Alex Scarrow - The Eternal War

‘Right,’ said Liam, rubbing the sore toe of his foot, ‘let’s see what we can find.’

2001, New York

Maddy realized she must have been lost in some sort of a daze. The night had passed without her really even being aware of it. She vaguely remembered settling down in the corner of some bomb-damaged warehouse, gathering her knees to her chest for a little warmth and crying. She must have fallen asleep at some point and now it wasn’t daylight that had woken her up — it was someone’s boot, roughly kicking her side.

‘Hey, wakey, wakey.’

She looked up to see two men staring down at her. Soldiers, by the look of them. They both wore something that approximated a uniform: dark blue, almost black tunics; belts; buckles; pouches; and cloth slouch caps. She blinked back at the brightness, reached for her glasses and wiped dust from them.

‘Come on, sweetheart,’ one of them said. His face seemed to be mostly beard beneath the peak of his cap. ‘Gonna have to take you in, girl. Colonel’s gonna want to talk to you.’ He offered her a hand.

‘I’m sorry … am I … am I in the wrong place or something?’

‘Wrong place?’ Beardy-face laughed. ‘Hell, girl, the whole darned sector’s the wrong place.’

She let him pull her up. ‘I’m sorry … I don’t …’ She looked at him. Beneath his peak, his skin was dark, his cheeks speckled with grey stubble. ‘Am I in some sort of trouble?’

‘You’re a civilian in a front-line Union defence zone.’ He shrugged. ‘If the colonel reckons on yer bein’ a Southern spy, you gonna be in a whole world o’ trouble, girl.’

‘S’right,’ said the other soldier, pale as cigarette ash and surely only a couple of years older than Sal. ‘Had us a spy through this way coupla months back, didn’t we, Sarge?’

‘Uh-huh,’ replied the black soldier. ‘Weren’t no girl, though.’ He studied her suspiciously. ‘Either them Southern boys’re gettin’ clever, or they gettin’ desperate.’

‘I’m not a spy,’ said Maddy. ‘I’m just …’ She realized she had no answer that wasn’t going to sound utterly unconvincing. ‘I’m just … lost ,’ she said finally.

‘Well — ’ he pursed his lips — ‘reckon we’ll be lettin’ Colonel Devereau be the judge a’ that, huh? Come on now, miss.’

The two soldiers led her through the bombed-out ruins on to a street temporarily cleared of rubble. She looked up at a warm morning sky dashed with pink clouds and for a moment savoured the warmth of the sun on her face.

‘You ain’t gonna run on me, are you, miss?’ asked the young one. ‘Only, we gotta shoot at yous if ya do, see?’

‘Hey now, Ray … she look to you like she gonna run?’

Maddy shook her head wearily. She wouldn’t know where to run even if she had the will to do so. ‘I’ll be a good girl,’ she said quietly. ‘I promise. What’s your name, by the way?’

The black man looked surprised at the question. ‘You lookin’ for introductions?’

She nodded. ‘I’m Maddy.’

He laughed. ‘Well, since you insist on bein’ all so formal an’ all. Name’s Sergeant Freeman, an’ this young drainpipe is Private Ray Calder.’

‘Fellas just call me Ray,’ grinned the young man.

Colonel Devereau sat down to enjoy his mug of coffee. A rare treat. Real coffee beans shipped in from some far-off exotic country. He was just beginning to conjure up the swaying palm trees and golden beaches and turquoise lagoons of some distant tropical French colony in his mind’s eye, stirred by the aroma of the strong black brew in his chipped enamel mug, when his adjutant rapped knuckles on the bunker’s metal door. The door rang like a tuning fork.

‘Yes?’ he sighed. The door creaked heavily open.

‘Sorry to interrupt, sir. Patrol in sector five picked up a non-combatant. A girl, sir.’

‘A girl?’ He made a face. ‘She out there in the corridor?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He sighed. Right …

He waved a tired hand. ‘Best bring her in, then.’

He picked up his mug again and held it beneath his nose, enjoying the smoky aroma once more, while outside he heard orders being barked down the concrete passage. A moment later the girl in question stepped over the lip of the doorway.

She looked a sorry sight: a bespectacled child, thin, pale and grubby. She was wearing what he would consider to be a workman’s trousers — faded blue canvas. And her top was a smudged white shirt with no buttons, or loops, or any sign of feminine embellishments of lace or ribbon, just a printed word.

Intel .

‘Take a seat,’ he said.

She stepped forward and slumped in the wooden chair in front of his desk. Very unladylike in her posture.

‘So, are you going to give me your real name? Or am I going to get your spy name?’

‘Maddy,’ she uttered. ‘Madelaine Carter. It’s my real name.’

He shrugged. ‘OK. There’s a start, then … Maddy .’ He took his first tentative sip, testing the hot water with a top lip covered in drooping bristles.

Maddy looked up at him, her eyes narrowing as she studied him silently. ‘You and your men are dressed up … like civil - war soldiers. Like from the 1860s or something. Except — ’ she shook her head — ‘I don’t see any muskets. Your soldiers have weird-looking assault rifles.’

Devereau laughed. ‘Good God … civil war ! That’s a very old-fashioned term you’re using, young lady. Civil war? This war hasn’t been called that in well over a century.’

She frowned, puzzled. ‘You’re telling me that this … this is the same war?’

Devereau’s turn to look perplexed. ‘You’re asking me that, young lady?’ he said, pulling on the handle of his moustache. ‘As if … you actually don’t know?’

‘Yes.’

He sipped his coffee, swilling the rich bitter taste around his mouth. ‘So, I presume this is how you were instructed to behave, then … if you got caught? Hmm? To act the fool? To appear quite mad?’

‘You don’t know the half of it.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Maybe I am.’

‘Well — ’ he put down his mug, spread his hands — ‘why don’t you tell me the half of it , as you say?’

‘You’ll only think I’m completely mad, or lying.’ She shrugged. ‘Because I’m not from this world, see? I’m from another world. Another time really.’ She shook her head. ‘What’s the point? You’re not going to believe anything that comes out of my mouth, right?’

He stroked his beard in silent contemplation for a full minute. ‘Here’s the thing … if I were sending you to spy on the South, I’d dress you anonymously. I’d pick someone who looked and behaved quite normally. You on the other hand, young lady, are neither.’ He pointed a finger at her shirt. ‘And it seems quite foolish to me to be putting that badge on the front of you. It would be a bit like a thief wearing an I AM A BURGLAR sign round his neck.’

She looked down at her sweatshirt. ‘Intel?’ she smiled. ‘Oh, you’re thinking it’s short for intelligence , right?’

He returned her smile. ‘Indeed. Military intelligence. You might just as well have put the word SPY on your shirt.’

‘Intel, they’re a manufacturer of silicon chips,’ she said. ‘In my world.’

He frowned.

‘Silicon chips? You know, like in computers?’

‘ Computers? What is one of those?’

‘You serious?’

They sat in silence for a while. Outside the colonel’s bunker, a muted clunking of metal on metal could be heard starting up, machinery somewhere in the subterranean nest of rooms and passageways.