by Pat Kelleher
The padre wheeled on Chandar in disbelief. “You told the lieutenant that we would be safe.”
There was no time for the crippled Chatt to reply. The scentirrii closed in about them. The padre gathered Nurse Bell to him, putting his arms around her. She looked up into his eyes, and then turned to face the Chatts with defiance as the padre rattled out a hasty orison under his breath.
The gathered scentirrii opened their mandibles and hissed as one...
INTERLUDE TWO
Letter from Lance Corporal Thomas Atkins
to Flora Mullins
1st April 1917
My Dearest Flora,
Off to get the Boojum back tomorrow. Don’t worry, I know where we left it. Not only that, we get a ride there, too. Should be a cushy number, which would be a first for this place. Just a case of ‘there and back to see how far it is,’ as Dad says. Porgy’s happy and you know how workshy he is, so that bodes well. Pot Shot says it’s going to be like riding elephants from the Raj. Not sure what I think about that. I know Mam will worry about me getting airs and graces what with riding round like a maharajah, though. Perhaps I should get Pot Shot to send her one of his pamphlets about how all workers deserved to be treated like that! Not that I’m complaining. I may even get used to it. Gutsy’s not happy though. He’s never been a good traveller, unless it’s by Shanks’s pony.
The padre is going to visit the locals, with whom we’ve been having a little difficulty. You could say it’s raised a bit of a stink. I thought the French could be a bit off, but this lot take the biscuit. Still, with a little bit of luck it might all be sorted out by the time we get back, and we’ll all come up smelling of roses.
Ever yours,
Thomas
CHAPTER SIX
“I Knew That Sullen Hall...”
EVERSON CALLED THE officers together for a briefing in the Command Post. They had to be ready for whatever might happen next and he was trying to prepare them as best as possible. Unfortunately, most of them were like Palmer, good solid officers who could take orders, but not the initiative. Tulliver, on the other hand, he felt had too much initiative.
“So you’ve let the Chatt go?” said Palmer.
Everson shook his head. “Not exactly. We’ve come to an agreement. Right now, we have something they want. We’re holding the sacred scent texts we found to ransom until we get the deal we need.”
“Which is?”
“Basically? They leave us alone, we leave them alone. If Chandar can convince its colony that we are not this Great Corruption their high priest speaks of, then there’s a good chance that can happen. From there, we’ll have to have further negotiations.”
“But to send the chaplain and a nurse back with it!”
“Chandar wanted someone to speak our case to the Khungarrii council, the Shura. Padre Rand volunteered. He felt they might listen more to a priest than a soldier. I think he may be right.”
“And the nurse? Good God, man.”
“The padre sustained a head injury during the mutiny. Nurse Bell feels he may still need medical care.”
“I can confirm that,” said Lippett. “It does mean that I’m short of two nurses thanks to your plans, Everson. Damn fine nurses, too.”
“I thought you didn’t approve of women on the front line, Doc.”
Lippett shifted in his chair. “I didn’t, but since those three arrived, they’ve done their damnedest to make themselves indispensable, blast them. You make sure that Abbott and Bell get back, John, or it won’t be me you have to answer to, it’ll be Sister Fenton; and I, for one, wouldn’t want to be in your shoes then.”
“Point taken.”
Seward still wasn’t convinced. “If this gambit of yours fails, Everson, the padre and the nurse will be killed,” he protested.
“And many of us shortly after,” said Everson. “They knew the risks, Seward, and if the padre can tip the scale with a few impassioned words rather than bullets, then that suits me.”
“And if he doesn’t, the Chatts will come for us again?” asked Haslam.
“Without doubt,” Everson told them candidly. “But we’ll be ready for them. We already have battlepillars. We have several platoons of Urmen that Sergeant Dixon has trained. In addition, Corporal Riley in Signals has had a breakthrough with the electric lances. We are adapting, gentlemen.”
“And what about the gunpowder experiment?” asked Seward.
The huge tarpaulin-covered heaps of manure were a source of contention for the sanitation parties.
There, Everson had to admit defeat. “The dung and the charcoal are no problem and, with the men, there is no shortage of urine for saltpetre, but we’re still looking for a source of sulphur. We’ve had a production line of jam tin grenades being made and when we run out of Ticklers’ tins, Houlton of ‘A’ Company has found a substitute casing in some sort of fruit gourd.”
“Hand ‘gourd’-nades, eh?” said Palmer with a chuckle.
Everson’s shoulders dropped with relief as a ripple of light laughter washed round the dugout. He knew these officers well. Once they’d found the humour in a subject, it spoke of a certain acceptance. He had won them round. All he had to do now was to rescue the tank, to bring their defences up to full strength.
“Palmer, I’ll leave you in charge of defences. Keep a tight rein on the NCOs. I don’t want them using my absence for personal reprisals. The ringleaders, and those caught for offences, have been punished. That’s an end to it. And for God’s sake, see what you can do with that Kreothe carcass up the valley. It’s beginning to rot and the stench is frankly appalling. It’ll bring every scavenger for miles down here.”
“Actually, they don’t seem to care for it,” said Palmer. “It seems to be doing a damn fine job of keeping them away.”
Lippett coughed. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind studying this aerozoan Kreothe before you do anything. Portions of its body seem to be decaying into some sort of gelatinous matter. Some of the men are calling it ‘star jelly.’ They’ve reported a sulphurous smell associated with its decomposition and, if that’s the case, it might solve our gunpowder problem.”
“Are you sure?” asked Everson, intrigued.
Lippett shrugged. “No, but it bears further investigation, don’t you think?”
“Very well, I’ll leave that in your capable hands. Communications. Tulliver, you’re going to have to be our line of communication to camp. You’ll be our lifeline and our eyes, so yes, you’ll get to fly.”
Tulliver needed to hear no more. He rocked his chair onto its back legs and beamed at the rest of them, like a man who had just got a two-week pass.
“I’ll be leading the salvage party out to the Croatoan Crater to recover the tank. On the way I’ll leave a party to take a look at this mysterious ‘wall’ that Atkins found. I must admit, I’m eager to see it myself.”
“Maybe take some men from Signals, see if they can pick up anything with their Iddy Umpty gear, hear anything inside,” suggested Baxter.
“My thoughts exactly,” said Everson. “We’ll also take a couple of Riley’s jerry-rigged electric lances, too. Give them a proper field trial.” Everson looked round the room. “That’s all, gentlemen. You have your orders.” He gathered up his papers to indicate that the meeting was over. “Dismissed,” he added lightly.
As they left, Everson fingered the khaki scrap and button in his pocket. The metal wall and the tank were certainly priorities, but he had one more objective for this trip, and that was to find Jeffries’ trail.
TULLIVER STRODE ACROSS the parade ground from the briefing with a spring in his step and a grin smeared across his face. He was walking on air. He felt he barely needed his bus to fly, but fly it he would.
He felt no need to stick to the trenches, even though they felt familiar and comforting to most of the men. Those of a nervous disposition didn’t have to face the alien landscape about them, and it helped hold their nerve. It felt like home.
Not to Tulliver, thou
gh. Up there, that was his home and that was where he was going. That new predator up there would have to watch out; next time, he’d be ready for it.
AT DAWN THE next day, the tank salvage party—a platoon of Fusiliers and a platoon of Fred Karno’s Army, drilled and trained Urmen outfitted in an odd combination of part-worns, carapace chest plates and steel helmets—fell in around the two captured battlepillars that Everson hoped would be able to haul the tank to safety.
The Fusiliers had outfitted the captured Khungarrii larval beasts of burden for their own use. Several people-carrying panniers had been slung along the sides of the beasts, Chatt-style. Unlike the Chatts, the Fusiliers had modified them to ride at varying heights, allowing for a wider field of fire by the pannier occupants, fore and aft, without their neighbours obstructing their view or aim. They had also constructed a less ornate, more functional howdah for the ‘drivers.’ One had been a drayman before the war, so it stood to reason in the minds of most that his be the unenviable task of controlling the brutes.
The private saluted as Everson passed. “Woolridge, isn’t it?” asked Everson.
“Yes, sir.”
Everson’s face softened. “Your father was an Everson’s drayman, wasn’t he?”
“That were my uncle, sir.”
“Ah. Right.”
Everson looked up at one of the beasts. “What do you think to them?”
“Big Bertha and Big Willie, sir? They seem docile enough, sir. They’re easy to command now we’ve got the reins figured out.”
“I certainly hope so.” Everson nodded his approval. “Carry on, Private.”
It was more than a mere battlepillar omnibus, however. Lieutenant Baxter and his Machine Gun Section had mounted a Lewis machine gun tripod to a small chariot-like basket just forward of the driver’s howdah. They had also turned the section of the fuselage salvaged from a downed 1½ Strutter from Tulliver’s squadron, with the observer’s seat and the Scarff-ring-mounted Lewis machine gun, into a tail-end machine gun emplacement down the creature’s armoured back.
Everson saw Hepton, pushing through the milling soldiers assigned to the salvage operation as they checked their gear and bartered for final supplies from mates, but ignored him. Everson couldn’t bring himself to like the man. He had been foisted on them to record the battle for Harcourt Wood for the folks back in Blighty. He was only supposed to be with them for a day or two. In the end, he had got rather more than he bargained for, and so had Everson. Hepton had been a constant irritant ever since. He turned his attention to the supply manifest that Sergeant Hobson had handed him.
Hepton spotted him. “Lieutenant, you weren’t thinking of going without me, were you?”
Everson looked up from his clipboard. “As a matter of fact, yes, I was.”
Hepton pulled a face of mock hurt and put a hand to his heart. “You wound me, Lieutenant. It’s my job. I’m authorised by the War Office to make you look good for the folks back home. You want to look good, don’t you? All I’m looking for is a little excitement, a little action.”
“Exactly the things I was hoping to avoid,” said Everson.
Hepton smiled his greasy smile and shrugged. “In that case, I’ll settle for a spectacular otherworldly landscape. Can’t say fairer than that, eh?” he said with a wink, rubbing his hands together.
Hobson tapped Everson on the arm and drew him aside. Hepton, hands behind his back, proceeded to rock back and forth on his heels, pretending to inspect the battlepillar in whose shadow they were standing.
“It might be better to keep him where we can see him, sir,” said Hobson in a low voice. “He’s a troublemaker, by all accounts. If we leave him here—well, the devil makes work, sir,” he said in a low voice.
“Is that your considered opinion, Sergeant?”
“It is, sir. The chap’s a malcontent, a real four-letter man, sir.”
Everson hmphed his agreement.
“Hepton?”
The kinematographer turned at the sound of his name.
“Very well. We move out in ten minutes. You have five to get your equipment together.”
A straight razor grin sliced open Hepton’s face. “You won’t regret it, Lieutenant, you won’t regret it.” He turned and began to wade back through the crowd, waving and calling over the men as he went, “Jenkins, Jenkins, bring my things. Over here, man. Hurry.”
Everson blinked. “Did you give him permission to use one of my privates as a batman?” he asked Hobson.
Affronted by the question, the NCO frowned. “Certainly not, sir.”
“Damn the man.”
THE NCOS BARKED their orders and the men began to embark the battlepillars. They climbed the ladders, one section to a pannier. Six panniers each side, the rear two panniers filled with supplies and equipment. They also carried drums of spare petrol fruit fuel for the tank strapped to the back of Big Willie, and two of the experimental magneto-powered electric lance backpacks and various sets of telephonic equipment.
“Careful, don’t drop anything, lad,” cautioned Corporal Riley as Buckley hauled the gear up into the pannier with Tonkins’ help.
The battlepillars moved out up the hillside towards the head of the valley. The Khungarrii reprisals against the Pennines had also displaced clans of nomadic Urmen in the process, some of whom sought the shelter and protection of the British Tommies. NCOs had drilled and trained their men into platoons to replace those of the 13th Pennines who were wounded, missing or dead. The training had worked, mostly. Many of them stood their ground when the Khungarrii laid siege to the trenches, and the jeering from the Fusiliers that assaulted them during their training had turned to respect in most cases. However, many would not board the battlepillars, preferring to run alongside or scout ahead. Everson watched them with an odd feeling of nostalgia. Seeing the Urmen in their mixture of native and British equipment brought a Colonial air to the whole endeavour.
1 Section was in the first of Big Bertha’s starboard panniers. Gutsy was leant over the side of the basket. The undulating movement of the battlepillar didn’t agree with him.
“He was like this on the boat over from Blighty,” said Porgy cheerfully. “As green as the meat he sells.”
Gutsy straightened up and whirled round with a raised finger to contest the slur, but he clamped his lips tight as his cheeks bellowed out. He leant over the side of the pannier and threw up again.
“And that,” said Porgy to the section replacements who had edged to the far end of the pannier, “is why he’s called Gutsy.”
THE CANYON WAS less than a day’s travel by battlepillar. It was a lot quicker than walking and, by comparison, quicker than the tank or a Hom Forty. The battlepillars’ size also deterred the more opportunistic scavengers and predators, and they reached the canyon by late afternoon without incident, much to Hepton’s disgust.
As eager as he was to see the mysterious wall, Everson erred on the side of caution. The canyon was a good place for an ambush.
“We’ll make camp here for the night,” he ordered. “We’ll go down into the canyon in full light.”
Knotted ropes were thrown over the sides of the panniers and the men shimmied down, thankful for the solid ground—Gutsy most of all, although it took him a few minutes to find his land legs, much to the amusement of the others.
NCOs began barking orders and the men fell to their appointed tasks. Woolridge saw to the battlepillars. They seemed content to spend the night tethered side by side, nose to tail, like horses. Two sections established a secure perimeter and others unloaded supplies while the men set up their bivouacs.
Gazette set about starting a cooking fire for their section. Porgy, however, slunk off before someone volunteered him to collect firewood.
Half an hour later, he crept back to the fire, a grin on his face and patting a couple of webbing pouches.
“I’d stay clear of 4 Section, if I were you,” he said slumping down on his bedroll. “They’re in a bad mood. And it’ll be even wor
se tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, bloody hell, Porgy. What’ve you done now?” asked Pot Shot with a sigh.
“Just relieved them of their last gaspers in a game of ‘Housey,’” he said pulling a battered cigarette packet from his webbing. “Fag, anyone?”
THE NEXT MORNING, the battlepillars descended out of the early morning sunlight into the cold shadow of the canyon, past the still-inert deadly blister-like blue-green hemispherical growths scattered over the surface of the canyon walls.
Atkins and his men had found to their cost that these bloated alien lichen contained reservoirs of some acidic substance. They ate away at the rock itself, absorbing the minerals and leaving the shallow circular pockmarks that scarred the rock all around them.
The battlepillars moved down into the canyon as it twisted and jinked down through the rock strata. Round a bend and high up on the cliff face, at the top of the scree slope, Everson caught his first sight of the mysterious metal wall.
The wall was embedded in the rock, as though the rock face had crumbled away to expose it. A glimmer of dawn light caught the face of the brushed silver metal, suffusing it with a warm crimson glow.
The working party began to disembark with their equipment. By the time they returned this way, he hoped the working party might have some answers, but Everson couldn’t resist seeing the thing for himself. He summoned Atkins to accompany him up the scree slope, eager to inspect this mysterious wall up close.
Everson laid a hand on the sheer metal with a sense of wonder. It was flat, smooth, and warm to the touch, despite the chill of the morning air. “Intriguing,” he said as he considered the conundrum in front of them. It seemed so much at odds with what they had experienced of this world so far. When they first arrived, there had initially been hopes of civilisations with gleaming citadels. Their first encounter with the Chatts and their earthen edifices disabused them of that romantic notion. This, however; this was different. “You’re right. This isn’t natural,” he said as Atkins scrambled up the last few feet of scree to meet him. “So the questions are; what is it, who built it and why?”