Dead of Night. Майкл Грант
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First published in Great Britain in 2017
by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Dead of Night © 2017 by Michael Grant
I Have No Secrets © 2017 by Penny Joelson
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.
First e-book edition 2017
ISBN 978 1 7803 1813 4
Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1818 9
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
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Contents
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About the author
SOMEWHERE IN WALES, DECEMBER 24, 1942
‘Help! Help, I’m sinking!’
Jillion Magraff is indeed sinking. She is up to her knees in mud and will in short order be up to her thighs.
How Magraff has managed to get quite so stuck is a mystery to Rio Richlin and everyone else in the squad with the possible exception of Sergeant Cole, and that’s only because Cole has a very low opinion of the green troops in his squad.
Luther Geer, a big twenty-year-old with a crushing brow beneath buzz-cut brown hair, slings his pack onto a lichen-scarred rock. ‘Best just to let her sink. Held up by a woman soldier. Again.’
‘Knock it off, Geer,’ Rio says, but without much conviction in her voice. Magraff is an embarrassment to all the women in the squad and the platoon. Cat Preeling carries her weight and then some; Jenou Castain . . . well, she has a way to go to become a soldier, but at least she’s not quite the whiny, helpless mess Magraff is.
The worst thing is that Rio intensely dislikes Geer, who for his part seems threatened by Rio. So Magraff giving Geer yet another opportunity to sneer at the women in the squad doubly irritates Rio – a sweet-tempered girl who until she joined the army had never had an unkind thought or cast a harsh look at anyone.
At least that’s her version.
Rio’s best friend Jenou would agree that Rio is essentially sweet, generous, kind and certainly innocent. But she would not agree that Rio is incapable of becoming annoyed. No, Rio, in Jenou’s estimation, has a stubborn streak a mile wide, and with it just a very slight hint of a temper. That temper came out back at basic training on one of the early occasions when Geer annoyed Rio. Rio marched after him into the men’s shower room and demanded his apology. Since then Geer has been just a bit leery of the sweet-tempered milkmaid from northern California, and the incident – Richlin’s Raid – has become legendary in the platoon, and Geer has not forgiven Rio.
‘Since time began, it was men that went to war,’ Geer says. ‘And that –’ He points at Magraff, then lets his accusing finger drift toward Rio – ‘is why.’
The squad are twelve American soldiers with a total of about six months of combat experience, and all that experience – one hundred percent of it – belongs to just one person: Buck Sergeant Jedron Cole. The rest of them are as green as a spring leaf, with a grand total of thirteen weeks basic training each. They are in the zone between civilian and soldier: too heavily armed to be civilians, too ignorant to really be soldiers.
At the moment they are a miserable, cranky bunch, filled with a righteous hatred for the United States Army and the brass hat who scheduled this training exercise for Christmas Eve. They are cold, wet and unless Rio is mistaken, after five hours slogging around in freezing rain followed now by dense fog, quite lost.
‘Anyone got any rope?’ Geer asks. ‘It’s not for Magraff, it’s for me in case I want to hang myself.’
No rope is to be found. But by tying their webbing belts together they get a line to Magraff who is hauled, weeping and minus one boot, onto dryer ground.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Jack Stafford joins Rio squatting on a rock while Magraff cleans herself off using a tuft of moss dipped in chilly rainwater as a sponge.
There’s a tear in the fog and for a moment it is indeed beautiful, though in a gloomy, oppressive and disturbing way. At least it feels that way to Rio who comes from Sonoma County where it rains seldom and snows never, though she’d have to admit to some fog, especially closer to the Pacific coast.
Steel-gray clouds hang low overhead, a big gray comforter pulled over a rugged country of well-sunken rocks and strange mushrooms, tiny streams, seemingly random stone walls and not a tree to be seen. Puzzled sheep stare from the side of a low hill.
Rio has good eyesight and spots a fantastically antlered deer of some variety a couple hundred yards off. They must not be too far from the coast, she reasons, because a pair of seagulls are riding the breeze overhead, looking down at the squad to estimate its potential for providing food.
‘Beautiful,’ Rio answers belatedly. ‘Bit damp.’ Rio’s feet are wet and freezing. Her fingers are numb. She can no longer feel her nose and both ears ache. And she’s angry at several members of the squad: Magraff for being a helpless nincompoop, Tilo Suarez because he cannot manage to turn off his tedious leering Lothario act and yes, Jenou for draining her own canteen and then begging sips off Rio. She’s even irritated at Kerwin Cassel, who she generally likes, because he insists on chewing gum and blowing bubbles and this is meant to be a patrol, not a party. But mostly, as usual, she’s angry at the big hillbilly, Luther Geer.
Christmas Eve? This is Christmas Eve? This foot-soaking, sweaty-cold march to nowhere in full battle dress?
‘Damp? Wales?’ Jack teases.
‘I don’t know how you people stand it.’
‘Well, we don’t