leg spasmed and kicked out from under him. Oscar so Wild ducked down, put a shoulder under the Aux’s arm and lifted him back to his feet in one swift movement. They loped along together for a hundred metres or so before Doyle picked up speed again, and was able to continue unassisted.

Adrenaline drove them. They made the kilometre and a half back to Leopoldplatz in less than twenty minutes.

The climb up to Track Six was a relief. Vanessa Hell and Conan Doyle walked side by side in the centre of the Pack as they took a slightly slower pace along Track Six towards Friedrichstrasse.

They were the two weakest members of the war band. One of the two other Hackers, a male called Richard Gall, took Vanessa Hell’s weapon and headgear from her and brought up the rear with his other packmate.

Vanessa Hell had not stopped sobbing since they left Westhafen. She began keening once they had been safely on track for a few minutes. Doyle tried to console her, but he was tired and his leg ached. Dorothy became increasingly irritated with the dam.

“You, you’ll lure the Them back with your mating call,” she said over her shoulder.

Vanessa Hell cried out in alarm.

Oscar so Wild glared at Dorothy, and said, “The Them, it is dead. It burned up on Track Nine. Track Six, it is safe.”

“There will be more Them,” said Conan Doyle, “tougher and tough.”

Evelyn glanced at the wounded Aux, but said nothing.

No one else spoke for the hour it took for the eight Aux to make their way back to Friedrichstrasse.

They were brought in by the sentries posted to meet them. Word was sent ahead of their imminent arrival, and the always busy platform thronged with Aux as the war band made its way up the track towards it.

There were whispers and gasps as they came into view. Soon the gathered Aux were wondering at how few had returned, and how wretched they appeared to be.

Holeman Hunt stood on the tracks to greet the returning heroes. He already knew how decimated the war band was from his sentries’ reports. He also knew that Ezra Pound was not among them.

Holeman Hunt embraced Oscar so Wild. He clenched his forearm and bumped chests with him. He formally recognised the authority of the lieutenant in front of his own pack, and in front of Zoo Pack. He recognised him as Alpha dog, as an equal.

“Oscar so Wild, you Alpha dog, now,” he said.

“Ezra Pound, him is dead,” said Oscar so Wild. “Zoo Pack, we have no fiefdom. Zoo Pack, we have no Alpha dog. Zoo Pack, we have no name. Us, we are all Hacker Pack now.”

Silence fell among the Aux, Zoo Pack and Hacker alike as they took in the lieutenant’s meaning.

Oscar so Wild stepped out of Holeman Hunt’s embrace and nodded at his new leader. He looked over his shoulder at Dorothy Barker and Evelyn War, who also nodded at Holeman Hunt.

Holeman Hunt frowned.

“Us, we can discuss this further,” he said. “The Them, is it dead?”

“It is dead,” said Oscar so Wild.

“Then it is over,” said Holeman Hunt.

The throng of Aux let out a celebratory whoop and a cheer. Some wept for the fallen, but they would be celebrated in the tales of the future. They would not be lost to oblivion. The Aux gathered on the platform started to talk among themselves of retrieving the bodies and of celebrating. It was over.

“It is not over,” Walter Sickert’s eerie voice echoed around the tunnel, and the crowd fell silent once more.

“Them are many,” he said. “Us, we know now what Them are and how Them die.

“Now it begins.”