by Pat Kelleher
“Bugger me if that’s wasn’t a turn-up for the books. Makes you wonder who else is wandering about out there.”
The door puckered and shrivelled as it opened. The Fusiliers stood, tensed, fists clenching, glancing from each other to their NCO and officer for the order.
Two scentirrii armed with electric lances stepped through the door, with four more outside, scotching that idea. Everson shook his head and indicated with a hand down by his hip that they should stand down. They were ready for a fight, but with the release of an alarm scent, the whole population of the edifice would come down on them. Now wasn’t the time.
Werner walked through the door.
“What do you want, Fritz?” rumbled Gutsy, slapping a meaty fist into the palm of his other hand.
“Private.” Everson’s rebuke stilled the stocky butcher, but his eyes still burned with contempt.
Werner waved the insult away with a magnanimity he could well afford.
Everson greeted him curtly, the same question on his own mind. “Well, Oberleutnant?”
“Nothing from you I’m afraid, Lieutenant. I wish to speak to your kinematographer.”
“Me?” said Hepton warily, adjusting his glasses on his nose and risking a shufti at the Fusiliers.
“Yes, it appeared you were worried about your equipment.”
Hepton glanced cautiously at Everson, who just scowled, then stepped forward hesitantly, expecting a trick.
“Yes. Is it all right?”
“As far as I know. There is, however, something you can do to secure its continued safety.”
That caught Hepton’s interest. “Yes?”
“You see, I need your expertise, Herr...?”
“Hepton. Oliver Hepton.”
“Herr Hepton, I need you to help to develop some photographic plates.”
“Plates?” Hepton looked from Werner to Everson.
Everson watched the exchange impassively. Hepton was an odd cove. On the one hand, the man was a coward and a cad. On the other, he was prepared to take the most outrageous risks to get his precious moving pictures. The canisters of undeveloped kine film he carried around, of the Pennines on this world, were his fortune. If they got back to Earth, they would make him tremendously rich. He needed them. He also needed Everson and his men to keep him alive until then. But Hepton was a survivor. He hedged his bets and covered his arse. His only loyalty was to self-preservation, and now was no exception.
Hepton turned to Everson and tapped his nose. “Don’t worry; I’ll keep my eyes peeled. See what I can find out,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper loud enough for those Fusiliers nearby to hear.
He didn’t fool Everson. Still, the chances were that Hepton would procure some information as security against his own survival. That might prove useful.
Hepton didn’t wait for Everson’s permission but stepped forward to join Werner, who nodded curtly at Everson before turning and leaving the chamber. Hepton followed, looking back as he stepped through the door to give a shrug and sheepish grin, as if to say, ‘What else can I do?’
“Be seeing you—Kamerad,” growled Gutsy.
Hepton looked away with a guilty start as he followed Werner from the gaol chamber.
The Scentirrii retreated and the plant door shut again.
“The jammy bastard,” was all Pot Shot could say.
TULLIVER WAS DISMAYED to see Werner return with Hepton. The kinematographer sauntered into the chamber with the air of one whose fortune had turned at the expense of others and who didn’t care.
“Lieutenant!” Hepton said brightly when they met again. “It seems I have a commission.” He clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together. “Shall we get started?” He turned to Werner. “Where is my equipment? You said it was safe.”
“It is being held by their apothecaries,” said Werner.
An escort of scentirrii took them up an inclined passage to the higher reaches of the edifice. A faint thrumming sounded through the passages as the ventilation system sucked fresh air deep into the core of the colony.
Despite his revulsion at the situation, Tulliver felt a rising sense of expectation. He was, he hated to admit, intrigued by Werner’s mystery. Perhaps, he reasoned, there were bigger things at stake here than political enmity.
The scentirrii brought them to a small, unassuming chamber. They ushered them inside, going no further themselves. Werner strode past them with all the confidence of one who has rights and access.
Beyond was a succession of further chambers, occupied, Tulliver found, by a different class of Chatts. These had plainer, pallid carapaces, as though they had never left the dark recesses of the edifice. They wore plain white silken tabards that almost touched the floor. Each wore a small pouch at its hip, slung across its thorax by silken rope. They were clearly akin to the dhuyumirrii caste of the Khungarrii.
There was a groan of despair from Hepton, as he spotted his precious equipment in the corner of one chamber. He dashed over and fell upon it, with all the fear and relief of someone inspecting a child for injuries after an accident, checking the camera box, his tripod, his haversack of film canisters, wincing at each scuff and scratch.
He pulled out a wooden box from a haversack and swore under his breath. The brown glass bottles that had contained the remains of his photography fluids had cracked and one had shattered completely. The chemicals had drained away, staining the wood. There was precious little remaining. Certainly not enough to develop anything. Hepton sat back on his heels, crestfallen, sure his fate would now be to join the rest of the Fusiliers below.
“It’s cracked. There’s nothing left,” he rasped. “Not a drop.”
“Let me see,” said Werner brusquely. He took a bottle from him, held it up to the faint lichen light and peered through the brown glass. It was empty apart from a residue at the bottom. He unstopped the bottle and wrinkled his nose, recoiling from the lingering acrid smell of the chemicals.
Hepton flinched. “It—it’s not my fault. You can’t blame me. We were attacked by your Chatts...” His voice trailed away.
Tulliver caught sight of the Chatts, who stood regarding them, as they themselves might watch ants. He had been in the officers’ powwows and briefings about the Khungarrii. There was no reason to believe these Zohtakarrii were much different.
“If we can smell it,” he said, nodding towards them, “then what could they do?” He strode toward them, belligerently. “Here,” said Tulliver, holding out the bottle toward one of them.
The Chatt inclined its head in a questioning manner.
“Smell this. Can you make more? You know, more?”
The creature looked to Werner, who nodded his assent.
It hissed, reached out a long-fingered hand and took the cracked glass bottle with some reluctance, as if the act were beneath it, as if Tulliver had spoken out of place and dared to call their skill and sacred calling into question.
The Chatt returned to its fellows and, holding the cracked bottle with its precious residue, they gathered round it, like Macbeth’s witches, their heads bowed, their segmented antennae waving gently over the opening.
They were like the alchemists of old, thought Tulliver. Although their main occupation was the protection and interpretation of the sacred scents and prophetic perfumes, they could turn their skills to other things. After all, they had manufactured a fuel for Werner and his aeroplane. Developing fluid shouldn’t be beyond them.
The Chatts withdrew from the chamber and Werner followed. He beckoned Tulliver and Hepton. “Come.”
In chambers beyond lay endless niches of stone jars and amphorae filling the walls, each containing scents and odours, elements and compounds, the contents of which Tulliver couldn’t even begin to guess at, arranged by some system he could not comprehend.
Ranks of similar Chatts worked on unfathomable tasks at rows of solid clay tables rising from the floor.
“It’s like a scriptorium,” whispered Werner. “Medieval monks making i
lluminated manuscripts, but with odours, aromas and scents.”
The three Chatts approached another, standing at a clay lectern, like a chief clerk or overseer. There was a brief consultation. The bottle produced much agitated waving of antennae and, in a disconcerting moment, all four turned their heads in unison to glance at the three men.
The clerk went over to the wall of the chamber, summoning an acolyte nymph with a few judicious clicks and hisses. The creature returned to the niches and carefully selected various amphorae, jars and pots.
The men had nothing to do but wait nervously as the Chatts attempted to concoct an ersatz developing fluid.
Then they would see if it worked.
THE CHATTS CAME for the Fusiliers several hours later.
The plant door dilated open. The moment it did, the men were up on their feet. This was it. They had come for them as they had come for the others before.
A moment’s luck, to a soldier on the front line, could be a matter of life and death. They all had their good luck rituals, however idiosyncratic. Gutsy quickly kissed his lucky rabbit’s foot. Porgy had a collection of girls’ keepsake photographs, his ‘deck of cards.’ He quickly selected one to be today’s lucky Queen of Hearts and put her in his top pocket. Atkins’ was no more ridiculous than most. He pulled out his last letter from Flora. For better or worse, he had come to believe that if he could still smell the perfume on the last letter she sent, he would be safe, and it had worked. Now the letter was months old and her perfume had faded. Mathers, with his petrol-fruit-enhanced senses, was the last to smell it. With a heavy heart, he slipped the fragile letter back into his tunic as the scentirrii herded them down the passage, past gaol cells once occupied by men of the rescue platoon, now ominously open and empty.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Our Little Hour...”
UNARMED, APART FROM contemptuous glances and an anger that bristled like the scentirrii spears around them, the Fusiliers found themselves marched like POWs along a passage that spiralled down into the subterranean depths of the edifice.
“Another long bloody walk,” Porgy muttered.
“It’s not going to be Fritz machine guns and barbed wire at the other end, though, is it?” said an indignant Mercy.
Atkins took the feeling of fear expanding in his belly and, by a controlled application of hate, compressed it into a small hardened ball of dull nausea, as he had done many times going over the top to advance across No Man’s Land.
The passage took them down into the bowels of the edifice, and Atkins became aware of a soft roar building on the persistent low hum of the air currents, beyond the padre’s muttered Rosary.
Gazette had heard it, too. “Sounds like a carpet slipper bastard.”
It didn’t make any of them feel easier. As they continued their descent, it rose to a crescendo, punctuated with a clashing rhythm of carapaces, a rhythm that they had heard before, albeit to a Khungarrii beat.
The scentirrii guards stopped and ushered them into a side passage off the main incline. It was dark and small, and they had to go Indian file, the scentirrii bringing up the rear.
“Anyone else feel like we’re going up the commo?” said Gazette.
Nobody answered. They didn’t have to. That’s exactly what it felt like; the long march from the reserve area up to the front line along the shallow, narrow zigzag of the communications trenches. Each man retreated into his own world, his own private space, preparing himself as best he could for whatever was to come.
Atkins thought of Flora. Denied his usual ritual of the letter, he plucked a memory to savour, as Porgy might select one of his photograph cards; that last night, the memory of Flora naked in the firelight, in her front parlour, her skin suffused with a rose gold glow, her saintly smile full of wonder. He froze the moment, before the smile slipped and welling tears distorted the scene, before the memory of William tainted it. He couldn’t have one without the other. The memories were entwined.
They emerged from the cramped dark tunnel into another chamber. Once in, Atkins heard a creak and turned to see a barbed plant door contract shut. There was no way back. There was only one other exit from the chamber. It was in front of them and another barbed plant door blocked that, too.
There, piled on the floor were their confiscated weapons; webbing, haversacks, gas hood bags, steel helmets, rifles, bayonets, Mills bombs, trench clubs and even Everson’s sword, along with the kitbags containing the modified electric lance packs and Riley’s Signals gear.
Atkins and the others looked to Everson.
“Arm yourselves. Take everything you can. I’ve a feeling we won’t be coming back this way,” he said.
The men set about putting on webbing and packs, a sense of anxiety and foreboding building as they did so, ameliorated by small personal victories. Gazette was reunited with his sniper’s rifle. Gutsy found his meat cleaver; he picked up the instrument and hefted it, comforted by the familiar weight in his hand.
He took the startled and frightened young Jenkins under his wing, checking his equipment and webbing. “Stick to me like glue, lad. You’ll be fine.”
Jenkins tried to force a smile through his fear and only partially succeeded.
Everson found and holstered his Webley and picked up his sword.
By the time they had readied themselves, there was not much left on the floor; a bayonet, the odd battle bowler and several pieces of webbing lay unclaimed.
Mercy went through the webbing pockets pulling out spare ammunition and the odd grenade and redistributing them.
By the time they were fully and correctly attired, they felt whole again, each item adding a little to their fortitude.
When they were ready, Everson instinctively looked at his wristwatch. “Stand by,” he said, for no other reason than habit. Whatever they were about to face, they were as ready for it as they would ever be.
Atkins felt he could almost be back in the trenches, staring at the hated ladders, waiting for zero hour. He stood by the living door, through which they could hear chanting and carapace-beating. It began to recoil and open, shrivelling back towards the walls of the circular opening.
A breeze blew down the tunnel towards them, carrying on it the sound of massed Chatts... and something else: the smell of blood and shit and cordite.
For a few seconds, the men hesitated, though not from any sense of wind-up or funk. Atkins and the others turned their eyes to Everson, who stepped forward to the van. If they were going to go ‘over the top,’ they would go when he gave the order and not before.
Instinctively, Everson put his whistle to his lips and blew. Holding his sword and drawing his pistol, he began to walk down the tunnel and his men followed.
IN THE CANYON, Sergeant Dixon balanced on a block of unstable scree and glared at the ruddy-faced Buckley, hunched over his precious wooden box of tricks by the metal wall, a hand cupped over one of the earphones clamped to his head.
They had tried repeatedly, at different times of the day, with the same result. Dixon shifted his weight. The rocks clattered under his feet.
Buckley turned and shot him a dirty look. “Shhh.”
Dixon glowered but bit his tongue.
The signalman finally pulled the earphones down around his neck, looked up at Dixon and shook his head.
“I’ve not heard a peep, Sarn’t. But maybe that just means they’re not doing anything the equipment can pick up.”
“Is there anything else we can do?”
“Well, I could try sending a telegraph. If there’s anybody inside listening, they might pick it up. Unless you have any better ideas, Sarn’t.”
He couldn’t see the point of trying, but Lieutenant Everson would want a full report on his return. It wasn’t as if they had anything better to do. The mystery of the wall was fast beginning to lose its allure.
Dixon frowned. “No, I haven’t. I just blow stuff up. Frankly, if I can’t bomb it, mine it or call a barrage down on it I’m at a loose end, and any mo
re cheek from you and I’ll have your name.”
Buckley looked up at the sergeant, unsure if that was an order or not.
“Well hop to it lad, hop to it,” said Dixon impatiently. “We haven’t got all day.”
That, though, was exactly what they did have, so Buckley busied himself connecting up a field telegraph to the wall and began tapping on the Morse key.
EVERSON AND HIS men walked warily from darkness into twilit gloom, until the tunnel opened out into a deep trench leading out in to a large arena. It was surrounded by a wall some twelve feet high, beyond which were stands of Chatts, mostly scentirrii. So large was the space that, unlike any Chatt chambers they had seen, it needed columns and buttresses to support the roof.
At the sight of the Tommies in the mouth of the tunnel, the carapacebeating from the assembled Chatts quickened aggressively. On the wall above, Chatts armed with electric lances urged the soldiers out into the killing space.
The spectating Chatts grew quiet with anticipation.
The bodies of Fusiliers and Karnos lay strewn about the arena, twisted and broken. Rifles lay scattered and discarded, along with several limbs, and shallow blackened grenade craters dimpled the arena floor.
The centre of the arena was dominated by a large striated outcrop of rock thrusting up through the floor at an angle, creating a small incline about twenty feet high with an overhang beneath its peak.
Lieutenant Everson, sword in hand, led the advance into the arena. Atkins, Mercy, Porgy and Gazette spread out in a line either side of him. In a second line, Riley and Tonkins advanced with their kitbags of electric lances and backpacks, flanked by Gutsy and Pot Shot. The padre was unarmed and while refusing to carry weapons, had loaded himself down with the Signals gear and brought up the rear with Jenkins, the Linseed Lancer, with his small medical knapsack and more Signals gear.
As they headed for the outcrop, they saw, round the other side, the body of a huge pale toad-like beast, larger than an elephant. It lay slumped by the rock, glassy-eyed, its side torn open by shrapnel, its rib cage shattered, allowing its viscera to slop out onto the ground.
