Blood, Mud and Corpses (Royal Zombie Corps Book 1)

by C. M. Harald

  Many of the wounded seemed to be from the two battalions involved in the attack. From what he could pick up, there had been heavy casualties in both the attack and the German counter-attack. Marsh and his squad had been lucky to make it into the enemy trench with so little harm to themselves. Before they had made it to the casualty clearing station, Wells had tried to find out what had happened to the rest of the squad. He had not discovered much other than that Scott had survived and the battalion was being pulled out of the line to recover. Wells had been given the order to make their way back to the assembly point after they had dropped off the casualty.

  'Come on Marsh.' Wells called from the doorway, 'We've got to be going otherwise we'll get reported as deserters.'

  'Five more minutes. Doctor's due soon.' Marsh replied.

  'They promised that ages ago, things are too busy, they aren't going to make it round in time.' Wells said.

  'Excuse me.' A voice behind Wells said. Wells moved aside for a doctor in a blood-soaked uniform and operating gown, 'Things are a bit busy, but your mate is next on my list.'

  'Ain't my mate Sir,' Wells replied, 'We found him in a shell hole. Tried to bite me he did.'

  'I see. He did not actually achieve his aim then.' The doctor spared the shortest glance to check Wells condition, before kneeing next to the patient to check his condition. The stretcher-bearers mentioned him to me. They've instructions to look out for cases like this.' Taking the patient's wrist to check his pulse, he asked 'So what's your name then?'

  'Argh' Said the patient.

  'Gibson, Sir. That's what his tag says.' Marsh offered.

  'I see. Now let's have a look at this wound of yours.' The doctor let go of the patient's wrist and started checking the bandaged chest wound, 'I see.' He stood up and clapped his hands, 'Right you two, take one end of the stretcher each and we'll take him out to the tent.'

  Wells and Marsh carried the stretcher out to the operating tent, the heavy canvas was splashed with blood on the inside, with liberally spread sawdust on the floors to soak up the spills of bodily fluids. The air smelt of blood and other less pleasant substances. An orderly was clearing up the mess made by a previous patient.

  'So he's not given you any trouble then?' The doctor asked.

  'Not really Sir, other than attacking Josh here when we first found him.' Marsh replied.

  'It's unusual for them to be this calm. We must look into that a little further.' The officer turned to the orderly, 'Jones, make sure you get the details of these two men when we've finished in here.'

  'Sir, are you going to be able to save him?' Wells asked.

  'Well, it depends what you mean by save.' The doctor pulled a Webley pistol out of a satchel hanging on the back of chair.

  Before Wells or Marsh could do or say anything, the doctor walked over to Gibson, on the operating table, and fired a single round into his head. The back and side of Gibson's head exploded as the round tore its way through his brain. The bullet had been aimed in such a way that the bullet exited at an angle, entering the ground on the other side of the operating table, closely followed by ejected brain matter. What was left of Gibson's face gazed at the ceiling of the tent, still, with a small smoking hole on the doctor's side.

  'Sir! What the hell did you do?' Marsh screamed, staggering and holding his hand to his head.

  'Orderly!' The doctor indicated Marsh and Wells to the orderly, who then proceeded to stand between them and the doctor, 'He was already dead.'

  'What sir? He was alive. We all saw that.' Marsh argued.

  'Dead I say, and not in the usual sense.'

  'But sir he was walking and...' Marsh stopped when Wells put his hand on his friends' arm.

  'I knew there was something not quite right, didn't I. It was like a bloody Golem, not really alive.' Wells said to his friend, 'Let's listen to the man and find out what's going on.'

  'Sage advice and an interesting, but incorrect comparison young man.' The doctor replied, wiping some imaginary blood from the end of the pistol before returning it to the satchel.

  'What do you mean Sir? Who are you?' Marsh asked.

  'I can assure that I am indeed a doctor, Doctor Hudson, and I mean that your friend Gibson was undead.' The officer replied.

  'You've already said he was dead Sir, what do you mean undead? Why was he moving and everything?' Marsh persisted.

  'The body was animated. We don't know why yet, but we have had reports of these events. Indeed, I have seen a small number myself. What was unusual was that your friend was not attacking everyone he could.'

  'Attacking?'

  'Yes attacking, literally trying to bite and claw the flesh off them.' Hudson answered.

  'But he tried to attack me,' Wells interrupted, 'Biting and clawing until Marsh here hit him with the rifle butt.'

  'Yes, normal behaviour from what we have observed.' He paused for thought, 'What we have not yet seen is one behaving in this way. When they make it back to an aid station, it is usually because they are horrifically injured, too injured to have actually been able to effectively attack anyone, and of course, too injured to survive if they were actually alive. Pretty much like Gibson here.'

  'Is this a German secret weapon?' Marsh asked.

  'I'm not really allowed to tell you, and if it were not for the extreme unusualness of this case, I would not say any more.' The doctor paused before continuing, 'We don't know yet. We have found animate corpses in both British and German uniforms. What I can tell you is that it only seems to have occurred around here. A few troops in the line have reported repeatedly shooting soldiers who kept attacking them, but of course, in time of war the human body can perform all sorts of feats of bravery.'

  'We've not heard anything about this Sir.' Wells said, 'Surely if there were incidents like this, word would get around?'

  'It's wartime, young man. Rumours are easily suppressed or changed into myths. Besides, it has only started happening recently. Mostly we have explained it away as a mania brought on by exposure to the violence of the front line. In fact, that would be the explanation I would have used on both of you.'

  'Surely there are people getting hurt by these things?' Wells asked.

  'Who can tell on the battlefield? You get bitten by a solider, well, that happens in hand-to-hand fighting as well. From the limited number of cases I've seen, being bitten carries no further risk that the actual harm of the bite and the subsequent risk of infection. The human mouth is a sewer of bacteria. Mind you,' He eyed them carefully, interested to see how they would respond to the next piece of information, 'Those who get bitten tend to get repeatedly bitten, possibly eaten.'

  'You mean that bastard was trying to eat me!' Wells voice rose in fear.

  'That would appear to be the case, although some observations have been made that more of these creatures can be created as a result of their bite.' The doctor replied, 'But the question is why did he not eat you? How did you manage to get one of these things all the way back here and so intact? So far the only way to stop them has been a bullet through the brain.'

  Wells and Marsh looked blankly at each other, neither able to take in what was being said, but equally terrified at having come so close to such a fearsome predator.

  'Now young man, I must ask you what else you did, said, or happened, that you have left out. I really must insist on this. After all it is for the good of the war effort.' The doctor said.

  Doctor Hudson interrogated them both for quite some time. It seemed that he was a Colonel who had a special assignment to investigate such happenings and had only been using his surgical skills to help out at the aid station due to the extra casualties caused by the attack. Now the Doctor had something relevant to his assignment, he quickly forgot his temporary medical role. Other than repeating what had happened, they had not been able to shed any further light on the animate corpse, or zombie as some French West African troops had coined on encountering one. Not only did these colonial troops seeming to already have a word fo
r the phenomena, he had explained that for many centuries the great thinkers, people such as Descartes and Huxley, had been investigating the nature of consciousness. These new creatures seemed to fit perfectly with Descartes' idea of the ghost within the machine.

  Most of this logic went completely over the heads of the two soldiers, and of course, none of these avenues of investigation had revealed any useful information to Hudson. The zombie that Wells and Marsh had brought in was probably the most interesting case so far and Hudson would be pulling some strings to further investigate what had occurred. Furthermore, the excellent corpse that was now before him, would be perfect for further study. He hoped to soon discover the source of the animation.

  Eventually Hudson allowed the two soldiers to return to their unit, promising that he would be in contact soon with additional questions. He provided them with a pass to ensure that the military police did not pick them up as deserters and assured them that short of a major German offensive, they would get some rest time before the army called on their services again.

  The Village

  Outbreaks of the syndrome among the civilian population are to be purged with maximum efficiency.

  British Trench Standing Order from late 1917.

  Marsh awoke from the dream in a sweat. The Germans had just kept coming at him, his rifle kept turning to mud every time he tried to use it. The weapon was also out of bullets, jamming every time he tried to reload it. All he had at hand was a wooden plank, which either splintered on the unstoppable Germans, or could not be wielded with enough force to do any harm.

  He took a deep breath, remembering where he was and what had happened. On reflection, it was strange that he had a nightmare about the incident in the trench when there had been a real nightmare in the form of Private Gibson. Zombie, the doctor had said, animated dead attacking humans. How could this be? Had mankind finally gone too far with technology. Would this would truly be the war that would end all wars with humanity consuming itself?

  As he thought through the events of the previous day, he wondered about the reason the Colonel had been so interested in him. Gibson had not attacked, at least not after the initial assault on Wells. While Marsh had hit the zombie in the head with his rifle butt, Hudson had discounted that as the reason why the zombie had stopped attacking. The creatures did not suffer injuries in the same way as humans and an impact to the head was not enough to incapacitate them or change their behaviour. Injuries, such as loss of limbs, that would have potentially caused the death of a human were merely inconveniences to a zombie, which would keep attacking until the brain was destroyed.

  Wells had been as disturbed, if not more disturbed, than Marsh. After all it was Wells who was attacked not Marsh. The Colonel had sworn them to secrecy and they had kept quiet about what had happened when they were reunited with their squad, keeping close to the truth, just leaving out that Gibson was not alive or that he tried to eat Wells. The short note from the Colonel had fulfilled the needs of their commanding officer.

  The squad gathered around, just as intact as they had been when they were last together in the German trench. Each relayed their own story of escape, Wells and Marsh edited their own. Davies and Matthews had escaped together, straight back into their own trench. Morgan, Simmonds and Scott all escaped individually, each spending time pinned down in shell holes during the artillery barrage that signalled the German counter-attack.

  Looking around the clearing, while drinking a mug of tea sweetened with condensed milk, Marsh could see that the battalion had suffered. Already under-strength before the attack, it was now down to just over one hundred men. This was barely enough to fill out one functional company. The squads in their platoon had taken the least casualties, though even there, the platoon that attacked the left of the blockhouse had taken the full wrath of the machine gun there.

  'NCO's five minutes!' Came a shout from a corporal at the edge of the field.

  'That's me then.' Corporal Scott said getting up and tipping the remains of his tea on the grass.

  'Maybe the war's over and they're sending us home.' Morgan did not sound the slightest bit optimistic.

  'Nah Taff, we'll be taking up the Kaiser's invitation to march through the centre of Berlin before we go home.' Simmonds answered.

  'Both wrong,' Wells joined in, 'They're about to be told that I'm now the quarter-master general and they'll be going to get my coach and horses.'

  When the laughter stopped, Marsh raised the issue that had been on his mind, 'When we were in that trench, I came so close.' They listed with serious faces, 'I mean there were two of them and they disarmed me. I was hitting them with a plank of wood.'

  'Aye and you won didn't you, otherwise you wouldn't be here.' Matthews interrupted, 'Don't dwell on it, you survived.'

  'But I shouldn't have got into that kind of position.' Marsh continued, 'I couldn't defend myself. I'm not cut out to be a soldier.'

  'And that's why we buddy up isn't it.' Matthews explained, 'Wells stepped in and did what your buddy should do. We look out for each other and we have a better chance of surviving.'

  'Am I a liability? I wasn't cut out for training' He glared at Taff, 'And none of your shit Taff.'

  'No-one is cut out for this war. It grinds men up. There's nothing you can do if fate has dealt you a duff hand.' Simmonds said, 'Look at the rest of the battalion. We got lucky and attacked a soft spot. Rest of them had to charge machine guns.'

  The survivors looked ragged, tired if not exhausted. They were sat around stoves in depleted groups, most sat quietly, but a few talking. Many of them showed injuries, glancing hits from shrapnel; cuts from the barbed wire; a few of the soldiers showed evidence of mental illness, with uncontrollable shakes quite common. Very few of them looked ready for further action, a depleted battalion further bled, and exhausted by, a brief and only partially successful action. The blockhouse may have been knocked out, but the Germans were still in possession of the trench. It was only a matter of time until the fortifications were rebuilt.

  'Move out in 10 minutes!' Corporal Scott called as he came towards them. He had a spring in his step and was clearly no longer a corporal. Fresh Sergeant stripes pinned on his sleeve.

  'What're those mate?' Taff called pointing at his own sleeve.

  'Temporary bumped up to sergeant. I'll be taking the platoon role. Wells, you're the best out of this lot and suitably criminal to be a corporal, catch.' He threw his old corporal stripes at Wells who caught them with a nervous smile on his face.

  'But Sarge, what about Matthews?' Wells asked, happy but confused that the veteran was being overlooked.

  'It's all right Wells, I mean Corporal Wells. The Sarge here knows I ain't no leader, you are.' Matthews explained. The squad gathered around their promoted friends, offering their congratulations.

  'We're moving out of the line.' Scott smiled as they cheered, 'We're needed in a little village just south east of here, some sort of civil disturbance.'

  'Corporal Wells,' Scott emphasised the new rank, 'and Marsh, come with me.' He walked off expecting them to follow.

  'The CO has received a message from division about you two. Care to tell me what you've been up to?' Scott asked, giving them the chance to implicate themselves.

  'Well, you see something, kind of happened, during the last attack...' Marsh started to say.

  'And we've been ordered not to tell anyone about it, Sarge.' Wells broke in before Marsh went too far.

  'I see, well the orders that have come down have explicitly asked that you two are present when we go into the village and that we should listen to any wisdom you should offer us while we are there. It was also suggested,’ The idea that a suggestion was being made, clearly disgusted Scott, 'that Wells lead a squad and explicitly keeps Marsh safe. Good job that I agree you are the best man to lead the squad Wells.' He let the words hang in the air before asking, 'Would either of you care to tell me what the hell makes you two so important?'

  'Em, Sarge we were ord
ered not to talk.' Wells repeated meekly, 'We can give you advice, but our orders were explicit on what we could not say.'

  'Whoever ordered you, are they here? Are the big? Are they about to shove their size ten boot up your arse?' Scott threatened.

  'No Sarge.' Wells gulped and waited to see if Scott would follow through on the threat.

  'Sarge, I'll give you some general pointers to keep us all safe.' Marsh suggested.

  'Be careful Alfie, don't cross the line.' Wells cautioned, visibly paling at the glare Scott threw him.

  'Don't trust anyone we find there.' Marsh explained, 'Only aim for the head. Don't ask me why, I can't tell you.' He thought for a moment and then added, 'And if it looks like things are under control, don't shoot.'

  'Em, Alfie, what's that last bit about?' Wells asked, 'Don't you mean, shoot regardless?'

  'Trust me.' Marsh said, 'Think about it.'

  'Well if you two aren't going to give me a straight answer, I'll have to follow your suggestions. I'm sure the CO would like a little more detail. Perhaps he'll be able to get more out of you.' Scott walked off to spread the advice to the rest of the unit. They could hear him muttering about 'the fine mess' his men had gone and got themselves into.

  'Great start to being a corporal.' Wells complained.

  'Got news for you. It only gets better. They'll not give you a pay-rise for months, as it's a battlefield promotion.' Marsh teased.

  'Always a bloody silver lining with you, isn't there.'

  The village was small, less than two dozen buildings and these were mainly along the sides of the road. A couple of farm buildings, the small types of farms found in this area, were away from the road. A copse of trees on the other side of the village, was a natural boundary, marking the end of the settlement. The village was silent, no sound of life about, despite being far enough behind the front line that only a partial evacuation had been attempted.