by Pat Kelleher
“Or an NCO,” said Porgy, winking at Gazette.
But Chalky was lost in his story now, conjuring his own retelling before the fire. “Aye, or a bloody NCO,” he acknowledged before plunging on. “He curses in a foul and ancient language what no one honest and God-fearing would understand, the language of devils, and he raises his arms like he was surrendering, like, but then there were this evil red glare in his eyes and he began chanting, and suddenly bolts of green lightning blasted out of his finger tips. The first blast got Corporal Ketch and he were, like, burnt to a crisp in an instant.”
Porgy nudged Prof. “Sends shivers down your spine don’t it? It’s like he was there.”
“Oh aye, and what happened next?”
“Well, then Only—that is, Corporal Atkins—takes a shot at Jeffries, but the mad magician just waves his hand and flings the bullets back at them through the air and one gives the lieutenant a Blighty one, right in the shoulder. An’ then Jeffries starts saying as how if he can’t send Nurse Bell to hell then he’ll summon up summat to fetch her there. Then he starts to conjure a demon to kill them while he makes his escape and there’s a horrid green glow and a smell of sulphur as something from the inner circles of Hell begins to take shape...”
“Inner circles of Hell, I like that,” said Porgy, nodding with approval.
“...and Nurse Bell screams. And Only realises he has moments to act before the demon becomes as solid as you or I. So Corporal Atkins, not having no holy water or the padre’s bible, decides he has to save the lieutenant the only way he can. That’s when he notices the magic circle Jeffries is stood in is made from salt, and he scuffs away the circle breaking the spell, like, before it’s complete. Enraged, the demon brings down the chamber before vanishing back into the Pit he came from. Then, with the Chatts’ temple collapsing about him, the corporal rescues Nurse Bell and the lieutenant and pushes them down a shaft to safety. Then, he turns to Jeffries who is not best pleased at his evil plans being thwarted and all. The corporal charges him with his bayonet but then Jeffries vanishes in a cloud of black smoke and a demonic laugh and Only—Corporal Atkins—vows: By blood and sand, we’ll find you and when we do we’ll make, you send us home you diabolical fiend!”
“It’s true,” said Porgy, wide-eyed and impressed. “He said them very words.”
“Blood and sand,” muttered Atkins. He hadn’t caught all of it, but he’d overheard enough. “Stop encouraging him, Porgy, that’s not how it happened and you know it,” he growled, turning his back to them and pulling his army blanket about him. Bloody hell, every time he overhead that story it got bigger with the retelling. He was pretty sure that soon his bloody bayonet would be Excalibur itself in disguise. If Chalky knew what kind of man his corporal really was he’d be severely disappointed.
SOFTLY, ALMOST IMPERCEPTIBLY, the nocturnal noises of the jungle segued into a dawn chorus as shrieks and cries and deep bass clicks gave way to bleary hoots, whistles, trilling and whoops, alerting the men to the slow, incremental creep of daylight.
Atkins woke, stiff and aching, to see Napoo squatting on his haunches over the fire. It appeared that the Urman had already been up and caught breakfast, as he was cooking several small animals on skewers over the fire.
“Right, just off for me morning ablutions,” announced Gutsy, stepping into the undergrowth with his rifle.
“Keep an eye out for Jeffries!” came the usual riposte.
Atkins looked over at Mathers, still sat on top of the tank. He must have slept sitting up all night, his head lolling. Mathers’ head snapped up and turned to look at him through the eye slits.
Disconcerted, Atkins started like a guilty schoolboy and averted his gaze.
Chandar was silent. It hadn’t said much since their kidnapping. It was watching the tank crew pour the last of their petrol fruit fuel from the drums into the Ivanhoe’s petrol tanks in the two front track horns. Atkins wondered if Chandar was beginning to suss them out.
“It’s... an offering,” he suggested.
Chandar looked at him briefly then returned its gaze to the tank. It chittered to itself, and fingered the tassels on its shoulder robe, like the padre telled his rosaries. It seemed to Atkins that the old Chatt’s beliefs were being tested, though he couldn’t tell how. It seemed uneasy, and that made him nervous. If it were human, Atkins would have thought it windy. Even before their attempted abduction by the Zohtakarrii, something had agitated the Chatt, something it was reluctant to share. Combine that with Mathers’ attitude, and Atkins felt this entire stunt was going to Hell in a handcart.
ATKINS PERFORMED HIS usual morning ritual. Every man on the Front Line had his little good luck ritual. Gutsy had his rabbit foot; Porgy had his deck of cards. Atkins had his letter. If he could still smell Flora’s perfume on her last letter, then he would be safe. However, for some days now, a week perhaps, the scent had been fading almost beyond his ability to sense it. Today he couldn’t smell it at all. He felt a rising panic before remembering that, back in the Urmen’s ‘tank’ hut, Mathers had been drinking the petrol fruit, and claimed it heightened his senses; maybe he could sense any faint, lingering scent. As much as he loathed humbling himself before the Tank Commander, the appeal might go some way to appeasing him and smooth over the rift between them. It was worth a try. Besides, he had to know.
He ambled over to where the officer was inspecting his tank. The words almost stuck in his craw. “Sir, I—may I ask you a favour?”
The Tank Commander cocked his head to one side, intrigued, and invited Atkins to continue.
“I’ve got a letter from my sweetheart. I—I can’t smell her perfume anymore. I was wondering if you could tell me if there’s any trace of it left.”
“Hrm.” The masked subaltern seemed to consider the request. From the tone in his voice, the idea seemed to amuse him. “Let me see it.”
Reluctantly, Atkins took out the worn envelope from his tunic pocket and eased the sharply creased writing paper from it. Mathers snatched the folded note with more haste and less care than Atkins would have liked, and held it up to his chainmail and leather mask. He noticed the welts and insects bites on Mathers’ hands as he held the letter. Atkins heard a quick audible sniff from beneath the chainmail. Mathers’ head lolled back in a languorous manner, as he inhaled again, this time more slowly, deeper, relishing what he found there.
“Hey!” Atkins snatched the letter from his hands, scowling at the officer as if he’d just insulted the lady.
“Merely making sure, Corporal,” said Mathers, his head moving as though sucking up the last faint dregs of scent, his chainmail rattling faintly.
Atkins reverently slipped the letter back into its envelope and returned it to his pocket. “Is there anything left, sir?”
Mathers appeared to be lost in a reverie.
“Sir?”
Mathers looked at him. “Yes. I can still smell it.” He turned on his heel and went back to inspecting the tank.
Atkins sighed with relief. He hadn’t even been aware of holding his breath. He closed his eyes, tipped back his head to the heavens and offered a muttered, but heartfelt, thank-you. He would see the day out and that, at least, gave him some little comfort.
He returned to 1 Section, who were packing their gear and getting ready to move off, and approached Nellie Abbott.
“I’m worried about Lieutenant Mathers,” said Atkins. “Can you give him the once over? The last thing we need is a windy ruddy officer.” Nellie looked uncomfortable with the idea. Atkins pressed the point. “Look, Alfie’s life depends on this man. Do you really want that if he’s funked it?”
“That’s not fair, Corporal.”
“Maybe not, Miss Abbott, but it’s true. Will you do it? If not for me, for Alfie?”
There was a stony silence and he felt himself wither under Nellie’s glare. Yet another thing of which he wasn’t proud. As she turned on her heel, he grabbed her earnestly by the wrist. “He’s been badly bitten by insects,” he co
nfided. She looked down at the importunate hand on her wrist, arching an eyebrow, and he released her. With a dismissive huff, she strode over to Lieutenant Mathers, who was still inspecting the tank.
“Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Nurse?”
“I hear you were bitten a lot last night, I was wondering if you’d just let me look and make sure that you’re all right?”
He waved her away. “There’s no need.”
“Mr Mathers, it’s my job. It’ll only take ’alf a mo’. An’ if it’s serious, then maybe I’ve got something that’ll help, and if not, I’m sure Napoo could whip up one of his poultices.”
“This isn’t necessary.”
She reached up to lift his chainmail curtain and he slapped her hand away.
“I said it isn’t necessary. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Mr Mathers,” she said with wounded dignity. “I’ll be the judge of that. Now let me help you.”
Mathers turned to go, but Nellie, surprised by her own audacity, caught hold of the chainmail curtain in his mask and ripped it upwards and back, knocking off his toughened leather turtle helmet in the process. It clattered to the ground as he wheeled round and turned on the small FANY, who now held his mask in her hand.
She gasped as she saw his face. It wasn’t the usual impetigo and rashes from petrol fumes that she normally saw on tank crews. Large raised red plaques covered his skin and there were swellings at his throat, but his eyes—his eyes were completely black, upon which a shifting rainbow film swirled continually, like petrol on water.
He turned those eyes upon her now. “How dare you!” he snarled, before crumpling with a groan and clutching his stomach.
“Are you all right?” asked Nellie, putting her hand on his shoulder and noticing the growth at the base of his skull. “Let me help you.”
Mathers forced himself upright. “You’ve done enough. The fuel fumes help me all I need. They stop it spreading.” He snatched back his mask from Nellie’s hand and, stooping to pick up his fallen helmet, he stormed off to the tank.
“Wait, stops what spreading? Stops what, Lieutenant?”
The chunter of the tank’s engine filled the clearing, drowning out the possibility of any further conversation as Clegg ran the engine up.
“Did you see?” said Nellie, still shocked.
“Yes. Yes, I did,” said Atkins, thoughtfully.
“But his eyes!”
“The petrol fruit.”
“Alfie doesn’t have that, none of them have.”
Atkins shook his head. “No, they haven’t been drinking the stuff. Mathers has.”
“He has some kind of infection, too. Those plaques on his face and the swellings on his neck, I’ve never seen anything like them.”
Atkins hadn’t either, but then this world was full of particularly unpleasant surprises. “I think he’s drinking the petrol fruit to relieve the pain of it, but it makes him see things. Believe me, I know. I think he’s mad, Miss Abbott, but he has a great influence over his men. They’re fiercely loyal. If we move against him, they’ll do everything they can to protect him, which will get us nowhere, and we need that tank. Lieutenant Everson needs that tank.”
Napoo had a different opinion on Mathers and had no qualms about telling the rest of the section. “Someone has cursed him, and he has been possessed by an evil spirit. Who might have the power to do such a thing?”
“Jeffries,” exclaimed Chalky. “Jeffries could do it, couldn’t he, Only?”
Mercy clipped him round the back of his head. “Prat!” Some people just saw Jeffries everywhere.
Jeffries had sprung to Atkins’ mind, too, but he dismissed the idea. Despite all the claims and the stories, his own encounter with Jeffries suggested that he was nothing more than a man. “Can you help him?”
Napoo shook his head sadly. “Those possessed by dulgur are cast out of the clan for fear of the harm or bad fortune they bring. I do not understand why the Tohmii keep theirs around.”
Atkins frowned. It took him a moment to realise that he was talking about the shell-shocked. No wonder the Urmen gave the Bird Cage a wide berth.
“So,” said Atkins, none the wiser. “Mathers is either possessed, or mad.”
“Well, that’s nothing new, he’s an officer,” said Mercy.
* * * 1 sECTION MOVED out behind the tank as it rolled forwards, crushing a path through the undergrowth as they set off in the direction in which the smoke creatures had dragged the Zohtakarrii. The Chatts had been hauled through the jungle at speed, even without the thin oily residue that coated the trees and undergrowth, the trail of snapped branches, gouged ground, and occasional Chatt limb wasn’t hard to follow.
Atkins dropped back and matched his stride with that of Chandar’s. The Chatt was silent, fidgeting with the tassels of its shoulder cloth, watching the tank closely as if still debating with itself on the matter of its divinity.
“You say the Tohmii came from the Sky Web?” it asked, unexpectedly. “From the stars, yes.”
Chandar hissed and chittered to itself and came to a decision.
“Among the Khungarrii Shura there is a secret olfaction of Ones who believe, as this One does, that Urmen have a greater part to play in our Osmology. Sirigar holds the old-established view; that Urmen, casteless and queenless as they are, were put here by GarSuleth merely to service the needs of the Ones as they see fit. Sirigar’s interpretation of the prophecy, that the Tohmii are the Great Corruption, is flawed and self-serving. That One seeks to unite wavering olfactions of the Shura behind it and consolidate its position with the defeat of the Great Corruption—the Tohmii.”
“So there are some Chatts that believe we are not this ‘Great Corruption’ then? That’s heartening to know,” Atkins said sardonically. “It is an ancient prophecy, its interpretation an old debate, going back generations. The arrival of the Tohmii is but the latest. This One, however, believes the prophecy refers not to an external threat but rather an internal one; the warping and narrowing of our own beliefs to serve a baser purpose.”
“Sirigar.”
The Chatt concentrated as it gulped down air to speak. “Yes. The only way to challenge that One is through the Supplication of Scents before the Shura. If our argument proves persuasive only the Queen can issue the necessary chemical decree, acknowledging our interpretation as the correct one, to be accepted by all.” Chandar paused for another breath and bowed its head. “Our only hopes of distilling the essence of our argument lay in the Aromatic Archives of the Fragrant Libraries destroyed by Jeffries. There, too, were held the records of one of the Divine Disciplines, the recreation of the Celestial Scent, an attempt to understand its totality by alchemically capturing the Sacred Odour of GarSuleth itself. There are those, like this One, who believe that some note of the Urman scent is inherent to this endeavour. Both of these sacred undertakings were dashed by Jeffries’ sacrilege and the Tohmii’s actions. We are diminished because of it.”
“That wasn’t our fault,” said Atkins. “We simply wanted our people back.”
“Nevertheless, the atrocity was committed,” said Chandar. Atkins was shocked. Was it really all their fault? Had they brought all this on themselves? “Why are you telling me this?”
“Your act of Kurda, saving this One, was unforeseen, unprecedented.
It has cast a new anchor line into the world, a silver thread of possibilities. A web of potential not yet woven. This One would know what may be spun from it.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
“To you, maybe, but to this One these are signs, portents. Upon these rest the fate of your herd, make no mistake.”
It was almost too much for Atkins. Internal divisions within the Khungarrii, one of which might be sympathetic to the Pennines, now powerless because of the Pennines’ own actions. In one of his blacker moods, he could almost believe that God was having some cruel capricious joke at his expense. All he’d tried to do was the right thing.
Almos
t fearing to broach the subject, he pressed on. “You said some things, yesterday. Was that smoke creature Croatoan?”
“This One does not know.”
Atkins felt himself beginning to lose his temper. “Look, Chatt, I’m leading my men into God knows what here. If you have any information about what we’re heading into, then tell me. You once said that we had some sort of connection.”
“Kurda.”
“Right. Kurda, because I saved your life. Now it’s your turn. Save mine. What’s going on here? What is it you’re not telling me?” Chandar fell silent, but glanced occasionally at Atkins as they walked. Perhaps, Atkins thought, the Chatt was struggling with its conscience, if it had one. God help them if it didn’t.
THEY HAD BEEN walking for about half an hour when Chalky stopped to relieve himself by the trackside. He screamed and stepped back, still voiding his bladder. Losing his footing, he turned round to maintain his balance, flinging out an arc of yellow drops as he went.
Mercy stepped back to avoid the spray. “Hey look out, Chalky. Bleeding hell, ladies present.”
“Ruddy hell, lad! Did Shiner coming a cropper teach you nothing?” bawled Gutsy.
“There!” Chalky cried, trying to tuck himself away. “There!”
“All right, lad. Leave this to us,” said Mercy, stepping past him as he, Gazette and Pot Shot approached the side of the tank’s path.
Pot Shot looked down into the scrub and found he was peering into the piss-filled eye socket of a skull staring up at him through the reddish bracken.
Living on the Somme had hardened most of them to such sights. You couldn’t walk ten yards without coming across a body in some state of decomposition. One trench they held had a Frenchie’s arm sticking out of the trench wall. Their old sergeant, Jessop, used to hang his equipment from it.
