by Pat Kelleher
They met up with what was left of the rest of the platoon at the rendezvous point. 2 Section only had two surviving men. Sting-a-lings had killed several, wire-weed had caught another man and one soldier had been lost to a cave-dwelling creature that had snatched him down into darkness before anyone could get a shot off. 3 Section didn’t return at the appointed time. The rest of them waited for a quarter of an hour. Everson would have waited longer, but the men were anxious to return to the trenches, if indeed they were still there. All in all the losses were slightly better than if they had attacked Fritz head on, but that seemed of little consolation.
Atkins’ arms began to burn with the effort of carrying the wounded Urman on a stretcher as they headed back. He and Porgy had to stop every hundred yards or so. It wasn’t easy, carrying battle order kit and lugging a loaded stretcher over a mile or so of uneven ground, especially when he was weary from lack of sleep and weak from lack of food and had Gordon mewling and wriggling about in his bag.
He felt a great wave of relief when they first heard the sound of work parties and the reassuring refrains of songs drifting over the plain. They passed several groups of men digging mass graves some hundred yards out onto the plain and seeding it with sacks of Chlorate of Lime. They were preparing to bury the rotting corpses from No Man’s Land that had been attracting predators. Another working party was hacking up the fire-crisped carcass of one of the giant worms.
Sporadic cheers and looks of amazement greeted their arrival back at the trenches. Napoo strode through with Everson and Hobson, wideeyed at the muddy encampment and holding his nose as the stench hit him. It prompted Pot Shot behind him to start singing: “To live with any luck inside a trench / Your nose must get accustomed to the stench / Of the rotten Bosche that lie/ On the parapet and die / ’cos they make a smell that Hell itself can’t quench…”
Off-duty soldiers gathered to watch 1 Section pass. Word got round fast and the discovery of native people living on this world made quite a stir. On seeing Napoo, a number of old soldiers, having served in India, expressed the opinion that it was only right and natural to find someone to whom they were superior. If they were to be stranded on some other world now, at least, it was a place where they could be masters. Britannia’s Colonial spirit was, in some quarters it seemed, still alive and well.
EVERSON AND NAPOO accompanied Atkins and Porgy as they carried the injured Urman to the newly established Casualty Clearing Station. Bell tents and crude tarpaulin marquees served as wards for the bedridden. The walking wounded lay about outside chatting and smoking. The shell-shocked had been fenced in for their own protection, under guard like POWs; their minds broken by the horrors of war and this strange new world that had suddenly appeared around them. Most of them sat quietly and wept, rocking themselves, or else shook and jerked in spastic fits and screamed. Some sought shelter and cover for themselves, desperately scraping sap holes with their bare hands. Every now and then one would completely funk it and run at the wire only to be brutally sedated by the butt of a guard’s rifle. Many men hadn’t time for the malingerings of cowards such as these. Atkins watched them mull about as he passed, his thoughts turning to Ginger. Poor bloody Ginger. He’d rather the lad had funked it proper and ended up in that compound than die the way he did.
The MO’s hospital bell tent had a big red cross daubed on it and they made for that. The walking wounded seemed to give this tent a wider birth than the other and Atkins soon found out why. The sound of fast rhythmic sawing came from within and set his teeth on edge. In a place like that, there was only one thing you could be sawing. Atkins and Porgy put the stretcher down. The young Urman groaned feverishly. Everson collared an orderly. “Fetch the MO immediately.” He turned to Atkins and Porgy. “Go and get yourself some grub,” he said.
“Sir,” they said, saluting. Atkins turned to leave when Porgy caught him by the arm.
“’Alf a mo, eh, Only?” he said.
Nurse Bell was ambling their way, exchanging pleasantries with cheeky wounded soldiers who fancied their chances. Flirting made them feel alive, made them feel wanted, valued. Human. She was talking and laughing with a soldier leaning on crutch, Lance Corporal Sandford from 3 Platoon. Porgy’s eyes narrowed. This meant war. He ran a comb as best he could through his hair over his bandage and splashed his face with water from his canteen.
“Bloody hell, Porgy, you’re going all out today,” said Atkins. “Give the poor girl a chance!”
“Oh, I intend to, at the very least,” he said with a grin. “I’m still looking for my Queen of Hearts.”
“You again,” Edith said as she approached.
“Yeah, I know,” said Porgy. “Can you take a look at me noggin again? I’m feeling a bit light headed. Especially around you.”
“You are incorrigible, Private,” she said, smiling.
Atkins coughed discreetly.
“Oh, this is my mate, Only,” said Porgy shuffling awkwardly.
“Only what?” she asked.
“Go on, tell her,” said Porgy, digging him in the ribs.
Atkins rolled his eyes wearily. “My name’s Thomas Atkins,” he sighed. Tommy Atkins, the nickname for the common soldier, and didn’t he half get ragged about it?
“Tommy Atkins? Really? That’s your real name?”
“Certainly is, nobody would make that up. This,” announced Porgy, enjoying his friend’s discomfort just a little too much, “is the One, the Only Tommy Atkins!”
“It sounds like a music hall act,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth politely as she laughed.
“I know,” said Porgy, slapping Atkins on the back, “so we just call him Only.”
It was what passed for a Tommy’s humour. No sense making jokes you had to think about. You could be dead before you got it. To Tommy though, ‘Only’ also served as a constant reminder of his missing brother. He might well be the only Atkins brother left, the sting of conscience he experienced at its every mention was a penance he accepted for his uncharitable thoughts regarding William.
Leaving them to talk, he made great sport of Gordon, charging the waiting casualties thruppence an item to have their clothes chatted by the creature. Porgy caught up with him as Nurse Bell went on about her ministrations.
“She’s a fine lass, isn’t she, Only?”
“Oh no doubt,” said Atkins, “But I do doubt she’ll put up with you.”
“She’s a debutante,” he said, plainly enamoured.
“And clearly out of your league. A Northern lad from a brewery stepping out with someone who’s been in the same room as Royalty? I’d say you need your head examining.”
“I have,” he sighed. “By Edith.”
“What? And she found nothing wrong with it? Can’t be much of a nurse then.”
LIPPETT OPERATED ON the young Urman with an orderly and Sister Fenton assisting. Napoo was reluctant to leave him alone, partly because Gutsy had explained to him in a slow, loud voice—which was the best way, in his opinion, to communicate with natives—that they were working their juju magic on him, which seemed to alarm Napoo. He hung around the surgical tent, his face etched with worry as he and Everson waited. To Everson’s relief, the operation was a success. Lippett came out of the tent wiping his hands on his apron.
“It was some sort of poisonous thorn, embedded deep in his muscle,” he said. “We’ve cut it out. He’s young and strong. He should pull through. Remarkably, that poultice muck they’d spread on it seems to have some medicinal properties, slowed the spread of the poison. We might be able to use something like that if we’re here much longer.”
They moved the Urman to a tent, where Sister Fenton and Nurse Bell checked on him hourly. Owing to his chiselled, unshaven appearance, reminding them of the Gallic soldiers they’d treated, and not knowing the unconscious man’s name, they nicknamed him Poilus. It seemed to suit him, or at least their romanticised notions of him.
Napoo was nervous and edgy, never leaving his bedside until the man even
tually came round and opened his eyes. The wound on his thigh had been bandaged and he was still suffering from a slight fever, but Sister Fenton explained that they expected it to come down after a couple of days’ rest.
Poilus looked around nervously, panic building behind his eyes. However, Napoo stepped into his eye line and laid his hand on his forearm, tears welling up in his eyes. He looked up at Everson across the bed.
“Yes,” he said, his voice choked with emotion, “we will help you.”
NAPOO WAS AT first suspicious when Oliver Hepton, delighting in him as some sort of indigenous novelty, wanted to film him. He persuaded Napoo to pose, which he did grinning nervously, surrounded by the men of 1 Section.
“Wave for the folks back home,” Hepton directed them. “Valiant Tommies meeting the local natives of the Wonder Planet.”
“Who’s he kidding?” said Half Pint sourly as they performed for the camera. “Everything on this bloody planet is poisonous or dangerous.
This place is going to kill us before we get a square meal out of it.”
“Give it a rest Half Pint. Tell us something we don’t know,” said Gutsy.
“Whuuugh!” yelled Half Pint ducking down as something buzzed over his head; a fat bloated thing about the size of a pigeon with feathery antennae and large compound eyes. He started flapping his arms around. “Get it off, get it off!”
Napoo grinned, snatched it out of the air and bit its head off, spitting it onto the ground before tipping back his head and squeezing the carcass. A slop of dark viscera fell into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed.
“Gawd, that’s disgusting!” said Porgy.
“It’s good!” said Napoo, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, offering it to Atkins.
Another flew by Pot Shot. He reached up a long gangly arm, and caught it. He was about to use his bayonet to cut the head off when Napoo stopped him, laughing.
“No, not that one,”
“Why not? I did what you did,” Pot Shot protested.
Napoo shook his head and rapped his knuckles on Pot Shot’s head. “No, look. This one is thin. It hasn’t fed yet. You wait until it has fed and fat. You eat that now you taste only bile. Make you sick.” He picked it up and threw it away.
“Excellent!” yelled Hepton. Pleased with the unexpected footage he capped his camera.
EVERSON WAS RIGHT in his estimation of Napoo’s knowledge. Over the next few days, he taught them many things. He showed them safe food to eat and where to find more. He told them what firewood to use without it spitting hot poisonous sap at them. He showed them edible fruits to gather, how to dig up the roots of the Tergo plant where they could find large, wriggling grubs the size of a man’s forearm nestling in swollen tubers. They brought down one of the tall threelegged herbivore ‘tripodgiraffes’ as it fed. They also shot one of the hell hounds from a pack that was trying to stalk it. After several days of hunting and gathering, they had managed to build up quite a store of food.
“I think it would be a good idea,” suggested Everson to Captain Grantham, “that is, I think it would boost the men’s morale if we could celebrate our first meal with indigenous ingredients,”
The Captain nodded and waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever you want, Everson. Whatever you want.”
However, Everson knew their survival would depend on more than food and water and morale. It would depend on information and there was more that Napoo might tell them about this planet. Therefore, he, Jeffries and Padre Rand sought to question him further. Padre Rand’s bright flame of faith had guttered alarmingly in the face of the Somme and seemed extinguished by the wind of circumstance that had blown them to this world. Now it seemed Napoo’s arrival fanned the embers of his dying belief. He had been a missionary in Africa and knew a heathen when he saw one. He wanted to know if Napoo believed in God, whether he had been baptised. He believed it to be his sacred duty to save the man’s soul. If indeed he should have one. For if this place was not Earth, then he could not be a son of Adam, a creature of God.
“We believe in GarSuleth the sky god, weaver of the world, and in his brother, Skarra,” said Napoo, reciting in the manner of a credo.
Everson could see the padre’s eyes narrow in the face of this new heresy but of Jeffries’ countenance, he could make nothing.
“You do not know of them?” said Napoo uncertainly. “But all Urmen worship them, the Ones decreed it...”
Everson shook his head and shrugged.
“The Ones. The Children of GarSuleth,” said Napoo impatiently. “Whose land this is? How can you not know? This place borders Khungarrii territory. They killed many of my clan, so we stay away. You should too.”
“Khungarrii?” queried Jeffries.
“The Khungarrii of the Ones, aye.”
“When we first met you spoke of Free Urmen. I take it there are those who are not free?” asked Everson.
“They serve the Ones.”
As Napoo continued to talk it seemed to Everson that, here on this world, Man had never risen to his full potential. Here, the majority were indentured servants to a race greater than they. Those Urmen that chose freedom rather than serve the Ones grubbed a meagre subsistence, living among the unforgiving fields and beasts of this Godforsaken world. That Man should be so humbled was anathema to him and, for a moment, he felt the same hot fury that he had once felt toward the Bosche.
THAT EVENING, COOKS prepared the foods as best they could. The men built and lit fires and gathered round them, some digging out such treasures as harmonicas or penny whistles. Mercy even managed to find a battered wind-up gramophone and a surviving record. The strains of old songs and laughter rose with the smoke from the myriad campfires towards the unknown stars above.
Edith Bell, Nellie Abbott and Sister Fenton sat apart on empty grenade boxes nibbling tentatively at skewered alien meat. “So why did you become a VAD, Edith?” asked Nellie Abbott. Edith was silent for a moment as if considering something before deciding to speak. “I was running away, I suppose.”
“From what?”
“The past.”
“Well they say it always catches up with you.”
“That’s why I thought the Front would be the best place to confront it.”
“The Front? You deliberately came to the Front?”
“To face it head on, to punish myself for surviving,” said Edith, shaking her head. “Oh, I don’t know anymore. I don’t care. Seeing all this suffering—at least here, this time I can do something. I can make a difference, can’t I? You see I know we’re all going to die, it’s just that on the Front you have a better idea of when.”
“What could be so awful that you think you’re punishing yourself by serving here?” asked Fenton.
“It was two years ago,” she said in a hushed voice, half hoping that they wouldn’t hear her and she could pretend she hadn’t said anything and not have to go through with it.
“What was two years ago, the start of the War?”
“No, it was before that.”
Fenton and Abbott exchanged questioning glances, each shrugging. They waited. Nelly took Edith’s hands in hers and gave them a small, warm squeeze then held them lightly.
“The Lamb—” she could barely get the words out. She stopped, smiled apologetically and cleared her throat. “The Lambton Grange Murders.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Nellie. “Oh you poor thing. Were—were you there? That was an evil thing what happened there. Our Bertie read it to us from the papers, he missed out the worst bits to spare us, silly sod. But I read the paper myself, later. Horrid, simply horrid.”
“No, that’s the thing, you see,” said Edith. “I was supposed to be there.”
“What do you mean?” asked Fenton.
“I knew the girls that were murdered, Elspeth Cholmondley and Cissy Pentworth. We were a bit of gang. We met him, at a party a month earlier.”
“Dwyer the Debutante Killer? Strewth!”
“Yes. I belie
ve that’s what some of the more sensationalist newspapers called him. He seemed so charming. Of course, we knew he had a bit of a reputation. That was what poor Cissy found so alluring. He invited us out to his place for the weekend. Only I couldn’t go at the last minute. Great Aunt Lil decided to come up from Brighton.”
“That was some luck.”
“But I let them go alone, don’t you see? I should have been with them,” she said, sobs welling up. “It should have been me, too.”
Edith saw Lance Corporal Sandford approach them tentatively, hobbling along inexpertly on a crutch, a pal by his side, and hastily wiped her eyes, cursing herself for weakening and sharing her private burden. She pasted a smile on her face for Nellie’s sake. “I’m all right,” she said. “Really.”
While the corporal and his mate stood talking to them, Edith could sense Nellie’s awkwardness. Spotting the tank mechanic in his overalls, Nellie made her excuses, got up and slipped away, trying to catch his eye.
SAT ROUND THEIR own campfire, Atkins noticed Porgy stealing glances towards the nurses as the corporal sat down next to Edith, his injured leg out straight as he put an arm around her shoulder. Next to her, Sister Fenton wriggled away from his pal, rebuffing the NCO’s advances. He tried again to put his arm around her shoulders, but she stood up. He couldn’t hear what she was saying but he was obviously getting a bollocking. Fenton wrapped her cape around herself and stalked off in the direction of the casualty tents. Porgy had just decided to go and cut in when he saw Edith rise and help her suitor to his feet.
“Bad luck old chap,” said Atkins sympathetically. “Perhaps if you’d got yourself more of a Blighty one.”
“Fat lot of good a Blighty One does here!” he spat, glancing pointedly up towards the brightest star in the sky.
They watched as Edith helped Sandford walk along with his crutch. The pair passed beyond the light of one fire only to be silhouetted against another and met by encouraging whoops and catcalls as they passed the men gathered round it.