No Man's World: Omnibus

by Pat Kelleher

  The sound of faint jeers and gunfire leached through the gas blanket. His forehead creased with annoyance and he looked up as Atkins and Tulliver clattered down the steps into the command post, closely followed by Sergeant Hobson. “What the devil is going on out there?”

  “The men are running amok,” said Tulliver in a tone of incredulity, as he paced around, gesturing wildly towards the door.

  By comparison, Hobson and Atkins stood smartly to attention.

  “Seems to be a bit of a riot, sir,” said Hobson, delivering his assessment with wry understatement.

  “Seems?” Everson turned and cocked his head, listening to the gunfire and sporadic shouts. “There doesn’t seem to be any ‘seems’ about it, Sergeant.”

  Atkins chipped in. “No, sir. But the majority of the men are staying out of it. Mostly it’s a few malcontents stirring up trouble, but we should nip it in the bud, sir.”

  Everson paused to listen to the chaotic sounds a moment longer. “Do we know what they’re mutinying about?”

  “You name it, they’re grousing about it, sir,” replied Hobson.

  Everson shot a questioning glance at Atkins, who gave a nearimperceptible shake of the head. That was something, at least.

  He struggled to subdue a rising feeling of guilt. If the men had known what he and Atkins knew, then they would have cause to riot. For they both knew that the Pennine Fusiliers weren’t the first or only people displaced here from Earth. There had been others. Atkins and his section had found the remains of a party of American emigrants in the Nazarrii edifice. The Bleeker party had been travelling west on the California Trail in 1846 when they suddenly found themselves here, much as the Pennines had. If there was a way back, they didn’t find it and they died here. They survived barely three months. Everson had ordered Corporal Atkins’ Black Hand Gang to secrecy. He needed it kept secret; he believed the only thing holding the battalion together was the hope that they still might be able to get home.

  Today, though, it looked like even that might not be enough.

  He slammed a fist on his desk in frustration. Just as he was getting on top of things, he could feel them slipping away. But this was the Army and, like it or not, he needed to quell the potential mutiny and reassert his authority, if they were to survive at all.

  “God damn it. I hoped it would never get to this.” He looked up at Hobson, his face set, determined, his voice as hard as stone. “Sergeant, read them the Army Act. They get one chance. One.”

  “Leave it with me, sir,” said Hobson, saluting smartly and making for the doorway.

  “Thank you, Hobson.”

  Everson turned his attention to the flying officer, who was still pacing about in an agitated manner. “The gall of the fellows!” he said, still stung by their impudence.

  “Tulliver! I’d be obliged if you’d fly over the camp; see if you can’t help break up some of the larger groups.”

  “What? Oh, now you want me to fly,” said Tulliver, archly.

  Everson wasn’t in the mood. “Just do it,” he said wearily, “or you may find that once this lot get hold of it, you’ll have no flying machine left at all!”

  Tulliver stood for a moment, about to say something, then thought better of it, turned on his heel, and left.

  “And me, sir?” asked Atkins, standing at ease.

  “You’re about the only man I can trust right now, Corporal. I want you and your men to mount a piquet outside. Are they all with you?”

  “All apart from Evans and Blood, sir. They’re guarding Chandar, sir.”

  “Oh, God, the Chatt!”

  “Don’t worry. They’ll keep it safe, sir.”

  “I hope so. Like it or not, Atkins, we need it.”

  Everson took his Webley out of his holster and, with a deep sigh of regret, began to load it.

  MERCY AND GUTSY, of 1 Section, stood on guard duty either side of the gas curtain to the dugout where Everson held the Chatt, for its own safety. For theirs, they tucked their gas hoods in knapsacks on their chest, for ease of access. They were supposed to wear them all the time when on guard duty with the Chatt. But they were hot and foul smelling, and neither wanted to be mistaken for a rioter.

  Mercy, as wiry as a terrier and an inveterate scrounger, was listening in sanguine mood to the drone of the aeroplane and wash of rioting and looting that ebbed and flowed around them.

  “Thought you’d want to be out nicking a few things yourself,” said Gutsy, a stocky man with large, meaty hands, a ruddy complexion and a balding pate beneath his battle bowler.

  “Nah. All the bon stuff’s long gone, mate.”

  “Really?” asked Gutsy. “Where to?”

  Mercy just smirked and tapped his nose.

  The wave of noise grew louder as a rabble of men approached round the traverse.

  “Eh up.” Mercy nodded and he and Gutsy turned to face the direction of the noise, bayonets fixed. Mercy’s short, sharp bark brought them up short.

  “Halt.”

  The leader, a scarf wrapped round his lower face, didn’t seem concerned. His confidence bolstered by the men behind him, he stepped up to Mercy’s bayonet point.

  Mercy could see the length of rope in the man’s fist. This wasn’t a rabble, this was a lynch mob. “You’ve not really thought this through, have you?” Mercy said.

  “We were passing and thought we’d pay the thing a little visit. Those things killed my mates. So are you siding with one of them murderous insects against your own kind? Have you got no shame?” he snarled. “No,” said Gutsy. “We’ve got orders.”

  At that, the men surged forward. Unwilling to use bullets or bayonet their own men, Mercy and Gutsy swung the shoulder stocks of their rifles into the first wave. Men fell to the duckboards, winded, or careened off wattle revetments before sliding down into the mud. “Bloody ’ell!” said Mercy, ducking under the swing of a trench club to land a hard punch in a soft belly.

  From behind the gas curtain came a thin skittering sound that made Mercy’s skin crawl. A prolonged hiss followed.

  The fight broke off as everyone’s attention turned toward the rubberised cloth covering the dugout entrance.

  Something tore the curtain aside. In a swift, inhuman motion, a pale, chitinous creature leapt out of the dugout and onto the trench parapet before scuttling back down the revetment behind the mob, who now found themselves trapped between the guards and the Chatt. It stood like a man, had the height of a man, but that was all the humanity one could ascribe to it. The Chatt reared up on its backwardbending legs to its full height, a posture of threat. It spread its chitinous arms wide, exposing the small vestigial limbs at its abdomen. Then it splayed its mandibles and hissed again, spraying an atomised mist into the air, enveloping the men.

  Within moments, the lynch mob’s expressions softened, changing from fear and anger to contentment. Their unifying purpose forgotten, they began to wander off individually, in a daze.

  The Chatt sank back down and advanced toward Mercy and Gutsy, who turned their rifles upon it.

  “This One has merely blessed them,” it said. “By GarSuleth’s Will they are at peace. They will not harm us now.”

  Mercy and Gutsy looked at each other, wide-eyed with amazement, as the Chatt returned to the dugout of its own volition, the stake and rope that had kept it imprisoned still tied to its ankle.

  “Well, bless me!” said Mercy rubbing the back of his head and exchanging bemused looks with Gutsy.

  Gutsy watched the mob staggering off like happy inebriates. “Best not,” he said, reaching into his knapsack for his gas hood. “Not on duty.”

  NURSE EDITH BELL looked over the beds, filled with recently blinded patients newly under her charge, all of them victims of Chatt scentirrii acid spit. She still berated herself for the loss of the shell-shocked men, led to their deaths by alien parasites and flayed alive by the huge airborne grazing Kreothe. However, she had experienced the death of patients before and, as Sister Fenton reminded her, the
dead weren’t her purview, the living were.

  Sister Fenton interrupted her thoughts now.

  “No time for shilly-shallying,” she said, nodding towards the end of the tented ward. “Warton needs a bed pan.”

  “Nurse!”

  There was a desperate tinge to the voice. As the matron left, she bobbed in an almost imperceptible curtsy, her nurse’s apron sitting oddly over her part-worn khaki serge trousers. “Yes, Sister.”

  She walked along between the two rows. She reached the end bed and searched underneath for the hollowed-out gourd that now served as a bedpan.

  “Can you manage?” Edith asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure I can, Nurse,” said Warton in a strained tone. Bandages made from an old army issue shirt covered his eyes, but didn’t hide the extent of the livid acid-etched flesh.

  The gourd vanished beneath the blanket. Warton’s features softened with relief.

  Edith turned her back. She heard a fast stream splash against the inside of the gourd and subside into a rising gurgle. The trickle died. She turned round as Warton carefully manoeuvred the gourd out from under the army grey blanket and handed it back to her.

  “Here you go, Nurse. Sorry, Nurse.”

  “Nonsense,” she said softly.

  The gourd was heavy and warm, and sloshed. She put it under the bed for collection later. The urine wasn’t wasted. The experiment with gunpowder was still ongoing. That was one good thing to come out of the animal stampede. There was a surplus of dung. They added urine to the dung, in the hope of making saltpetre, apparently. With ammunition running low, even crude gunpowder would be welcome.

  She became aware of a rowdy jeering outside. It wasn’t unusual for the men to become boisterous and rowdy, but that was usually in the evenings.

  “What’s going on?” asked Warton, cocking his head toward the sound.

  Edith pursed her lips. “I don’t know.”

  Several men burst into the tent, throwing back the flaps.

  Edith bustled towards them, arms out, preparing to herd them from the tent, out of concern for her patients.

  The men stood in the entrance, leering as they looked about. Their tunics were undone. One wore a kerchief over his lower face; another wore his PH gas hood.

  “Privates, what’s the meaning of this? This is a casualty ward. Please leave,” she insisted in a stage whisper.

  Several other men attempted to enter behind them, and the masked men staggered forward. Gas Hood stumbled into Edith’s arms and clung to her. His mates cheered him on.

  “What about some fun, Nurse, eh? How about a dance?” The mask muffled the voice. “If you were the only girl in the world, and I were the only boy!” he bellowed in a rough baritone. She found herself staring at her reflection in the mica eyepieces. She looked startled and afraid, and she hated herself for that. She braced her hand against the man’s shoulders and pushed him back.

  “Get your hands off me.”

  The blinded patients, confused by the noise, called out in alarm from their beds.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Leave her alone.”

  His grip tightened around her waist. His head leaned in for a kiss, the gas hood’s red rubber non-return valve poking out obscenely. Repulsed, she twisted her face away and took a swing with her foot. Her boot connected with his shin. The private bellowed in pain and let her go, her hair askew and tumbling down from her hair pins, her chest heaving with adrenalin.

  “Ooh, quite the wild woman, eh?” The others began to circle her.

  “I haven’t had a woman in months,” said one.

  Warton groped his way out of his makeshift bed. “You men ought to be ashamed of yourselves.” Rising to his feet, he thrust his hand out, feeling blindly for obstructions. He found a tunic. He gripped it and pulled the man toward him. “Who the hell are you, eh? Not a man, that’s for sure. I’ll have your number for this,” he snarled.

  A large hand planted itself in his bandaged face and shoved him to the ground, to the accompaniment of mocking laughter.

  Someone shunted Edith. She lost her balance, tripped over Warton and landed on her back, on the vacated bed.

  A cheer went up. Kerchief loomed over her. “Them trousers won’t protect you, darlin’. I’m a dab hand with trousers,” and to illustrate the point he flung off his tunic, flicked his braces off his shoulders and began to unbutton his flies. Edith, alarmed, tried to rise from the bed, but found herself pushed back down.

  Her hand searched blindly down by the side of the bed for a weapon, something, anything. All she felt was hard, dry soil. Her fingers clawed at it, trying to get a handful of dirt, but it was too compacted. Her hands met something hard and warm.

  He loomed over her, khaki trousers down round his knees exposing pale hairy thighs. She lashed out with a foot between his legs. His eyes bulged and he grunted into his kerchief. Edith swung her arm upwards, the hollowed gourd in her hand, and flung the contents in his face. There was no mistaking the smell of urine.

  Edith scrambled from the bed and, panting, faced her attackers. Before, she had been scared; now, she was angry. That same righteous fire that once urged her to denounce Jeffries burned within her now.

  A howl of derision went up, the men enjoying the turn of events even more.

  A gunshot silenced the laughter.

  Half Pint stood in the tent entrance, leaning on a crutch with one hand, his other crutch cast to the floor, the better to hold the revolver.

  Sister Fenton arrived on his heels to see the aftermath.

  “What the hell are you doing?” yelled Half Pint. “Get out! You’ve got no argument here! Your grouse is with the officers. The next one who makes a wrong move gets plugged. And you can bet your arse it won’t be a cushy one, so just remember who’s going to have to patch you up. Now move.”

  The rowdy mood deflated almost instantly, leaving the shame-faced men to shuffle out, their consciences pricking.

  Kerchief, his eyes red rimmed, his hair plastered to his head by warm piss, struggled to pull up his trousers.

  “Not you,” said Sister Fenton and belted him round the head with the fallen crutch.

  Edith watched, her mouth a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. He crumpled to the floor. Fenton handed the crutch back to a bemused Half Pint.

  HOBSON STOOD BENEATH the flagpole on which the battle-tattered Union flag fluttered with little enthusiasm, as though infected by the general malaise affecting the men.

  Backed up by 4 Section 3 Platoon, he confronted the disorganised mob heading towards him. They stopped, more out of amusement and curiosity than discipline. Many were wearing gas hoods or kerchiefs over their faces to hide their identities.

  “Just what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” Hobson roared. “Get back to your duties.”

  The mob stood around insolently, interspersing the resulting sullen silence with the occasional boos, jeers and catcalls, like a rough musichall crowd.

  Hobson was disgusted. He’d helped train these men. He’d wiped their arses, patted them on the shoulders and listened to them when they cried for their mothers.

  He took a piece of paper from his tunic pocket to a rising sarcastic “Oooooh,” from a crowd that grew bigger as other rioters drew closer.

  Hobson unfolded it to more mock amazement.

  “Hey up, lads, he’s going to read us a monologue!”

  Hobson’s lip curled as he glared at the ill-disciplined rabble in front of him. He cleared his throat. “I have been ordered by Lieutenant Everson, Acting Commanding Officer of the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers to read from the Army Act of Nineteen Hundred and Thirteen.”

  “Give us a song!”

  Hobson ignored the lout and began his recitation. “Every person subject to military law who causes or conspires to cause any mutiny or sedition in any forces belonging to His Majesty; or endeavours to seduce any person in His Majesty’s forces from allegiance to His Majesty, or to persuade any person in His Majes
ty’s regular forces to join in any mutiny or sedition; or joins in, or being present, does not use his utmost endeavours to suppress any mutiny or sedition; or coming to the knowledge of any actual or intended mutiny or sedition in any forces belonging to His Majesty, does not without delay inform his commanding officer of the same, shall on conviction by court-martial be liable to suffer death.”

  Every word was as bitter as bile to him. He never once believed he would be reduced to reading these words. He stood and stared down the insolent glares not obscured by gorblimey cap peaks, gas masks, scarves or kerchiefs. Some, at least, looked shame-faced and cast their faces down.

  “Sod this for a game of soldiers,” someone yelled from the crowd. The throng began to scatter, dodging the clumsy-footed soldiers who had no heart to engage them. Some sprinted straight past Hobson, whose face flushed with rage as he bellowed. “You men! Come back here!”

  Before him, the remnants of the mob, perhaps two thirds of their number, shuffled uncomfortably.

  Hobson, looked at them, disappointment etched on his face. “I don’t want to see your faces. Get back to your dugouts and remain there unless otherwise ordered.”

  The men, their mood subdued, removed their hoods and kerchiefs once their backs were turned. They began to disperse, although not quick enough for Hobson. “At the bloody double!” he yelled.

  He felt the weight of his trench club in the frog at his hip. Right now, he could really do with breaking a few heads.

  THE STRUTTER FLEW over the field of red poppies that had sprung from the Somme mud, before it dived low across the camp, causing men to duck, or to dash for cover.

  There was a time when Tulliver loved doing this. He and Biffer had often flown down French roads buzzing staff motor cars, sending bloated red tabs scrambling for the car floor or columns of soldiers diving into ditches. All jolly good fun. Here, though, the sport palled.

  He chased and harried, breaking up large mobs, herding them back from the open ground and into the trenches, watching men sprawl in the dirt as his landing wheels roared inches above their heads.