Return of Souls

by Andy Remic

  Jones swallowed, gazed past the fire and into the falling rain. “I am going mad,” he said. “I am going mad, and Bainbridge and Webb are most certainly not here with me, and I am not hearing their ——ing voices!”

  Jones moved back to the fire, leaned his Lee-Enfield against the wall with shaking fingers, and sat down. And then he saw them . . . two vague areas of darkness, like incomplete shadows, unwhole, beside the fire. He watched the shadows with suspicion, eyes narrowing.

  “I’m sorry, lad. Didn’t mean to startle you, like. But we’re not dead,” came the voice of Bainbridge. “Or—bugger it, maybe we are dead but cannot move on, cannot pass! I read about that in a newspaper article. Pile of old horseshit is what I said at the time.” He laughed, the familiar rumble.

  Jones sat in stunned silence, staring straight ahead, feeling quite numb.

  “Talk to us, Robby,” said Webb. “Come on, if me and Bainbridge can put aside our differences and come to find you—and it was a bloody long way across an eternity of No Man’s Land—then the least you can do is talk to us! We’ve come to help you, mate.”

  “You are both dead. I saw you die. I saw your corpses in the field hospital. You were covered with old, mouldy blankets. I’m even wearing your boots, George! Your ——ing boots! You can’t be here! It’s just not possible.”

  “But we are,” growled Bainbridge, losing his temper. “Now, listen to me, soldier, maybe we are . . . different now, but it doesn’t feel like it; whatever we are, we’re here to help you, and you’re not mad. Accept it. You have accepted much more in the past few weeks, all right?”

  “Come on, Rob,” added Webb. “Tell us what you’ve been up to. It’s good seeing you again, good to know you escaped the blast of that woolly bear.”

  Jones sighed. He resigned himself. If he was going mad, if he was hearing the voices of his old friends then—what the hell? What real harm could it do? In this strange place. In this strange world. And if they were really there, if they had somehow transcended the borders of death and could communicate . . . then fine. But one thing Jones could not do was sit there and ignore the voices, and thinking to hell with it, he told them everything . . . from the gas attack at Passchendaele, the flight through the Rusting Jungle, the haunting of the walriders, and finally the castle and the rescue of Orana. When Jones finished, the voices remained silent, and he sat warming his hands by the fire and gazing out into the pounding rain, enjoying the smell of cold freshness, and wondering if he had, after all, gone insane.

  Finally, Bainbridge said, “Did you —— her?”

  “Leave him be!” snapped Webb. “What sort of question is that, you dumb oaf? You can’t go asking questions like that when the poor chap’s been through so much . . .”

  “I was only asking,” grumbled Bainbridge.

  “Listen, mate,” continued Webb, “where is she now? She disappeared this morning, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you searched for her?”

  “No,” said Jones with an air of unease.

  “Why on earth not?” rumbled Bainbridge. “She’s your woman now, eh, lad? You should be worried about her—I would be, roaming around this creepy bloody castle.”

  “It’s—well, it’s complicated.”

  “Well, uncomplicate it,” said Bainbridge.

  “Leave it,” said Webb. “Shall we go and look for her now? Rob? Shall we go now? Come on.”

  “Okay,” said Jones with a small shiver.

  Pulling on his coat—and holding his loaded rifle—Jones walked out into the rain and, with head bent against the ferocity of the storm, crossed the cobbles, boots thudding, and entered the gloomy tower. He started up the worn steps, entered the first room, and surveyed the rotting interior.

  When Bainbridge spoke, the voice made Jones jump. “What a miserable bloody pit! I wouldn’t lock my worst enemies in this shithole.”

  Jones moved on in silence, aware now that Bainbridge and Webb were with him—he could not see them, but he could sense them. With him. Inside of him. His true comrades from harsh days of war . . .

  Jones explored the tower with Bainbridge, making constant derogatory remarks at the state of crumbling stonework; finally, they left the tower and walked along the castle walls, gazing out over colourful woodland, a carpet below.

  “I love the trees,” said Jones. “Reminds me of my childhood.”

  “Can you see her out there?” asked Webb.

  “No.”

  After they had searched the second tower and found it deserted, Jones again felt a deep sense of unease. Where was she? Orana was either not present within the castle complex or hiding from him . . . and whichever was the truth, he decided he was better letting her come to him rather than forcing a premature reunion. Something had gone wrong along the way, and he wasn’t sure what.

  “We’ll go back to the fire,” he said.

  “Now?” said Bainbridge. “But we’ve only just started looking! Man, there are two more towers, and then you can load up your rifle and we’ll head out into the woods—you show me some of those bloody walriders you were talking about; we can gun some of the bastards down . . .”

  “I think we’ll go back to the fire,” agreed Webb.

  “Yes. I . . . think she’ll come back. I think she had something to do.”

  Jones walked across the cobbled courtyard with Bainbridge grumbling after him, “No sense of bloody adventure, these young lads.”

  The day passed slowly, with rain falling relentlessly and turning the castle into a haven of shadows and weary, scattered hues. Bainbridge and Webb kept Jones occupied, kept him from going insane—an irony that was not lost on Jones as he sat by the fire, eyes constantly searching for Orana’s return.

  Darkness came early, and there were no stars; the firelight danced on Jones’s face, and he kept the blaze well alight, fearing the shadows of the darkness and the fact that he was alone.

  What was it she had said?

  You can help us. You have the key to the Stoneway. You can help us, help us defeat the oppressor, help wipe the red flags of the Naravelles from the face of the world!

  He shivered. Had she read him? Read his response in facial expression and body language? That he was beyond fighting, beyond killing, beyond all concepts of an act which had shredded his soul?

  As he sat, uneasy, his belly paining him with hunger and the other thing, Bainbridge suddenly piped up. “Remember that time on the Somme, lad? In the communications trench, I blew a hole straight through that Hun’s face—you thought you were about to take his bullet, and it scared you pretty bad?” He boomed sudden laughter.

  “I remember,” said Jones.

  “You look like that now, lad. Scared half to death. Why don’t you tell us about this bloody Orana? About the war she was ranting about?”

  Jones sighed. “I don’t know. She said it was a giant war, millions of men from many continents, an endless, raging war.”

  “Sounds like back home,” grunted Bainbridge.

  “What date is it today?” asked Webb, suddenly.

  Jones shrugged. “Last day of October, I think. Why? What does it matter out here?”

  Webb’s voice chuckled in Jones’s mind. “Don’t you realise? And you, Bainbridge? It’s only bloody Halloween . . . Shame we haven’t got a pumpkin, or Charlie here could carve us out a lantern. Nice and spooky.”

  “What I’d give for some bloody toffee!” sighed Bainbridge. “Or more importantly, a cigarette. Have you got any cigarettes?”

  “Yes.”

  “A bloody shame I can’t smoke them on you, isn’t it?” said Bainbridge, and laughed again.

  Jones smiled, then laughed out loud himself. “Yes. A shame, Charlie.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Listen, if you are real, and not figments of my shell-shocked imagination, then thanks. Thanks for staying with me. For helping me. I much appreciate it.”

  “Bloody hark at him!” snapped Bainbridge. “If we’re bloody real, the stupid sod.
We’re here, aren’t we? You are talking to us, so we must exist—ergo, we are real, and not in a stiffs’ paddock just yet. We might not be, you know, here in the flesh, so to speak, but all the brains are still here!”

  “Ha, speak for yourself,” chuckled Webb.

  As the storm blew over, and the rain lessened, so Jones fell asleep watching the fire. The flames burned low, and he was gently awakened by a soft touch to his shoulder, and as Orana crawled naked under the blankets and her cold limbs entwined with his, like vines around a trunk, so he sighed and buried his face in her forest-scented hair, breathed her opulence, was enveloped by her essence, and his breathing became deep and regular, his body devoid of pain, his dreams filled with a deep void of welcome emptiness.

  Castle Shell. “Messenger.” 1st. November 1917.

  JONES PULLED OUT A cigarette, lit it with a branch taken from the fire, and inhaled deeply; he coughed, for his lungs were still not fully recovered, but the nicotine lifted him and he felt alive for the first time in days, foolish though it might seem to smoke after his injuries.

  Orana watched from the blankets, the rough cloth pulled up around her neck, one arm bare where she rested on an elbow.

  “You enjoy that?”

  “Yes.” Jones nodded and smiled, and offered the cigarette to her.

  “No, thank you. Some of the village Elders smoke—they have vegetable roots which they shred and put into a large pipe and burn. I tasted it once; it was foul.”

  Jones finished the cigarette, flicked the butt into the fire, and asked softly, “Where did you go yesterday, Orana? Did you leave the castle?”

  She looked down then, cheeks reddening. “I . . . I needed to be alone. I needed to think.”

  “You regretted inviting me into bed?” said Jones, and his voice remained gentle, kind, understanding. He loved her and could understand her confusion. He was pretty damn confused himself.

  “No . . .” The word was said too sharply. “I . . . it was so sudden. I needed to think, I moved from tower to tower, I watched you.” She looked up. “I was worried when I heard the rifle shot—I thought you might have . . . Well, I watched you, anyway, heard you talking to yourself. I became frightened. I thought you had gone mad.”

  “Ha!” said Bainbridge.

  Jones frowned. “So, you heard no voices, then? Nothing strange?”

  “No.” She shook her head, her grey eyes wide, filled with innocence and yet strong, containing an inner power of the soul.

  After dressing, Jones and Orana climbed the steps to the castle wall and looked out over the now-frosty woodland. Small pools of ice glinted between branches, and Orana linked arms with the Tommy.

  “Do you think they are still out there?”

  Jones shrugged. “I looked several times yesterday when I was looking for you. I have not seen any sign of the walriders—which is good. We are seriously low on food. We can only stay two, maybe three days at the most. Then we—I—will have to venture out to find something to eat.”

  There was an uneasy silence, and she looked up at him with those big, beautiful eyes.

  Jones added, “Maybe then we can travel to your people? I will see if I can help.

  Orana said nothing but squeezed his arm. She looked out over the castle wall, her breath frosting and her eyes bright.

  They returned to the fire, and Jones was thankful for Bainbridge and Webb’s silence. As he was heating a pan of water over the flames, and Orana was repairing a small tear in her trousers with needle and thread, there came a distant sound, a whinny, and a stamping of hooves.

  Jones and Orana looked at one another.

  “A horse.”

  Orana nodded.

  Jones grabbed his Lee-Enfield and, with Orana close behind, ran up the steps to the dark castle walls; he peered into the scrambled confusion of woodland but could see nothing. Operating the bolt, he paced along the wall, eyes scanning the ground below, searching for beast or man, searching. And then he saw the beast weaving slowly between the trees, steam snorting from nostrils. It was a great black stallion, its coat gleaming with health, and a rider sat straight upon the great beast’s back.

  Jones watched with suspicious eyes as the man rode closer and his features materialised from the trees. He was a large man, wearing armour brown and grey in colour. He carried a lance bearing a grey flag. By his side was sheathed a sword, and a second lance was strapped to the saddle of the stallion. The man’s face was obscured by a helm, the beaver pulled low to obscure his mouth and jaw. The helmet also sported a grey plume, and as the man neared, Jones rested his SMLE over the crenellated battlement and sighted on the stallion—the larger of the two targets.

  “Take out the horse, then the rider,” confirmed Bainbridge. “Nine times out of ten, a horse with an armoured rider will trap him when it rears and falls. Too much weight, y’see?”

  “Hm. Thanks,” muttered Jones.

  Orana looked at him with a frown, and he smiled in reassurance, then turned his attention back to the rider. As the man reached the bridge, Jones bellowed, “Go no further! State your name, rank, and purpose.”

  The rider stopped, and the helm lifted to gaze at the gun sighted on his mount from above. The horse stamped and snorted impatiently, and the rider fought for a moment to control the giant beast.

  “Who speaks?” came a voice heavy with accent.

  “Name, rank, and purpose!” repeated Jones, his voice harsh and unfriendly.

  “I am Jen Marker, Third Division. I seek entry to the castle. Will you open the gate? I seek rest and food. I am no danger to you.”

  “Do not trust him,” whispered Orana. “He is Naravelle, I swear it.”

  “I agree,” growled Bainbridge. “Shoot the bastard down right now.”

  “But he has done no wrong!”

  “Kill him,” growled Bainbridge.

  Jones shook his head and shouted, “I cannot open the gate; there is no bolt nor handle. I advise you, seek sanctuary elsewhere, friend.”

  The rider sat in silence for a moment, his horse snorting. Eventually, he said, “Are you the man who shot the walriders in the woods? Caused explosions that ripped flesh asunder?”

  “Yes,” returned Jones.

  “I would barter for information, then,” said the rider. The grey flag whipped in the cold wind like a barking dog. “I would know the secret of these explosions you make.”

  “Shoot him,” growled Bainbridge. “He’s an arrogant whoreson; go on, shoot him!”

  “No, you cannot shoot!” interjected Webb. “As well as being immoral, there might well be more men close by. Look at his armour and bearing; he is part of a unit, a body of soldiers. If you shoot that man, Robert, you may well be digging your own grave . . . and that of Orana.”

  The SMLE felt cold in Jones’s hands. He glanced at Orana and she smiled weakly. Her eyes were full of fear. Then, his finger tightening on the trigger, he shouted, “It is not information I wish to exchange. I suggest you leave now, sir, or I will be forced to open fire.”

  The soldier did not move, and his helmet remained fixed on the barrel of Jones’s rifle. Jones could wait no longer—his finger flexed and the Lee-Enfield boomed in a flower of smoke.

  The rider looked up at his grey flag, the black insignia now sporting a central ragged hole. “The next bullet finds your skull,” said Jones, his voice low but carrying clear through the chilled breeze.

  Without a word, the rider turned and, letting the stallion have full rein, galloped into the enveloping woodland.

  Jones released a pent-up breath and allowed himself to go slack. The butt of his rifle struck the stone, and he leant on the weapon for support.

  “You missed,” observed Bainbridge.

  Jones looked at Orana’s face and saw understanding there; he, too, felt he knew the man—the soldier. He would be back. He wanted inside the castle, for whatever reasons. And he would return. Next time, he would not return alone.

  As Jones trotted down the hewn steps, Bainbridg
e’s voice drifted to him. “Well done, lad; you scared the bastard half to death, but you should have shot him! I suppose fear will have to do. It’s the last you’ll see of that bugger, all right, I’m telling you!”

  “You’re wrong, Charlie,” said Webb. “He’ll be back. Mark my words. I think it an unwise move to open fire on that chap, Robert . . . but I suppose only time will tell. Just make sure your kit is packed in one place from now on—you might have to make a dash for it.”

  Jones reached the yard and found Orana had taken his hand in hers. She led him towards the fire and Bainbridge said, “Don’t listen to the boring old fart, Webb; he’s full of wind, as usual! You did well, son—you had to make a show of force. You had to show you wouldn’t be dictated to! Remember, pain only lasts an instant; cowardice burns you for a lifetime!”

  “Rot,” said Webb.

  And Jones closed his mind to the voices of Bainbridge and Webb bickering and, with a pressing need, questioned Orana about her home over the mountains. He had a sense they would be leaving the castle very soon.

  Castle Shell. “Return.” 2nd. November 1917.

  JONES AND ORANA SPENT the morning gathering Jones’s few belongings and preparing for travel. Jones also spent a good half hour teaching Orana the basics of the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield; he taught her to load magazines, to operate the bolt, and finally how to shoot. He allowed her three bullets for practise. It was all he could spare.

  Around noon, just as a fine rain fell, they heard the thunder of hooves and rushed to the castle wall. As they ran, Jones saw all colour drain from Orana’s face. Indeed, he felt himself go pale.

  They mounted the steps and stood, gazing down across woodland. Jones felt a thrill of chilled ice as a good thirty men cantered to a halt, the phalanx spreading out before the bridge leading to the castle, several bearing grey flags, all dressed in armour and bearing arms.

  And then Jones heard it, children’s laughter, but the creatures that uttered the laughter danced and whirled through the trees in the wake of the horsemen, cavorted through mud and bracken until they danced around the thirty riders and made their screeching noises and flexed their claws . . . The walriders were back, grey eyes looking up at Jones and Orana on their protective wall.