Iain Banks - A Song Of Stone

The lieutenant stiffens suddenly; she tilts her head, as though listening for something, or to something. She looks at me, frowning, but I think does not see me. Perhaps I can hear something. It might he distant gunfire; not the nebulous “thudding of artillery but the flat crackling of automatic small arms. The lieutenant steadies her gun, lowering her cheek to the stock. The soldiers lying along from her see this and take sight too.

I look back to the soldiers at the mine. The tractor sits idling, connected to the gun. They seem to be having problems with the trailer's towing point. Half a minute passes.

Then a soldier comes running out of the brick building, waving a rifle and shouting something. Instantly the mood changes; the soldiers start looking around, then move; some head for the office building, others make for the cab of the truck, where the driver is standing on the cab's step, looking, it seems, right at us.

Then firing sounds from somewhere to our right, and the ground beneath the soldiers heading for the office building leaps and flicks in miniature detonations of earth and stone. Two men drop.

The lieutenant makes a hissing noise, then her gun erupts, spearing flame and hammering twin spikes of pain into my head. I jam my fingers in my ears, eyes screwing up involuntarily, as I duck back and down. The last thing I see of the mine is the windscreen of the truck shattering white, pocked with wide black holes, and the driver being thrown back, falling and folding as though belly kicked by a horse.

The firing continues for some time, punctuated by the sharp snap of grenades failing amongst the buildings of the mine; I glimpse up to see the lieutenant pausing to flip her magazine, then again to change the spent pair for another taped together set lying by her hand, each movement executed with a smooth, unhurried skill; the gun barks on, hardly pausing. The air reeks with a bitter, acrid scent. A couple of thuds behind and below may be the impact of returned fire, and I think I hear the lieutenant's radio squawking, but she is either ignoring it or cannot hear. Soon the only sound is from the lieutenant's guns and those of her men.

Then it stops.

The silence rings. I open my eyes fully, gazing at the prone form of the lieutenant. She is looking along the row of men lying by her side. They are each looking, checking. All seem uninjured.

I pull myself back up to the little tunnel of flattened bracken I left at the summit of the cliff and gaze down to the mine. A little smoke drifts. Some of the office building's windows look eroded, the metal frames buckled, the brick surrounds edging them pulverised to curves, with flakes and fragments of orange brick scattered on the ground beneath. The front of the truck looks as though a giant has filled an immense brush with black paint and then flicked it, spattering dark spots all over the metalwork. Steam issues from its grille and the holes punched in its engine cover. A dark pool of diesel spreads slowly out from underneath like blood beneath a corpse. The tractor lists, one tall rear wheel and both front tyres flattened. Bodies lie fallen and sprawled all across the ground, a few with guns at their sides or still clutched in their hands.

Then, movement at the door of the office building. A rifle is thrown out, landing and skidding along a length of the narrow gauge rails.. Something pale flutters in the doorway's gloom. The lieutenant mutters something. A man hobbles out of the building, face bloody, one arm dangling, the other waving what looks like a sheet of white paper. He is shot from our right, his head flicking back. He falls like a sack of cement and lies still. The lieutenant makes a tutting noise. She shouts something but the words are lost in the sound of firing coming from the top storey of the office building. Returning fire from our right flank kicks dust out from the bricks around the window and then, with a bang, something flashes over the tractor, gun and truck and disappears through the same opening; the explosion follows almost immediately, pulsing a quick cloud of debris through the window and shaking dust from the caves of the building's corrugated iron roof.

The silence resumes.

I stand upon the track at the entrance to the mine's compound in the deep dusk light; the sky is a cooling turquoise bowl above the dark, silent crowds of trees. The sunlight drains slowly up the slope beyond, falling back before the shadows. The air is fragrant, full of the smell of pine resin, replacing the stink of cartridge smoke. The dull red gravel beneath my feet rasps as I turn to survey the killing ground.

I watch the lieutenant's men as they cautiously check the prostrate forms littering the earth, guns levelled and ready as they frisk and search each body, expropriating guns, ammunition and whatever else takes their fancy. One of the fallen moans as he's turned over on his back and is quieted with a knife, breath gurgling from the wound like a sigh. Curiously little blood.

The lieutenant has checked the gun, finding it intact; Mr Cuts seems fascinated by it, climbing over it to test its controls, spinning metal wheels, hauling on its levers, pulling the shining steel plug of the thread ridged breech open and sticking his nose inside. The lieutenant tries to use the radio, but has to climb back up to the ridge before making contact. The trailer behind the truck is opened, revealing boxes full of shells and charges for the field gun.

The back of the devastated truck yields more ammunition, various supplies, food and several crates of wine, mostly undamaged.

The jeep that left the farm appears up the track, heralded by a shout from the man the lieutenant has left on the ridge. The men from the jeep all whoop and laugh and back clap those who took the mine, telling of their own fire fight, surprising another truck further down the track leading to the mine. Stories are told, joking insults traded, and a sense of relief fills the air, as obvious and sharp as the scent of pine. Two dozen or more they have killed. In exchange; one trivial flesh wound, already cleaned and bandaged.

Something moves at my feet. I look down and there at my feet, like another wounded soldier, I see a bee, crawling heavy and awkward, clambering blindly over the cold surface of the gravel track, dying in its thick, furry uniform as the season's chill turns against it.

Another shout from the man on the cliff top and an engine's roar comes from down the track. One of the trucks from the farm comes bustling up, lights flashing. It rumbles straight towards me; I have to step back off the track to let it roll growling past. It turns, swaying, in the centre of the buildings and grates to a stop. I look down at where its wheels passed, expecting… but the bee, uncrushed, crawls on.

We leave quickly after that; the truck takes the gun, booty and us, while the jeep leads the way, struggling with the weighty ammunition trailer. At the farm the second truck assumes the burden of the trailer and the farmer is breezily informed where his horses may he found. His look is dark but he wisely holds his tongue.

The lieutenant takes to her jeep again; I am left in the rear of the second truck with some of the joking soldiers; a bottle of wine is pressed into my hand and a cigarette offered as we jolt down the track and into the gathering darkness beneath the trees.

There is one last act, just before we find the first narrow metalled road; a jolt of brakes and a burst of gunfire from ahead sends everyone diving for their guns and helmets. Then shouts tell us the matter's settled.

It had been a pick up, full of comrades of those killed at the mine, shot even as they hailed the lights approaching them. They too are dispatched without injury to the lieutenant's men, only one of their number even escaping the bullet torn vehicle, to die face down on the track. The pick up, on fire, is nudged out of the way by the leading truck, settles on its side in a weed choked ditch beneath the trees, and begins to crackle with exploding ammunition. We leave it blazing in the night alone, and bump off, singing, for the road.