“He’s right, William,” laughed Winston. “Keep going like you are, you’ll float above this mess one day.”
“Leave him be,” Morris said, coming to his friend’s defence. “You can laugh all you want now, but William will have the last laugh when he writes a book about all of this.”
“Not if he gets his head blown off first,” Liggett mumbled, “and that’s exactly what’ll happen if he don’t join the rest of us back down here on earth.” His mood did not improve when he found the cigarette in a small, brown puddle. “Look at this,” he gasped. “The only bit of water on this whole bleeding road, and Potter makes me drop my lastciggiein it!”
“Can we have a break, Crown Sergeant?” Winston called out to the large man ahead of him.
Crown Sergeant Sterling paused and looked back at the four men. “I suppose you lads will be wanting tea next then?”
“No, Crown Sergeant, it’s just that we haven’t stopped since . . .” Winston’s voice trailed off, lost in the warbling of the birds.
William closed his eyes and unbidden images of the last battle flooded in, the horrors of close-quarter bayonet fighting, the brutal, terrified expressions on their enemies’ faces that meant It’s you or me. Hideous memories of how Dunhill and the others had died.
Sterling softened. The past was haunting him as well.
“I guess we could all do with a break,” he said quietly. “Right then! We’ll rest here and carry on just before sunset. Should be there within another couple of hours.”
Gratefully the exhausted men unslung their knapsacks, rested their rifles upright to keep them clean and sank to the ground. William felt his muscles knotting into cramps, and he spent long minutes stretching the pain away. He did not mind the cramps. He could deal with them. There were far worse pains he had seen other people suffering, indignities visited upon them by murderous Man . . .
“What will we do when we reach the forest, Crown Sergeant?” Morris asked.
The big man drank deeply from his canteen before answering. “Find out if any of the other lads made it out alive,” he answered grimly. “See if we’re the lot of it. If so, we’ll fall in with the French and the Yanks until we reach the Hindenburg line. The Yanks are sure to have a radio. I’ll get advisement from headquarters on what we’re to do.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Crown Sergeant,” Winston joked, “I’ll just walk on to London. I’ve seen enough to the Hun and I’d like to hear a bit more about this Chaplin fellow.”
“That’s very noble of you, Private,” Sterling said with a humorless grin. “But I’m guessing you’ll stay with the rest of us.”
“Who is this Chaplin bloke anyhow?” asked Morris. “I heard some boys from the Royal Fifth speaking of him as well.”
“A politician, I should guess,” Liggett said. “One of the bastards . . .”
They chatted, bantered, avoiding any subject close enough to remind them of the war. William tuned them out because he so liked to watch, to see the way their eyes changed when the spoke of home, to sense the relaxation settling into their bones when they could forget the fight, even for a moment. Fighting men, he thought, were as close to the basis of the human animal as could be. Every emotion was emphasized, every thought clear, the fear and the hope and the dread actually felt, not just thought.
“Penny for your thoughts, William,” Morris said.
William started, realized he had been drifting away, although to where he had no idea.
“I’m not sure I could articulate them properly,” he said, pausing to think for a moment. He was aware that the others were silent now, watching him. “Have you noticed the birds and the insects all around us?”
“I hadn’t given it much thought,” Morris admitted, fishing through his knapsack.
“There’s a war going on all over, happening in their very home, yet they stay. They adapt. They sing along with the sounds of the artillery. Remember when we saw the tanks?”
Morris nodded. Then he frowned.
William wondered if they were remembering the same thing.
There had been more of them then, of course. They’d been farther north, securing a bridge to provide safe passage for the armored column. It was the first time any of them had actually seen the new form of weaponry. The tanks had been slow, ponderous things. Even Crown Sergeant Sterling, a career soldier, marvelled at the sheer destructive force the machines bespoke.
As the column had rolled safely across the bridge and chewed its way through a field on the other side, a herd of deer stood watching from the treeline.
“Those deer adapted as well,” William said to the seated men. “Something new had entered their home and they investigated, then dismissed it. The sound of artillery echoes off the hills, and the birds become accustomed to it so quickly. I was just wondering . . . how does nature accept the changes?” He shook his head. “How long before it refuses to accept them?”
He kicked at the dirt under his feet, and wondered whether it was the dust of dead men.
“And just look at the new ways we’ve devised to kill each other: the machine-gun; the tank; poison gas! The press calls this the war to end all wars. We hurtle toward our date with destiny, our date with the future. Yet what do we really know of the world we live on? What mysteries of nature have eluded our grasp? What do we truly know of this planet’s inhabitants? I wonder what other creatures have adapted to this chaos . . . creatures we don’t even know about yet. After all, this is their home too. We’re the intruders here. We’re the murderers.”
“Well, that may be,” Morris replied, “but it’s not very well our choice.” He fished around in his rucksack and pulled out a faded photograph. A young woman stared back at him. He sighed deeply.
“You miss her,” William stated.
“Oh aye, I miss her terribly,” Morris whispered. “But it’s more than that.”
“What?”
The men were silent, none of them looking at Morris, all of them waiting to hear what he had to say.
“I’m sure I’ll never see her again.”
There was something wet and red in the middle of the trench. William stepped over it as he ran. Behind him, Brown was still screaming.
Dunhill was holding something ropy and glistening. As William raced toward him Dunhill held up his cupped hands in a plea for help, and the shining strands spilled out into the mud.
William knelt to help him, the mud squelching around his knees. Desperately, he grabbed at the soldier’s innards, clawing his hands as they slipped through his fingers and into the dirt.
He scraped at the mud. A pair of yellow eyes stared up at him.
They blinked.
“Everything has adapted, William,” Dunhill spat, a crimson froth forming on his mouth. “Known, and not yet known.”
Morris careened around the corner then, running at the two men squatting in the muck. Behind him came the Hun, bayonets gleaming in the moonlight.
“William!” Morris screamed as a blade sprouted from his chest. “Are you writing this down?”
The Germans trampled over him, bearing down on William. The eyes in the mud blinked again, then narrowed. William struggled to rise and two gnarled hands burst from the earth, grasping his shoulders in a fierce grip.
“William!”
He opened his eyes with a gasp. Morris was shaking him.
“Come on then, time to get up. Something’s happening.”
“I was dreaming,” William said breathlessly, looking around in confusion. “Dunhill . . .”
“I dreamed about him too,” Morris said, nodding his head sadly. “I imagine we’ll dream it forever.”
“No,” William insisted, “this wasn’tjust the battle, not just what happened to Dunhill. There was something in the earth.”
“Look lively, lads,” Sterling hissed. “We’ve got company.”
A thick fog had descended over the countryside, obscuring the beet fields and the road in front of them. William glanced at hi
s watch. It was nearly sundown. Already the gloom was pervasive, the mist swallowing what little sunlight was left.
Something was coming toward them.
“Off the road,” Sterling commanded in a harsh whisper.
They scrabbled into the bushes as the disembodied sounds of many booted feet approached.
“Bloody hell,” Liggett muttered, “if it’s a fight they want, we’ll give it to them.”
“Quiet,” Morris whispered.
Out of the fog a column of men appeared. French infantry. A slackness pervaded their tattered ranks. The soldiers looked exhausted, covered with dust and dripping with sweat. Gloomy and silent, the procession passed by their hiding place.
Sterling called out a challenge and the ranks halted. They stared at the soldiers in the ditch, showing no hint of surprise. In halting French, Winston conversed with them. Then they shuffled onward.
“What news?” Sterling asked him.
“I’m not sure, Crown Sergeant,” Winston replied, a look of confusion on his face. “Apparently, a major offensive is about to begin in the Argonne trenches. But they’re not participating. They’re leaving this area.”
“Deserting,” Liggett snapped. “How do you like that?”
“No,” Winston countered, “that’s what doesn’t make sense. They said that they just had an encounter in a village up the road here. I couldn’t understand it though. My French is lacking. Something about the dead in the ground.”
“What do we do, Crown Sergeant?” William asked.
Sterling shrugged. Shouldered his knapsack. Slapped a fat fly from his cheek. “We move on.”
Edging along the fog enshrouded road, they encountered the sad dregs of a fleeing army. Soldiers and civilians passed by in disorder and panic; women carrying children in their arms and pushing them in small carriages; young girls in their Sunday best; boys and old men hefting all sorts of pointless artifacts of their safe life before the war. Soldiers slumped on peasant carts, gazing at nothing.
An infantryman galloped by on an officer’s horse. Spying them, he dismounted and threw his arms around the animal’s neck. He gasped something in French and then dashed off into the fields.
“What did he say?” asked Liggett.
“He thanked it for saving his life,” Winston replied.
“That’s an officer’s horse,” Sterling observed. “The fellow fled on his captain’s horse!”
Another soldier paused to speak to them.
“Ask him why it is he doesn’t have a rifle, knapsack, or equipment,” Sterling told Winston.
Winston listened to the soldier’s reply and then translated. “He says he lost them swimming across the Meuse.”
“Bollocks,” Liggett replied critically. “His clothes are dry! Here we are, fighting for their country, and they flee like schoolchildren!”
Darkness encircled them like a steel trap as they approached the village. The procession had trickled down to a few stragglers, the last of whom approached them through the dispersing mist. He bore the rank of officer and greeted them in English.
“Where are you going?” Sterling inquired. “We’re on our way to the Argonne forest. Do you know what’s happening there?”
“I wish only to be away from this cursed ground,” the Frenchman replied.
“But sir,” Sterling said, fighting hard to hide his exasperation, “why have you left your unit?”
“I am a company commander,” he stated proudly. Then he cast his eyes to the ground. “And my company’s only survivor.”
“But what the hell happened?” shouted Sterling.
“I can speak no more of this place. Let me by!”
The Frenchman brushed past them and William caught a brief glimpse of the tears streaking his grimy face. Then he vanished into the dark along with everyone else.
Face set with steely determination, Crown Sergeant Sterling motioned them onward. With the sounds of the battle drawing closer – the noise of death seemed to be carried further by the night – they entered the village.
Nothing remained save for a few crumbling walls. The five men walked slowly, rifles at the ready, their hearts hammering with fear. The road was paved with rubbish: linens and undergarments; litters of clothing; letters; burst mattresses and eiderdowns; fragments of furniture and shattered pottery.
And the dead lay everywhere.
Retching, William stumbled across five corpses in a tattered heap, all of them children, all of them hugging each other for comfort in death. Farther along lay a young mother and her two daughters, all dressed in their Sunday best, their faces forever frozen in an horrific visage.
Morris placed a comforting hand on William’s shoulder as the young man heaved into the dust.
“What do you think happened here?” William rasped.
“I don’tknow. They don’t seem burned or shot. Yetmosthave been—” The private’s answer was cut short by a piercing squeal from behind a ruined building, followed by a guttural grunt.
William jumped to his feet and dashed after Morris and Sterling.
Another squeal ended abruptly as a rifle echoed in the darkness.
They rounded the corner and halted in shock. In what had once been a courtyard, bodies had been stacked like cordwood, limbs flung out in deathly abandon. Pigs wandered through the pickings, feasting on human flesh.
Winston sighted and squeezed the trigger. A second bloated beast sagged to the ground, ignored by its brethren. Liggett was frantically reloading, his efforts punctuated with more swearing.
“Stand down,” ordered Sterling. “If there’re snipers about, you’ll bring them down on our heads!”
Liggett cursed again and brought the rifle up to his shoulder, drawing a bead on the nearest swine.
“Stand down, Corporal! That’s an order, Liggett!”
The shaken Corporal looked at them, and in the moonlight William noticed the tears of rage and bewilderment that streaked the dust on his face.
“This isn’t right,” Winston exclaimed. “It’s not natural!”
Sterling stepped forward to survey the makeshift abattoir. “I spent twenty years on the farm, lads,” he said quietly. “And I never saw pigs do this. They’ll eat most things, but . . .”
“Crown Sergeant,” called Morris. “Come and look at this!”
He was standing before a small mound of dirt. The men approached, wondering what new horror was about to be revealed. Slowly, they took their places next to Morris.
In the ground before them was a gaping hole. The yawning entrance led down into the earth, disappearing from sight. A peculiar smell wafted from the chasm. It reminded William of pig iron and summer storms.
“What do you make of this, then?”
“Artillery,” Winston answered, the word almost forming a question. “The Germans must have shelled the village.”
“No,” Sterling countered, “this was no explosion, we can all see that. This was dug. See that dirt? This tunnel was made from beneath the ground, not from above.”
“Well then what in bloody hell was it?” Liggett stammered.
“Something else. I don’t know what.”
“Perhaps the Germans have some new tunnelling machine,” William offered.
“There you go, thinking you’re bleeding Jules Verne again,” growled Liggett. “Pull your head out of yer arse, William!”
“Leave him alone,” Morris retorted and stepped toward the surly Corporal.
“Enough!” shouted Sterling, his voice echoing in the silent streets. “The Devil take you all, that’s enough! Whatever made this hole, whatever atrocity occurred in this village, we won’t solve anything by standing here. Let’s move on!”
Shaken, they departed from the village, stepping gingerly over the scattered corpses. The road wound on, cresting a hilltop a few kilometres away. Stealthily, they crept over the hill and looked down upon the valley of the Argonne Forest.
Away in the distance, the trees stood silent watch over the battlefield
. The valley was a labyrinth of trenches, both German and Allied. To William, it looked as if ants had burrowed through the vast field, leaving no acre untouched. Ghostly fires dotted the landscape, as soldiers from both sides huddled in the mud while darkness closed upon them.
A maze of barbed wire surrounded the trenches, and they picked their way carefully through it.
William was struck by the silence engulfing the valley. During a battle, when the heavy field guns, rifles, and machine guns were all booming at the same time, the noise was so tremendous that it seemed beyond the limits of human endurance. Amidst a storm of steel and fire, the riot of battle would change in character, volume and tempo; rising and falling with alternating diminuendo and crescendo in both a hurrying and slackening pace. Relentless, the deafening volley of reports had always sounded to William like the clattering of a clumsy and lumbering wagon, jolting heavily over the frozen ruts of a rough country lane. Sometimes it reminded him of the brisk hammering of thousands of carpenters and riveters. Or it could have been the rumbling of hundreds of heavy goods trains, thundering and bumping over uneven points in the line and meeting head on in a hideous collision.
But even more awful than that hellish cacophony were the sudden and unexpected silences, which made William hold his breath and wait for the storm to start again.
It was this silence that greeted them as they entered the trench system. And William finally gasped a new breath, because the barrage had truly halted. For a time, at least.
The ground was a heavy, impermeable clay that had been gouged and displaced in a series of tunnels and ditches. Thick mud puddles filled every hole and depression, forming a sticky mire for them to flounder through.
“Halt,” called a voice from the darkness. “Who goes there?”
Sterling brought up a hand, stopping them as they slogged through the water. “Who do you think? The bloody Red Baron?”
“I’ve got to ask. Wh-who goes there?”
William could just make out the young private who had issued the challenge, a skinny chap barely old enough to shave, with a uniform caked onto his body like a second skin. His eyes seemed far too big for his face. His rifle was shaking, the butt clinking against the lad’s belt buckle.
The Mammoth Book of Terror Page 40