“And you don’t have to carry it,” said Doll. “We’ll carry it ourselves. Or in ourselves,” she added, with a ladylike belch.
“It’s probably wood alcohol,” protested Chip. “Methanol. It’ll make you go blind, for God’s sake.”
One-eyed Pistol replied loftily. “No use trying to keep us off the drink, Chip. Can’t be done. We’re good and proper rats, us.”
“It’s for your own good, you asses!”
Nym looked at him speculatively. “Tell you what. We need a volunteer to try the stuff out. A bat, that’s the ticket! They’re loons to begin with. They volunteer for everything. And they’re blind as bats, anyway, so if it turns sour—”
All the bats set up an agitated fluttering of their wings. “Begorra! It is sick to death I am of that foul slander!” Even the taciturn O’Niel was stirred into speech. “Blind as a bat! Are ye daft? We see as well as you, or better in low-light conditions. And we don’t drink!”
“They don’t drink! Hear that girls? So what else is making them blind, methinks?” Fal gave a lewd wink to Phylla.
“Check the palms of their feet,” Pistol sniggered.
Chip shook his fist at all of them. “Will you bunch of stupid rodents stop this?”
“Who’s your ‘rodent,’ primate?” demanded Behan. “It is more cheek than an intelligent life-form you’ve got! I am Chiroptera and proud of it!” He folded his wings with affronted dignity, like a magistrate tightening his robes of office.
“And we’re macrosceledia/insectivora,” chipped in Doc. With a casual wave of his paw: “With a mere dash of rodent thrown in. Couldn’t give a toss about it. The term ‘rat’ is purely an honorific.”
“Well said,” hissed Fal and Pistol in unison. Nym rumbled his own wordless agreement.
Chip shrugged. “All I was trying to do was persuade you not to kill yourselves.”
Melene took pity on him. “This was a wine farm, Chip. And believe me, even distilled, I can smell the grapes.”
Chip knew it was no use arguing further with them about drinking the stuff. The beggars chorus already had a fair amount in them, by the sounds of it. Not enough to incapacitate them, but enough to make them very troublesome. Rats were very good at attaining that level. The high metabolic rate allowed them to drink more than you’d think they could. And practice kept them from incapacitating themselves. Rats liked drink. It was the one method the army had found to get them to fight. They got a daily issue of grog, much as sailors once had.
Of course, one of the bats still had to try to stop them. “But why take the daemon drink with you?” cried Siobhan. “It’ll be the ruination of you! Take things to keep yourselves alive, not to kill you.”
“Molotov cocktails,” snapped Fal. “That’s what we’re taking. Do they normally get served with an olive in them, Chip? We’re not sure of the traditions, here.”
Siobhan seemed shocked. “But surely you cannot just take drink?”
One of the rats picked up a spool of baling wire. “This is heavy enough. Useful stuff, wire.”
Chip was still dwelling on his failed flamethrower. An errant thought of flambéd crêpes went through his mind. “Is there really lots of that . . . raw brandy?”
Doll grinned. “I’ faith, enough to swim in or to keep Fal drunk for a month!”
“Take me to it.”
The rats looked shifty. Very shifty. “I suppose there is enough,” said Melene finally. Grudgingly.
* * *
At a guess, Chip thought that the stainless steel tank had about four or five hundred gallons in it. The rats were still scandalized when he poured the diesel out of the backpack sprayer and then tapped raw brandy into the tank.
“It’ll give it a horrible taste, Chip,” whined Fal.
“Watch!”
He pumped up the pressure. Lit the lighter and squeezed the trigger. With a sudden BOOM, it caught. Chip held a six foot flame-torch. That would show the Maggots!
“Keep the tip down!” Siobhan fluttered clear, shouting advice. “The thing is dripping! The drips are running down the nozzle—and the flames are following the drips! You idiot!”
Hastily, Chip stopped squeezing the trigger and pointed the nozzle down. After an uncooperative minute, the flames died.