by Pat Kelleher
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” he said, racing after Nurse Bell and towards the oncoming stampede.
He leapt over a communication trench like a steeple chaser, almost losing his footing on the parapet, sending sandbags tumbling down into it. He pounded over a trench bridge. With his lungs burning in his chest, he headed for the barbed wire entanglements. The shell-shocked man had found the gap in it and was wading through it like a rising tide, heedless of the barbs that snatched and tore at him.
Bell clung desperately onto his arm, her weight on her front foot as she tried to use her meagre frame to halt his dogged advance.
Drawing his revolver Everson raced towards her. He could see the approaching herds now, their stench heavy on the wind. They flowed round the mausoleum mounds of the Khungarrii like a river as they met the first of the mesmerised Chatts. The arthropods fell beneath them without resistance and they trampled them under foot.
He reached Bell and grabbed her arm. “Come on. We have to go. Now!”
“No, we have to save him.”
“We can’t. You’ve done enough!”
But she wouldn’t give up her patient.
Everson levelled his revolver at the unwary man, who was still trying to advance despite their added weight. “God damn it, woman, if you don’t let go, I’ll shoot him.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Watch me!” He cocked the Webley with his thumb. “It’s technically desertion anyway!”
“No!” Bell let go of the man’s arm, only to grab Everson’s revolver and push it towards the ground.
She watched, all hope lost, as the man, suddenly free of the dead weight, surged forwards towards the wire and rushed out to meet the oncoming wall of flesh and fur.
“Jones!”
“He’ll have to take his chances, though why he chose now to show some bloody gumption, I’ll never know!” Everson, still gripping her wrist, began dragging her towards the trench. He leapt down on to the fire step, almost knocking a soldier off, and dragged Bell in after him. He lost his balance and ended up on his back, Bell sprawled across him and struggling to free her wrist from his grip. He relented and let her go, only for her to repay him with a sharp slap to the cheek. He guessed he deserved that. Edith scrambled to her feet, trying to recover her dignity. She stepped onto the fire step, with every intention of going out after her patients again, raised her head above the parapet, and gasped.
Everson glanced around the fire bay and, spotting a funk hole in the side of the revetment, yanked out the equipment and pulled Edith over.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping you safe, since you seem incapable of doing it for yourself.” He indicated the shallow hole, as if he were opening a door for a lady. “In.”
She looked for a moment as if she might object, and knowing Bell, as he had come to over the past few months, she probably would. He shoved her into the vacant hole anyway. She looked up at him, halfannoyed and half-thankful.
“Stay there.”
The rumble of hooves and feet now seemed to encompass their whole world. He returned to the fire step, risking a quick glance over the parapet. He had faced waves of charging Huns before, but nothing prepared him for the sight that met him now.
All he could see was a bow wave of dust and chaff as the solid wall of fear-driven herds bore down on what now seemed flimsy defences against such an unstoppable force. The lines of Tennyson’s poem rang in Everson’s head. “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of death...”
SERGEANT HOBSON STOOD in a fire bay beside Monroe, Carter and Cox, rifles loaded.
“Here they come, lads!” Hobson bellowed, taking aim. He fired five rounds rapid, bringing three beasts down short of the fire trench, but it was like Canute trying to hold back the tide.
“Bugger this!” he said, ducking. “It’s like trying to swat minnies with me battle bowler. Take cover, lads. We’ve done all we can. Let’s just try and ride this out.”
They hunkered down in the trench to sit out the beastly barrage.
A GREAT WAVE of fur and bone, of blood and sinews, claws and horns, of hide and carapace rushed pell-mell towards them across the veldt. The spur of the foothills served to part the wave, funnelling stampeding animals into the adjacent valleys. It also channelled a good proportion of what was left of the panicked herds down the valley towards them.
Everson watched as the first wave of the stampede reached the wire shores of their island home, the greater parts flowing around the great circular encampment and past it, on up the valley.
Still, unrelenting waves of animals crashed and broke against the wall of wire and weed, driven headlong by some uncontrollable fear. Those behind pressed those in front ever onwards in a surge of bodies, advancing over those caught in the tightening bonds. Within moments, the tide of dead and dying had clogged the entanglements, providing purchase and passage over the wire.
The animals surged towards the front line. Everson was depending on the support and reserve trenches to take out as many animals as possible before the fire trench was overwhelmed, trying to slow or derail the stampede, to spare the centre of the camp the worst of it.
Some enterprising soldier threw a grenade into the marauding mass. It exploded in a ball of shrapnel, meat and bloody vapour, anguished animal screams piercing the heavy bass thunder.
Those animals near it tried to veer away from it, momentarily sparing the fire bay directly in front, channelling them instead towards adjacent bays. Men there, in turn, threw their grenades to avoid the onslaught. It seemed to have the desired effect, lessening the strength of the initial frontal assault, but it only worked for the first wave. It wasn’t actually stopping it. They didn’t have enough bombs to sustain the tactic, and the great press of creatures continued unabated, bellowing, snoring and roaring towards the trenches.
Everson could do nothing but bear witness. The sandbags shook and, through the revetment, he felt the ground tremble against his chest. The noise and the stench of musk and fear were overwhelming. He feared even the tank would not have fared well against such an onslaught of flesh.
Predators and prey ran together, their natural enmities temporarily forgotten in their headlong flight. Creatures he recognised, others he didn’t, tore towards him in an unheeding rush, snapping, biting and rearing at those that got in their way. From his worm’s-eye view over the parapet, Everson felt more vulnerable than ever.
Great three-legged tripodgiraffes tried to maintain their balance as they tottered headlong, striding above the packs below. Two-legged pelths, twice the size of ostriches, with sharp, hooked beaks, wove in and out of their legs, threatening to trip them, or be trampled. One tripodgiraffe did fall, its great long neck flailing as it crashed to the ground like a felled tree, to be lost, trampled under hooves.
Hell hounds bounded, snapping and snarling at each other in fear. Large, heavy, prehensile-lipped gurduin, herbivores with great bone head-ridges, and mottled hides riddled with wart-like protrusions, thundered headlong, their brutish looks belying their usual passivity, distorted by foam-flecked mouths and white eyes rolling with terror.
“Look out,” called Everson, to the men around him. “Here they come. Keep down!”
One of the gurduin stumbled, its forelegs folding beneath it. Trying to get to its feet, it was pummelled back into the ground. Others, too slow to react, and too hemmed in to manoeuvre around, barrelled into it. Some attempted to leap over, but their short legs and cumbersome bodies weren’t meant for such athletic moves, and they caught their legs and tumbled over, losing their balance, to join it in the same fate, and the pile up began.
One beast, leaping the fallen, clipped the bodies beneath. The beast’s scream cut through the thunderous thrumming of the hooves around it as it tripped and fell forwards, breaking its foreleg. It crashed headlong through the sandbag parapet, its momentum and weight carrying it slithering over the edge into the narrow trough of the trench.
&nb
sp; The soldier barely had time to scream before its huge bulk threw him off the fire step. It drove him into the duckboards, snapping planks and bones, where the beast struggled, screaming and kicking, trying to right itself, grinding the Tommy’s body beneath it and smashing the revetments with its hooves. A wild kick splintered another soldier’s thigh, the jagged shards of femur ripping though his khaki serge as it quickly began to stain with blood.
His mates dragged him clear of the bellowing animal, yelling for a stretcher bearer. Quickly, three bayonets were plunged into the creature, briefly increasing the thrashing and squealing. Barely had Everson stepped up and shot it in the forehead, than Bell was out of her funk hole, taking charge of the casualties, as along the front line other panicked animals leapt over the trenches, losing their footing and tumbling madly into the man-made ditches.
Choking dust sifted down from the hurtling herds above as they leapt over the trenches. The men knew enough now to keep their heads down, and huddled at the bottom, their hands over their heads, to sit it out. Some sat back against the parados revetment, their feet braced against the opposite wall, their rifles and bayonets pointed up against the prospect of a clumsy beast. Others lit up what fags they had left and smoked nonchalantly as the beasts thundered and pounded by, feet above their heads, showering them with dirt, dust, and the occasional fear-voided droppings, much to the amusement of their fellows.
Several chanced their heads and took pot-shots at the rampaging creatures from the fire steps. Caught by a stray hoof, one careless man’s neck snapped back, breaking in an instant. He crumpled to the duck boards like an empty sack.
With the thunderous pounding surrounding them, dirt raining down on them, it began to feel like an old-fashioned Bosche artillery barrage of minniewerfers and five-nines. It seemed to last forever. Everson almost laughed at the thought. Who would have thought he’d miss the good old days?
THEN, AS IT seemed the stampeding rumble would go on forever, it was over. The thunder of hooves receded, leaving only the odd squealing animal chasing after the rest.
The men waited, fearing more. It didn’t come and they began to relax, laugh and chatter with the exhilaration of survival. Hobson sniffed, straightened his waxed moustache, picked up his rifle and stood up, intending to peer over the parapet, but shouts of alarm over to his right distracted him. The screams grew louder, moving along the trench towards them. Several fire bays away, he heard shots fired.
A maddened hell hound careered round the traverse, confused and panic-stricken, cornered like a boar in a run. Men leapt onto fire steps and scrambled up the parapets out of its way. Several Tommies skidded to a halt behind it in the traverse and levelled their rifles. It slewed to a halt, snarling and snapping, cornered between the traverse and Sergeant Hobson.
Hobson aimed his bayoneted rifle and pulled the trigger. The rifle jammed. Stoppage. He cursed silently but didn’t back down. He gripped his rifle more firmly and dropped it into a low defensive guard. The bayonet was his weapon now.
Its way blocked, the hell hound attempted to turn in the tight space, but couldn’t. Frustrated and enraged, it snapped at a man’s legs on the fire step, sinking its teeth into his calf and dragging him down off the step, as the man clawed at the revetment, stretching hands that reached down, but not far enough.
It tossed its head, shaking him. Even over the man’s scream, Hobson heard the man’s leg snap.
Hobson let out a roar, and the beast turned its head to look at him. It opened its jaws and let the man drop. Hobson lunged forward with his fixed bayonet; the hell hound shook its head in challenge and sprung forwards to meet him. With a blood-curdling cry, Hobson thrust his rifle, plunging the bayonet deep into the creature’s chest. The hell hound’s attack faltered. Stuck on the bayonet, it snapped at Hobson, who held it at bay with the length of the rifle.
He glanced up at the scared men on the parapets, who looked unsure of what to do. “Well don’t just bloody stand there taking bets. Fire, damn you or I’ll have your names!”
Shaken from their fear, the men took aim and a fusillade of bullets slammed into the creature. Amid the cordite smoke, Hobson felt the rifle take the full weight of the hell hound as it died, and withdrew his bayonet.
Hobson looked at the firing squad on the parapet, glaring up at them from under the lip of his steel helmet. “If I find out any of you bet against me,” he said. “I’ll have your bloody guts for garters.”
EVERSON TENTATIVELY RAISED a look-stick over the collapsing parapet and squinted through the aperture. The dust was still settling, caught as it was by wind eddies.
The bodies of beasts littered the ground: the sick, the old, the young, the unlucky, lay twisted and broken, dead or injured. The living squealed and whinnied in pain.
Satisfied that the stampede had run its course, he climbed out of the trench to survey the encampment. Around the fire trench, others climbed out, too, pushing back their helmets in bewilderment and disbelief at the devastation wreaked by the stampede.
Everson’s heart sank as he turned around. Animal bodies hung from the wire entanglements, trenches had collapsed, tents had been trampled, and hutments razed. It might as well have been a bloody Hun artillery barrage.
Hobson walked up and joined him.
“All that work and we’re back where we started,” said Everson with a sigh.
Hobson stuck out his chest and rocked on his feet. “It’ll give the men something to do, sir.”
“We’re going to have to strengthen the trenches, relay the entanglements, repitch the tents, rebuild the hutments...”
“Still,” said Hobson, brightly. “Plenty of dung for the gunpowder experiments now, I’d say.”
Everson sighed. “Thank you, Sergeant, I hadn’t realised there was such a silver lining.”
Hobson glanced down modestly, and shrugged. “You just have to look for it. Or in your case, sir, tread in it.”
THE STAMPEDE OVER, the gas gong sounded the all-clear. Edith and Sister Fenton climbed out of the dugout. Together the nurses looked out towards the approaching storm.
Edith didn’t relish the prospect of the quagmire the trenches would become under a torrential rain, and she suspected the men wouldn’t either. They had grown used to the comfort of dry trenches and dugouts.
As she watched the storm shadows slide across the veldt towards them, she squinted at the voluminous roiling grey mass in the distance and shivered.
TULLIVER CIRCLED THE trenches in his Sopwith, looking for somewhere to land. The hooves of thousands of bloody animals had churned up his carefully kept strip. They’d trampled the whole landscape to buggery. There had to be somewhere to land.
His attention turned to the oncoming weather, to the great grey-blue mass rolling towards them, blotting out the achingly blue sky as it came.
Only they weren’t clouds. From up here, that much was clear now. Tulliver could see what those on the ground couldn’t. The danger wasn’t yet over because the stampede was never the threat. It was what caused it that was the real threat.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Into Your Dugout and Say Your Prayers...”
EVERSON FOCUSED HIS binoculars on the storm front and felt a hoarfrost of fear creep down his spine. He adjusted the focus and blurred shadows sharpened into a moment of confusing detail. He lowered the field glasses to get context and quickly raised them again, panning across the rapidly advancing cloud front. He passed the glasses to Hobson, soliciting the platoon sergeant’s opinion. “What do you make of it?”
With no other hint, Hobson took the glasses. “Bloody hell!” he spat, adding a hasty, “sir.”
It could have been a great armada of blimps, dirigibles of enormous size, driven along by the wind. There seemed to be no source of motive power. Was this the cause of the stampede? Some kind of air force? If it was a fleet, it threatened to fill the sky.
“What are they, some kind of Zeppelins? Some sort of foreign airship?”
“Maybe, sir. No
, wait, they’re...”
“They are the Kreothe,” said a voice, filled with horror and realisation. It was Poilus. “The great drifting sky shoals of Kreothe. Huge airborne creatures that live on the winds, never coming to earth.”
“Thank God,” said Everson with relief. “You had me worried there for a minute.”
“And so you should be,” said Poilus, looking at the approaching things in wonder. “The Kreothe may live in the air, but they feed on the ground. They come, blown by the winds, by the breath of GarSuleth. They have not passed this way in generations. I have only known them exist in tales the elders tell of older times. The last time they passed this way, our clan were still Khungarrii Urmen, safe in Khungarr.”
“Sir?” Hobson knocked Everson on the upper arm with the back of his hand as he held out the binoculars. “I think he’s right. It’s not over yet. You’d better take another look...”
Everson did.
What they had mistaken for a cloud front or a zeppelin fleet was, in fact, thousands of individual creatures, of varying sizes, floating from gas sacs, hundreds of feet in the air. Their progress was calm and measured, and above all silent. It was impossible not to be impressed by the things as they crowded the wide sky in their slow stately progress above the veldt. Air sac followed air sac in a mass of varying sizes; from huge towering majestic creatures that appeared, to Everson’s imagination, like the old bulls of the shoal, to skittish flimsy little things, like younglings.
Great long thick tendrils, hundreds of feet long, hung from the creatures, dragging along the veldt, dredging for food.
Everson watched, almost spellbound, as tentacles caught animals up, lifting their catches into the air, before handing them over to the shorter fronds that clustered around the bodies protruding below the great air sacs. These, it seemed, were great prehensile tongues, that seemed to taste the creature’s food before it ingested it. Everson knew many creatures on this planet were inedible or, perhaps, had defences against such predation. This was obviously the Kreothe way of countering that, testing it perhaps, before drawing it up into pulsing mouth tubes and into the belly of yet another swelling.
