by Pat Kelleher
Nellie directed the pair to an empty straw mat, where they laid him down. She put a hand on his forehead and tutted. “He has a fever. The stump is probably infected. I told him not to wear that peg leg of his for more than an hour or so at a time, but he was so bloomin’ proud of it. Said the pain would give him something to grouse about.”
“Well let’s get it off him,” said Edith as she began to cut his trouser leg away to reveal the stump. She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, dear Lord!”
Pale roots sprouted from the inert black wood of the carved peg leg, reaching up and entwining themselves around the pink stump before sinking into the flesh of Half Pint’s thigh.
“Bloomin’ hell!” said Nellie. “It’s growing into him!”
“Corpsewood,” said Poilus.
“What?”
“It is corpsewood. It feeds on dead or rotting flesh, but will eat living things if it can. We must get it off him. It will kill him.”
Nellie knelt and, with shaking hands, unbuckled the leather straps that kept the false leg in place. Gingerly she waggled the peg leg loose, attached now only by the roots that fed deep into Half Pint’s thigh.
Edith made to cut them with a scalpel in order to remove the wooden leg.
“No!” said Poilus. “We must withdraw every root cleanly, unbroken. You cannot leave any part of it in him or it will continue to grow.” He pressed his thumb against the flesh of the upper leg, feeling for the roots, finding how far they had penetrated. “We are lucky. It has not grown in too far yet. We may still save him. We must ease the roots from his legs, slowly. Do not let them break.”
Edith placed a strip of old leather belt in Half Pint’s mouth for him to bite on and save his tongue, then leant herself across Half Pint’s torso that he might not witness the operation and to hold him down should he struggle. She nodded at Poilus. He used the discarded length of puttee, wrapped it around the peg leg to avoid touching it, and took a grip. He applied a steady pressure, drawing it back. Half Pint twisted and grunted as he bit down on the leather, hard enough to leave teeth marks.
Nellie’s nimble fingers eased out each of the dozen or so long thin roots in turn as Polius continued to pull. Eventually, the last thin tendril-like tips were pulled free, writhing weakly as they sought flesh to burrow into. She nodded, and Poilus took the corpsewood peg leg, dangling six inches of bloody roots, their tips writhing feebly. Like some kind of changeling child from a fairy tale, Nellie thought with a shudder. She watched as he strode outside and dropped the thing into the brazier. The flames expanded to greet it, burning a blue-green colour. The corpsewood gave off a high-pitched noise, as if it was squealing in pain.
It was only after that she thought perhaps she should have preserved the specimen for Captain Lippett, who was striving to catalogue this world’s flora and fauna, but it was too late now.
Poilus returned and sank down on his haunches beside Nellie and gave the feverish Half Pint a long, appraising look. “He was lucky. It was old wood. We got it out of him in time. He should live. I will get one of our women to make up a poultice for his leg to stop the fever, though what fool thought to use it in such a manner I cannot think. Even the smallest piece can sprout roots and begin to grow again if it finds a living source. Strapping it to someone is as good as killing them.” He shook his head slowly. “I wonder how you Tohmii are all still alive? You treat us as if we are the children, yet it is you who need your hands holding.” He stood up, still shaking his head to himself as he left the tent.
There was another influx of walking wounded. Edith stood up and walked over to them.
Half Pint grasped Nellie’s hand. “You wouldn’t be a good girl and fetch me my lucky harmonica from by the typewriter, would you?” he said, his voice faint and hoarse. “And tell the Loot—tell him... I’m sorry but I think I’ll be a little late with dinner tonight.”
It was nearly an hour later before Nellie was able to beg a fag break from Sister Fenton and slip away to let the lieutenant know what had happened to his batman.
In the days that followed, she often wished Sister Fenton had kept her back.
SERGEANT HOBSON ENTERED the command post. Everson looked up from his desk.
“The Chatts are still just sat there, sir. They don’t seem to be doing anything.”
“They’re waiting for a ‘sign,’ Sergeant, and I bloody well wish we had one to give them.”
“The tank, sir?”
“As you so rightly say, Hobson, the tank.” He tapped his pencil on the desk and came to a decision. “I want to see Lance Corporal Atkins. I’ve got a job for him and his Black Hand Gang.”
“Very good, sir. I’ll send him along directly.” The sergeant turned sharply and left.
Everson was about to take another look at Jeffries’ journal when there was a polite knock on the doorjamb.
“Come.”
Nellie Abbott stepped inside, saluted and stood to attention. Unlike the Nurses, the FANYs were run along military lines.
“Yes, Miss Abbott, what can I do for you?”
“Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, it’s about Half Pint—I mean Private Nicholls, sir.”
“Well, if you’re looking for him, I don’t know where the devil he is,” said Everson, vaguely frustrated.
“Sir, he’s in the aid post.”
Everson was a little shocked. “He’s not injured, is he?”
“It’s his leg, sir.
“Oh, Christ, the poor bloke. Not both now?”
“Oh. Oh, no, sir. No, the other one, the peg leg, sir. It tried to eat him.”
Everson wasn’t sure he heard right. “I beg your pardon?”
“It tried to eat him, it did, sir, but he’s all right now. He’s resting. But he won’t be stomping around like Long John Silver for a while, sir. Said to tell you that dinner would be a little late and could I fetch him his lucky harmonica? Said he left it on his desk, sir.”
Everson slumped back in his chair with a sigh and waved her in the direction of the small clerk’s office. She gave a little curtsey and went through.
Everson ran a hand through his hair. There was another knock.
“Come.”
Sergeant Hopkins and Lance Corporal Atkins entered.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” said Atkins.
“Yes, Atkins. Got a job for you. I wouldn’t ask, but our backs are against the wall on this one.”
“Aren’t they always, sir?”
“Hmm. The fact is, Atkins, the tank is overdue. The Ivanhoe should have been back several days ago. And frankly if it had, we might not be in this mess with those bloody Chatts camped on our doorstep. The Ivanhoe has a limited speed and a limited range and, by all accounts, it should have returned yesterday. Now, either it’s in trouble or it’s broken down or the crew are injured or dead...”
There was an audible gasp from the back of the room. Nellie Abbott stood in the small doorframe to the next room, a harmonica in her hand. She leant against the doorframe.
“Miss Abbott, I’m sorry,” said Everson. “I didn’t realise you were still there.”
“Injured?” she said. “Then let me go, too, sir. I can help.”
“You, Abbott? No, sorry. Out of the question. If nothing else, Sister Fenton would certainly have something to say about it.”
“But you said yourself they might be injured, sir,” she said in earnest. “I’ve got first aid training. And I can drive, sir. I ain’t afraid of what’s out there. Sister can spare me. There’s the orderlies and the vets, sir. I won’t hardly be missed.”
Damn the girl, but she had a point. The tank crew were the only ones who could drive the blasted thing. If they were injured... And she could drive ambulances, so she might be able to help if the crew were down. Damn it. Why did they have to be so bloody logical? “Very well,” he said reluctantly. “But only if Sister Fenton agrees.”
“Thank you, sir! You won’t regret it.”
“But, sir...” protested Atkins. “I do
n’t want to be responsible for a woman, sir.”
“Do as the lieutenant, says, son,” said Hobson, leaning in with a stage whisper.
“‘Only’ Atkins, how dare you!” retorted Nellie. “I can do anything you can. Don’t treat me like no porcelain doll, then. I’m responsible for myself. Or do you just want me to stay here and cook meals, wash uniforms and tend wounds, is that it? ”
“No!” said Atkins defensively. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that—”
Everson coughed. “It’s done, Atkins. She goes with you. I need you to find the tank and its crew, both in one piece, and get them back here. We can hang on for a few days, a week maybe. The Chatts think it’s their god of the dead; it may be the only thing that can save us. I’m relying on you.”
Atkins recovered his composure while Nellie fixed him with a belligerent stare.
“If the tank can be found sir, we’ll find it. Leaves a trail a blind man could follow, so we should be able to track it. And we’ll bring it back if we have to push it all the way.”
The tank weighed twenty-eight tons, so that was highly unlikely, but Everson appreciated the sentiment. “And take Napoo, because Christ knows what you’ll find out there and I don’t want to lose another patrol.
“And take that Chatt, Chandar, with you. He seems well disposed to you. We can’t keep him here and we can’t send him back. I have some surprises for his friends and I don’t want to take the chance that he’s spying.”
“But sir—” began Atkins.
“It’s done, Atkins. Find that bloody tank. And keep an eye out for Jeffries.”
INTERLUDE TWO
Letter from Private Thomas Atkins
to Flora Mullins
17th February 1917
My Dearest Flora,
Sometime I feel daft sitting here and writing letters that I don’t know you’ll ever get, but I feel like if I stop writing you’ll just drift away and I’ll lose you forever. Maybe it would be better not to torment myself, to lay down this burden, to forget that you and Blighty exist at all. Some blokes already have, like so many Hun souvenirs that chaps carry round with them from posting to posting until one day they just become too heavy and they chuck them.
You may never read these, but while I write them, I feel like I’m talking to you, like I’m close to you. If I ever stop writing, then not only have I lost you but will have lost part of myself, too, so here I sit, carrying on.
The days have settled into a routine here, although we are having a spot of bother with some of the locals. I don’t think they like what we’ve done with the place. Mind you, if you saw it you’d hardly recognise it yourself. Lovely new trenches. Dry warm dugouts. It’s like the Ritz.
The new lads in the section seem grand. I do wish Chalky would lay off, though. Not strictly his fault. The others egg him on a bit. I don’t know, you do one thing and people go on and on about it. But that’s what it’s like around here.
We’ve got orders to go and find the tank. You can’t put anything down around here without it disappearing. Most people blame Mercy when that happens. To be fair, if anything has gone missing he’s usually had a hand in it. I don’t think they can pin the tank on him this time, though. It’s all a bit of puzzle. They should have been back yesterday. Things might have been a lot easier if they had, but there you go, C’est la guerre, as Gutsy says. Still, how hard can it be to find?
Ever yours,
Thomas
CHAPTER FOUR
“A Wilderness of Ruin...”
Two days earlier…
THE CANYON HADN’T been carved by turbulent river waters. It was a brutal crack, a rift torn suddenly in the skin of this world by some groundquake that sundered the land in ages past. The walls rose almost vertically for hundreds of feet and only in the heat of the day did the alien sun penetrate the bottom-most depths, where great blocks of stone lay strewn where they fell.
The only scraps of vegetation to be seen were large patches of bluegreen matter, scattered over the rock-face like lichen, attached to the rock and formed of small blisters of varying sizes that seemed to pulse in direct sunlight, as if breathing. The ones in shadow remained inert, as if asleep. The rocks were pockmarked with shallow circular depressions, where acid from long-vanished blooms had eaten into the surface.
An unremitting rumble filled the rock-strewn canyon, echoing off the walls like some imminent, but never delivered, avalanche as His Majesty’s Land Ship Ivanhoe crawled along, pitilessly shattering small rocks caught under its tracks into dust. Grey smoke billowed from the roof exhaust to be snatched up by the breeze and dispersed behind it as the armoured behemoth crept and clanked through the rocky terrain as if sniffing out a trail.
Not that the crew could see much from inside, where the heat and fumes were a microcosm of hell. Progress was slow. With no suspension, the tank had reduced its speed to a crawl, not wanting to belly or throw a track.
The machine gunners, Norman and Cecil, squinted through the machine gun loopholes for threats as the rocky walls, partially obscured by dust thrown up by the tracks, rolled by with mesmerising slowness, without incident or interest apart from the blue-green pulsating growths. Cecil took a brief shot at them with the Hotchkiss to see if they’d burst. The rattle of machine gun fire reverberated through the canyon, causing Lieutenant Mathers to turn in his seat and glare at him.
It also earned him a clip round the back of the head from Jack Tanner, the ex-prize-fighting gunner. It smacked his forehead into the handles of the gun barrel. “Quit that, you dozy mare. You’re wasting ammunition,” he bellowed above the engine’s roar.
For the moment they were riding with hatches open to try and cool the interior. At least without the Hun firing machine guns at them there was no need to wear the stifling splash-masks and bruise helmets, and in the baking heat of the great iron oven, most of them had unbuttoned the coveralls they wore over the trousers, puttees and flannel shirts of their service dress, and undoing the shirts, too.
At the back of the compartment, by the starboard secondary gears, Alfie wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to keep his focus on the back of the driver’s chair from where, every now and again, hand signals for gear changes would come. When he wasn’t doing that, he was putting grease on the gears every thirty minutes or so. He caught a glimpse of a small love heart on the engine casing in front of him, drawn by Nellie Abbot’s oily finger. He smiled. That was one thing he hadn’t bargained on. One of many; this bleeding planet being one of them. But Nellie, what a find she was. She was different. He remembered the first time he met her, here on this world. They had been celebrating their first fresh food and the Fusiliers’ commander, Captain Grantham, God rest his soul, had given permission for a bit of a bash.
The tank crew hadn’t really socialised with the Fusiliers since they found themselves on this world. They were trained to act as an independent unit and that was the way they liked it. It was part of the attraction of the Machine Gun Corps. They bivvied beside the Ivanhoe. It rarely left their sight. But that night he’d gone for a walk amongst the campfires. A couple of rowdy bloody infantry had tried to engage him in conversation, but on hearing his accent they began to jeer and josh him. So he’d wandered off and took a piss over a parapet into one of their trenches. Cocky northern bastards. He was on his way back to the tank when he was accosted by a young girl in a long brown skirt and jacket, who took his arm, linking hers through his, and talked as if they were old friends.
“Cor blimey, what a night. I just got the old ’eave-’o from my mate. She’s over there talking to that NCO with the crutch. Well, I can tell when I’m not wanted. Mind you, she needs a bit of perkin’ up, bless her heart. Then I saw you in your coveralls. And I thought aye-aye, you’re from the tank, ain’tcha? I ain’t never seen one up real close. Don’t they look funny, like a huge great iron slug? What kind of engine has she got? I bet she’s a beaut. Can I see it?”
He could tell from her accent she wasn’t a nort
herner, but Lord Almighty, she never stopped talking, and he let her talk, because she spoke of gears and pistons and carburettors and, quite frankly, he’d never met a girl like her. He’d come all this way from one world to another and there she was, large as life and twice as brassy. Nellie bleedin’ Abbott. And he’d shook his head in wonder. She’d spent time in the FANYs driving ambulances and knew how to strip an engine. Had to. No bugger else to do it for her, half the time. She’d ridden a motorcycle once or twice. They talked of the country rides they might take together if they got back, but she wouldn’t have it, not in a sidecar at any rate. Oh no. Not her. She wanted a motorcycle of her own. That was when he fell in love with her. Right there. Alfie’s face split into an involuntary grin at the memory.
The rest of the crew were wary of her. They were used to their secrets, their own company. They didn’t welcome outsiders. They wouldn’t let her in the tank. Crew only, they said. But he’d snuck her in anyway. Once he’d had to shove her out of one sponson door as Jack squeezed in the other.
The crew had been despondent at the time. It looked like their fuel would run out, and without petrol, the tank was just so much scrap. Without the tank they would be transferred into the battalion to be Poor Bloody Infantry again.
But then one of the Tommies had brewed some evil alcoholic concoction that killed one of the men daft enough to drink it. Unfit for human consumption, they said. But it gave them a new fuel. It ran a little better than the petrol they were used to, but then that was nearly all ‘flogged’ inferior stuff anyway. This new stuff had been distilled from what they now called petrol fruit. They were back in the game.
That was when everything changed.
They had been breathing the fumes for a week or so before they noticed. At first they felt keener, their senses seemed more acute. Colours were brighter, crisper. Sounds were clearer and smells sharper and more distinct.
