No Man's World: Omnibus

by Pat Kelleher

  Werner banked away sharply. The Albatros was faster and more manoeuvrable than the Strutter, but with its front-mounted twin Spandau machine guns, the Albatros could only fire head on. If they were to stand any chance at all, Hepton would have to use the observer’s Lewis machine gun, mounted behind him. It would even the odds a little.

  Seeing the two tethered Chatt balloons rising above their chimneys, Tulliver pushed his stick to the side and banked, coming down on them from above. He strafed them with brief bursts of machine-gun fire. You were supposed to wait until you were almost on top of them, but he wanted to keep out of range of their electric lances. The petrol tank was between him and Hepton, and the whole plane was doped fabric and wood. He didn’t fancy going down in flames.

  As he pulled up, he saw the punctured balloons begin to deflate and sink towards the edifice on their leashes.

  He heard the pop-pop-pop of machine gun fire. The threat of death spurred Hepton into action. The man had found some gumption. He was firing off at the Hun as the Albatros dived down on them from behind.

  Left stick and rudder, Tulliver side-slipped away. Both planes were now trying to turn inside each other’s circles so they could bring their forward guns to bear on their opponents. Diving and climbing, they spiralled, each pilot desperately trying to thwart the other, seeking the advantage for himself.

  Werner levelled out and swept towards the kite balloon, firing incendiaries at it as it drifted out over the crater.

  Tulliver pushed forwards on the stick and followed him down, all the while trying to centre him in his gunsight. He needed to be as close as possible to avoid hitting the kite balloon, but it was looming up fast.

  Werner flattened out at the last minute and roared so low over the top of the kite balloon that it looked as if he might set down on it.

  Tulliver could see the men in the cradle shouting and waving at him frantically. He was on a collision course. Wiping the fouling oil spray from his goggles, he nudged the nose forward, steepening his dive, sweeping under the kite balloon’s cradle.

  He hauled back on the stick and the bus raced up in a long climb. He swivelled his head about him, looking for the Hun. He tipped his wing and, looking down, saw him below, readying for another run at the kite balloon.

  Tulliver watched in horror as the balloon crumpled, flames consuming and shrivelling its skin, as it sank towards the crater.

  RANAMAN STOOD IN the cleft between the two halves of Croatoan’s Heart, holding the box. He nodded at the two warriors holding Alfie’s arms and they released him. Alfie tensed himself for the inevitable. If they were going to sacrifice him, then he would go with as much dignity as he could muster. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of screaming, or at least, he’d try not to.

  “Now you are to commune with the ancestors,” Ranaman demanded.

  The Urman withdrew another smaller box from the first and offered it to him.

  Alfie’s resolve collapsed in confusion. Would it spring open and douse him with a poison? Or did it contain some sacred creature that would kill with a lethal sting? If they wanted to kill him, he wasn’t going to make their job any bloody easier. He refused to touch the box, and glared at the chieftain.

  With a nod, Ranaman offered the smaller box again. “It is time. Channel the spirits of the ancestors.”

  Alfie looked again and saw that it wasn’t a box: it was a large book, spine on. He almost laughed. It was the last thing he expected. It had been an easy mistake to make in the dim light of the temple. It was an old book by the look of it, too, a large leather-bound tome with iron clasps. Its cover had some sort of symbol cast in iron set into it. Water damage had wrinkled the page edges and there was a faint smell of mildew about it.

  Seeing no alternative, he reached out and closed his hands about the book, trembling. What could be so bad about a book?

  There was an audible sigh of relief from Ranaman as he let go. It was as if he had transferred some great responsibility and was now absolved of any further expectations.

  Alfie turned to face the gathered clan. Ranaman had stepped back and joined the others, looking on with an awed, expectant gaze, expecting some miracle to occur.

  He’s going to be severely disappointed, thought Alfie as he frowned and turned his attention to the book. He opened it and riffled through the pages, a murmur of expectation rippling through the waiting clan. They watched him in amazement as he turned the pages.

  Why the hell didn’t they just read it themselves?

  And then it struck him. They couldn’t. He didn’t even think they knew what a book was, let alone writing. They seemed to think it was some arcane object, imbued with great supernatural powers, a vessel through which someone with witchcraft could communicate with the dead. In fact, this book looked old enough for their ancestors to have written it. If he could read it, then he supposed he would be communicating with the dead, reading their thoughts. He’d never thought of it like that before, and now that he did, it sent a shudder down his spine. No wonder they thought it a great magic.

  There was nothing else for it. He thumbed through the pages and stopped at random. Illegible, close, handwritten text filled the thick parchment pages. It hadn’t occurred to him that the language might not be English.

  He flipped through the pages, becoming anxious. He tried to look serious and portentous. He glanced up over the top of the book at the clan, who shuffled uneasily. Two men had stepped up behind Tarak, as if to make good on their threat, should Alfie fail.

  He could brazen it out. Make something up. If they couldn’t read, they wouldn’t know, would they? Is that what Jeffries did, make something up?

  He stopped and squinted at the writing. Something familiar. A word. Was it a word? He traced the writing with his finger, trying to spell it out. C, O, M. Something long. A, N. Something long, similar but not exactly like the other long letter. Company? Company, that was it. With that, the whole page seemed to unlock. He glanced over the page. It was English. Very old English, the s’s were f’s and the handwriting was hard to decipher, but he could read it. He breathed a sigh of relief before the thought, how was it English? crossed his mind, but the Urmen were becoming restless. That was a question for another time. Here and there, he made out words: White and Virginia and Roanoke. On one page there even looked to be a date, 1588. But that couldn’t have been right, for any schoolboy who knew his dates of kings and queens knew that was the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

  Flanked by the broken halves of Croatoan’s Heart, he began to read aloud to the assembled clan, hesitating as he tried to make sense of the unfamiliar script. Perhaps it had no more significance than the Bible readings he had heard the padre give during Church Parade. He tried to sound solemn and authoritarian.

  “The rituals are complete. One has gone ahead to scout the way for the company. They will go to seek the mouth to the underworld, there to descend to the enclave of the dead and petition for our Lord and Master, Croatoan, or else seek to destroy the false god and free him, restoring the Fallen One to his rightful place. Those that aid him, we have been told, will be granted great boons, and this new world will be theirs to dwell on, in the sight of Croatoan.”

  It wasn’t merely the words that sent a chill down Alfie’s spine. It was the fact that they were there at all. It was both an exciting and a horrifying discovery.

  All at once, he was out of his depth. He had never felt at ease with Mathers’ duplicity in pretending to be messengers of the gods. He was just a mechanic from Nottingham. All this occult stuff was fine, if fanciful, contained between the covers of Cecil’s adventure story magazines. Give him his tank any day, its one-hundred-horsepower Daimler engine, its six-millimetre steel plate. He understood that. But this?

  His brow creased as he gazed out over the pages of tightly-written text at the clan watching him beyond. Was it possible that these were the descendants of other earlier missing people? He looked up again at the people in shock, the book slipping from his hands, as th
e enormity of what he had just read sunk in.

  It seemed a magical transformation had occurred with his reading. The tables had turned. He was no longer the magical being. They were.

  “Who are you?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  Ranaman cocked his head and answered as if it were plain for all to see.

  “We are the sons and daughters of Ruanach. Worshippers of Croatoan. We have long sought to ease his pain and we have been promised that Croatoan will return.”

  “Promised? Promised by who?” he asked, though he feared he knew the answer.

  “The one who came before. Jeffries,” Ranaman replied.

  Ranaman stepped forward and took the closed book from Alfie, replacing it in its box, taking the responsibility from him once more, his part in the ritual done.

  The hair on the back of Alfie’s neck began to prickle. “But if we’re not the first...” He tried to marshal his thoughts. “Your ancestors, did they not leave? Go back to where they came from?”

  “Leave? Why? They sought a new world and were led to this place. They came a great distance seeking Croatoan, invoking his name. But he was tricked and defeated by GarSuleth and bound below in Skarra’s realm and they were lost, our new world taken from us by GarSuleth and its children.”

  It wasn’t just his neck that prickled now; it was the hairs on his arms, too, as if an electric charge were building.

  The air grew warm.

  The men groaned, the women wailed, and Ranaman cried out.

  “The Torment of Croatoan begins!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I Feel Once Again as of Yore...”

  THE ACRID SMELL of burning rubberised canvas filled Atkins’ nostrils as charred scraps of material from the burning balloon swirled round the cradle, leaving a greasy grey smear across the sky as they sank down into the crater. Right now, it was a moot point as to which would meet them first, the fire or the ground.

  “I’m not sure I like the Royal Flying Corps,” Porgy confided to nobody in particular. “Have I got time to put in a transfer back to the Poor Bloody Infantry, sir?” he called over to Everson with a smirk.

  “I think it’ll be granted sooner than either of us would like, Hopkiss,” said the lieutenant grimly, gripping onto the sides of the cradle as they plunged towards the ground.

  They were passing over the strip of discoloured vegetation. As the cradle twisted in the air, Atkins turned his head to keep it in sight, in an attempt to keep his bearings. Rising just above the treetops, near the centre of the crater, was some sort of narrow tower.

  “Sir!” he said to Everson, pointing.

  “I see it, Corporal.”

  The balloon’s passing shadow triggered small explosions, like gunshots, as whipperwills snapped hungrily at it, like sixty-foot bullwhips. As they lashed into the sky, sections peeled back at their tips, opening like fleshy petals, to reveal flayed-red lamprey-like mouths, each one ready to tear and strip, snapping one after the other at the deflating balloon like chained dogs, before recoiling into the trees beneath.

  Tonkins, the signaller, squeezed off several rounds at them, but they moved too fast and the bullets vanished harmlessly into the canopy.

  “Never mind, lad,” said Corporal Riley.

  The burning balloon was out of reach for the moment, but as it continued its inevitable descent towards the crater’s jungle canopy, it was clear it wouldn’t stay that way.

  Several of the ropes suspending the cradle from the balloon burnt through, and the cradle dropped a few feet with a jerk and tipped precariously, causing yells of alarm and consternation from every quarter.

  Porgy’s gorblimey slipped from his head.

  “My cap!” groaned Porgy. “Bloody hell, the Quarterbloke’ll never give me another one.”

  “Aye, the only excuse he’ll take for losing it is if you lost your bleedin’ head along with it!” agreed Mercy as they clung to the side of the swaying and now spinning cradle.

  “Yes, well there’s still a chance of that,” retorted Gazette, as burning scraps fluttered down around them.

  The canopy was rising up to meet them fast now. Something struck the underside of the balloon’s cradle, and again, and again, and they realised that they were now within reach of the whipperwills. Sensing wounded prey, the things began lashing out with greater ferocity, tearing at the wattle cradle, their fleshy petals opening as they snapped their small razor-sharp teeth.

  Gutsy swung his meat cleaver at them. Everson slashed out with his sword, severing several whipperwills’ heads and sending them tumbling down to the treetops, only for their hungry brethren to snatch them out of midair.

  A bigger specimen cracked up out of the canopy like a seaborne leviathan and tore at what remained of the blazing gasbag above. The flames licked at it and some sap or aqua vita within it ignited, fire consuming its entire length. It thrashed about the air like a fiery lash, until with a thunderous crack, it extinguished the flames and the scorched whipperwill crashed back into the leaves, leaving behind the faint smoky ghost of it hanging in the air.

  Unable to keep the cradle aloft any longer, the remains of the balloon flapped and guttered, streaming ineffectually above them as men and cradle now hurtled down. They skimmed across the treetops, the drub of branches and leaves against the bottom of the cradle sounding like sticks against a railing.

  “Brace yourselves!” shouted Everson.

  Atkins hunkered down into the cradle as best he could. He looked at the wan faces around him. Eyes met his, the unspoken communion of the soldier about to go over the bags: “We’ll be all right,”

  “Stick by me,”

  “See you in the Hun trenches.” But they all knew it was every man for himself.

  The cradle hit the canopy with a crash and capsized.

  Atkins’ world tumbled, like a broken kaleidoscope, a whirl of limbs and wattle, of green, russet, khaki and daylight.

  Boughs slammed into his limbs and trunk, knocking the wind from him as he fell, buffeted and pummelled from bough to branch, towards the ground as he dropped through the trees. Thick broad leaves slapped and scratched him. He plummeted through an angry buzz of insects, sounding like the whine of bullets, hands and face stinging as he passed through. For a brief, blissful moment, as if in the eye of a storm, all sensation ceased.

  A flare of heavy floral scent burst around him. Perfume. He thought of Flora. Lily of the Valley. Oh, Jesus, Flor—

  Atkins slammed into the ground.

  NELLIE ABBOTT HELD up a hand, halting the rest of the tank crew. Underneath her short mop of unruly hair, her nose wrinkled and her brow creased with concentration.

  “What is it, Miss?” asked Cecil.

  Irritated, she flapped her hand in his direction. “Shh!” she hissed, a little more harshly than she had meant to.

  Cecil flinched like a scolded puppy.

  Above the rustle of the leaves and the faint rush of water, a distant purr caught her attention and held it, as no other sound could.

  Wally cocked his head and listened.

  He sniffed. “An engine,” he said.

  “Two,” corrected Nellie. “Aeroplanes.”

  “Two?” said Jack. “Are you sure? But we’ve only got the one.”

  “Well, there are two now,” said Nellie, her mood defiant.

  “Friend or foe?” asked Reggie.

  “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. She looked up at the sky, shielding her eyes and squinting against the glare.

  Ablaze and drifting down over the crater, the kite balloon was hard to miss.

  She soon spotted another smaller balloon, higher and partially hidden by the smoke from the first, drifting in the same direction.

  Above them, she saw what she was looking for, the small shapes spiralling higher and higher. She could just make out Tulliver’s Strutter, but the other—was that a Hun? Her eyes widened with surprise before her forehead scrunched with doubt. But how?

  By now, the others
had gathered around her and the air filled with theories and observations.

  “There’s men up there,” said Reggie, pointing at the balloon.

  “It’s a Hun observation balloon,” said Wally. The bantam cockney driver clenched his fists, and his lips contorted into a snarl.

  It was spiralling down rapidly into the crater. It was going to come down not a quarter of a mile away. She felt a surge of pity for the men trapped on it. The smaller, higher balloon was sinking too, but that would come down further away.

  “Where the hell have they come from?” wondered Jack. “Perhaps it’s a way home!” suggested Norman.

  Nobody spoke out in agreement, but nobody would gainsay it.

  Nellie felt a blossoming of hope in her breast at the words. Home. Could it be?

  There was only one way to find out.

  A PALL OF smoke stained the air above the trees. Expecting Germans, the crew of the Ivanhoe approached the crash site cautiously. “Stay by me,” Jack told Cecil in a low voice, as he drew his Webley.

  The young lad stepped closer, his eyes darting about as if he expected picklehaubed Fritzs to leap from every bush.

  Norman and Reggie watched their flanks and Wally. Wally wasn’t to be trusted around Germans. It was frightening that such a little man could have such a fury bottled up within him. They didn’t want him killing them before they got whatever information they needed.

  Nellie wasn’t happy about bringing up the rear.

  “I can kill if I have to,” she told Jack, petulantly.

  He studied her face.

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “But we’re soldiers. It’s what we have to do.” He bent his head and spoke quietly. “You shouldn’t kill unless you have to. Knowing you’ve killed a man changes you.” He tapped his chest. “Inside. It breaks something in you. Something that can’t be mended. Bad enough it has to happen to lads like Cecil; I wouldn’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want that on my conscience,” he said. He straightened up and added firmly, “You’ll stay in the rear.”