A Whisper of Southern Lights by Tim Lebbon Page B

here and there, we smelled the distinctive aroma of rot. Sometimes, the rotten things wore Japanese uniforms, but I found no particular joy in that. I had never found it in my heart to truly hate the enemy, but as time went on—and I saw more of what was happening in and around Changi and Singapore—I found less cause for forgiveness.
    I had been training to be a bricklayer when war broke out. I was a good man, so I believed, as were those who had fought and died around me. None of us deserved this.
    And I was feeling more and more used by Gabriel, as though I were a tool dragged behind him rather than a man. He rarely spoke to me, and when he did, it was to ask yet again what Davey had said when he was dying, how he had described the man in the jungle. I came to believe he was trying to make me slip up with my story. Did he think I was lying? Or did he simply not trust my memory?
    We walked all through that day, narrowly avoiding one Japanese patrol by hiding in a culvert beneath the road. We stayed there for some time and I fell asleep, weariness overtaking my concern and giving me a few precious minutes’ respite from the heat, tiredness and fear. When I woke up, Gabriel was staring at me—really staring—analysing my face and neck.
    “You look so normal,” he said.
    “I am. I was.”
    “I can’t remember being normal.”
    “Centuries, Gabriel?”
    “Centuries.” He did not elaborate. And it was that unwillingness to talk, more than anything else I had seen or would yet see, that made me believe.
    Centuries.

Eleven
    THEY CONTINUED THROUGH THE NIGHT. They moved slower than during the day, and though the heat was not as bad, there were what felt like a million mosquitoes bugging them, feeding on their sweat and the blood on Gabriel’s face. He felt them tickling the inside of his hollowed eye socket. Sykes kept up well, though Gabriel suspected they would have to rest when dawn arrived.
    Temple was on their trail. He had discovered their escape and now he was following, using whatever strange means he had to track them up through Malaya and into the heart of the jungle. Gabriel knew that he had to prepare to take on the demon yet again, and a collage of images kept flooding his mind’s eye, visions of Temple in dozens of the fights they had been through—screaming, shouting, laughing. Always laughing. Virtually every time they met, Temple would get away, and Gabriel would be left with another scar. Nothing was ever resolved. There was no end, and a resolution to this quest felt as distant as ever.
    Until now.
    The man with the snake in his eye had been there, and somewhere ahead of them was a grave that could hold wonders.
    “I’ll need to rest soon,” Sykes said, and then he started coughing as a breeze tainted the air around them. It was the smell of pained death. There was not just rotten meat there but rage, hopelessness and dead prayers. Somewhere ahead lay a scene from Hell, and something told Gabriel that it could be linked to his quest.
    “We need to push on,” he said. Without waiting for a reply, he left the road and plunged into the jungle. He was following his nose.
    Sykes soon caught up with him, breathing hard. “We’re close,” he said. “I think I recognise the bend in the road back there, by the fallen tree. We’re close. Maybe half a mile into the jungle, there’s a small river, and that’s where we fought. For a while, at least, before the bastards moved on to set up their next ambush.”
    “And this is where Mad Meloy is buried? Close to here?”
    “Very close. But . . . I never saw his grave.”
    “What?”
    “Davey buried him. I know roughly where. And there’ll be a marker.”
    “If your Davey had any sense, he’d have left no sign—”
    “There’ll be a marker.” Sykes sounded definite, and angry that Gabriel would even doubt him. “No way Davey would have left Meloy out here alone and unknown.”
    They went on, pushing through undergrowth, and the first body