by Greg James
Tom’s eyes snapped open. There was a crash, it came again and again, a repeating thunderous report every few seconds. Sombre light was filtering through the torn cloth curtain, outside, booted feet tramped to and fro. Shouts of dehydrated soldiers filled the lulls between shell-fall.
He was back in the Gallipoli trenches, in his funk hole somehow.
He didn’t need to pinch himself, the lice in his clothes did that for him. Tom crawled out and got to his feet. Betty’s charcoaled eyes watched him go, a wry smile curving on her fading lips.
It was as it had always been; dirt, the dead and the flies. Storm rains had softened the trenchworks, making them suck and squelch underfoot. The Turks were sending down whistling hails of plated death into the gullies of the trenches as usual. It would take more than shitty weather to make the enemy let up their assault. Ducking down, Tom wiped sleep from his eyes, blinking, scratching the teeming flies from his hair. He turned to one of the other men; a beanpole with bug-eyes and no chin.
“We pulled out, didn’t we? Tell me we did.”
“What’d you say? You alright, mate?” Beanpole asked.
“No, I’m not. I don’t get it. We left here. On the lighters.”
“What’re you on about? The heat gone to your head?”
“What date is it today? The date.”
“Twenty-third.”
“December?”
“Yep, 1916.”
“It can’t be.”
“Look mate, I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got to get on. Supplies are coming in down at the beach.”
At a loss, Tom made his way to Brigade Staff HQ. Lieutenant Bell would be there, he would have orders that needed taking up to the batteries. Tom did not run, he walked, not caring to duck and cover as artillery fire roared down into the ground around him. He felt a disconnection in his gut, an umbilical severance from the reality of his surroundings, a separation he could not define in words. He walked through the valley of death, fearing no evil, not because of faith or hope but because he didn’t believe in where he was, despite feeling it all around him. His five senses were not lying. Shouts and screams pierced his eardrums, flecks of mud stuck to his unprotected face, the concussion of a distant explosion rocked the sun helmet loose from his head. He let it fall into the drying mud. Tom tasted traces of rum in his mouth - had he been drinking?
Yes, at home, dreaming of Dilys, remembering.
Yes, he thought, this is real and it is happening but it’s not what it seems.
Lieutenant Bell was sheltering in the shade of his make-shift office. His head was bent over a dog-eared, yellowish map of the Front. He was scratching at it with the worn, flaking stump of a pencil, marking in changes of position, few that there were. Tom stood to attention and saluted upon entering. The Lieutenant did not look up, remaining hidden from clear sight.
“Potter, good to see you. We need a man to go over tonight.”
The voice of the Lieutenant was wrong. It was coming from far away, a cavern somewhere. Tom could see it in his mind; a granite grotto with a skin of lichen, sea moss and tumorous coral growths, the grotto was a serpentine length extending back into a dismal cloud of gloom. Through the salt air, Lieutenant Bell’s voice came out to him, a lasting echo, the voice of a man drowned. Feeling his flesh creep at the notion of conversing with the dead, Tom stiffened even further to attention, resisting the shivers running through him.
“Over the top, sir?”
“Yes, later tonight. It’s too dangerous now. The storm destroyed our communications. I need you to go out and do some telephone-wire laying. Connect Battery A back up to the Front.”
“What time do I set off, sir?”
Tom kept it formal, he wanted to get out of here, out of this canvas morgue. Lieutenant Bell made to answer him but an asthmatic coughing fit wracked him, making him heave violently and grasp at his desk for support.
Tom saw the hand in the weak light, its nails cracking into blackened splinters, cuticles gummed over with gore whilst the knuckles were bare of skin and flesh, showing only bone, white nodules of barnacle were visible in the folds of clinging muscle cords. The thumb and forefinger were missing, torn away. The hand was snatched back into the gloom.
“You go out at three, Potter. Be ready. Dismissed.”
Tom saluted and departed, wanting to run all the way back to his funk hole. He controlled himself, keeping his pace even. He caught the eyes of the men as he passed back down to the frontline, making his way through the crumbling rabbit warren. The eyes were not tired and bored as they should be, they were searching, seeing into him, knowing that he was of the living and not the dead. The black flint in their hard eyes told him one thing, that the dead would not suffer him to live.
Three in the morning came.
Tom, having not slept a wink, was awake in his funk hole, listening to the footsteps of the dead outside, listening to them muttering to each other, inaudible conversations that he was sure were about him. They could smell the sweat on him, the blood in his veins, the marrow in his bones, they were empty and they did not like him being here with them.
Three in the morning was the witching hour, according to old lore, when unnatural forces were at their strongest.
Tom knew this, having guessed why Lieutenant Bell picked that time for his expedition. He arose, if he stayed in the trenches here, they would do something unspeakable to him. If he went over the top, he would be walking into unknown country but with that uncertainty he felt there was some small hope. Here, there was the guarantee that he would die, nothing more. The wheezing dead would kill him, wake him up by ripping his throat out. Leaving his funk hole, he paused to kiss a finger and dab the sentimental moisture onto the picture of Betty.
“Goodbye, sweetheart.”
“Careful out there, soldier,” she smiled back.
They let him pass as he made his way out. Tom could see their eyes shining with a nocturnal opacity, the mean set of their mouths and the grinding of their teeth, hungry flies roaming in their grave-greasy hair. He followed the track out of the dugouts that went down into the valley below. He did not have a reel of telephone wire with him, what was the point in collecting it? He was being sent out into no man’s land to die, this place was waiting to feed on him, one way or another. Taking a communication trench, empty of the unliving, Tom kept on going until it petered out into a small path, led around the base of the hill, and took him up into a steep, narrow gully that would terminate in no man’s land.
Tom stopped.
Wishing he had some fags and a Lucifer to light them with, the dead didn’t smoke, a definite failing of theirs. He wanted a little something in his system to perk him up before he undertook the next stage of his journey, he did not know what was waiting for him up there, no idea at all.
No sense in worrying myself away here though, he thought, I have no cigarettes and no lighter. I’ll have to do without them, that’s that.
He heard the incoming whine of a shell, dead overhead. He threw himself to one side into the unyielding brush, his hands flung over his head for protection. The shell fell, tearing apart with a hot growl, close to his heels.
Tom felt nothing. He uncurled his arms from around his head, shaking, he got to his feet. His ears ringing, he looked around, searching for shrapnel. There was none. The ground had not been disturbed in the slightest. Frowning, Tom’s ears picked up another whistle, then two, taking a step back, his heart banging, Tom waited. The shells fell, exploding a few feet away, but there was nothing to see or feel. They were ghosts of war, echoes screaming in the skulls of the dead.
The path became steep, forcing him to gouge handholds into the rough earth with his bare hands. He could feel his fingers and palms bleeding from the digging, cut open by sharp stones and hard clumps of sandy ground. A rushing sound came from ahead.
Tom lifted his head, peering into the dimness before him.
The rushing became louder.
Storm waters came thundering dow
n the path, the entrails of no man’s land borne by surging currents; debris, rocks, shell casings, chunks of limber wheel, all churning in the mud. Tom fought, keeping his grip, not losing his footing as the battering waves hit. His eyes stung and his muscles burned from the sudden cold surrounding them, and Tom groped blindly through the freezing wet thunder for purchase, an outcrop, a means to anchor himself and not be swept away by this tumbling roaring of chaos.
Water struck him in the face, the ground was being chewed from under his feet, he could feel it muddying, giving way. He was sinking up to his ankles in crumbling soil. The flood was growing in ferocity, his shins felt like they were being flayed with razors. He felt sick. He’d swallowed a stomachful of soiled water, feeling the earth sliding out from under him, he knew he was going to fall. A punch of water struck him in the guts. Tom’s arms went wind-milling out to his sides, his arse hit the ground, the ground bit into the back of his head. His skull sore, buzzing, Tom rolled over onto his side, got to his feet, nursing the shallow cut to his crown. The waters were gone, the path was dry, the way ahead was clear. He looked around. No-one was there, but he was sure he’d just heard a whisper of laughter, and he understood.
The land was silent, no rustling in the brambled bushes, little wind stirred the stale air. Tom ran a hand through his hair as he stood looking out to sea – what he presumed to be the sea here, in these Gravelands. There were murky lights out there, flickering on, flickering off, tapping out a Morse code that Tom did not understand. Whatever was out there, he doubted that the lights were coming from battle ships or lighters. Moving to the edge of the plateau upon which he stood, he crouched down, went flat on his belly, and peered over.
The beaches were below, where Beanpole had said the supply lighters pulled in, Tom could see the boats. By dim pulses of electric light, the pasty nzambi of Anzacs and Brits were dragging the supplies onto the dusty grey shore, the supplies were like none Tom had ever seen. Long sausage-shaped bundles, tied tight with rope and cord. The charnel soldiers were busy undoing the bindings, slow work with rigor mortis hands. One of the bundles unfurled, the sheeting peeling off, within lay a dead man. As Tom watched, he saw it move – first, an arm, then, a leg, then, a twitch of the head, eyes opening, mouth slack – it jerked upwards, snapping into a rigid sitting position. Its jaw working, it let out a long and wretched howl. As the scream withered and died in its throat, he saw the other bundles writhing, sitting up, struggling with their bonds. His gaze moved on to the lighters, idling by the shore. Squinting, he peered into the cabins at the bows of the sinister craft, trying to make out the helmsmen.
He was being watched, he was sure he was, by who or what he did not know, but he could feel it in the air, an awareness of his existence here, he was not sure if it had been there all the time, he was sure that helmsman had seen him. Tom wished that he had not seen the helmsman, he didn’t like to think about it, or its eyes, glowering at him, those bitter holes of white darkness.
He was carefully picking his way through the scrub and uneven land. No stars shone above, no moon, no clouds could be seen obscuring either, he was a wanderer in the Gravelands, seeking the means by which he might climb back out.
The ground was rough and sore; scruffs of bone-jagged weeds thrust out from the infertile ground. Grazing past one clump, he yelped as the grass gored his calf. The cool air was ancient and raw, stinging his mouth and nostrils. In between standing stones that rose around him, he saw other things plugging holes in the irregular earth – rotting fragments of dog and donkey, strangled seagulls. Shrapnel-severed limbs, bleeding from both ends, unidentifiable. A fire-gutted head. The crispy head, gurgling, spoke to him. “First cooked meat in months. Heh.”
He could see the head’s eyes were pockets of well-chewed gristle.
“You noticed that, have you? Leave ‘lone my eyes, I said. To them, to the rats. But they didn’t leave ‘lone my eyes. Now, my eyes are in the mouth of the beholder. Wilson, they used to call me. Whiner Wilson, heh! Heh, come back, you, come back! I’ve got to feed the rats, y’see! You’ll do! You’re a bit skinny but beggars can’t be choosers! Heh. Got to feed the rats, pal, got to, before they feed on me.”
Chapter Thirteen
The fire was small but bright, in the eternal night of this damned place it could be seen for miles and miles. Tom headed towards it, jogging. If it was a fire, then there might be people like him, lost here, trying to escape. As he came closer, he saw the flames were illuminating a skeletal structure, the wreckage of a plane, one with a tubby body tapering to a plump, curved tail. The blackened fabric of its wings was a shredded mess and the wires strung between them, broken, burned. The bodywork itself was charred and studded with the holes of machine gun fire. The blades of the prop were smashed into fragments. Tom walked around this sombre husk to the fire and the man sheltering by it. The man had his back to him, a strobing silhouette, hunkered over.
“Who’s there?”
“Sorry to disturb you, mate. It’s just you’re the first real person I’ve seen here. In this place.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, you’ve got a fire going. The dead back in the trenches don’t need a fire. They don’t feel the cold or need the light to see by. We do.”
“That’s true, but what makes you think I’ve lit this to see by, or to warm myself?”
“Eh? Why else would you have a fire going?”
“Maybe I’m trying to remember how it feels.”
“What?”
“Fire. How it feels to be warm. To feel its comfort. Its heat. Its flames. This place is so cold; it becomes a part of you.”
“You mean you’re dead too.”
“We’re all dead here. These are the Gravelands, where we all go to in the end. No Heaven, no Hell, just what waits below us, down here.”
“I’m not dead.”
“Not yet but you will be.”
Tom had moved closer to the man and his fire, eager to feel its heat, even for a moment, just to banish a little of the chill from his bones.
“How did you get here?” he asked the man.
He could see that he had been a pilot from the goggles hung around his neck; the leather cap with its unfastened ear flaps was askew on his head. His hands were still in their gloves, even though they were being held and massaged over the leaping tongues of the fire.
“I got here the same way you did. I found the Vetala, or they found me. I'm not sure how it works exactly. What brings us and them together.”
“You know about them?”
The pilot nodded, stiffly, something rattling inside him as he did. “Yeah, nasty sons of bitches. Thought I'd leave them behind after I died, no such luck. They're here, preying on the dead as much as they do on the living.”
“What can they get from the dead?”
“The same as they get from the living; pain, hatred, suffering, resentment, fear. Heartbeat or not, those things are universal.”
“But what about love, hope?” Tom hesitated.
“There's precious little amongst the living, you think we have a place for that shit here?”
There was silence between them.
“Can you help me? Is there a way out of here?”
“Yeah, there’s a way.”
“What’s that?”
“You know.”
“No, I don't.”
“You do. You deal, bargain, reach an agreement. But there’ll be a price to pay.”
“Where do I go then? If I want to make a deal with them?”
The pilot raised his head. There was that rattling again. “You sure you want to do that, pal?”
“If I don’t, I’ll be stuck here. I have a wife – I think – I have to get out of here.”
What was her name? Dilys? Bea? Betty? Something like that, one of those.
“It could be worse, trust me. These things don't just suck your blood or get high off your bad memories. They eat your life, from cradle to grave. Every single damned day
. That's why no-one remembers them. They snuff out your existence and with it, the memory of their own. A few myths and legends, that's all that's left about the Vetala.”
With a rustle of cloth and leather, the man turned to face him.
“I was Jerry Reinhart, I was somebody, a pilot, a damn good one, now I'm just these bones.”
Every trace of tissue had been burned away, a cindered skull was all that was left, rocking and rattling on its vertebrae. He plucked the flying gloves from his hands and held them up to the light of the fire. Tom watched, his throat swallowing hard, as flames licked and kissed the bare bones of those fingers. The eyeless sockets of the skull, twin hollows swimming with pitch, looked at him. He could smell its hands burning, the air becoming heavy with the pungent odour of solvents.
“You'll burn if you let them have you, Thomas Potter. Hot and cold, you'll burn, for a long, long time until you're nothing at all.”
Tom ran from the skeletal pilot, fleeing before its dire words, leaving them behind. He had to get out of here, he had to find a way. He came to the other side of no man’s land: the enemy trenches.
He dropped down into the nearest curve of the trenches, wincing as he sent a scatter of pebbles rattling down. Tom held his breath, not moving, waiting for a hue and cry to be raised.
None was.
He was alone in the dark.
His boot soles scuffing through the cracked, dusty ground, the trenches twisting, turning, winding, widening and weaving this way and that, just like the mirrored mausoleum beneath the desert sands outside Cairo. It would keep him here, struggling to escape as would a fly, watching and waiting, then, the right moment would come. It would fall on him, gut him, suck him dry, and leave the carcass to rot.
Ahead, a shape was gaining definition, darkening into being, a tree, long dead. The scabrous bones of its branches making Tom see it as a haunted hand; the wormy bole of the tree was nearer to being a corpse than anything else. The form that hung, creaking from its branches, was not yet in the same state as the tree’s bole but it would soon be.