Goddess of the Dead (Wellington Undead Book 2)

by Richard Estep

  “Of course. You must see to the welfare of the men first.”

  Caldwell inclined his head in gratitude. Wellesley was not like other officers, the doctor had come to learn. Far too many for his liking would have thought nothing of allowing a ranker to bleed while giving their own needs absolute priority. He was not entirely sure whether the vampire general truly cared for the men under his command, or that he simply wanted to keep his fighting machine in the best condition possible, but Caldwell really didn’t give a damn. He finally found what he had been hunting for, fishing a needle and thread from the depths of the storage chest. Gesturing for the injured soldier to take a seat on one of the many benches scattered around the tent, the doctor sat down directly opposite him and proceeded to sew up the wound.

  Once the final stitch had been placed, he cut the threat and deftly knotted the end. “See Mister Davis for some tincture and a clean dressing.” Caldwell indicated one of the orderlies with a sideways nod of his head. “Tell him that you require the special treatment, if you would be so kind.”

  “Thank’ee, sir,” the man said humbly, wincing as he got to his feet and wandered off to find the orderly in question. His companion offered the general a smart salute, which was briskly returned, and left the tent to resume his sentry post outside.

  Letting out a long, slow breath, Caldwell stood up as well and turned to face Wellesley and Nichols, both of whom had stood by patiently, waiting for the doctor to finish his stitching.

  “The way things are going today, he’ll be back within the next twelve hours.”

  Arthur raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he isn’t the first. Not even close.” The doctor sighed, scratching his scalp absently. He pointed at the still-struggling patient. “In fact, we’re going to need a bigger tent if they keep on coming in like this.”

  The man tied to the bed wore a jacket whose facings looked to be those of the 78th. His lank blond hair was plastered to his skull with sweat — not simply that which was typical of the warm climate and close air of the tent, for it appeared as though the private had dunked his head in a water barrel, so wet was it. His skin was equally slick. Huge damp circles stained his armpits and collar.

  “I am no medical man, of course, but he appears to be running a fever,” said Wellesley dispassionately. “So we must have some ague or contagion breaking out among the ranks?”

  “That’s what I thought too, at first,” Caldwell affirmed, “until I saw this man.”

  Leading them further into the inner recess of the tent, the doctor passed by five tables, all of which had a thrashing human being strapped down to it. Arthur was horrified to note that one of them was a young child, no older than six or seven. Caldwell stopped when he reached a man who Wellesley and Nichols actually knew. He wore the trousers and boots common to soldiers of the 33rd, but his red coat and shirt had been removed, leaving his torso completely exposed. Something glistened redly on the man’s chest, but even the colonel’s keen vampire-enhanced eyesight could make out little more than a dark smear upon his breastbone in the gloom that permeated the hospital.

  When he got a little nearer, it became apparent that the smear was a round hole, about the same size as a pistol ball. Seeing that the wound had caught the general’s eye, Caldwell explained rather sheepishly that in order to get the man into his restraints, it had been necessary to shoot him in the process.

  “Dear God,” Arthur exclaimed, his eyes widening in shock. “That’s Cornell, isn’t it?”

  “Private Cornell from Fourth Company?” Dan craned his head to look more closely. The supine fellow was spreadeagled, his arms and legs lashed down like all of the other cases that they had seen so far, but that didn’t prevent the man from snapping at the CSM’s face with his teeth. Nichols jerked his head back, moving quickly out of range of the feral soldier’s jaws.

  “Look around, General.” Caldwell spread his arms wide, indicating the entire tent. It was practically wall-to-wall with patients, all of whom were struggling against their bonds. Some of the restraint methods were rather creative. One man had his wrists bound together above his head by what looked to be the strap from a Brown Bess musket, which was looped several times through a stake driven into the ground. “We are practically full to capacity already, and the first cases were only brought in to us yesterday morning.”

  “That would have been Clarke from Third Company, and that other unfortunate from the 74th?” Wellesley recalled.

  “They seem to be…well, breeding, for want of a better word, sir.” Nichols said tersely. “They’re just like the ones in the square.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that all of these victims are dead?”

  “Many, sir, but not all. Some of them are most definitely alive. Those seem to invariably be the ones who have recently come into contact with the more severe cases and been bitten by them.”

  “So this…witchery, call it what you will, is passed on through being bitten by one of the creatures?” Arthur struggled for clarity. With an enemy to defeat, this was the last thing he needed on his plate right now.

  “It is, sir. Based upon my observations today, I can state with a high degree of confidence that once the bite has occurred, the patient becomes febrile within anywhere from ten minutes to ten hours — there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it. The same can be said of the duration of the fever. I have seen it last for six hours today, and yet also take as little as one hour to turn the unfortunate victim into a slavering beast.

  “But forgive me, General. I am getting ahead of myself. We were speaking of the onset of fever. Once the patient’s temperature rises, their heart beat increases until it is so fast that the rate can scarcely be counted. The pulse disappears from the wrist, and then from the neck soon after. There is one final, agonal gasp, and then the breathing stops. At that point, the patient is clinically dead — at least, by all the standards of modern medicine. The period of time that elapses from onset of the fever to death simply cannot be predicted with any degree of accuracy.”

  “And then?” the Colonel prompted him.

  “And then a short interval passes, no more than ten or at most fifteen minutes, and the body returns to some semblance of life once more. You see it in the form of the horrors that are all around us.” Caldwell spoke with dispassionate, totally clinical detachment, and yet Wellesley could sense the very palpable fear beneath his carefully measured tone.

  “The poor sod who was just bitten on the hand,” Dan put in. “He’s going to turn out just like these others?”

  “It is essentially guaranteed, Sarn’t Major.” The doctor shook his head sorrowfully. “That is why I sent him over to see Davis and to ask for the special treatment. It entails the man being struck over the head with the stock of a musket, and once he is unconscious, he will be securely restrained along with the rest of these poor souls.”

  “That seems a bit harsh, sir.” Nichols sounded doubtful.

  “Desperate times require desperate measures, CSM. It is either that or allow this vile malady to be spread amongst our men unchecked.”

  “As you say, sir,” the CSM responded neutrally, which Wellesley had learned long ago was essentially the man’s code for ‘I disagree with you, General, but what’s the sense in arguing?’

  “I do say so, Nichols,” he replied with just a trace of irritation. “Can you imagine what would happen if this situation were to get out of hand? Our ranks would be decimated, man. Decimated!”

  “As they may yet be,” Caldwell interjected gloomily.

  “What’s that? How?” demanded the colonel, turning to face him once again.

  “Even with the precautions now in place, it is highly unlikely that we have caught them all, sir. All it would take is one — just one — to evade detection, and our attempts at isolating the carriers of the disease will have all been for naught.”

  Wellesley said nothing further for a moment, simply standing there and stroking his chin thou
ghtfully. “It isn’t a disease,” he said finally.

  “May I ask how you can possibly know that, sir?” the surgeon asked. His manner was respectful enough, but there was a decidedly skeptical undertone to it. “It is passed on from mouth to flesh, from carrier to victim, and that is the very way in which a disease is normally transmitted.”

  “True enough,” Wellesley conceded, “but you are missing one salient point, Doctor Caldwell: the bodies.”

  “The bodies, sir?”

  “Yes. To be more precise, the bodies of our fallen comrades who died in the escalade of Ahmednuggur. They disappeared in the few hours after their deaths, only for some of them to show up the following morning in the square of Ahmednuggur. CSM Nichols did an admirable job of dispatching them with a few well-placed strikes to the head.”

  “It does sound like the work of this same disease, though, sir,” Nichols said. “Bringing our dead back from their hard-earned eternal rest as raging monsters and all.”

  “But the men who died in the escalade died in the escalade, Nichols. These weren’t living men who were bitten and then changed; no, these were men who were already dead and somehow resurrected. It is their bite which transmits the sickness, I will grant you, but that does not tell us the manner in which it actually started.”

  “I’m no nearer being able to answer that particular question than I was first thing this morning.” The doctor’s frustration was beginning to show. “Not only do I have my hands full with the near-constant influx new cases streaming through the door, I’m also hesitant to carry out any sort of experimentation on the bodies of our own men — whether they are moving around at the time, or not.”

  “Quite right, sir,” Dan agreed. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “I’m afraid that we are well beyond the bounds of propriety now,” said Wellesley. “We must get to the bottom of this, no matter what the cost. Doctor Caldwell, I am afraid that I must ask you to make every effort in uncovering the cause of this sickness. Leave no stone unturned.” When Caldwell did not reply, Wellesley said “I could make it an order, and an order in writing at that, if it would make things easier.”

  “That will not be necessary, General,” Caldwell responded quietly. “I shall begin immediately.”

  “See that you keep me informed.” With that, Arthur turned on his heel and strode from the tent, his face once more an unreadable mask.

  “It seems that dead are not the only ones with ice-cold blood running through their veins,” the doctor said under his breath, once the general had exited the hospital tent.

  “Sir, we are marching head-first against an army that outnumbers us by at least ten to one,” the CSM pointed out. “The way I see it, that ice-cold blood of his might be the only chance we have of getting out of this alive…”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Side By Side

  Both British armies marched northward on parallel tracks that night. This was it, Wellesley knew. If all went according to plan, the evening of the Twenty-Second and the morning of the Twenty-Third would mark their final night of marching without a battle at the end to show for it. They would reach Naulniah before dawn, camp there for the rest of the day, and once night fell, both British armies would converge upon Borkardan and give the Marathas merry hell.

  Arthur took the lead, along with an escorting squadron from the 19th Light Dragoons for company. He rode on Diomed, giving the stallion some fresh evening air and healthy exercise. The men of the Shadow Company, who had long been assigned the responsibility of acting as Wellesley’s personal bodyguard, muttered and grumbled about the fact that their general had eschewed their protection tonight for the company of what one old salt referred to as “a sack-full of ponces on ponies.”

  As a relatively inexperienced colonel who was new to India, Arthur Wellesley had quickly earned himself a reputation as a hard taskmaster. He was at the very least fair, which was a real saving grace so far as most of the line soldiers were concerned, but if the situation warranted it then he could drive the men as though they were little more than slaves.

  So it was now. The enemy was at Borkardan, and although they might simply choose to retreat further to the north as they had done so many times already on this damnable campaign, it would take time to move such a vast horde of men and horses – a great deal of time. Wellesley was convinced that a quick thrust by a smaller, much more nimble force could catch the lumbering Maratha army on the hop and tear it limb from limb.

  Which meant a forced march.

  The cavalry led the way, as usual; both the British cavalry and their native Indian counterparts fanned out in a wide arc along the column’s line of advance. They were not only the eyes and ears of the marching army, but also served to protect it. Like a prize-fighter keeping his guard up, the cavalry were there to prevent any sort of large-scale ambush by an enemy that was lying in wait. There was also the added benefit of the cavalry screen preventing the Marathas from getting any sort of real look at the British disposition, depriving them of valuable intelligence.

  “Come along, my lads. Just a few more miles, and we’ll have some beef and tea in Naulniah!” Arthur rode Diomed up and down the long straggling column, chivvying the men along with a kind word here, and a harsher one where he deemed it more appropriate.

  Nosey’s in fine old form tonight, David Pace thought to himself as he forced his tired and aching legs to go just that little bit faster. He missed the company of Mister Campbell since his promotion to Captain and Wellesley’s adjutant. Pace had caught sight of him earlier, following in his general’s wake on the back of a fine grey gelding that he assumed must have been on loan, for Campbell didn’t own a horse of his own. Few lieutenants could afford one.

  Campbell had nodded at Pace as he trotted past, with just the slightest hint of a smile, an acknowledgment of the mutual respect each man held for the other. That bond had been forged in blood and fire at Ahmednuggur.

  Then again, even if Campbell hadn’t been made up to the rank of captain after his heroism that night, Pace knew that he probably still wouldn’t be marching alongside his soldiers now. Campbell had been one of the daytimers, one of those mortal officers who worked primarily while the sun was up and then slept through most of the evening when the main body of the army was up and about. Daytimers were sort of an underclass amongst the British officer corps, despite the fact that they were absolutely vital to the operation of any modern vampire-led army.

  After all, the senior and middle-ranking officers absolutely had to be buried under the earth for as long as the sun was in the sky; and yet, there were still hundreds, if not thousands of command decisions both large and small that could only be made by officers. The army bivouacked during the day, which is when most of the administrative hustle and bustle was taken care of, marching almost exclusively by night. Those daytimers who were so critical to keeping the army running also needed their sleep, and since the army was usually on the move after sundown, a number of covered wagons were set aside for their use as a type of ‘rolling bedroom.’ Daytime officers soon learned how to fall asleep practically anywhere, including in the back of a wagon that was bumping and jostling over what passed for roads in this part of India.

  If only the dead would sleep as soundly.

  A Side of Beef

  “You’re going to have your hands more than full tonight,” Arthur had told Nichols firmly at the beginning of their night march. The CSM had just protested the decision to leave the Shadows in the ordinary column of march, rather than fulfill their traditional function as Wellesley’s personal bodyguard. “If…no, when there are more attacks, I want the Shadows to respond immediately.”

  By attacks, both men knew exactly what Wellesley meant. Throughout the long night’s march, the episodes of violence had grown more and more frequent. They always seemed to go the same way. Word of the sickness had spread like wildfire throughout the British camp, and along with it was the news that the only way to deal with those who were afflicted was
to shoot or otherwise critically injure them in the head. Several of those who were secretly nursing bites decided that there was no way they would allow one of their comrades to put a musket to their head and pull the trigger. Hoping against hope for a stay of execution that never came, these men marched in their ranks, their step getting more and more shambolic as the sickness took hold.

  Finally they would collapse in the dust, and an NCO would fall out of the column of march to take a quick look at them, checking for a pulse at the very least. Wellesley had issued the sternest orders that those men who fell and died by the wayside were to have their heads obliterated immediately. That was easier said than done, however; Arthur knew that he was essentially asking the men to desecrate the freshly-dead bodies of their brothers-in-arms, and a significant number either could not bring themselves to do it, or simply refused to obey. Some took half-measures, such as the sergeant of the 78th who attended the roadside death of one of his corporals. Wanting to obey orders but unable to bring himself to bludgeon the sleeping face of a man he had come to know as a friend as well as a subordinate, he had taken up his bayonet and, with tears streaming unashamedly down his face, slit the dead man’s throat.

  Cuffing away his tears, the sergeant had rejoined the ranks, now feeling nothing other than a total emotional numbness. His company was ten minutes away to the north when the dead corporal opened his eyes, slowly sat up before the horrified eyes of a passing East India Company battalion, and had lunged for the throat of the closest man. By the time the startled sepoys had fended their frenzied attacker off, finally laying him to rest with a musket ball through the back of his skull, three of their number had fallen victim to his teeth.