I laughed at the stupidity of the clown I’d crushed. “Whoever heard of committing rape outside a brothel?”
“We can’t all be Captain Strappers with the ladies, Jack.”
I nodded. “Aye, that’s true. Well, I must be off old friend, but whatever it is you’re doing in this rotten place, I wish you the best of luck, but somewhere around here there’s a fast horse with the name Strappy branded upon it, so I’ll bid you good…” I was already turning away.
“…On to the next adventure, aye? To find more maidens to rescue, another regiment to spy on, another country to save, perhaps even the whole Empire?” What had this man been taking?
And in the moment, I wondered just how much he knew. After all, I was here, apparently with the rogue Scots Greys, cooperating with Dolan and present during a massacre of Britannia’s troops. I checked my step, which was a mistake, and out of curiosity asked him for clarification.
“You were kidnapped by Dolan, yes, and spent time imprisoned at Redford Barracks?”
He was donned in civilian clothes, having decided to take on the guise of a labourer, in patched breeches that were too big, suspenders under a weskit and flat cap. He’d shaven off his cavalry whiskers, which was a statement in itself. Thinking back, I never once saw him at Rochester with the rest of the regimental comrades. Being Paddy, I’d reasoned, naturally, that he’d merely sustained a pasting in a bare knuckle pub brawl, probably somewhere halfway between Rochester and Liverpool, before spending several weeks convalescing in a ditch. One should not necessarily be alarmed when one’s Paddy friend goes missing.
He snapped his suspenders against his chest. “You’re wondering how that happened, I presume, and if you’ve been imprisoned with a certain Captain Norris, then I’m sure you’ve heard I was tricked into joining the Greys under the story of being gazetted captain.” He smiled when he saw my blank expression and laughed. “Ah, Jack, just ensure you remain a fighting soldier, you’re bloody good at it, but an intelligence agent you’ll never make.”
I considered this madman for a moment, whilst I took the trouble to find my wits. “Wait a moment…you’re saying you were kidnapped intentionally?”
He spoke with as straight and as modest a face as I’d come to expect from one of those ‘real’ hero types, the sort I was supposed to give a wide berth. “What can I say, Jack, but after Ireland, I was inspired by a certain Captain of whom we’re both acquainted.”
Oh, you poor fool, you, thinks I. If only you knew the truth, that I was the only man in the regiment with a kill tally of zero, unless my accidental kills counted, or my kills of colour sergeants who were on our side. I’d wiped out the two best fighters in the reg, both unintentionally. And I dared not tell him it was I who was solely responsible for the incineration of the Queen’s colours. But, while he believed what he did, I was happy to let him. It did no harm.
My mouth had been hanging limp for a while, as we stood in silence. “Why would you voluntarily get yourself kidnapped?”
“Oh, it wasn’t pleasant Jack; ditching the uniform for another, the long solo journey north through dead infested roads and forests, arriving in Edinburgh, to the barracks knowing I’d be committing acts of treason, even if sanctioned by my superiors, only to find that villain Dolan, my old comrade had other intentions for me and that he’d never intended to allow me to serve. But it wasn’t meant to be a kidnapping, that’s when the plan went askew; got drugged, beaten, thrashed, then thrown in a cell for weeks. But let me tell you this…I’d do it all again…for Britannia.” Definitely a maniac whose friendship I had to reconsider because being around people like this only ever lead to danger and, not oddly, I found my feet were pointing away of their own accord as my natural flight response prepared to engage into action.
I considered the reckless fool, who’d somehow allowed himself to get tapped up by the intelligence agencies. “But you escaped?”
A smile crept upon his face. “I remember asking myself, what would Captain Jack Strapper do?” He shrugged his shoulders, like it was all nothing. “It happened on a Saturday night, as they were leading me toward some gauntlet or other. All I did was overpower those big burly brothers en route, take a weapon, slip into the corridors, dispatch a brace of guards, sneaked toward the stables, knocked out three stable boys, tied them up, stole a mount then rode at high speed through the gates and past more guards as the shots came.” He rolled up his sleeve and displayed the bullet wound. “Took a scratch at the last…still needs patching up, but oh well.”
I was stepping slowly back by this point as my bowels began to disintegrate within me. “Well, glad you got out, what? Back to London and life in the intelligence for you no doubt, but as for me, I’m…”
“…You’re the only man for it, Jack.”
If it weren’t for my dicked ham I’d have been far away by now. “For what?”
“For Dolan. To bring him down. To return the Greys to Britannia. To stop any more regiments from falling by a similar wayside.” He said straight faced, which was most diabolical.
Naturally, I’d heard him incorrectly. “I’m not much for the food either. The Haggis is especially foul, the oats tolerable…just. Can’t wait for London though, so I can indulge on some good old English roast beef. So, must be off, old chap…take care of yourself now.” I patted him once on the shoulder, turned on my boot and began limping down the cobbles.
He called after me but I ignored it and then he was by my side again, grinning in his most handsome Paddy way.
“Whoops, silly me, excuse me, good sir.” I shuffled around him, giving the maniac that wide berth he so deserved, all whilst trying to ignore the pain in my leg that prevented me from sprinting like a horse at the Epsom Derby.
“There’s nobody else in all Britannia, perhaps even the Empire and beyond with the capabilities, Jack. It has to be you.” My tormentor persisted.
I stamped my boot and shook my fist. “The blazes with it man. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s surrounded by a bloody cavalry regiment. Besides, he’s just a figurehead. The one you need killing is…”
“…Jack, you’re the only one. You’re close enough. You’re one of his officers and…”
“…And what? How am I supposed to kill him and get away with it? Have you seen the people he’s with? God only knows where he found them and they’re each dastardly to the man, I tell you, enriching themselves at the teat of a dying Empire.”
“We know you’re not here voluntarily, that you were kidnapped. We can only assume it was envy, because of all your achievements and luck with the ladies, and that Dolan can add that deadly sin to his list along with wrath, gluttony, lust and greed. But by some miracle you’re here and have even somehow managed to attain his favour. Doubtless he wants to learn from you and to have a known warrior by his side to make carrying out his evil deeds all the easier.” Sometimes it really was hard taking Sheehan seriously, his mind always seemed to jump from one ridiculous conclusion to another. He clamped a freckled paw on my shoulder and squeezed. “Oh, I’ve no doubt you were intending on bringing him down anyway, and the rest of his rotten band, all by yourself…it wouldn’t be the most gallant thing you’ve done, not by half.”
“Damn your eyes, man, I have business to take care of, like clearing my bloody name from association with a massacre.” I snarled and he grabbed my wrist.
“I saw it, I saw it all and I know you had nothing to do with any of it.”
I almost wondered if he’d somehow seen me single handedly take out the murdering Scots Greys with my blade, Skinner and Dolan included before quelling the ongoing marauding and returning Stirling, followed by the rest of Scotland, to sanity. He hadn’t though.
“Besides, Jack, when I told Horse Guards you were here, they couldn’t wait to issue the order.” He now tore open the inside seam in his weskit, bringing out a rolled up sheet of paper. “Pigeon post, you see.” He held it out toward me and I pretended not to notice it, so he waved it in front of my eyes.
>
“Give it here.” I unrolled it and read the words as my central nervous system lost all capabilities.
It was true. My name in black and white. And even though to me the text was a blur, I could still make out the instructions, that I was to assassinate Lieutenant Colonel Dolan and all other participating officers.
He spoke and I had to ask him to repeat it. “I said, that only by doing this can you clear your most outstanding of names. And with my help, not a word of the Stirling atrocity will leave this city. The printing press will be made full use of, you can rest assured, not that, knowing your modesty, your own plight and predicament fairs greater to your mind than returning the Scots Greys to Britannia. We can’t afford to have the Greys shamed…they’re too important, it’d damage the nation. Can’t have you shamed for the same reason, but it’ll happen unless this madness is stopped. You can get close to him, Jack, and put a bullet in him along with the rest of the whole blasted leadership.” Which would be no fewer than nine officers in total, ten including McGregor.
I’d lost all feeling in my legs, which rendered me incapable of fleeing anyway.
The clearing of my name was the only way I’d ever return to society, to theatre and the better types of ladies I was only now beginning to enjoy, the sort without the pox and facial scars of any kind.
But there was no way I could ever carry out the order. The very notion was most ludicrous.
But what choice did I have?
Cheese And Scotch
After reluctantly agreeing to accept the order, I still fully intended on absconding anyway and to the devil with Sheehan, Horse Guards, Britannia and all their mad ideas, but after spending over an hour trying to talk him out of it, due to the impossibility of the task, and he having none of it, Dolan, Muir and others had found me, but not before Sheehan had made his apologies and took flight into the night. By this time, of course, it was too late for me and stuck with the deadly mission, and the Scots Greys, I was - At least for now.
We set out for Edinburgh using a different road to the one on which we left, Dolan wanting to raid as many fresh villages, hamlets and farms as possible on the way and we’d commandeered several carts and horses to haul the multitude of rubbish we’d lifted from Stirling. It was mostly antiques, ornaments and furniture they’d have to bother pawning at some point, oh and Scotch too, barrels of the stuff raided from a distillery, which wouldn’t be pawned. Dolan was happy with his one major item of theft, a certain national treasure he could barely carry.
“They’ll see me now and quiver, won’t they Strappy?”
Cavalrymen were used to holding long swords, but this one was almost as long, at five and a half foot, as Dolan was tall and quite honestly, the colonel looked ridiculous. It was hard to believe a man over five hundred years ago would have been tall enough to wield it, which leant weight to the theory the sword was a forgery, not that I’d say that to Dolan. And I wasn’t sure how his Scots inferiors would take to a Paddy, with faux English accent, holding the sword of their nation’s hero, but as long as he was happy he was probably less likely to demand I do dangerous things, which suited me.
“They certainly will, Colonel.” I agreed and between the sword, muttons and pigeon eggs, I’d say the respect of the entire regiment was his.
And weirdly, he’d still not asked how much richer I was after Stirling, whether I could pay off any or all the debt owed and I was beginning to suspect he enjoyed my company, I was a national hero after all, the type to which he aspired, not that he’d invited me wenching or anything like that.
Taking this more inland route, away from the River Forth, showed evidence of what was to come. Because every village, hamlet and farm we trotted through had been attacked by the same dead hordes that had shambled by us on the high road as we were heading toward Stirling. Back then, in my trauma, I’d numbered them in the many tens of thousands. Now, I realised how much of an underestimate that had been.
The evidence was in the hazy Scotch moorland, the flora that usually portrayed it, which had been trampled flat for miles and miles, from horizon to horizon either side of the road. Not one deer, sheep or goat did we pass because, being animals, they had more sense than the fools whose blood and bones were the only evidence they’d stayed behind to defend their abodes against an enemy far greater than any Englishman.
There were still things to loot though, especially in the farms and the fact the men were ordered to filch as much wheat and cheese as possible revealed much as to our plans.
Braggan Farm had once kept chickens, the mesh fence of which had been trampled over by so many feet it was now a part of the grass, which in turn had churned to mud and had bits of breeches and even kilts that’d torn off and littered the former coop along with poultry blood and carcasses.
The stable was a sight and highlighted the sheer mass of dead that’d migrated across the farm from the direction of Glasgow. Both the west and east partitions were now crushed into the dirt where the dead, through sheer weight of numbers and being unable to avoid the barn due to the throng, had toppled them both, bringing the roof with it and at least twenty zombies now spat and hissed, scratched and cursed from beneath the fallen timber, incapable of removing themselves to reach tasty sustenance in the form of cavalrymen who tormented them with their presence.
The stench about the farm was so severe even the horses were gagging and the only men who didn’t cover their breathing apparatus were those who’d, over the years, dulled their senses with the ingestion of too much Scotch - Probably more than half of them.
We passed several more dead on the way out, those who’d tripped before being crushed under the feet of their brethren. One unlucky zombie whose head was wedged between two large rocks now wriggled and squirmed and risked removing every sinew from its face lest he stop trying to get at us. We all laughed at its misfortune, some men and horses emptying their bladders and bowels over it until it became a game to cover it entirely. My own contribution was vomit, which was ejected before Muir had even confirmed to me the population of Glasgow had been over three hundred and fifty thousand, and then the only evidence of there being a zombie beneath was the fact the steaming mass of excrement shifted about.
And always the characteristic dust cloud of an army on the move swelled in the air somewhere between we and the capital, an incredible churning sign that soon, one of the great cities of Europe would change forever.
But then, just outside a place named Carron, the dead unexpectedly changed direction.
Dolan ordered the column to halt whilst he looked through his eye glass. “What towns are nearby?” He asked nobody in particular.
We each looked to the other and shrugged as the hope brimmed within me, that the inhabitants of some other place would be slaughtered instead.
It was Major Muir, in his wisdom, who spoke. “Looks like they’re detouring to Falkirk, sir.”
“Oh thank God for that.” I said a little too loud and felt the meat hook grab my shoulder from behind.
“What do yee mean by that?” It was none other than Killer Skinner himself whose breath I felt on my neck. “I forget yee’re afreed of the dayd.”
I convulsed and wretched as the warm Scotch filled breath engulfed me. “I…I mean, it gives us more time to prepare a defence…that’s all I meant.” I heard a grunt and then the clamp was released.
“It’ll only augment their numbers, Colonel,” Muir helped, “Falkirk…a few thousand at least.”
The colonel snapped closed the eye glass. “What’s an extra few thousand on top of the hundreds of thou that’ll soon be knocking at the gates of Edinburgh?”
Gates? What gates? There were no bloody gates! The colonel was deluded if he thought that.
Oh, I had no doubt we’d have to confront them eventually. The present constricted states of my heart and ball sack told me that. But this deviation was a blessing, because at the very least it’d give us precious time to further fortify the barracks, the rest of the city could whistle
for all I cared, but the more I thought about it the more I hoped that maybe there was the slightest chance that after the dead had consumed Falkirk, they’d skip Edinburgh entirely, perhaps even bugger off south to England. After all, there’d be other towns to vanquish; Cumbernauld, Airdrie, Motherwell, it was of no real consequence as long as they were far from me and I doubted they had a rigid plan they had to stick with. Though realistically, as things stood, it looked like we were surrounded, or at least I was.
To the west was Stirling, a place where Captain Jack Strapper was wanted by pitchfork wielding townsfolk for the one atrocity he had nothing to do with. To the north flowed the wide River Clyde, Scotland’s most important river, which blocked a potential Highland escape. The dead, and a swarm far greater than any I’d seen in Ireland were even now migrating to the south, blocking my getaway and return to England. The only option for me was east, back to Edinburgh and whilst I was embedded within a heavily armed regiment of hardened fighting men, snug behind barrack walls, it was obvious where my greatest chance for safety lay, and that was despite any mad orders that might come from the top in the meantime. There were no ideal choices, but a coward must always carefully consider his options and then choose the safest one. So, after this new development, any thoughts of escape would have to wait, for the moment.
It was twilight when we returned to Edinburgh and trotted in as heroes, the populace unaware of what we really were and saw us as an extra two hundred fighting men to protect them, the poor souls.
Not Dead Yet: A Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1 - 2 Page 35