by Aeryn Leigh
Just like old-times.
The earth smelt fresh, dark, and fertile, enough to want to dig your fingers in, and call this plot home. As the fields of France did, before three years of trench warfare blasted everything to shit in the War that was supposed to end all wars. He dug his right hand in, crumbling soil between fingers, then plucked a long stalk of grass and stuck it between his teeth, chewing at the end.
Arrows fell closer now, more and more of them whistling through the hair. Gun fire came from the battlements. Probably longbows and rifled muskets, he thought, detached and analytical.
War never changes.
He glanced over his shoulder. The party limped and dragged their way up the slight hill, almost now at the trees.
The gate opened. Warriors rode out on horseback, screaming battle cries. Behind them, warriors on foot. Barking amongst them, a trio of great wolf-hounds loped alongside, teeth bared.
Animals.
A puff of white smoke, and the nearest cannon fired. The cannonball shrieked and landed behind him, towards the forest's edge and departing crewmen.
Oh, no you don't. Hands pulled back on the wooden handle, cocking the gun, then sighted the cannon, and squeezed the trigger. Betty recoiled, and the cannon and its crew vanished in a cloud of white and black smoke. He swivelled and sighted the other artillery, and killed it.
Below, the cries increased as the riders spurred the mounts forward.
Twenty-odd horses, forty to fifty men, and three massive dogs lay in his sights.
Animals on the battlefield.
The seconds ticked by.
An arrow pierced the dead arm to his left. Incoming rifle fire plonked into the dead mounds of flesh.
"I'm so sorry," Laurie said to the horses and dogs, magnificent specimens of their kind. He hoped they'd stop their charge once the front rank went down, or even a few ranks, but he knew otherwise from their brief encounter.
After all, he was one of them.
Victory or death.
"You bastards."
He looked down the sights at the closest brown charger, a brown and white stallion fifteen hands tall, and squeezed. The two-second burst fired twenty-six massive steel-jacketed rounds which obliterated the horse and three more behind it, riders and mounts alike, the giant armour-piercing bullets continuing to tumble through flesh and timber behind them.
The sounds of dying horses broke his heart, and tears ran down his cheek. The carnage horrific, yet still they came. He fired short burst after short burst, the cavalry torn apart. A wolf-hound's head burst, obliterated like it's pack. The foot soldiers broke into a run, firing, yelling as they died sprinting towards him, as he fired into anything still moving in front of the gate, trying to put down any suffering animals. An arrow speared his left calf, pinning it to the ground. His head filled with red, and his tears stopped with the pain.
"Today is the day I die you fucking bastards," he screamed, and hammered at everything and anything moving in the field of fire. The boats unfurled its sails as men jumped on to them, trying to escape. Laurie sank them with burst of fire into the waterlines. He strafed the walls of the fort, it's battlements full of archers and riflemen, and into the main, high tower. The heavy machine-gun cleaved the wood defences like wet paper in a hurricane, rendered impotent. Men fell like soggy autumn leaves, limbs blown off, bodies cut in half. The spent ammunition casing piled up, tinkling as it landed, its own brass fort. There was nothing to smell but cordite, nothing to hear but mechanical fury when the great machine-gun fired. A pair of red-hairs moved in from the right, and he killed them with his pistol. He squeezed off short bursts with Betty until she clicked, empty.
Knee-joints creaked standing up, ignoring the pain as the arrowhead tore away the earth beneath him. He picked up the hatchet and dragged his leg down the path, towards the bloodbath the slaughter. Some remaining red-hairs, this time from the river's edge, fired at him. He shot them dead with the last of the pistol, and threw it at them, not aware he was screaming, not aware of the tears falling down his cheeks, nor the laughter he made as he parried swords and buried the axe head into throats and genitals — only aware, that he'd found peace, the sky howling, and the world went black.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ella Vows
Ella Gruder awoke, in the vast upturned fish-bowl of night and twinkling stars, in a pool of her own dried vomit.
I must have passed out. Blinking, she rolled over and onto her back, wincing as limbs stretched for the first time in hours.
Water, water. Her dry tongue felt like it had been baked then rolled flat.
Amelia.
Ella jolted upright and stood, wobbling. Panic and adrenaline flooded her veins. Amelia.
She looked around, hair flung side to side. What remained of the Me-262 sat there, the fire burned out, the rest of the debris spread out over a couple of hundred yards. Small shrubs dotted the landscape as far as she could see in all directions, an odd tree here and there, and a mountain range dimly to her right that went on forever.
"Amelia," she screamed into the dark. "Amelia." The black swallowed it, her voice petering out. Her stomach clenched, then convulsed. She sank to her knees and threw up, only bile and stomach juices left, adding to an earlier contribution on the red-brown ground.
Her heart pounded. Ella regained her footing, and used the sleeve of her flight-suit to wipe away the tears welling, the fabric rough against her skin. They stopped. She took long, deep breaths trying to regain her centre as her lover once told her, and the advice worked, more or less. She shivered, noticing the temperature for the first time. What season is it? Autumn?
Her fighter awaited. Ella walked to the aeroplane, or the main fuselage section anyway, absorbing all the damage from the landing. She'd been mauled and rent asunder. Ella used the broken stub of the port wing for footing and climbed up to scavenge what she could, leaning over the cockpit's edge. There wasn't much. Apart from the emergency survival kit and the pistol she'd taken from the pilot, nothing. Apart from the cold metal case her fingers felt tucked deep down the side of the pilot's seat. Her pulse quickened.
Could it be? Yes.
With both hands, she pulled the metre-long case out. Oh baby, she thought, you will be handy. But no canvas bag, no Zia, no Amelia.
Amelia. She slumped back against the fuselage. Ella burned with shame at the memory of the last hour spent with her child. She'd made her cry in terror and endangered her, the very thing she was escaping from, by losing her temper and attacking the damaged Allied bombers.
I am a bad mother. Scheisse. Me and my temper. Helena kept telling me.
Her thoughts spiralled down, twisted around but then she pulled out of it, as if dunked in water. She blinked. Okay Ella, never mind that, find her. Okay. What's next?
Hmm, well there is the parachute. Could be useful for shade and bedding. She made a small pile next to the fuselage of it all, and sat on the wing, legs kicking in the wind. Ella opened the survival kit on her lap and picked up the small wrist-compass, and fastened it around her left wrist, next to her wrist-watch which told her 8:13. Right.
Water. She took the canteen bottle, unscrewed the cap, and took a small sip, and swished the liquid around her mouth, and spat it out into the red-brown dirt.
Yuck.
The second mouthful of water tasted good. Fresh. She breathed out. Okay, she thought, where am I? The constellations above looked out of shape, squished, and distended. There was a hole in the sky. Hmmm.
Ella bit off a small chunk of the chocolate ration bar, her eyes narrowing in ecstasy. The dirt. The reddish-brown ground. North Africa? It didn't look like European soil, so had the storm blown her all the way here? A part of her brain said, What? In thirty seconds, it blew you eight-hundred miles? Another sip of water. There has to be a rational explanation, she decided.
Chocolate. Another nibble. She held her left wrist up flat, and looked at the compass, it's dials glowing faint green in the dark. So, mountains to the no
rth, and the east, but none directly south or west.
Ella sat there for a little while, thinking, and the sun poked its head over the western horizon. It looked a little small. Minutes later, another fireball of light lifted over the far away earth. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. Still there. And half the size of its sister.
Okay I'm hallucinating, she concluded. Her watch said 8:50. It must be broken.
She slid off the wing, boots sinking into the red-brown soil, and strapped the parachute pack onto her back, slung the survival kit over her right shoulder, and picked up the long aluminium case with her left hand. She grunted with the weight as she did. South or west? West. Humming a tune she'd heard Amelia sing, Ella set off in the direction of the suns, and started searching, using her compass and watch to walk an ever-growing spiral, the crashed aircraft as the centre.
As she walked that morning, Ella came to few conclusions. One, it wasn't desert, but not far off it either. The boundary of desert then? Secondly, no more drugs for her. The mere thought of those white pills made her shiver and swing her head from left to right. The mental hallucination of the twin suns still remained every time she looked at them. How many had she been having recently? A nagging voice told her more than one, more than three, sometimes five in a day over the last eighteen months.
"No more," she said aloud.
And Amelia. I vow I will find you and promise I won't get so caught up in my dream that I missed out chunks of your childhood and all the wonders and joys and landmarks it brought. No more seeing Amelia's development and growing up in jerks and starts, like frames from a movie taken out, then spliced together so what you saw flashed from one milestone to the next, stuttering, no smoothness or context between images.
Amelia.
The flat landscape around her showed signs of life. Unfamiliar birds sang from tall trees, picking off the insects that buzzed round the purple and red flowering shrubs in between. She stopped in the shade of one tree for lunch, and wiped her brow. She didn't recognise the tree as she sat with her back against it. Ella fished in the survival kit, smelling coconut, and took out a little blue box the size of a soap-bar, opened it, and slid out the coconut energy bar. Licking her lips, she ate half, washing it down with a long pull from the aluminium bottle.
"Makes no thirst?" she said, reading the back of the box. She decided they probably were right. Didn't taste too bad at all. She tucked the white bar back into the box and folded the cardboard over, then opened a packet of citrus drops and popped one into her mouth. Ella sighed, and sucked.
She searched the rest of the afternoon, until the main sun started to set on the eastern horizon. Her compass told her she was now west from where she'd started. No sign of Amelia or the seat. A small hill a mile away seemed a good spot to make camp in the hour or two before sunset. Before long Ella walked up the slope, puffing as she did. Her legs felt like cement, and sweat ran down her spine from the day's exertions.
On the top of the hill, in a glade of trees, stood a fire pit, stones circling it, blackened charcoal edges tinged with dirt and dust. Well, she thought, I'm not alone then. Ella dropped her gear next to the camp-fire and looked from the vantage point in all directions. The land extended as far as she could see. The morning would have better light. She glanced around for firewood and kindling and set off, circling the hill, picking up twigs, dragging fallen branches, until two armloads later, she had enough to last the night.
Ella arranged the kindling of twigs and leaves, then set about the task of breaking down the branches by stepping on one end then pulling the long wood back. The third and final branch wouldn't break. She pulled and pulled, swore, regained her breath, and tried again. It snapped and almost took her eye out as she toppled backwards, backside hitting the ground.
"Bastard," said Ella, getting back up and rubbing life back into her butt cheeks. Her cheek stung. She rummaged around the green pack and took the mirror from its pouch and examined her face. A two-inch red line ran diagonally under her left eye, drops of red popping up along it, just on the cheek-bone.
"Great," she said. She put the mirror back, pulled out her handkerchief, and pressed it against the cut. The sun cast long shadows around the immediate countryside, the hill still basting in light. She lit the kindling with a safety-match, smoke billowing up from burning leaves before settling down, and took vicarious pleasure in throwing on the treasonous sections of branch. "Burn," she said, grinning, eyes wide, then made a rough bed of green leaves and the parachute pack for a pillow.
Ella sat down cross-legged facing east into the sunset and placed the pistol on her lap. Eight rounds for the semi-automatic Walther PPK. Okay, been a while since I fired one of these, but better than nothing, tucking the pistol into her suit's pocket.
Dinner comprised of canned pork, the rest of the coconut energy bar, and she tried — and failed — to not eat the chocolate bar. The suns tipped over the horizon's edge and the stars came out. Ella yawned, took another sip of water, and prepared for bed. Her whole body felt lethargic and leaden now not just her legs.
She strode to some bushes, undid her flight-suit, and squatted to take a pee. She stood up, her bladder empty, and pulled up the flight-suit. An armload of wood went onto the fire, With the long metal case next to her bed, on her side facing the fire, her arm around the aluminium box and her head on the parachute pack, she rested.
Craving the white pills and involuntarily shuddering from time to time, Ella passed out looking at the dancing flames.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Drilling M 30
She came to with a start, the fire still burning, but lower. Her damn bladder again. And what felt like someone squeezing her uterus with pliers.
Oh, fuck off she mouthed in pain. Not now. Not for the first time Ella cursed the gods for being born female and rolled onto her back. She gasped. Really? The pain in her lower abdomen flared like a supernova, and Ella lay still until it eased, until she dared move, even as her bladder felt fit to burst.
The stars and a few clouds traversed overhead a bit, and she sat up, in a long gentle motion. Breathing hard and deep, she picked up a fist-shaped rock, the smoothest she could see and dropped it in the embers. She waddled over to the bushes, and relieved herself again. Back at the fire, she waited a few more minutes, then retrieved the rock with the metal rod she'd scavenged from the torn-off wing. She wrapped it in cloth, and lay back down, the hot rock swaddled on her abdomen, and tried to sleep.
The suns rose. Ella, already up, put more fuel on the fire and dropped the heat-stone back in.
She winced with the movement. She contemplated the idea of walking. Even making the trip around the hilltop gathering wood left her exhausted from the pain. The heat-stone made that exertion even possible.
Time to light a flare or not? She thought hard. If I'm in enemy territory, that will alert them. If I'm in friendly territory, that'll attract help. Her brain twisted the mental knife stuck in her logic. But is the enemy territory now the good guys? Who's the enemy? Germany? If I'm found by them I'll be shot. But I fired on the Allied bombers. If the Allies find me I'll be rescued, then shot. Scheisse.
Ella lay back down with the heat-stone and cursed her life. Gazed at the stars.
I'm lucid dreaming. Must be it. Must be.
The following morning, she woke after a fitful sleep where she dreamed of octopus's writhing in the deep. Next to the bushes she squatted, and noticed drops of blood. She punched the air. And regretted it. I'm bleeding at last. The pain should be going away. But her bag. Her bag in the bigger canvas bag, lost with Amelia.
The bag that held her tampons. Ella did her best to scream without moving. She grabbed her handkerchief, rolled it up, and stuffed it into her underwear as she pulled it back up, balancing in the morning light. Clothed, she walked back to the camp-fire and threw on the last of the wood pile.
She took another sip of water. She peered inside, squinting. Only another cupful left, Ella thought. Have to move today, period pains
or not. A bite of another coconut-flavoured ration bar and breakfast ended.
With the little camp packed up, one heat-stone on her stomach, tucked inside her shirt, and another two swaddled in the parachute, Ella walked down the western side of the hill, with care. The clouds passed overhead. When the hill started to fade from view behind her, she looked at her watch. Two hours to walk about three miles. Shit.
Ella rotated another heat-stone. The pain eased, getting better, yet travelling still proved painful and slow. She sucked on a citrus drop and kept moving. Burnt wood registered in her nose, the smell of camp-fire. There, on the horizon. Could it be? Ella saw smoke ahead of her, rising up into the clouds.
With renewed urgency she hobbled on, feeling blood starting to trickle down the inside of her left thigh a mile later. She stopped, wrung the handkerchief as best she could, put it back between her thighs, and wiped her hands on a bush.
What was it the Americans said? Real Mickey Mouse, she thought.
The smoke billowed up from over the horizon until four hours of further walking, stopping, wringing, swearing, and walking again passed until the smoke, no longer now over the horizon, seemed only a couple of miles away.
It's time, she thought.
Ella stopped under the shade of tree and laid the grey metal case down. She knelt in front of it, knees in the red-brown earth, and undid the latches either side of the handle. She looked at the words stencilled in black.
'Drilling M 30, mit Munition u. Zubehor.'
She opened the lid. Oh, my little baby. Someone loved you, and lavished you with gifts.
Ella caressed the walnut wood with dry blood-stained fingers, and lifted out the bottom frame of the triple-barrel combination rifle and shotgun, the rifle barrel below the side-by-side shotgun holes. The long barrel clicked into place with a satisfying clunk, and Ella hefted it up and into her shoulder, sighting down it. She broke open the stock, and with care, reached into the case and pulled out four shotgun shells and three rifle rounds, stuffing them into her left pocket. She closed the action, and placed the weapon across the open case.
