A state of hysteria and impending dread hung thick in the air and upon the countenances of every man and woman. They ran from door to door, across litter strewn cobbled streets, shouting for friends and family to come shack with them, “we’ll see it oot together.” Even the dogs were frenzied and barked incessantly, to the annoyance of many. I saw a horse run riderless up one street before disappearing into one of the many narrow passages of the city. Merchants, always sensing an opportunity, pushed large carts of essential wares, selling candles, apples, bread, fish, Scotch and even extra planks of wood to bolster the doors and windows. They were mobbed and I saw at least two traders lying bleeding on the ground.
If the zombies don’t destroy you, thinks I, you’ll destroy yourselves. Not that I cared particularly.
And then we heard the source of the panic, in the form of a rotund town cryer dressed in kilted Scotch garb and ringing a large bell. “The dayd are comin’, the dayd are comin’. Glasgoo es goon, Glasgoo es goon. Remeen indoors to avoid the dayd.” Well, if it didn’t work for the people of Ireland, Glasgow and large swathes of England and Scotland, it was unlikely to work in Edinburgh either.
It was when we returned to the barracks when things became truly interesting, amusing and terrifying in one.
“Where the devil have you been?” The man, in his sixties, wearing navy blue breeches and cross belt above white tunic decorated lavishly in medals held his shako under one arm and immediately clocked Dolan for the lowly maggot he was. Oh, and he had a general’s insignia on his gorget patch.
Dolan almost fell off his horse, steadied himself and saluted. “Sir!”
The general stomped away from his escort, an octet of heavily armed bruisers and toward our colonel, thrashing his arm about. “Get down from there and dismiss your bloody men this minute.”
Dolan did and I was happy to be told to remain behind, along with the rest of the officers for an impromptu confrontation in the courtyard.
“Sir,” Dolan almost wept, “why don’t we take this to the mess, have some brandy, no?”
“Bugger brandy. Perhaps if you were here you’d have seen the chaos that’s bloody coming.” General Mackenzie had the deeply tanned face of a man who’d served in India and quite some weighty black whiskers on him too. I recognised the man, the most senior soldier in Scotland, from the portrait in the officer’s mess of him stood on the blood soaked fields of Agra during the Mutiny only two years prior. A man I’d not want to cross. “Now listen here, you. I’ve served with more than my fair share of squirt officers who purchased commissions far above their station and ability…but now, with this, in my country, you little Irish upstart, you do as you’re told, you don’t baulk or hesitate, you don’t delay, you don’t dilly daddle, you don’t fail and you don’t fucking fuck up.” His face was a rare shade of red, of the type you don’t normally see this far north.
“Sir, our presence was requested west and we cleared…”
“…Quiet, bloody man!” The general donned his shako and held a hand out to a nearby aid who handed over a sheet of paper. “Here’re your bloody orders.”
Dolan rushed forward, almost stumbling, and seized the document. It was all too much fun and every man, Skinner excluded, seemed scared in some way. It was all in the wide eyed glares and trembling appendages. Dolan unfolded the paper and read, Mackenzie, in his impatience imparting the information for us.
“You’re to sally out and support our attack on the dead when the order comes. We have three battalions of the finest infantry in all the world, ready and waiting in the castle; the 90th Perthshire Light Infantry, the 78th Highlanders resplendent in their kilts and,” he paused for this moment, “the 42nd Royal Highlanders.” Otherwise known as the legendary Black Watch, the very same who booted the French from Egypt and who years later would be one of the only regiments to fight at Quatre Bras, to hold up the French long enough and enable the Battle of Waterloo to take place two days later, forever altering Europe’s course. As it turned out, Scotland would not go down without a fight. “That’s two and a half thousand men and, what remains of your Greys, will cover our right flank in the field of my choosing, you understand me?” He removed his shako and scratched at the grey hair beneath. “Where the folly hell are the rest of your men anyway? I’ve been damn well assured you number three hundred.”
Dolan was ready with the answer. “Out exercising the horses, sir.”
“Exercising? I’ve been waiting two hours for you people and you don’t keep a general waiting, bigod. Did you send out the whole lot at once? There’s been a scattering of you Greys loitering around with pipes and Scotch. Almost burst a bowel when they saw me.”
“Exercise and scouting sir, clearing the roads and such.” Dolan again spoke with that curious mix of English upper class gent and Paddy, which could only mean Mackenzie was rattling him.
“Well, no more, I say. Gather your men and wait. You wait for my order, you hear? You got artillery? No, of course you don’t. I’ll send a gun crew down to work the guns from your south walls…aim for the damned buggers, you hear? They’re likely to approach from the south and guess what…you, all comfortable in your barracks sit plum in their marauding way, so you will fire on them…give them a ruddy good licking, what? Oh, and I see you have cheese on those wagons, although God only knows how you got so much of the stuff, but have half sent up to the castle, won’t you, with haste and some of that Scotch too.”
He told us to make sharp and get to it, because the fate of Scotland would be decided on how fast we acted, particularly with regard to transporting the Scotch to the castle. And then he made to leave, turning toward his carriage which was parked just inside the gates.
I longed to go with him, to the castle and the walls and the three battalions of infantry which had not gone rogue and safety. My legs were already wobbling his way but it was too much of a risk, too much uncertainty and what when the general demanded I let go of his leg, having already blathered and pleaded, to be left once again with Dolan and Skinner, whose eyes were even now shifting to me and I froze and could’ve wept because we’d been ordered to sally out, to fight the dead on the army’s right flank.
The carriage clattered out the barracks and Dolan had the men take the cheese, Scotch and everything else to the stores.
Vocation In Life
The next morning an aid to General Mackenzie galloped in demanding to know what of the provisions we’d promised to send for our fighting brothers in the castle and that we’d better get to it quick, or else the general himself would be back down here like a shot and bringing all bloody hell with him too.
Dolan had pardoned himself then returned after five minutes having thought up the excuse that he’d been unable to spare the horses because they were out foraging or scouting or training or else carrying out the other business of a cavalry battalion in wartime. More discussions ensued, after which Dolan decided to relinquish a token quantity of cheese and Scotch, enough to hopefully pacify the general long enough for the dead to arrive, by which time it’d be too late for interference and unwanted messengers to risk the near four mile trip from the castle to Redford Barracks.
Two days after that, the customary dust cloud appeared in the sky to the south, easily visible from within the low brick walls of our garrison. Another messenger was received, demanding cheese and Scotch with haste along with a dozen or so homing pigeons that had been hatched and raised at Redford, just so the general, if needed, could remain in contact with us. Pigeons were a faster method of sending messages than horse, even over short distances, and in the case of an emergency, which was expected, easy communication would be essential.
I’m not sure what happened to the messenger, but a few hours after arriving, his mount was placed in our stables along with the rest, the only horse in the barracks that wasn’t grey.
A pigeon did make it through and carried a message apparently summoning Dolan to the castle, but he didn’t go and unfortunately I wasn’t privy to the reply t
he colonel had spent an hour crafting before sending back the same way.
During the three days since arriving back, I’d been kept busy supervising construction of the supplemented and improved defences. And what better man for it, aye? Why have engineers and a team of experienced sappers when you could have a genuine coward for the task and I wondered if Dolan was even aware as to the genius behind his decision making. Indeed, it was the first time in my short ‘soldiering’ career I genuinely felt I was doing some good, that I’d found my calling, my vocation in life, as it were. And with the dead almost upon us, shooting Dolan or anyone else was the furthest thing from my mind, not whilst he and I were likeminded, for the time being at least. Whilst I cared about my name and reputation, it came far down the list of priorities when my own personal safety was in doubt, as it now certainly was. So Sheehan could whistle for his order. And so could Horse Guards. At least for the moment.
Indeed, I attacked the job with a rare venom, being most unhappy at the height of the walls, particularly at the south side and had outward facing spikes specially forged in the armoury and placed three inches apart around the entire perimeter. They protruded like death from the brickwork, high enough to prevent even the tallest zombie from scaling the barrier. Later, I realised it’d be even better to have a second layer, staggered from the first, these placed at a height of five and a half feet and jutting straight outwards, which should put to sleep anything that made it beyond the earlier defences.
These were ditches, which I’d seen work to wonderful effect in Ireland and were dug five and fifteen paces from the wall, the entire length of the perimeter, a double trench for the dead to fall and disappear into, with yet more spikes placed at its depth. The south side had an extra ditch dug thirty paces from our gates and where the cobble road interfered with our defensive line, the stones were removed and brought inside.
The garrison, for whatever reason, possessed a watch post by the gate, essentially a small hut to house the sleepy sergeant who occupied it. It was useless for us and so I had the carpenters hastily build a watchtower on top of it, where it now loomed over the south gate at great height, the cobbles hoisted inside for added projectiles. It wouldn’t provide much in the way of protection, save for the occasional pot shot from a distance, but it would be our eyes and advanced warning system of the inevitable attack from the south.
It was whilst rummaging around in the stores that I came upon, what the Sergeant-at-Arms described as a new invention, that went by the name of barbed wire. It had been brought up from England in the months before to deter reavers, gypsies and the poor from stealing ponies from the paddock, but never used. It was kept in coils and would be waist height when deployed. What impressed me though were the jagged, sharp spikes and edges, some sections even containing razor blades and I was sure I could find a use for it in order to further protect myself…sorry…the garrison.
I was working fourteen hour days and ensuring the men under my control were doing the same and when that wasn’t enough, or when I became panicked such as the moment the dust cloud appeared in the sky, I found myself in Dolan’s office pleading for more hands.
He was drinking from a mugful of that yellowy transparent gunk and had a trio of pets perched on his desk pecking at seeds. “I’d help you if I could, Strappy, but as you know, we’re hard pressed. Skinner’s out with a troop raiding the farms for livestock and I’m having the devil of a time here keeping a general at bay.”
I wasn’t having this. “Sir, there’re a hundred men in the cells and they’re bound to help once they realise they’ll be for it along with everyone else if the dead break through and should they refuse, well, that’s what the crop’s for, bigad.”
To my joy, he gave it some thought. “It’s already something I’ve considered, but what worries me is the possibility, no matter how small, that they might attempt a coup. They’re good fighting men with a grudge and I’m not sure there’s anything more dangerous than that.”
I shook my head. “They’ve been living off gruel, sir…one portion a day, as I well know, which is barely enough to sustain forced labour alone, never mind a bloody coup. But if you’re so concerned, which I completely understand by the way, then all we need do is further halve their rations. They’ll be so weakened and weary, I highly doubt they’ll be much of a problem for us.”
He rubbed his ginger chop, where the bristles were already growing back at an impressive rate. “Be it on your head, Strappy.”
And so, I had an extra hundred men to help prolong my longevity.
And what a sight they were, something I’ll remember for the rest of my days as they clattered their way up the stone steps, shambling across my field of vision a safe distance away, manacled at the feet, hands too for good measure, each to the man glaring at me with eyes not dissimilar to the dead, the one difference being they possessed that little something extra, but it wasn’t life. No, it was something between sheer hatred and pain, of the sort when your eyes are adjusting to the light, but I couldn’t be blamed for that.
Not that they’d be told they were only seeing daylight and experiencing some small semblance of freedom because of my kindly intervention. No - It mattered not to them since I was the chap holding the whip and neither did I shy from using it. What choice did I have? The dilemma from the start was always weighing up the greater danger; zombies or hardened soldiers out for vengeance, but I always ensured I was standing between two heavily armed sergeants, who’d been promoted after the disappearance of the McGurn brothers, wherever they were.
I didn’t particularly enjoy whipping the menials, not really, but when you’re working to a tight deadline and you have men fainting on you, what choice is there? The dead were approaching and valuable time was being wasted, an example had to be set. And after the first few men were strapped to the wagons and tickled with the cat o’ nine tails, a remarkable thing happened - They stopped keeling over. It was the main difference between the Paddy and the Scot. Whereas you can flog a Mick all day long to no avail, a Jock will soon learn his lesson, and probably remember it too.
Undistracted by it all, Jimmy had been working away with his slop bucket and I’d been watching with muted interest for fifteen minutes as he fed each man rations from a reduced sized tin mug.
“What the devil do yee call this, yee simple minded fool.”
“Where’s the rest o’ it?”
“Hoo can we werk oor arses orf on such a wee bounty?”
The boy was pushed and cajoled and threatened and spat at and then one man decided he’d had enough and cuffed Jimmy about the ear, making him cry. They laughed and threatened him with more of the same and then Major Muir arrived, as always, and reprimanded the men, received some back and left with his arm around the boy.
It took twenty minutes for him to return whence he found me and reached out with the filthy tin cup, bucket of cold gruel clasped in the other mitt.
I batted it away. “What in the blazes? Do I look like a prisoner? Well not anymore, my lad, so I want bacon, ham, eggs and none of that pigeon rot, real chicken eggs, you hear me, and some fresh coffee too.” I brandished the cat, just to emphasise my point and he ran in the direction of the kitchens.
Ten minutes later he was back again and this time with exactly what I’d asked and I sat in the afternoon sun, enjoying the feast as the prisoners dug pits nearby.
The distribution of bounties was far from the only problem with this new arrangement, however.
It happened during a midday routine lap of the perimeter when I found a Captain Norris, shovel in hand, scowl of eye, scrutinising me whilst digging the outer southern ditch. It was clear he was regarding me with suspicion and understandably so, given the last time we were together it was as fellow prisoners, fighting side by side, comrades in arms at the gauntlet. Now, I was one of ‘them,’ and all too willingly, wielding the cat with a practiced arm, and threatening to use it too. Anyway, I decided to stay well clear of him.
If only I were the
only one to experience problems with former acquaintances. In fact, I was to get off extremely lightly by comparison.
Of course, with such things, there are often problems one never envisages and with the prisoners having for many years served alongside the rogue element, the potential for conflict now showed. It happened when one of said element was setting spikes into the wall’s exterior and, as it chanced, an old comrade was sweating in a nearby ditch, toiling, pitching out the earth with a rusty shovel.
“Stewart? Stewart? Tis yee, ain’t it?”
Stewart, with his back to the man, pretended not to hear and continued screwing the spike into the cement between two bricks.
“Stewart, it is yee, hoow coould yee? All these years serving tergether…and after Balaclava…where’s yeer bloody looyalty, man?”
Concerned, I stepped closer to the interaction, asked a loitering caber tosser as to the identity of the Mac in the pit and was told it was the man formerly known as Sergeant Henry Ramage, who, as I’d read in the regimental records, was a holder of the prestigious Victoria Cross, awarded after saving the life of a private soldier who’d been surrounded by seven Russians on horseback.
“Stewart? Will yee noot even acknowledge me? What’s the matter with yee man?”
Stewart closed his eyes, his cheeks turning red.
“Stewart? It’s me, yeer oold pal Henry.”
Stewart’s shoulders hunched over and then his head shot leftwards, towards the man carrying out the same task several yards away. “Whoever forged these screws needs to do a better job, they’re bleedin’ useless, I tell yee.”
“Stewart? We’re starvin’ here, will yee not haylp us?”
Stewart’s hands shook around the spike.
“Stewart? This is not yee, me oold pal. And after yee invayted me oover foor yeer wife’s cooking; haggis, neeps and tatties…aye, I remember, do yee?”
Not Dead Yet: A Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1 - 2 Page 36