The Ironclad Prophecy

by Kelleher, Pat

  Atkins shook his head slowly, his anger now a slow burning fuse. “Talk sense! For God’s sake, talk sense, just for once!” The discussion was attracting attention now; Gutsy moved in.

  “It is the Crater of... Croatoan,” it hissed quietly. “That is why. That is why it is forbidden to us. It is heresy, a blasphemous stain on the world GarSuleth wove for his children. It should not exist.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell us?”

  Chandar reared up on its legs, its mandibles scissoring. “Because the last time an urmen of the Tohmii asked about the fallen one, half of Khungarr was laid waste.” It noticed Gazette pointing his rifle at it and sank back down again. “Your capture of me was no accident. I was sent to seek out the intentions of the Tohmii.” Stung by the revelation, Atkins listened as Chandar carried on. “Your acts of Kurda have cast an anchor line of fate. Between this One and you something is being woven. The question remains, what?”

  Atkins looked out across the vast jungle-choked depression. “The Croatoan Crater?” No wonder Jeffries had come this way. “What’s down there?”

  Chandar became meek and evasive again. “Nothing must enter the crater, nothing must leave. That is the will of GarSuleth.”

  Atkins could feel the short fuse of his anger burning down. He balled his fists. “Gutsy, get this... thing away from me until it decides to talk some bloody sense!”

  Chandar turned as Gutsy escorted it away. “Nothing must enter, nothing must leave!”

  “Yes, well it’s a bit bloody late for that!” snapped Atkins as he looked at the crumbled lip and the track marks left by the tank.

  Mercy steered Atkins away. “We’re all a little tense, mate. I think we should just go. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can come back with help.”

  Atkins’ eyes never left the chatt while Mercy spoke, but he nodded in agreement.

  1 SECTION WAS ready to depart. They had made a litter and were carrying all the jars and amphorae of sacred scents they had managed to salvage from Nazarr before its collapse. There were more than they thought and less than Chandar would have liked. He fussed over them, adding torn crushed leaves to the roughly woven wattle frame that Napoo had constructed, as packing to prevent them from breaking on the long journey back. Atkins, still angry, avoided Chandar, although the chatt was coming back with them. Everson ought to hear what it had to say.

  Atkins went over to where Jack and the other tank crew, Reggie, Cecil, Norman and Wally, waited with Napoo and Nellie. Atkins held out his hand. Jack took it. “We’ll be back as soon as we can. Napoo’s a good man. Look after Nellie.”

  Jack nodded. “We’ll be here.”

  He stepped over to Nellie. “Look, I’m sorry. But we have to do this. We’ll be back in four or five days.”

  Nellie nodded. “Tell Edith I’m fine.”

  Atkins and the remains of his section set off. Pot Shot, his head swathed in bandages under his now-lucky battle bowler, insisted on making the journey with them, even though Nellie was just as adamant he should stay and rest. “I’m hard-headed,” he said, tapping his bandaged skull. “My place is with these reprobates. You don’t know the trouble they’d get into without me.”

  They followed the paths through the jungle, bypassing the Gilderra enclave.

  “Shouldn’t think they’d be too pleased to see us,” said Mercy.

  “We got rid of the evil spirit, didn’t we?” said Porgy.

  “And the tankers cost ’em one shaman and got their replacement killed. I expect Napoo would have something to say about that,” Pot Shot informed them.

  “Oh, aye,” said Porgy. “No doubt.”

  Atkins had plenty of time to mull over all that had happened in the past few days, and figure out how he was going to tell Lieutenant Everson.

  He worried about the awful truth behind the Bleeker Party. It was a terrible secret he was asking his men to keep and he wondered what kind of price it would exact, not just on 1 Section, but also on the rest of the Battalion. That burden would soon belong to Lieutenant Everson.

  But there was hope, too. Well, hope of a kind. He felt the button in his pocket, rubbed his thumb over the raised casting. Atkins had to believe there was a way back to Flora – and his child. He had to put that right, even though it might cost him everything else.

  Right now, though, the fear of not knowing what he’d find back at camp drove Atkins on, and he kept the pace up. They had done forced marches before and nobody complained this time. They all wanted to get back, even though none of them knew what was waiting for them.

  EDITH BELL WAS in the Bird Cage with Stanton, the orderly. They were gathering up the personal possessions of all those killed by the parasitic infection, the patients she had nursed for the past three months. The place was vacant, depressing and forlorn now. Blankets and discarded mess kits littered the ground. The emptiness was heartbreaking.

  She saw Captain Lippett making his way across the parade ground towards the compound. He was the last person she wanted to see right now. She put another blanket on the pile and pretended not to notice him.

  He approached and looked at her in that brusque surgeon’s matter-of-fact manner. “I thought you ought to know, Nurse, Miller died less than an hour ago.”

  Edith replied in a similarly sterile manner. “Thank you, Doctor.” Edith had steeled herself for the news since she had brought him in, but you always hoped. Thinking that was it, she returned to her task.

  However, Lippett had more to say. “I couldn’t have operated without killing him. We have no anaesthetic. I’m reduced to the level of a Crimean butcher here, which is a wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs, as I’m sure you’ll admit. And even if I could have removed those parasites from his bowels, I doubt whether I could have done the same to those attached to his nervous system without inflicting great damage and pain.”

  “I understand that, doctor.”

  Lippett opened his arms. “I’m not an ogre, Nurse. Being stranded here, trying to be everything to everyone... I wanted to be a surgeon, not an army butcher. I can’t do everything and I realise I need staff who can think for themselves, who see things I can’t. Fenton tells me I have such a woman in you, should I but care to listen.”

  His openness took Edith aback. Her reaction must have shown on her face.

  He coughed to cover his discomfort. “This is a new situation for all of us, Nurse Bell, and something we’re going to have to learn to cope with.”

  She wasn’t sure whether he was talking about their general circumstances, here on the planet, or more specifically, his having to listen to a nurse for once. Either way, she gracefully accepted the compliment.

  “On another note, Nurse, if you’re right, and this neurasthenia is the result of emotional shock, then we shall doubtless have more of these cases as men fail to cope. The war may no longer affect them, but this hell of a world may, and we can’t send them down the line for convalescence so there is no relief from it. If you want more responsibility, I’d like you to set up a special ward for them. None of this barbed wire, eh? At least that way they won’t come back to you more injured than when they left if they escape.” Lippett smiled stiffly. He was clearly uncomfortable with the situation. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and report my findings to Lieutenant Everson.”

  Edith curtseyed. “Yes, Doctor.”

  Despite her grief, she walked away taller and straighter, with a renewed vitality she hadn’t felt in a long time. She took a deep breath and smiled. She already had ideas.

  WALKING ACROSS THE fractured plain, back towards the canyon, Atkins and 1 Section saw the unmistakable shape of Tulliver’s aeroplane above, no doubt searching for them. Atkins frowned. Everson must be anxious if he allowed Tulliver up in the air. The pilot waggled his wings in response to their frantic hat waving and headed home. It was a cheering sight. If nothing else, it meant the encampment was still there. It hadn’t vanished back to Earth without them.

  On the other hand, it dismayed Atk
ins. Everson would know now that they didn’t have the tank with them and that failure ate away at him.

  Atkins and the others were shocked when they came over the valley head and looked down into the encampment. He had to be honest, he wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but to see the churned and trampled ground below them was quite a blow. Even Chandar let out long low hiss at the sight of the devastated trenches.

  At first, Atkins thought it was the result of the battle with the Khungarrii, and then he saw the burning pyres of animal corpses and the body of the dead Kreothe, splayed along the valley like a washed up jellyfish at low tide. The veldt beyond, what they could see of it, had fared little better. However, there was no sign of the chatt army that had occupied it scant days ago. He shook his head in disbelief. Myriad questions tumbled through his mind and he was eager for answers.

  As they made their way down the hillside and along the valley towards the encampment, Atkins saw fatigue parties at work, repairing trenches and wire.

  “Eh, up. It’s King Arthur returned from his latest quest,” jeered one working party NCO. “Found the Holy Grail then, have you lad?”

  “One of your admirers?” asked Porgy.

  SERGEANT HOBSON MET Atkins and escorted him straight to Battalion HQ. “Good to have you back, lad.”

  “Glad to be back, Sarn’t. What happened here?”

  “What hasn’t happened, more like. I’m sure the Lieutenant will tell you all about it. He’s anxious to hear your report.”

  Atkins avoided Hobson’s eyes. “I expect Tulliver has told him.”

  “Maybe, but he’s waiting to hear it from you.”

  Atkins knocked on the doorjamb to the battalion HQ dugout.

  “Come!”

  He stepped inside and stood to attention before the Lieutenant’s desk. Everson was writing in the Battalion War Journal; he’d have a lot more to write once Atkins had given his report. “At ease, Corporal.” He finished writing, and then looked up. “Where’s my tank, Atkins?” Everson could tell from the Corporal’s face that it wasn’t good news. He sighed. “You’d better tell me everything.”

  Atkins did. He told him about the canyon and the mysterious metal wall. He explained about the Gilderra enclave and the evil spirit, but kept back Mathers’ worst excesses.

  Everson nodded and waved them away. “It’s all right. I can’t say I’m surprised. Mathers always struck me as a bit windy. Hid it well, though.”

  Atkins frowned. “Sir?”

  “We had an infection here. Some sort of parasite, the MO says. It affected the shell-shocked; their weakened minds were apparently more suggestible to the parasites. The infected act as if they’re possessed. I suppose they were. They’re all dead, now, the shell-shocked. Seems this parasite needs its hosts to be eaten by the those Kreothe things in order to ‘continue its life cycle’ or some such,” Everson paused and let out a sigh. “Lippett thinks the parasites’ main host is probably the chatts and they wouldn’t have been infected if they hadn’t marched here to fight us, foraging for food on the way.

  Atkins felt he was in some bizarre estaminet bad news contest. He told Everson about the ruined edifice of the Nazarrii and the tentacled creature, and their Kreothe. They both assumed it must have been the same shoal. Everson countered with the stampede.

  Then Atkins produced the Bleeker Party’s bible and the journal from his haversack. Everson flicked through them with a wonder that transmuted to fear as the ramifications set in.

  “Dear God,” he said. “We weren’t the first?”

  “It doesn’t look like it, sir.”

  “And they all died here?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes, sir. They didn’t find a way back.”

  Everson looked at him in alarm. “You’ve told your men to keep this a secret?”

  “Yes, sir. And Miss Abbott. I thought you’d best know what to do with the information, sir.”

  Everson ran his fingers across the battered journal, as if to make sure it was real. He was silent for a while, and then he looked up. “You did the right thing, Atkins. Leave this with me. At the moment, things round here are a powder keg. I’m not sure how the men might take the news. I’d prefer to have something positive to say to them. Anything positive, really.”

  Finally, Atkins told him about the Ivanhoe.

  “So it’s lost, then,” said Everson.

  “No, sir. We know exactly where it is, we just can’t reach it. I believe the technical word is ditched, sir.”

  “And where is it?” asked Everson. “Exactly.”

  Atkins took a deep breath and dealt his trump card. “The Croatoan Crater, sir.”

  Everson felt as if he had physically had the wind knocked from him. He sat back in his chair. “The Croatoan Crater?” He hardly dared voice his next thought. In the end, he didn’t have to.

  Atkins fished about in his tunic top pocket and pulled out a blood-stained scrap of khaki. He tossed it onto the desk. Everson looked down at the button attached to it, and then up at Atkins, for an explanation. “We believe it belonged to Jeffries, sir. I believe he was at the Nazarrii edifice on his way to the crater. For what reason, we can only guess. But to my mind the name is a big clue. Along with this.” He produced the tattered paper with the Croatoan symbol and placed it face down, revealing the hastily copied symbols from the edifice.

  “I’ve seen this before, or something like it,” said Everson, leafing through Jeffries’ coded journal. “Aha.” He stabbed a finger on a page and placed the book down next to the paper. The arrangement of symbols was identical.

  “What do they mean?” asked Atkins.

  Everson’s shoulders sagged. “I have no idea.” He looked up at Atkins in earnest. “But the chatt, Corporal, this Chandar. Did you find out anything more from that?”

  Atkins exhaled heavily. Where to start? “Half truths, prophecies and riddles, sir, but it seems there are factions who don’t agree with Sirigar’s urman culling policy, Chandar among them. Factions that might look on us favourably, especially since we’ve come back with some holy scent texts from Nazarr. Chandar seems very keen to return with them to Khungarr. Thinks they might start a revolution, sir.”

  “In the meantime they’re ours, are they?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right, well, let’s get them somewhere safe; keep them under guard until I find out what best to do with them.” Everson got up from his chair and began to escort Atkins to the dugout door. “Thank you, Atkins. It can’t have been easy, especially losing the tank. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “About the tank, sir. We’ve left the tank crew, Miss Abbott and Napoo out there, trying to do what they can.”

  “We’ll organise a salvage party and, while we’re at it, we’ll take a patrol to check out this mystery wall.”

  “But how are we going to raise the tank, sir, even it is in one piece?”

  Everson smiled. “Don’t worry about that, Atkins. We’ve got something that’ll do the job, believe me. Now go and get yourself some food and a rest. You and your men have earned it.”

  Everson sat back in his chair, feeling strangely pleased with their new situation. Since they’d been here, they had done nothing but react to things. Now he had enough information to act, to do something here. The question was, what?

  IN THE JUNGLE of the Croatoan Crater, half-buried by the torn and shredded undergrowth that caught and halted its headlong rush to destruction, the great ironclad ticked and creaked, like a wounded beast gone to ground, its monstrous roar, for the moment, silenced.

  THE END

  The Pennine Fusiliers will return in

  The Alleyman

  GLOSSARY

  Battalion: Infantry Battalionsat full strength might be around a thousand men. Generally consisted of four companies.

  Black Hand Gang: slang for party put together for a dangerous and hazardous mission, like a raiding party. Such was the nature of the tasks, it was chosen from volunteers, where possible.

&nb
sp; Blighty: England, home. From the Hindustani Bilaiti meaning foreign land.

  Blighty One: A wound bad enough to have you sent back to England.

  Boojums: Nickname for tanks, also a Wibble Wobble, a Land Creeper, a Willie.

  Bosche: Slang for German, generally used by officers.

  Breastworks: Temporary, quickly-built fortifications, consisting of low earth walls usually about chest height.

  Canteen: A water bottle.

  Chatt: Parasitic lice that infested the clothing and were almost impossible to avoid while living in the trenches. Living in warm, moist clothing and laying eggs along the seams, they induced itching and skin complaints.

  Chatting: De-lousing, either by running a fingernail along the seams and cracking the lice and eggs or else running a lighted candle along them to much the same effect.

  Commotional Shock: Contemporary medical term referring to the physical short-term concussive effects or ‘shell-shock,’ from a shell blast and viewed as a physical injury, which qualified soldiers for ‘wound stripes,’ possible discharge from the army and a pension.

  Communication Trench: Trench that ran perpendicularly to the fire trench, enabling movement of troops, supplies and messages to and from the Front Line, from the parallel support and reserve lines to the rear.

  Company: One quarter of an infantry battalion, 227 men at full strength divided into four platoons.

  Emotional Shock: Suffering from ‘nerves.’ Unlike commotional shock, those suffering from mental stress were merely seen as sick and not entitled to a ‘wound stripe.’

  Enfilade: Flanking fire along the length of a trench as opposed to across it.

  Estaminet: A French place of entertainment in villages and small towns frequented by soldiers; part bar, part cafe, part restaurant, generally run by women.