He hauled the cork from the bottle in a single violent motion. ‘Were we anywhere else, I would be overjoyed,’ he said, ‘but this is no place for . . .’
‘For anyone,’ she finished. ‘Mallen excepted, perhaps. But here you are, and here I am. I don’t think anyone would have chosen the way things have fallen out, Mr Scavian.’
‘No, in truth, they would not.’ He had a quartet of glasses ready there, and he added a fifth whilst pouring into the first.
‘How many members of this Survivors’ Club are there, anyway?’ she asked his back.
‘Four. Five now,’ he said, dipping the bottle from glass to glass expertly, not wasting a drop. ‘There were eleven founder members, I believe, but we had to expel some.’
‘Why . . . ?’ She stopped herself, because abruptly it seemed to her that there was only one way to be expelled from the Survivors’ Club.
Brocky’s voice bellowed from the other room. ‘Make sure she’s got fifty pounds to her name, Scavvers!’
‘Ask her yourself,’ Scavian replied mildly. ‘You mustn’t mind John, Miss Marshwic. He just loves to complain.’
‘Mr Scavian . . .’ He turned to her, a glass in each hand, and she took them from him, holding his eyes. ‘If he is John to you . . . you may call me Emily, if you will. I would not wish to bring too much ceremony here just because I’m a woman.’
His uncertain smile returned. ‘To each other’s faces we call each other by the family name, as soldiers do. Between ourselves, though – you and I – I would find no greater pleasure but to call you Emily, and have you call me Giles.’
They rejoined the others, and Emily found herself seated in an uneven chair as the brandy glasses were passed round. The drink smelled acrid to her: it was not a lady’s usual libation.
‘To the King, gentlemen,’ said Tubal, and they all raised their glasses and sampled the deep brown liquor. Emily made a face at it, despite herself. It was sharp on the back of her throat, fiery all the way down. The men were sipping appreciatively, though, and Brocky was taking compliments on his best find yet.
‘What’s this about fifty pounds?’ she asked them.
‘Well,’ Brocky shifted expansively in his chair, which had also presumably been crated in marked ‘medical supplies’, ‘each of us, all the members of the Survivors’ Club in fact, have put a note of promise in the kitty, you see. It’s a strict condition of membership, in case you were wondering.’
‘To what end?’ she asked, and Mallen gave her a dry look.
‘Last man gets it,’ he said. ‘Last man standing.’
‘You can cover the sum, I take it?’ Brocky insisted.
‘But . . . that’s cold,’ she said, and at the same time she was thinking that the accounts at Grammaine would surely suffice.
‘We’re at war, Em,’ said Tubal. ‘And it’s hard, and it hurts, and the only way to avoid the knife is not to take it seriously. Hell and fire, we’ve all buried friends here. We might as well play a game with it, show death we’re not so scared. We all know the next killing shot could be ours; we all want to leave something to help the friends that survive us.’ He laughed unexpectedly. ‘Except for one fellow, of course, who’s already earmarked the kitty as “the John Brocky benevolent fund”.’
‘The quartermaster knows where he’s safest,’ Brocky announced loftily. ‘Damned if you’ll get me out in the mud with a gun, when I don’t have to.’
‘You don’t fight?’ Emily asked him.
‘Far too valuable, not like you spear-carriers,’ Brocky replied, without rancour. ‘Your basic quartermaster’s a skilled professional, see? I was a dispenser back in civvies. I brew that muck they make you drink to ward off the bugs and the plagues. If I don’t want to get this blessed body of mine shot full of holes, neither the colonel nor the Ravens are going to make me.’
‘Is that . . . fair?’ she asked, and they were all grinning.
‘Anything within the rules, Marshwic,’ Mallen told her.
‘War isn’t a stickler for niceties,’ Scavian added. ‘Why should we be? If Brocky stays home, or I take off my coat and dress like a soldier, all’s fair.’
Eleven founding members, she thought. These four are the true survivors, worthy of the name. And now I have joined them.
She sipped her brandy again. Somehow it wasn’t so bad now. It tasted like inclusion, like being part of