Island of Doom: Hunchback Assignments 4 (The Hunchback Assignments) (21 page)

Guild soldiers! How’d they find us?
Modo blocked a blow, then twisted and threw one soldier against another. Octavia ducked under the club of yet another soldier and struck the man in his midsection.

Well, lower than the midsection. He collapsed and she smiled to herself. They never expected a lady to do that. Octavia was never a lady.

When all of the men were unconscious, Octavia said, “How did they find us?” Modo peeled away the uniform of one man to discover a black shirt beneath it.

“Our men! Why, they were just posing as Guild soldiers!
I wondered why they had no pistols. This is another part of our training, I see.”

“What’ll we do with them?”

“Just leave them,” Modo replied. “They’ll be up and around soon enough.”

Then, following the coordinates, they broke through the forest. Sitting on a stump of a pine tree in the middle of a clearing was an envelope. Octavia snapped it up. Inside were a pair of tickets. Each said:
This ticket good for one hot bath at the officers’ tent
.

“So the old man has a sense of humor after all,” Modo said, and they burst out laughing.

F
or Modo, a hot bath seemed an indulgence he could not afford—after all, he needed every moment to perfect his martial skills. But after Octavia said that he smelled like an old dead dog, he found himself in a steam-filled tent, sitting comfortably in a claw-foot tub that looked far too fancy to be out in the middle of the bush. It had probably been used by officers for several years, maybe even Mr. Socrates himself. He relaxed, letting his face return to its natural shape and his hump protrude. It was his first rest and first proper bath since he’d departed for Paris, a trip that felt as if it were years ago. When
was
the last time he’d had a hot bath? A year ago, at least. Certainly not on the submarine
Ictíneo
. Or in the jungles of Australia, or on any ships or airships he’d been on. Even in Montreal House, hot water was intermittent.

On a shelf in the bath tent he found a red-covered book
called
Roughing It in the Bush
. He flipped through it. It was an account of a woman in the bushland of eastern Canada. He stopped when he read: “IT IS DELIGHTFUL to observe a feeling of contentment under adverse circumstances.” He read the sentence several times. It was a delight to be in this bath in the middle of Camp Cobra. But should he be partaking of delight?

That was the problem with rest. Anytime he stopped to take a breath, thoughts rose up like Macbeth’s ghosts. Colette’s broken body, her look of joy as she gazed upon his face. Had she been delirious with death? Then he thought of his father, crushed by the same monster. He must avenge their deaths, but Typhon had spared his life.

He remembered the creature’s odd look as it showed its pinky finger to him. As though it were a secret signal. His own little finger had tingled. Had a part of his body really brought that monster to life?

He was out of the bath before the water was cold. He dried his tufts of red hair and stared in the mirror for several moments. He hadn’t looked in a mirror for ages. He examined his face, tracing the sunken nose and lopsided features. It wasn’t as ugly as he’d remembered. In fact, he thought he saw a hint of distinction. He laughed at himself and slipped the mask on. Distinguished or not, it’d scare the living daylights out of the soldiers. Despite Mr. Socrates’ promise that he could walk around unmasked here, he didn’t want to test it.

He dressed and walked back to his tent in the center of Camp Cobra. He presumed the name was a reference to a trained cobra coming out of a basket. It was curious how military men chose the toughest, most frightening names for
their ships and their camps, but often named their guns after girls.

The battle cry of the dragoons startled him. He walked over the hill, to where he could see that a training course had been set up overnight, complete with coils of thorny wire, mudholes, and a fifty-foot-tall wooden climbing wall. The dragoons stood in formation across from the wall, about to conduct their first charge.

“Boys and their toys,” Octavia said.

She’d sneaked up on him! He needed to be more alert.

“A tough course,” he told her, hoping his voice hadn’t given away his surprise. “I’m curious how they’ll do.”

The dragoons began to clank ahead, forcing their way through the wire, strands snapping. One stepped into a mudhole and struggled to extricate himself, but the others charged on, yelling in unison. The cacophony made Modo stiffen, even though they were charging away from him. There was something about the noise that reminded him of the horrible potions the children had ingested. He shuddered to recall how they’d looked strapped to the iron giant attacking the Parliament buildings. Absolutely monstrous.

“I just know Mr. S is going to want us to run through all that muck too,” Octavia said. “He enjoys seeing me suffer.”

“If he really wants you to suffer he’ll make you wear a dress while you do it.” Modo found it difficult to keep his eyes off her when she was wearing the Permanent Association uniform. When she caught him staring, he glanced away and said, “The wall will be the real test for them.”

As the squadron moved on, their arrowhead formation remained intact. The first dragoon climbed the wall, using iron
fingers to grip the wooden slats. Holes had been cut into the wall and Association soldiers were shoving large posts through them, slamming them into the armored man. He clung to the wall, continuing his ascent. A second dragoon climbed; a third followed, with the rest firing above their heads. Live rounds! They were practicing covering fire, blowing the heads off dummies at the top of the wall.

“This is what Odysseus must have felt first looking upon the Cyclops Polyphemus,” Modo said.

“Good Lord, you are so full of fantastical bosh sometimes. Stop quoting mythology as if it were real life.”

“It was an observation. This is a quote: ‘He was a horrid creature, not like a human being at all, but resembling rather some crag that stands out boldly against the sky on the top of a high mountain.’ That’s the first description of the Cyclops.”

She put her hands on her hips. “It’s a good thing Mr. Socrates raised you in the country. You’d have been pummeled senseless at my orphanage.”

He was searching for a retort when the engine on a dragoon, who was near the top of the wall, made a loud bang. The dragoon fell forty feet into the mud and began to sink. Association soldiers swarmed around him within seconds, but they couldn’t pull him up.

Modo dashed to the dragoon’s side. The man was struggling, face sunk into the mud, and would soon drown. Modo grabbed a metal-encased arm and, grunting hard, pulled the dragoon to a sitting position. The man’s nose and mouth were plugged up with sludge and straw, but he couldn’t use his metal hands to clear them. He began flailing his metal arms in panic.

“Stay calm!” the sergeant shouted. He ducked under the dragoon’s arms and pulled soil and mud from his nose and mouth. The dragoon sucked in a breath. Then he took another and another, wheezing and coughing repeatedly. He continued to breath wildly. “Now, now, calm down.” The sergeant patted the man’s back.

Modo realized it wasn’t even a man, but Ester. Her face was hardened and chiseled like a man’s from the effects of the tincture. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“Now, now,” the sergeant repeated, his voice soothing, and he actually patted her cheek. “Calm down, Lance Corporal McGravin. Calm down. That’s an order.”

“I—I will, Sergeant,” she promised between gritted teeth.

“Are you injured?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” She nodded down toward her right arm.

He delicately removed a steel plate and they could clearly see that her arm was broken.

“It’s not so bad, Lance Corporal,” Sergeant Beatty said. “We’ll fix you up. Now get on your feet, unless your legs are hurt.”

“They aren’t, Sergeant.” She slowly stood. Everyone took a few steps back as she wobbled on her feet.

“Report to Blighty tent. Sawbones will put you back together.”

She lumbered away, carrying her helmet in the crook of her good arm.

“Form ranks!” the sergeant shouted, nearly rupturing Modo’s eardrums. “Resume your positions!”

Modo ran back up the hill to Octavia. “Will Ester be all right?” she asked.

Modo nodded. “She’s certainly tough as nails.”

He and Octavia watched the drill for another hour until lunch was served. Modo was famished. He made his way to the mess tent; it was already crowded with the enormous dragoons, each with special sections cut out of their uniforms for their shoulder bolts. They were talking jovially. Even Ester was already at a table, a metal brace on her arm. Modo wondered if the tincture made them more immune to pain. Did they heal faster too?

He stood in line and received the same gray food they’d had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Modo took a seat beside Oppie.

“Mr. W,” he said. “Pleasure to have your company.”

“Please, just Modo. I don’t have a surname.”

“One name is all you need?” Oppie was eating the food quickly. “You travel light.”

“I guess you could say that.” Modo’s eyes strayed to Oppie’s nearest shoulder bolt. He tried not to stare at it.

“I’ve learned to read, a bit,” Oppie said. “I remember you telling me to learn. Sergeant Beatty reads to us at night. He teaches us the words.”

“He sounds like a good man. What do you read?”

“Oh, I can’t read much on me—my own,” he admitted. “Just fairy tales and some of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
.”

“Good!” Modo rubbed his hands together. “I love that book!” And then he began to quote: “ ‘I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit hole—and yet—and yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what
can
have happened to me! When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied
that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!’ ” Modo laughed, a little embarrassed for having let his performance get away from him.

“Yes, that’s it!” Oppie said, excited. “You know it by heart!”

“Just that speech and a few others. I’m extremely fond of the book.”

“Sergeant Beatty will be reading the last chapter to us tonight. It’s good for us to learn to read. It helps with tactics and the manuals they give us.”

Modo creased an eyebrow. They were being read to like children at bedtime, then trained to kill in the morning. They really had gone down the rabbit hole. “How do you feel about your training?” he asked quietly. “About being here?”

Oppie’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a good place. I love being part of the Seventh Dragoons. We’re the Lucky Sevens! They feed us. And if I get a chance to strike back at the Guild I’ll be happy.”

“Is that all this is about?” Modo asked.

Oppie turned to look at him. His eyes were fierce. It was hard for Modo to remember the child Oppie had been only a year earlier.

“Have you had your flesh cut into, your childhood plucked out?” Oppie asked. Modo nearly answered that he had. “Where else do I go? The army has given me a home, companions, and a purpose. I’ll destroy the ones who created me. Destroy them.” He jabbed the fork in the table. A few dragoons glanced their way.

Perhaps Oppie hadn’t completely grown up, Modo thought. “Did you ever see your parents again?”

“Yes.” At this, Oppie’s eyes grew gentle again. “My dad
died. My mum, she tried to care for me, but she didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t ‘Little Oppie’ anymore. I broke things. And outgrew my clothes so quickly. She was given money.”

“Money?”

“Yes. For her to live and to look after my sister, or my brother, I don’t know which the stork brought.”

“I see,” Modo said. “Was she paid for her silence?”

“Paid to tell others I’d run away. Paid to compensate for the loss of my wages. I understand. Me being here keeps my family in bread and a roof over their heads.” He looked down at Modo. “Your questions … bother me. You think I’m the boy that you once knew. I am. But I’m not. I have grown up. I’ve found a place where I belong.”

“I’m happy for you, Oppie,” Modo said. Was that the truth?

It was complicated. Part of Modo felt that what these children had been twisted into was horrible. And yet, without these monstrous men, there was no chance of defeating the Clockwork Guild, not to mention rescuing his mother.

My mother
, Modo thought.
My. Mother
.

Perhaps he too had gone down the rabbit hole.

I
t was a dark, cold, and stupid night, according to Sergeant Booker. Stupid, he thought, because he had lost his day patrol shift in a card game and was now in the observation tower on Macaulay Point, swinging the port light back and forth across the empty waters, shivering and staring out at the Pacific. The perfect, natural harbor of Esquimalt stretched before him.

It wasn’t like anyone would attack the home base of the British Navy’s Pacific Fleet. They had enough six-pounder guns to ward off the Russians, if they had a fleet worth considering. And the Chinese were in Stone Age junks. Laughable, really. In any case, Britain already controlled the Chinese. The Americans, now, they might make noise. He had been face to face with the Americans during the San Juan Islands
Pig War, but they hadn’t shown any sign of aggression for twenty years now.

It began to spit rain, so it was now a useless, stupid,
wet
night. No one would be entering their harbor tonight.

Which was why he was stunned to see a motored boat enter the bay and begin to circle in the open water. It was a type of craft he hadn’t seen before—there was no captain at the helm! Booker rang the warning bell and seven marines appeared within a minute.

“Glouster, you take the light. Keep it on the boat,” he commanded. “The rest of you come with me. Let’s see who our visitor is.”

They climbed into a rowboat and Booker stood at the stern as four marines rowed and two pointed their rifles at the target. The mysterious boat circled slower and slower and the motor gurgled as though it would die at any moment.