by Pat Kelleher
Ahead, the tunnel wall exploded in a choking cloud of debris and dust, as a second tendril smashed through the wall at right angles, cutting off their escape, before punching out through the opposite wall. With the thing approaching from behind, they were cornered.
The men collided to a halt as the tentacle passed in front of them. Atkins pointed behind them. “Gazette, Gutsy. Watch our backs.” Porgy groaned. “Jesus, what’re you going to do now?”
“Quit your griping. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“You’ll get us all killed?”
“You’re not afraid of that, are you, Porgy?” said Mercy. “What? Of course I bloody am, I don’t want to die—when you die they stop your pay.”
Atkins grinned and snatched a Mills bomb from Chalky’s webbing pouch. If he set it off here, the tunnel would channel the explosion. They had no cover. At this distance, the concussion wave would render them senseless. The shrapnel blast would shred them. Standing inches from the passing tentacle, he pulled the pin with his teeth and held down the safety lever.
“Chalky, stab the damn thing with your bayonet,” he yelled. Chalky hesitated.
“Chalky, for fuck’s sake—now!”
The lad’s training took over. He charged the still passing tentacle in front of them, as if the sergeant major was standing right behind him, and let out a battle roar before thrusting his bayonet deep into the dark, otherworldly flesh. As the tentacle moved past, the blade opened up a slit along its surface. Thick black ichor sprayed out.
Like gutting a fish, Atkins thought. He took a deep breath and, hoping to God this worked, thrust the grenade into the gash as it raced by, flinching away from the stabbing bayonet, taking the bomb with it.
“Down!”
Every man in the section dropped to the ground and covered their head, smashing another couple of amphorae in the process. Gutsy pulled Chandar to the floor and pressed its head to the ground. Somewhere beyond the tunnel wall, the grenade exploded, precipitating more showers of dust and rubble.
The tentacle before them reared back sharply from the pain in a reflex action, withdrawing back across the tunnel; a ragged, torn stump leaking a trail of thick, black liquor. Within seconds, it was gone.
“You did it! You banished Jeffries’ demon!” Chalky cried in jubilation. “Thank the Lord. I knew the Corp would kill the fiend. Didn’t I say? Didn’t I?”
Mercy reached out, patting him on the shoulder. “Steady on, lad. We don’t want it going to his head.”
Gutsy rolled his eyes and grinned. “Hear that, Only? Everson won’t know whether to mention you in his dispatches or his prayers, now.”
Behind them came the rumble of a roof fall. The tentacle thrashed about as the creature reacted in shock to its injury, bringing the tunnel crashing down. A great cloud of dirt and dust billowed towards them, overtook them and left them gagging and coughing.
“Go!” ordered Atkins, picking himself up.
The Tommies scrambled to their feet and rushed on. All but one torch had been extinguished. It was enough to light the way, but not bright enough to give them much warning of anything else in the deep dark of the tunnels.
They passed an earlier scrawled 13/PF chalk mark with some relief, and took a broader, descending passage.
As they ran, they could hear muffled thuds and thumps from all around, some too far away to be of concern, some too close for comfort.
It put Atkins in mind of the interminable Hun artillery barrages they suffered when the minniewerfers and five-nines would pummel the front lines for hours or days. The nerve-shredding pounding continued around them, accompanied more and more often by the long, slow rush of tunnel collapses.
“What’s going on?” cried Chalky, flinching at every crash.
The demon creature was thrashing about, trying to find them, Atkins guessed. It was no longer content to use the Chatt-built tunnels and passages to hunt them, but was tearing down galleries and punching through chambers, searching for the bugs that were tormenting it.
“I think the damn thing’s reading its shirt, looking for us.”
“You mean it’s chatting us?” Porgy came back.
“You could say that, aye.”
“Bloody cheek!” said Porgy, affronted. “No offence,” he added, nodding an apology at Chandar as it raced alongside with its hopping gait.
They wound their way down through tunnels and galleries, threading their way back through the labyrinth as best they could, avoiding the many tentacles now ploughing through the tunnels in search of them.
The passage roof in front of them bowed and buckled, as cracks appeared. Slivers of silver daylight drove down into the dark confined space, slicing through the dust motes before the roof caved in. A tentacle punched down through the tunnel, and on through the floor, with a force that almost threw them off their feet. They darted to the right, down a smaller tunnel. Further down, daylight streamed in from some kind of window or breach. They were against an exterior wall. Atkins wondered how far they were above ground.
“FRANK!”
Frank did not respond.
Jack darted towards the tank in the vain hope of rescuing him. The tank came alive. Black tentacles burst from the drivers’ visors, from the pistol ports around the tank, and from the hatches, all thrashing wildly.
Jack ducked and danced, as light on his feet now as he had been in the carnival boxing ring before the war. He edged towards the open sponson through which Frank had been pulled, but was driven back as the tendrils lashed out at him.
Napoo drew his sword and pulled Nellie behind him. “Alfie, stay back!” she screamed, as he joined the others, trying to find a way past the pseudopodia as they whipped through the air.
They took pot shots with their revolvers, aiming for the pistol ports or at the portion of the writhing black mass that presented itself through the sponson hatch. Alfie shouted at them to stop. “You might damage the Ivanhoe!”
Nellie peered round Napoo in horror. “What on earth is it?” Distracted, Mathers looked towards the tank. He seemed clear and lucid, for the moment. “It is the spawn of the thing that inhabits the ruins. It is not of this place,” he declaimed.
Reggie started towards him, concern etched on his face. “Sir?”
Mathers turned to him and spoke as if he might have been discussing the finer points of cricket over cucumber sandwiches on a summer’s evening. “Didn’t you realise?” He gestured vaguely towards the ruined edifice. “It has no protection of its own against the predations of this world. Its sire found its way inside the ruins for shelter. This one found its way inside the tank. Don’t you see? It’s using it as a shell, as a hermit crab does, to armour itself.”
“But Frank. What about Frank, sir?”
“Frank?” Mathers stared blankly at the tank, unconcerned. “Frank’s gone.”
Norman tried to follow the lieutenant’s logic. “So you’re saying all we have to do is winkle it out? Then we’re going to need a bloody big pin, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”
“A bayonet!” suggested Cecil.
“Going to need something bigger than a pig sticker, son,” said Jack.
Nellie frowned. “I know just what we need to lance this boil.” She ran over to the undergrowth, to the little copse of black-barked, silver-veined saplings she had spotted when they arrived at the edifice. “Napoo, help me.”
Napoo joined her. He arched an eyebrow as he realised what she was looking at. “Corpsewood?”
“Will it work, do you think?”
“What is it?” asked Alfie.
“It’s a scavenger plant. It usually feeds on dead or rotting flesh, but eats living things if it can, hence the name, so be careful.”
“It... might work,” said Napoo, with caution. “But it must be handled with great care. We have never used it in such a way.”
Alfie was insistent. “We need the tank back. If this is the only way, then let’s do it.”
Since the creature in t
he ruins had frightened off anything that the corpsewood might feed on, pickings were thin. The wood had grown up around the bodies of small creatures, their bones embedded it its trunk and protruding from the black bark.
The tank crew watched, fascinated, from a safe distance, distracted occasionally by the creature within the tank as its tentacles whipped and thrashed hungrily.
Wrapping his hands in bandages from Nellie’s webbing pouches, Napoo set to work, cutting down the stand of black corpsewood saplings. Thin and reedy specimens, eager for sustenance, the silver vein-like creeper stems around them unwound and inclined towards Napoo’s hands, like a plant following the sun. He threw them aside too quickly for them to latch on. With deft strokes of his sword, he stripped them of their spiny branches and fashioned their tips into sharp points. He bound part of the shafts with a lengths of split vine to give some protection against the corpsewood for the wielder. Within fifteen minutes, Napoo had a brace of crude corpsewood spears.
Alfie watched in awe as Napoo threw the makeshift spears with confidence. Lashing tentacles knocked some aside to clatter harmlessly off the iron plating, but he targeted the open sponson hatch, and the corpsewood spear buried itself in the exposed black flesh. It puckered and shrivelled around the wound as the silver grey creepers wormed their way slowly into the creature. It was enough to prove that the idea worked, but not enough to rid them of the thing.
“We can’t get close enough,” said Norman, as he and the others tried to target the creature while avoiding its tendrils.
Mathers walked up and hefted one of the corpsewood spears experimentally. “I can,” he said, exchanging a look with Alfie. He picked up a bunch of the spears and walked towards the tank. Reggie and Norman tried to stop him, but he waved them back.
The tendrils whipped and lashed wildly, but he pressed on, showing no fear, for he had none left to show. The things inside him saw to that, he was sure of it. He was within the reach of the flailing tendrils, but they wavered uncertainly, and then retreated before his advance, as if loath to touch him. Its sire could sense the things within him, and so, too, could its spawn. He was anathema to them. By the time he was in striking distance of the tank, the creature had completely retreated inside it.
He thrust the corpsewood spears through the drivers’ visors, the pistol ports, and through the view slits in the gun shield. Trapped inside the ironclad, the creature recoiled from the pain as the corpsewood sought to burrow into it.
Mathers climbed onto the top of the tank, threw open the manhole in the roof and thrust another spear down into the compartment, driving the creature down. In desperation, the thing began to squeeze itself out of the port sponson hatch. He dropped down into the tank to push his advantage, herding the shapeless creature back out of the tank with his last spear.
The heaving bulk flopped gracelessly from the ironclad and it grew tendrils to help drag itself away. However, the creature’s back half was dead, atrophying beneath the corpsewood. Starved for so long, the many spears had sent their vein-like silver creepers deep into the creature’s body, and had begun to leech its life from it. Weakening, the creature’s tentacles could no longer keep the men at bay.
Once they realised it was dying, the tank crew fell on it in a fury, using sticks, wrenches and chains to take out their fear and anger.
“That’s for Frank!”
“Do that to our Ivanhoe, will you?” bellowed Cecil, stamping on a weakly twitching tendril.
Wally, incoherent with rage, thrashed his chain down, over and over again. His face turned red, and spittle flew from his lips, as he took out the frustrations he realised he could no longer take out on the Hun.
Alfie held back, fretting. “Stop!” he cried, “stop!” But they weren’t listening. Alfie grabbed Norman’s arm as he raised it to land another blow. “Stop it! Look,” he said. “Look!”
Amid the now beaten, shapeless bulk, its wounds running with thick viscous fluid, they could make out a shadow in the depths of the creature that looked vaguely human in shape. Because it had been.
“Oh Jesus. Frank!”
Norman dropped the wrench, drained. The others too, sobered up, their chests heaving.
Mathers clambered unsteadily from the sponson, a tin of grease in his hand. He tipped it over the creature as the roots of the corpsewood spread further into it. He lit a Lucifer and dropped it on the thick lubricant. It ignited with a bright indigo flame. The tentacles writhed feebly in the flames before shrivelling. As the grease melted with the heat, it ran, spreading out, coating the rest of the creature, basting it. The flames followed, consuming it, the corpsewood, and Frank.
Jack pulled Cecil back from the monstrous pyre. Reggie made the sign of the cross and muttered a prayer.
“Get the tank started,” Mathers ordered, quietly.
Alfie, Cecil, Reggie and Norman squeezed in through the small sponson hatches, one after the other. Wally followed. Mathers paused in the sponson hatchway. He heard the grind of the giant starting handle. The engine caught and the Ivanhoe awoke from its slumber with a growl.
A breeze caught the burning creature, fanning the flames, causing the corpsewood embers to burn brighter, and the flesh to char and crackle in the heat.
Mathers turned into the wind, a hand on his belly as if it pained him. He felt weary, too weary to worry, too tired to care, and too exhausted to fight it anymore.
“Now it comes,” he said, almost with relief, before climbing into the tank.
THE TOMMIES RACED down the sloping tunnel and burst out into the giant space of the ancient antechamber. It echoed with the continual pounding of the creature around them, unseen.
Exhilaration mixed with fear as, across the open, rubble-strewn space, they caught sight of the withered bark gates that once guarded the main entrance to the edifice.
The ground shuddered beneath their feet as something pummelled away beneath them, making it hard to keep their balance. Great chunks of hardened earth, compacted to rock-like density, plummeted from the domed ceiling high above, like a barrage, exploding around them in rocky shrapnel.
It was just like going over the top into No Man’s Land, Atkins thought, as they sheltered in the mouth of the tunnel, only here there was no officer’s whistle to set them off. It was down to him. Another time, another place, they had done this before. Atkins checked his rifle. “Mercy, Gutsy, you’re with me. The rest of you, wait for my signal. Leapfrog us. We’ll hold the middle ground while you make for the door. Cover us from there.”
His section returned almost imperceptible nods. He took a deep breath and darted out in the domed space, amid the pounding and crashing rubble, Mercy and Gutsy at his heels.
They made a stooped run to the middle of the chamber, weaving between the crashing debris. They threw themselves down by a large chunk of rubble, sweeping the other openings for pursuing tentacles, as the pounding continued around them, reverberating through the chamber. “Come on!” hollered Atkins, beckoning the others.
Gazette, Chalky, Pot Shot, Porgy and Chandar raced across the open space, dodging masses of falling masonry that sent showers of dirt and rocky shrapnel into the air.
“Bleedin’ hell, it’s just like old times!” yelled Porgy, flinching as chips and shards of rock whistled past them.
“Yeah, what price your soft caps now, eh?” said a cocky Pot Shot, patting the steel battle bowler on his head.
A huge chunk of masonry plunged to the floor and shattered close by. A lump sheered off, smashing the lanky Fusilier in the back of the head. He dropped to the floor like a bag of bones.
Gazette had gone a few paces before he realised his mate wasn’t by his side. He turned and saw the gangly figure lying on the ground like a broken marionette. “Pot Shot!”
Gazette ran back to him. He knelt, gathered in the lanky man’s limp limbs, and turned him over. He lifted Pot Shot’s head. His hand came away covered with blood.
Mercy crouched at his side. “Come on, mate, let’s get him out of h
ere.” He gathered up Pot Shot’s rifle, and slung it over his shoulder, and together the pair of them dragged their fallen comrade to the shelter of the rubble.
The walls shuddered under the continual impacts. From around them, in the ruins of the edifice, came the sound of collapsing tunnels, crumbling passageways and the awful thud, thud, thud of pounding tentacles. The whole place was coming down.
Atkins ducked as a piece of roof, the size of a gun limber, smashed down a dozen feet away. They couldn’t stay here. Atkins gave the order. “Make for the door!”
Gazette and Porgy carried Pot Shot, staggering under his weight and the juddering impacts from under the floor. Chalky stuck with Chandar as they weaved drunkenly towards the opening.
Cracks crazed across the walls, racing them to the entrance. The mouth of one of the tunnels began to flake and crumble. A tentacle burst from it, flailing blindly.
Porgy opened fire, five rounds rapid, driving it back.
“Did you see the size of that?” he grinned.
The floor bucked beneath their feet. Great blocks of floor split and lifted. The broken slabs tilted violently. Another pounding sent them spinning up into the air.
“That?” said Gutsy. “Pff. That was a tiddler. Now that,” he said, as a huge tentacle erupted through the floor, “is something worth worrying about.”
“Don’t like the look of yours much!” Atkins yelled to Gutsy, as they ran, stumbling over the debris towards the door.
Lumps of roof rained down around them, exploding into dust, adding to the clouds of dirt that already hung in the air.
Smaller tentacles sprouted violently from the weakened floor about them. They swerved to avoid them, Gutsy taking a swipe at one with Little Bertha.
Reaching the entrance with Chandar, Chalky gave covering fire, sniping at the tentacles until his ammunition ran out.
Mercy and Gazette, with Pot Shot between them, stumbled into the sunlight cutting into the chamber. Atkins, Gutsy and Mercy followed close on their heels.
“Good shooting, Chalky,” said Atkins, patting the lad on the shoulder. Chalky beamed with pride.