The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) Read Online Free PDF Page A

enemy. Request QRF. Over.’
    ‘Zero, roger. QRF on its way. Out.’
    He peered cautiously around his little garden wall. The flashes had stopped. The gunman was making his getaway. ‘Belsham! Where the fuck are you?’
    ‘Here, sir; behind the shed.’
    He ran over. Belsham was kneeling beside a prostrate George, ripping up field dressings furiously. Riven felt sick.
    ‘Where’s he hit?’
    ‘Chest, sir. I can handle it.’
    ‘Right. I’ll go and look for Pete.’ He doubled off again to where the explosion had happened. A mass of rubble blocked the road. He stumbled across an SLR with a bent barrel, then found what was left of his point man. He vomited whilst the whine of the Quick Reaction Force’s Land Rovers filled up the street behind him.
     
     
    T HE LIGHT BULB grew brighter, the pile of empty cans higher; the talk louder.
    ‘What was the first battalion like, then?’ Riven asked.
    ‘Laid back. What about the third?’
    Riven belched. ‘Stuck up. They didn’t like Irish subalterns.’
    ‘Funny us being in the same regiment, sir.’
    ‘I was in Ireland when you were in Belize.’
    ‘Why’d you leave?’
    ‘Got married.’
    ‘Oh, shit. Sorry, sir.’
    Riven waved his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.’ He grinned crookedly. ‘Life’s a bitch.’ He sat staring at his empty glass. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he slurred again.
    Doody refilled them both, spilt some, and sniffed. ‘What was your wife like?’
    Riven continued looking beyond the pint glass in front of him, head swaying slightly. ‘My wife. Bloody hell.’ He blinked. ‘She was tall. Tall and dark. Quite a lass. Her eyebrows met in the middle. I used to call her a witch.’ He smiled, remembering. ‘She put a spell on me, anyway. Jennifer MacKinnon, from the Isle of Skye—the Isle of Mists, in the Gaelic... Ach—’ He downed his drink in a succession of throat-scraping gulps. The empty glass glittered in the artificial light, and he smacked his lips loudly. ‘Fucking beer didn’t last long, did it?’
    Doody broached the whiskey with great ceremony, and they toasted each other in loud voices before throwing it back. Riven felt the raw liquid burn its long-lost way home down his throat, and the room wavered a little.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ he said again as Doody refilled the glasses. ‘Good stuff, this.’
    ‘Only the best,’ Doody affirmed. He sloshed whiskey on the table and scowled at the bottle. ‘Fucking bad craftsmanship, that.’ Again, they threw back the spirit as though it were water. Riven was beginning to have trouble focusing. There was a window behind Doody’s head, blue with the night, but he could have sworn there had been a darker silhouette framed there for a second—a strange shape with sharp ears...
    Ah, I’ve no head for this stuff any more.
    Doody began singing quietly, an army song not noted for the delicacy of its language, and Riven joined in with a will. They bellowed out the chorus together. A sweep of Riven’s good arm sent his glass to the floor, where it shattered. They peered at it owlishly. Then there was a knock at the door, and the pair gazed at each other.
    ‘I’m only a cripple!’ Riven protested. ‘He made me do it!’
    The door opened and Nurse Cohen entered. ‘Are you two still in here? Couldn’t you keep it a little quieter?’
    Doody looked blank for a second, then recognition dawned.
    ‘It’s our guardian angel,’ he hiccuped. ‘Our lookout. Is the coast clear, Anne?’
    ‘You two are utterly smashed,’ Nurse Cohen whispered.
    ‘I am,’ Riven volunteered absently.
    ‘Doody, for God’s sake, did you have to get him completely plastered? Old Bisbee will be doing the rounds in under an hour. I can handle the auxiliaries, but not her. We’ve got to get him back to his room.’
    Doody saluted with a beatific smile on his ugly face, and then, infinitely slowly, he fell over. Nurse Cohen swore, went over to Riven and prised the other glass from his hand.
    ‘Come