by Pat Kelleher
Atkins looked apologetically at Pot Shot and shrugged, “Look, stay here and keep watch. We won’t be long, I’ll stop him from doing anything too stupid.” He knew this was a bad idea, but then so was going over the top and that had never stopped them before. He dealt with it the same way: one step in front of another. It was dark in there and smelt of stale sweat, hair oil and damp earth, and there was another peculiar odour, like sour potpourri. It began getting crowded as Gutsy and Gazette entered behind him, their bulks blocking out what little light filtered down from the entrance.
Porgy went over to the small crate that served as a writing desk. On it were a pack of worn cards and a leather-bound journal surrounded by a circle of salt. “Diary of an officer,” he said, holding it up with a leer and a wink. He riffled through the pages. His face screwed up in frustration and disappointment. “’Ere, these entries are all in code. Look, there are symbols and things… I can’t make head nor tail of it.”
“Let me have a look,” said Gutsy, picking up the volume and licking the tip of his index finger before turning a page.
“I’m telling you. It’s in code,” said Porgy. “You don’t reckon he’s in military intelligence, do you? We’re in deep if he is.”
“Bloody ’ell, you’re right,” said Gutsy, throwing the book down as if it had stung him. “You think he’s a Jerry spy? He seems the sort. Hates his own men worse than Fritz.”
Mercy casually glanced around the place, looking for anything of value. Seeing nothing of immediate or obvious interest, he bent over with a grunt and began feeling about under the thin straw mattress on the wire frame bed. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I always thought there was something a little ‘off’ about him. He was always a bit too full of himself. Only, give us a hand will you?”
Atkins dropped down on his knees by his friend, who, finding nothing under the mattress, put his hand under the bed. Mercy pulled a suitcase into the light, the oxblood red leather case scuffing along the dirt-covered floor as they did so. Half-heartedly, Atkins tried opening it and was relieved to find it locked. But Mercy wasn’t going to be beaten. He pulled his bayonet from its sheath, jimmied the lock and opened the suitcase.
“Bloody hell.”
“Hey, you chaps ought to see this,” said Gutsy, pulling at a loosefitting piece of tea-chest panelling. It came away exposing a sackcloth curtain which he pulled back to reveal a hidden niche. “What do you make of this little lot?”
They peered into the niche. There were ornate silver candleholders and a ceremonial dagger of some exotic foreign design, along with a black stone with a symbol carved in it.
“Loot?”
“Looks expensive, like he’s robbed a church or museum or summat.”
“Yeah, but why keep ’em there? Not exactly hidden is it?”
Atkins turned his attention back to the contents of the suitcase. There, he found a private’s uniform with patches indicating it to be from the Black Foresters—the Midland Light Infantry, and an Artillery officer’s uniform, neither had any links with the Pennines. There were five pay books, one of a private and the others of several officers and an assortment of identity discs, cap badges and regimental patches. Stuffed under the uniforms were maps and papers: maps of Harcourt Sector showing British artillery positions and barrage targets, Battalion papers with dates of leaves and transfers; some old, some yet blank and undated.
“Something bloody odd’s going on here,” said Atkins.
“Who’d have stuff like this but a bloody spy!” said Mercy. “Gawd almighty!”
“Do you think the lieutenant knows?” asked Porgy.
“Do you want to ask him?” Half Pint said. “Sir, we were just looting the lieutenant’s dugout when we came across these?”
“We have to tell him,” said Atkins. “It’s the right thing to do. If we don’t it’s failing to inform. Look, I trust Lieutenant Everson. I don’t trust Jeffries. And certainly not now. There’s something rum going on here and frankly I’d feel a lot more comfortable if we had the lieutenant on our side.”
UNFORTUNATELY, aTKINS COULDN’T go straight to Everson. This was the army. You didn’t just barge up to an officer. It wasn’t done. You had to go through an NCO. He had to go through Hobson. He was more worried about the sergeant’s reaction than the lieutenant’s. Nevertheless, with the ‘evidence’ bundled up in an Army blanket, Atkins sought him out.
The platoon sergeant looked at him sternly and not without a little suspicion, glancing through the items, singling out the coded journal and the exotic knife as Atkins explained his finds.
“I think you’d better come with me, lad,” he said.
They found Everson with Tulliver in the Company HQ. He was having a heated exchange of words with the Flying Officer.
“Sir,” said Sergeant Hobson. “Atkins here has something to say. I think you’ll want to hear it.”
“This’ll have to wait, Tulliver,” said Everson. Exasperated, Tulliver turned to leave the tent. “What is it Atkins, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”
“It’s about Gilb—Lieutenant Jeffries, sir.”
Tulliver turned from the tent flap when he heard the name. “Wait, did you say Jeffries?”
“We were combing the entrenchments, sir, and thought we heard something in one of the dugouts,” said Atkins. “It was Lieutenant Jeffries’ one, sir. We—we’ve found this stuff scattered about the floor.” Atkins emptied the blanket’s contents—clothing, papers, maps, pay books, discs and museum loot—onto the table. “We didn’t pay much heed at first, sir, until we noticed the pay books. They aren’t for men in his platoon, sir. They aren’t even for men in this battalion. Blood thought he might be a Jerry spy, sir, and that we ought to report it.”
“Stop right there, Atkins,” said Everson. “Those are very serious charges. You can’t just bandy about such accusations like that.”
“But, sir...”
“Leave this with me. Thank you Atkins. That will be all. Dismissed.”
“Sir.”
Atkins saluted and left, feeling disappointed and dismayed by Everson’s noncommittal reaction. However, he told himself, he’d done the right thing this time, or at least he hoped he had.
ALTHOUGH HIS DISMISSAL of Atkins might have been brusque, it was only because the evidence in front of him troubled Everson. He been sorting out the logistics of a raid on Khungarr and frankly the odds weren’t in their favour. “Do you believe him, Hobson?”
“I believe they found this stuff in Jeffries’ dugout, yes, sir.”
“And what about these? Any of these names mean anything to you?” The sergeant flicked through the pay books and shook his head.
“No, sir.”
Tulliver began leafing through the books himself, opening and discarding one after another. “Wait. This one. Hibbert. I know this name.”
“From where?” asked Everson.
“Artillery officer. I took him up for a look-see three or four weeks ago. It’s not something I’ve done often, so it stuck in my mind. Fella had this queer way of signalling ‘okay,’ with his thumb and forefinger, which I thought was odd. Most people use a thumbs up. Then when I met that chap, Jeffries, I thought he looked damned familiar, you remember? He half convinced me we hadn’t met at all, then, when I took him up the other day, he used the self-same signal. I’d swear it’s the same man, although he didn’t have a moustache then. And this,” he said, picking up the officer’s jacket with the artillery patches and badges, “this was Hibbert’s mob. How do you explain this? It could have been he who sabotaged my machine, because it was sabotage. The petrol feed was punctured after he thought I recognised him. And he couldn’t have failed to notice that spire I saw in the distance, reflecting the sun the way it did. You didn’t believe me ten minutes ago, but surely you can’t ignore this? The man’s up to something, though God knows what his bloody game is.”
“Hmm.” Everson studied the papers for a while and then looked at the artillery barrage maps wh
ich showed a pattern of bombardment marked over the Harcourt Sector “There’s something peculiar about these maps, too.”
He turned to the Flying Officer and came to a decision. “All right, maybe there are allegations to answer here, Tulliver, but Jeffries will have to wait. Our main objective is to rescue our people and our secondary objective is to free these subjugated Urmen from the… Khungarrii.” He turned to Sergeant Hobson, who was leafing through a sheaf of Jeffries’ blank battalion orders. “Sergeant, get the men on parade.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER Everson stood under the ragged Union flag, before a parade of weary, discontented men as NCOs barked and cajoled them into order. It had long been a point of contention among the Red Tabs that, at the Front, the men’s aggression should be channelled into attacks and trench raids to prevent them becoming an idle, disaffected rabble. While he was sure they would be glad of the opportunity of action, he may well have to convince them of it. However, as much as they needed an objective and motivation, above all they needed hope.
“Men!” he began. “You know by now that these Khungarrii have captured some of our own. We will get them back, but this cannot be our sole objective. For, whatever reason we find ourselves here, we are still British. We are a long way from home, on a foreign world where Man has been subjugated by an inhuman race who may very well know how we came to be here. They may even know how we can return home. But we also know our duty. It is clear. It is the reason you took the oath and the King’s shilling in the first place. It is the reason you volunteered.”
“We didn’t volunteer for this!” came an anonymous cry. There were mutterings of agreement among the ranks.
Everson ignored them. “Did we turn our backs in ’14 when Belgium pleaded for our aid? No! We answered their call. Honour bade us do no less. Can we do any less now, when our fellow Man suffers here under the oppression of a cockroach Kaiser?
“Or will we let the fate of these Urmen be our fate too? I say to these Khungarrii that whatever you do to the least of my brethren you do unto me. We will show them that ‘no gallant son of Britain to a tyrant’s yoke shall bend.’ We may no longer be on the Western Front, but we have found ourselves a new Front. Here is where we draw the line, here in this Somme mud, where we always have. This corner of a foreign field is all we have left of England and we shall defend it—and all it stands for.
“I want volunteers to mount an expedition to free our companions and perhaps rouse these subjugated Urmen into rebellion. We do not know the number of the enemy or their disposition, but we put the kibosh on the Kaiser. We can put the kibosh on these Khungarrii! What do you say, Pennines?”
A raucous cheer rent the air. Everson’s chest heaved as much with pride as with relief. These were the men he knew, men with a purpose, with a challenge. These were the ‘Broughtonthwaite Mates.’
“I think you got ’em, sir,” said Hobson.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Hasty Orisons”
SMALL RIPPLES OF consciousness lapped at the shores of Jeffries’ oblivion, washing up a flotsam of sensations. A flare of light. Flashes of russet and damson.
Darkness.
A feeling of warmth. An aroma of mint and sweat.
Silence.
A cacophony of noises—cracks, crunches, sobs, howls, whistles and clicks—sloshed over into the silence surrounding him.
Jeffries came round to find himself lying on narrow wooden planking that moved under him with a disconcerting rocking motion. Looking up, walls woven from branches arose either side of him, framing a view of violet and magenta foliage that drifted past above. It took several minutes before full use returned to his arms and legs and he was able to sit up. Pins-and-needles lingered in his limbs and spots cluttered his vision like drifting Very lights.
He found himself in a long narrow cradle-like structure with Napoo and several despondent privates. He peered over the edge. He could see that the cradle was slung from the side of a great grub-like creature easily twice the height of an elephant and some twenty to thirty yards long. Along its length, it wore a great harness of ropes and straps from which hung similar cradles containing further captives. Presumably, they also hung from the far side in a similar arrangement. Along the back of the mammoth caterpillar-like crawler, their captors—insects the size of men—patrolled its length, looking down on their captives, their antennae, twitching.
As the path curved gently he was able to look over the edge of the basket and see another caterpillar beast ahead of them. It crawled along on stumpy legs with an elegance and agility that belied its bulk. A rider sat behind its head on a howdah, guiding the thing with a series of reins. It cleared the trail before them, crushing undergrowth and boughs in its way or eating its way through overgrown vegetation. Another larval beast of burden brought up the column to the rear; this one slightly shorter and covered in sharp spines. It was purple-black in colour with fearsome looking yellow markings on its face. Whether this was just defensive colouring or not, Jeffries couldn’t tell, but it definitely looked more warlike than did its pale, plodding cousin.
Around him, the small cheerless khaki-clad band of warriors sat hunched in groups under the ever-watchful eyes of their captors. Some Tommies glanced back with glowering, baleful and resentful stares, others with fear and anxiety, some muttered amongst themselves about ‘the Chatts.’ Jeffries could only assume they meant their captors and not the lice that infected their clothes. A snort of derision escaped his nostrils. It was a suitably derogatory term. However, where they felt beaten and defeated, he experienced a curious sense of self-confidence he had not felt since he arrived here on this world. He sat with the rest of the prisoners, although he never for one moment considered himself one of their number. He felt buoyed. He had wanted to talk to the Khungarrii and here they were. Of course, those great insects, walking upright in a dark chitinous mockery of man, didn’t talk to him, but then he deduced they were merely soldiers. Soldier ants.
Peculiarly, with every peristaltic ripple that took him further and further from the entrenchment and the possibility of it returning to the Somme without him, Jeffries began to feel increasingly free.
Ahead, in another cradle, he could see Captain Grantham slumped, head bowed, defeated. The man was a joke. A weak insipid leader whose mind could barely take the brunt of war, let alone this magnificent world. He had long ago exceeded the limits of his comprehension. The nurses sobbed, cried and comforted one another; the apparent repugnance of their captors reducing them to the emotional imbecilic wrecks their gender inevitably devolved to under stress.
The soldiers weren’t tied or chained and several decided to leap over the side of their cradle and made a break for freedom into the surrounding jungle to the encouraging cheers of their less opportunistic fellows. The vicarious victory didn’t last long, brutally quashed as it was by the subsequent roars and screams from the undergrowth that, to Jeffries amusement, muted his fellows’ enthusiasm; there was no need for shackles when their captors knew the environment would seek to kill them at every turn.
There were about eighty of the Khungarrii, some riding in cradles, some stood on the backs of the caterpillar beasts, others walking alongside them. If they fell behind, they would use their powerful legs, bounding ten or twenty feet at a time until they caught up. Jeffries made sure to keep Napoo close to him. He was his best source of information right now and, for the moment at least, that made him valuable. He asked low whispered questions out of the side of his mouth.
“Where are the Khungarrii taking us?”
“To Khungarr,” replied Napoo. There was no doubt the Urman might escape and indeed survive, but he obviously had mixed feelings and felt some loyalty to the soldiers.
“Are all Khungarrii like these?”
“No, these are Scentirrii. Soldier caste. You can tell by their armour. It is thicker and heavier than those of the Worker or Anointed castes. They spit a burning spray.”
From behind came the irritating mumbles of that s
ham priest, muttering his feeble invocations and prayers. A sneer curled Jeffries’ lip as he listened and he shook his head in disbelief.
Some of their captors held hollow lances attached to clay packs on their backs. Some sort of gun? Occasionally they would threaten the captives with them, chattering unintelligibly through gnashing mandibles in their harsh, guttural language.
“There!” hissed Napoo, grabbing Jeffries’ arm and pointing. Through brief gaps in the canopy, Jeffries caught sight of a huge mound-like edifice. It must have been hundreds of feet high. Its colour was the same dark cinnamon upon which the caterpillar beasts walked, flecks of mica bound into its walls reflecting the sunlight in a myriad places and directions. Jeffries realised that this must have been what had seen from the aeroplane.
Jeffries’ heart sank. He had been hoping for something more… civilised, that would belittle everything the British Empire had to offer. Nevertheless, the brief glimpse afforded him by the aeroplane couldn’t do justice to the enormous scale of the structure. This was a feat of engineering on a par with that of the ancient pyramids of Egypt. Its sheer height and bulk dwarfed many of the great and noble British Institutions, although it could not match them for grandeur.
As they neared the edifice, the trees grew thinner and the path along which they travelled grew wider. They left the forest and entered a huge, well-managed clearing that spread for hundreds of yards around the earthen edifice. The sight drew gasps and groans of despair from the others in marked contrast to the seemingly excited clicks and chittering from the Chatts alongside them. Huge asymmetrical buttresses rose up the sides of the tower to varying heights as if shoring up the earthen mound. Small balconies could be seen dotted about the shell of the edifice, each occupied by an insect.
As the great caterpillar beasts undulated across the clearing, Jeffries noticed lines of other arthropods filing from various forest paths towards apertures in the base of the mound. They were of a different genus to their captors, less well armoured with smaller heads and shorter antennae. As they approached, Jeffries saw that men— Urmen—were among their number, carrying baskets or dragging litters, transporting food and materials to the edifice under the watchful eyes of the accompanying Khungarrii.
