by Pat Kelleher
The men stared at her.
“What, might I not know my own mind?” she countered. “I’m concerned about the padre’s injury. He’s not yet fully recovered. At least if I am with him, I can take care of it.”
“It’s not necessary, Nurse,” the padre protested.
“Nurse Bell—” Everson began.
“What?” Nurse Bell glowered. “You let Nellie go off to find the Ivanhoe. I’ve faced many fears since we arrived here, Lieutenant,” she said, “and become the stronger for it. And both the padre and I have been to Khungarr before.”
“As prisoners,” Everson reminded her gently.
“Then let me go back of my own free will, face my fears, and do my job!”
Everson raised his eyebrows in appeal to the padre for support, but the chaplain seemed just as taken aback by the strength of the young woman’s conviction.
Everson sighed with exasperation. “Nurse Bell, if you’re convinced the padre needs medical supervision, then yes, I agree.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the padre.
“You’re letting me go?” she asked with disbelief.
“Yes, although any more outbursts like that and I might change my mind.”
Nurse Bell’s face flushed.
Everson clasped the padre’s hands. “There’s not a lot I trust on this world, but I trust you, Padre. I need you fit and well.”
The padre smiled faintly. “I tend to put my trust in the Lord, John, but I’m sure He won’t take it personally.”
EVERSON COULDN’T SPARE the men to escort them across the veldt, but then he didn’t need to. They had the captured battlepillars. It would be much quicker and safer to cross the veldt on one of those.
In the aid tent, Edith hid the small jar containing the Commentaries of Chitaragar in her haversack of medical supplies. They hoped that the scents and aromas of the various medicines and unguents would disguise any tell-tale signs of the potential heresy they were effectively smuggling into Khungarr. Everson also provided her with a bottle of distilled petrol fruit fuel, for Chandar’s personal use.
Atkins and his section escorted the Chatt to the old Poulet farmhouse where the battlepillar was waiting, a sapper sat in the howdah at the great beast’s head.
Everson shook the padre’s hand. “Good luck, Padre. And thank you.”
The padre nodded towards the camp. “Don’t forget, John: they’re not soldiers, they’re men.”
Everson nodded, then turned to Nurse Bell. “Look after him. And yourself. I don’t want another Edith Cavell on my hands.”
“I will, Lieutenant. Thank you,” she said.
The padre and Nurse Bell climbed a ladder to a large cradle slung along the side of the beast.
“I don’t want them to come to any harm,” Everson warned Chandar as the Chatt clambered aboard the cradle.
“They will be safe under this One’s protection.”
EVERSON STOOD ON the OP platform of the Poulet Farmhouse and watched the small party as even the huge battlepillar was gradually swallowed by the immensity of the veldt before them.
Hobson appeared beside him and watched in silence for a moment. “Do you trust ’em, sir? The Chatts, I mean.”
“Chandar? Maybe. The rest? Not as far as I can throw them, Sergeant,” Everson said.
“Glad to hear it, sir,” said Hobson, walking along behind him as they strode down the communication trench and up the crude earthen steps onto the ground towards the hospital tents.
“This is why I want insurance.”
Everson entered the Aid tent, and Stanton the medical orderly stood to attention. He returned the salute crisply and got down to business.
“I’m given to understand you used to work in a cotton mill in the chemical labs before the war, Stanton.”
“Sir.”
“Then I have a job for you. I need your expertise, not as a medical orderly but as a chemist.”
“Sir?”
“You remember the Khungarrii attack on the trenches?”
“Of course, sir.”
“The poppies out beyond the front line disorientated the Chatts somehow, threw them into confusion. Maybe it was something in their scent.”
“Excuse me, sir, but poppies don’t smell.”
“Maybe not to us, Stanton. But one cannot doubt their effect on the Chatts. We all saw it and were able to take advantage of it. Maybe there is something in the poppies against which they have no natural defence, because it’s alien to this world. There has to be a way we can harness that effect deliberately; enhance it, strengthen it, turn it into something we can use against them.”
“Like a gas, sir?”
Everson nodded his head with approval. “Yes. Something that we can use to de-louse on a large scale. Do you want to have a crack at it?” Stanton’s eyes widened and he stood straighter, taller. He pushed out his chest. “Me, sir? Just give me a chance, sir.”
“Then you’ve got it, Stanton,” said Everson, handing him a scrap of paper. “The men on this list have chemical or horticultural experience that might help. See what you can come up with.”
Stanton took the paper and saluted. “Yes, sir.”
“The padre was right,” Everson confided in Hobson as they left the tent. “I’d forgotten that they were men before the war. Appealing to their sense of duty wasn’t enough. I have to appeal to the man.”
“Very wise, sir,” said Hobson.
Several electric blue flashes crackled and bloomed briefly above the trenches within the support ring, accompanied by too brief a scream. “What the hell?”
Everson had seen the phenomenon before in the presence of Khungarrii electric lances. Was it a raiding party? And if it was, how the hell did they get past the sentries? Shouts of alarm went up from various quarters. Everson drew his Webley and weaved his way through the trenches towards the disturbance.
Everson and Hobson met near the fire bay with several other soldiers also converging on the scene.
Hobson nodded at them.
“Trench clearance formation,” he hissed.
After the mutiny, only those on sentry duty had magazines and loaded rifles. The others had to make do with their bayonets. Hobson peered round the sandbag traverse. “Clear,” he hissed back. The clearance party slipped into the unoccupied fire bay as Everson moved to enter the next.
He peered cautiously round the separating traverse, his revolver cocked. A soldier lay splayed on the floor of the bay, his body wracked in spasms. He kicked and thrashed spastically, his boots scraping against the duckboards. Wisps of smoke rose from the soles. A corporal was knelt beside him, trying to place an old strip of leather belt between his teeth. “Bite down on this, now, Tonkers. Bite down, that’s it.” There was no sign of any Chatts, although shards of a Chatt’s clay backpack lay strewn about the bay and an electric lance lay against the firestep. Everson jerked his head and Hobson sent a couple of men peering over the revetments.
“All clear, Sarn’t,” they reported.
Everson stepped into the fire bay.
“What happened here?” asked Everson urgently.
He noticed the Signals brassard on his arm. The NCO looked up. It was Corporal Riley.
“Sorry, sir,” said the NCO with a disarming shrug. “Didn’t mean to alarm you. Just an accident, sir. Tonkins here’ll be all right,” he said.
The signaller’s fit seemed to be passing. The corporal held him, all the while talking to him in a low voice. “You’ll be all right, lad.”
“Stretcher bearer!” Everson hollered.
“No, it’s all right, sir. He’ll be right as ninepence shortly. It’s not the first time.”
Everson looked at Hobson, who dismissed the soldiers back to their posts. He turned his attention to the fusilier on the ground. His tone softened a touch. “What do you mean, it’s not the first time? What’s wrong with him?”
“One moment, sir.” The corporal called out. “Buckley!” A soldier swept back the gas curtain, st
epped smartly out and saluted the lieutenant. The sandy-haired lad had shiny red cheeks that looked as if they’d been polished, like an apple. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t see you there.”
“It’s all right, Buckley,” said the corporal. “Give me a hand with Tonkers here.”
Buckley helped the corporal get Tonkins to his feet and the pair halfdragged, half-carried the dead weight of the still twitching Fusilier into the dugout.
Corporal Riley reappeared, holding the gas curtain aside. “If you wouldn’t mind, sir?”
Everson and Hobson entered the dugout. It was crammed with crates and boxes of stores. The place served as office, workshop and storeroom for the few signallers that had been stranded with them. The three men from Signals kept the telephone and heliograph communications working with the observation posts. Three more were up on the Hill OP.
Large reels of copper wire lay against the walls, like huge cotton bobbins. There were lengths of cable, batteries, boxes of signal flares and several heliograph machines on closed tripods. In the corner lay a collection of semaphore flags. On a bench, several wooden-boxed field telephones sat in various states of disassembly, and an assortment of salvaged Morse code keys lay amidst scattered screwdrivers, wire cutters, wire strippers and other tools. However, what caught Everson’s eye was the untidy heap of the Chatt clay backpacks and electric lances. Some were broken, some merely cracked, and quite a few were intact, although they were in marked contrast to the ones that stood neatly against the opposite dirt wall.
Tonkins lay on a rude bed in an adjoining room. He seemed more peaceful now. The spasms and twitches had stopped.
“Corporal Riley, just what the hell is going on? What just happened to Tonkins?”
Riley cleared his throat. “What do you know about telephony, sir?”
“That it’s a damned nuisance when the wires get shelled or cut.” Riley’s cheeks reddened. “Tell me about it, sir. We’re the ones who have to go out and fix it. Only just finished repairing the lines after that damned mutiny. ’Scuse my French, sir.”
“Riley,” said Everson, beginning to lose patience. “What have telephones got to do with that Chatt electric lance out there?”
“Well as far as we know, the electric lances are charged by the Chatts themselves, kind of like an electric eel. They generate their own charge.
The clay pack is kind of like a battery, storing and amplifying this charge, which they release through the lance.”
“And the field telephones?”
Riley picked up a wooden box and sat it on the bench with a thump.
“A field telephone, sir. Type C Mark II, using two cells, electric, dry, charged by a magneto via the crank handle.
“We managed to recover a lot of these here backpacks after the Chatt siege, and Tonkins there said, ‘Well if all they need is a charge, why can’t we just fit ’em with a magneto?’ He’s been tinkering all week, and we think we’ve got it licked.”
“Licked?” Hobson nodded toward Tonkins. “You call that licked?”
“Oh, aye, we’re learning all the time.”
“And what exactly have you learnt this time?” asked Everson. “This time?” Riley rubbed the back of his neck as he gave it some thought. “Not to connect a wire straight into the conductive slime, for one. And if you do, wear gum boots, feet, for the use of.” Riley picked up one of the smooth crimson clay backpacks. It had a number ‘5’ scratched onto it. Everson glanced around. He couldn’t see numbers one to four; although he had a suspicion that number four lay outside in pieces. The clay container was curved in the inner surface to sit flush with a scentirrii carapace, but Riley had rigged it with some 1908 Pattern leather webbing and empty sandbags for padding, for a more human fit. Near the top of the clay container, inserted in a carved round hole, was a crank handle Everson recognised as coming from a field telephone.
“Buckley, come here, I need you,” said Riley.
Buckley shot a nervous glance at the prostrate Tonkins. “Never mind him, lad. Probably picked up a cracked one. You’ll be all right if you wear gum boots for the test.”
“Will he?” asked Everson confidentially.
“Probably,” said Riley with a shrug. “Anything has to be better than earthing through bleedin’ Army-issue hobnailed boots.”
“Hmm.”
A sour-faced Buckley picked up a pair of trench waders and pulled them on before lifting up and shouldering the backpack. They had reconnected the electric lance to it with a length of rubber-insulated cable in a braided hessian sheath.
Riley picked it up and handed it to him, then bent forward, inspected the backpack and tugged on the webbing. “You’ll do,” he said finally, giving him a shove through the gas curtain.
“After you, sir,” he said with a sweep of his arm. Everson ducked his head and stepped out into the trench. Buckley waited, holding the lance awkwardly. Hobson joined them and Riley brought up the rear smartly, stepping over to Buckley and standing behind him. “If you wouldn’t mind, gentlemen?” he said, indicating that the officer should take cover. Everson and Hobson stepped back by the sandbagged traverse.
“Well, on guard, lad, on guard!” said Riley, noting Buckley’s less than enthusiastic posture.
Buckley took a step forward, taking a stance as if the lance were a rifle and bayonet. Riley tapped Buckley once on the shoulder and began to wind the magneto’s crank handle that now protruded from the clay pack. A quiet whirr built as the spindle inside the magneto revolved faster and faster. For a moment, it seemed as if nothing would happen. A nervous Buckley fidgeted as he gripped the lance. Everson and Hobson exchanged concerned glances.
Riley gritted his teeth and wound the handle furiously a while longer.
Then he let go and tapped Buckley on the shoulder. Twice. This time, a brilliant blue-white arc of energy blasted out across the fire bay, exploding against the far sandbag traverse. The sandbags erupted.
Scorched, shredded hessian and dirt showered down on them. When the dust settled, Buckley was still standing and the Chatt device was still in one piece.
Riley turned and grinned. “Well, that went better than expected, eh?”
WHEN THE BATTLEPILLAR reached the edge of the forest, the driver would go no further. The padre, Nurse Bell and Chandar dismounted and, under the Chatt’s guidance, proceeded on foot. From here on in, they were on their own.
They walked for several hours through the forest until Chandar directed them to stop by a grove of trees. There they waited.
Several hours later, a patrol of Chatt soldiers, scentirrii, led by none other than Rhengar, the Khungarrii general, appeared. Its antennae waved, sensing something.
Chandar stepped forward and greeted them, its arms open wide as it breathed its benediction over its fellow Chatts.
“Where have you been?” wheezed Rhengar. “Was your undertaking a success? This One has waited here every spinning at the appointed time. This One had given up hopes of your return, Chandar.”
“GarSuleth has willed it, Rhengar.”
Rhengar and Chandar fell to speaking rapidly in their own language, with many glances toward the chaplain and the nurse. The padre got the feeling that Rhengar didn’t approve of their presence. Eventually the two Chatts reached some agreement and the party headed on into the forest, the scentirrii, their antennae twitching, escorting Padre Rand and Nurse Bell along a path only they could detect.
In a way, Padre Rand felt that he too followed such an invisible path, guided by a Divine hand; from his comfortable parish of St Chad’s in Broughtonthwaite, to the trenches of France, where he lost the trail, like a path petering out on featureless moors. It was only once he found himself here, on this world, that he found his path again. Here, where he thought himself lost from God’s sight, that still, small voice could be heard if he but listened, for the men of the Pennines were themselves God’s creations, even if nothing else in this world was. A spark of the Divine existed in each one of them, so even out here, in the shadow of dea
th, there was a light to mark the way. He drew comfort and strength from that. Like Daniel in the lion’s den, he felt a calmness, as though he was at the centre of a storm. He walked erect and with a feeling of peace he hadn’t known for a long time. But he knew this was only a moment of clarity, for even Our Lord had His Gethsemane.
Nurse Bell walked close beside him, but whether out of fear or concern he couldn’t say. Maybe both. It wasn’t surprising. He had surprised himself by volunteering for this, just as she had surprised him by offering to accompany him. Her Christian charity touched and partly shamed him. In coming here, he had an ulterior motive. Bell could have none, other than his welfare at heart. He did wonder briefly whether that made her the better person.
Nevertheless, he offered up a silent prayer of thanks for her presence. At least now, he would be forced to go through with his plan. Alone, he might not have had the strength. His resolve might have failed as it had before. His faith was gaining the fervour he once held, but it still felt fragile.
“You are one of the Tohmii’s dhuyumirrii?” wheezed Rhengar, waving its mouth palps behind its mandibles.
“A priest, yes,” said the padre.
“You do not worship GarSuleth.” There was no intonation in its voice. There never was with Chatts. It took them enough effort to form the words in the first place. He wasn’t even sure if they had emotions as he experienced them.
“No. I do not.”
Rhengar fell silent, clicking its mandibles together in a thoughtful manner as it walked.
The padre wondered whether he had gone too far, spoken out of turn and offended them.
Chandar caught up with them and limped alongside. “They are scentirrii,” it explained. “They are not bred to question.”
“Stop,” said Rhengar, coming to a sudden halt.
The group of scentirrii stopped with him. Rhengar turned towards the padre and Nurse Bell. “You go no further,” it told them.
Nurse Bell stepped forward, affronted. “But you said—”
“You will be killed.” It signalled to the scentirrii guards. They turned and advanced towards them.