Tunnels 05 - Spiral

shovel the food down with much slurping — the usual abysmal table manners found throughout the Colony.
    His mother was gabbling away ten to the dozen as he ate. “I couldn’t believe it when the Styx pitched up at number twenty-three and moved the Smiths out, there ’n’ then. It was a sorry sight. Mrs. S had her dresses under ’er arm — some of the ones I stitched for ’er, too. ’Er daughter made a right spectickle of ’erself. She was ’owling and giving it the full waterworks and all that — you should ’ave ’eard ’er. But Mr. S just went where they led him, his ’ead down, like ’e was going to the gallows. It was ’eartrending to watch. Bet it was ’orrible, too, in the North.” She raised a hand up as if she couldn’t bear to hear anything about it, then waited expectantly for her son to tell her.
    When he didn’t, she went on. “You know I wouldn’t blame you if you ’
ad
gone above grass with that Topsoiler woman. They don’t give a tinker’s about us these days, the Styx. This isn’t somewhere for a young person to be, though you and Eliza are ’ardly spring chickens no more.”
    The Second Officer stopped chewing, his spoon poised in front of his mouth. This was not the way the old lady ever spoke about the Colony or the Styx. One of the most respectful members of their society, she would never normally hear a bad word said about anyone in authority.
    “Mother!” the Second Officer exclaimed. “You don’t mean that!”
    She bowed her head. She hadn’t combed her thinning gray hair after her nap, and it was as disheveled as a wind-ravaged bird’s nest. “I do, ’fraid to say,” she whispered in a downbeat way. “I do. I think it’s all over for us now.”
    “You don’t really believe that.” There was a note of reprimand in the Second Officer’s voice, even though he was talking with his mouth full. Realizing that gravy was dripping from his spoon onto his blue tunic, he sat up so any spillage would instead be caught by the tray. As he did so, he sniffed, catching the aroma coming from the stew. “This is tasty,” he complimented his mother in an attempt to lift her spirits. “You’ve really outdone yourself.” He frowned. “But we never normally have rat on weekdays, do we?”
    He stirred the watery gravy in the bowl. As he did so, something floated up from the bottom.
    Although the heat had turned most of it a dull gray, in one place the greyhound’s tiny eyeball still had a pinkish hue to it.
    He dropped the spoon in the bowl.
    “You didn’t!”
    His mother was up and out of her chair and beetling rapidly toward the door. “Times are ’ard. There’s not enough food to go r —”
    “You monstrous old hag!” the Second Officer shouted, throwing the tray across the room. “You did! You cooked my bloody dog!”

    “I hear my father got you behind the wheel, so why don’t you do the honors?” Drake lobbed the car keys at Will. “And take it slowly because I want to brief you both on the way,” he said, pointing at the track that led to the woods.
    He continued to talk as they trundled along. “I’m going to introduce you to some old friends. They aren’t exactly used to having people around, so you have to tread carefully with them.”
    “Why? Who are they?” Chester asked from the backseat.
    “They’re here on the estate because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. They’ve all worked with Parry in the past — even as far back as his tours in Malaya. Many of them are . . . how can I put it . . . ?” Drake ran a hand over his clean-shaven scalp as he chose the right words. “Battle weary. And some of them were deemed too much of a liability to be allowed back into the general populace. So Parry undertook to the authorities that he’d give them a home here.”
    The boys absorbed this, then Will ventured, “So are they dangerous?”
    “Potentially, yes. These men have served their country in ways you couldn’t even
begin
to imagine. They’ve been to the dark side — a place you don’t return from unscathed.”
    As Will recognized the gate with the danger sign on it, Drake told him to stop. He slowed the Land Rover to a juddering halt and turned off the ignition. Drake made no move to get out, so the boys remained in their seats.
    “But how well do you know these people?” Will asked.
    “They were around while I was growing up. My mother died young, and they helped Parry to look after me, particularly as he went abroad a