We're on our way

By the clanking of the tank-tracks up ahead and the hissing of the rubber tyres underneath, I can tell we're moving.

Strangely, now we're on our way, the mood has lifted a little. It was the waiting.

Vodka hag is doing the rounds with her big black bottle, and she's stoked the stove, so it's warm, and the candles have been replaced. There's conversation, and comparing of guns. Mocz is looking less white, and has regained some of his bravado, giving me a conspiratorial wink now and then, whilst helping the prettier passengers with the ins and outs of bullets.

Ginger has stopped reading his little book and is now looking around with bright-eyed interest. He turns to me, and I can smell his rotten teeth as he smiles and asks, "you Mercan?" I say no, I'm from Lemuria, and please, could you tell me what's going on?

"This is bad weather," he says.

I agree that's it's pretty grim, and I tell him I know it's winter, and that I wasn't expecting much else.

His smile gets bigger, "no, friend, I say it's bad whether we go, or stay."

Oh, a fucking pun, in English too. I try a smile back (fail), and ask him what's going on. I hold up my pistol, I ask him why we've been given guns.

"Comfort blanket, you know, like Linus? Peanuts?"

I tell him that Linus was the one with the piano, and that I don't know the name of the one with the blanket.

Fusel leans across and taps Ginger on the knee (he's got this expression on his face I don't immediately recognise, then I realise it's respect). "You excuse my friend, he doesn't mean to lead with his nose." (and I think, hey! Fusel, you just called me your friend, and not in that dismissive, dad way.)

Ginger says something quietly in Albonian, and Fusel nods, looks at me sidelong, and sits back.

Ginger looks across the cabin and snaps his middle finger on the palm of his hand at Mocz, and says, "Boy, tell the Mensat to come and give vodkas for our foreign friends." I catch a brief glower of annoyance from Fusel - not happy being as foreign as me, I imagine - but it's gone quick, before Ginger looks back.

Mocz nods furiously, eager to please, and shouts at the vodka hag (a Mensat, apparently) to come over.

Bêbe, who has been quiet until now, and has been sat with her knees up and as far away from Ginger as she can, perks up at this and holds out her glass as the old woman approaches.

"Not for you, sergeant," says Ginger, "you need to keep transparent head today."

Bêbe looks like she's been slapped in the face; I'm really not liking this Ginger fucker.