The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 35 Shanty town

Spencer felt better once he was dressed in a clean shirt. He was genuinely shocked by how derelict and squalid the buildings were in the local town. He had witnessed some pretty sorry sights of buildings whilst working on the initial stages of projects for Sir Percy, but what he was presently looking at were still occupied and they were so rotten they almost defied description.

The huts had clearly been constructed out of any material that had come to hand. There were crumpled sheets of corrugated iron, chunks of rock, large lumps of split driftwood, plastic pipes, and metal trunking all implanted in the same wall on the first hut. All this was sitting on what looked like a foundation of impacted clay. Fresh mud had been stuffed into holes made by the torrential downpour.

The first dwelling was clearly occupied because there was smoke emanating from the crown of the roof so Spencer made for that first. There was no chimney, the smoke simply seemed to escape from a gap in the roof.

"If anything I'd expected the shacks to be built out of wood being so close to the forest." Spencer said, and then he realised how stupid the statement had been. He slapped the palm of his hand on his forehead. "but then of course the Zeli Corporation owns the forest."

"You bullock!" Ivo remarked. "Any peasant caught felling a tree, even sapling would be shot and their whole family would be evicted. No-one gets away with stealing his Lordship's trees. They are no longer allowed even to collect firewood or kindling from the woods. Woe betide anyone taking rabbit or squirrel."

"These are more like mud huts than houses!" Spencer said in disbelief.

"And Sir Percy has audacity to charge rent on them." Ivo commented.

"Why don't they build them out of stone?" Spencer asked, remembering how much of the material he had stumbled on as he had descended the hill. "I saw plenty of that on way down hill."

"Oh the locals are convinced that hills are haunted or something, more miners died there." Ivo said mysteriously,  "and who is to say that they aren't correct you bullock. I've been here week and I've seen wolves with eyes as big as saucers that glow deep amber in headlights. They have paws size of sumo wrestler's fists and teeth like shark's teeth."

Spencer shuddered but said nothing because he had heard a similar description before in a story, when he had been a boy, but the the creatures had been dogs not wolves. He hoped that the advice that he had given Malik had been sufficient. Spencer had just calmly walked down the hillside on his own, unarmed and had probably been watched all the way down by the hungry eyes of creatures that could rip him to pieces.

"Stop looking like frightened rabbit, you bullock!" Ivo advised, "Get out of car and do your work Spencer."