Ah - Now I think I understood. How much of this was truly about the history and the men of the regiment and how much was actually about Lord Fitzgibbon not wanting to be the 8th’s final commander on account of him having failed? Because not once did the man mention the most important thing, or what I assumed was the most important thing and for the moment, the regiment’s raison d’être - Protecting Ireland.
Whilst I allowed the possibility of salvation to rise within me, I studied the faces of my fellows, for any evidence as to their thoughts.
Mostly, there was concern, the desire to do the right thing, for what reason I couldn’t comprehend. It was all in the eyes, the sadness, the helplessness.
Sheehan rubbed at the red stubble upon his handsome face, casting the occasional glance my way. Murphy, who’d fought for the seat beside me, likewise kept his admiring glances my way. Dolan sat opposite and glared at me with an empty expression as though he was seeing straight through me, a slight tilt of his head, his chops somewhat raggedy this day, like he’d foregone the brush. Lynch sat beside him and likewise stared through me whilst playing with his cavalry issue short blade. Oh, he was incensed alright, and hated that the entire regiment, almost, were eating out of my hand even more than before, and all at his expense.
Clearly, the sooner this rotten regiment could be disbanded, the better for my immediate prospects. Already I’d upset a few too many people even if the better part of everyone knew me to be the hero that I wasn’t. None of it would do me any good however when running from the dead on one side and my own comrades on the other.
But if ever there was a chance to get out of this rotten place, this was it.
Or so I thought…
…Because unfortunately, being the exact opposite to our brave colonel, I wasn’t to know how his mind worked. And having a nosey over from Horse Guards only served to make the mad colonel even more set upon being seen to be useful and I should have known not to allow my hopes to blossom, because Fitzgibbon now crushed them all.
“We’re bringing forth our advance south by one day. Which means I want you all ready for the march come dawn.” He slammed a fist into the table with a renewed confidence. “And I want you all ship shape. Let’s not give this London toff any reason to shut us down.”
And whilst the room cheered, I had other plans.
The Road To Strabane
It was an easy two hour trot covering the fifteen miles to Strabane and although I was wise enough to safely embed myself within the centre of our one hundred and twenty troop column, the safest place by far, I still thought I’d black out upon reaching the infamous spot in the woods from a few days back.
As it was, I needn’t have worried. For all his faults, the colonel knew his business and had placed lookout scouts several hundred metres in advance of the column. Apparently there were a few dead scattered about the woods but they were solitary and easy for a horseman with sharp blade to put down. I feared the colonel would call on me to take my fair share of scouting duty, though alas the call never came which then made me wonder if he was saving me for the real danger or simply didn’t wish to give me another opportunity to distinguish myself.
Naturally I tried not to stand out and had found two exceptionally large troopers to strategically place myself between and kept my head down until reaching the town.
I should have saved my distress for our arrival because what I saw changed everything.
The first thing, from a distance, was the thick black smoke that rose into the air. Upon passing the picket, a boy of around twelve on the town outskirts, we saw the pyres. Several mounds of them, bodies stacked high, still smoked from days past, the charred remnants of a hundred bodies now bonded together whilst relatives, lovers, friends or sympathisers wept, prayed or just stood docile nearby. A new pyre was being prepared, fresh bodies, humans and dead alike, were thrown in the heap by men with kerchiefs tied about their faces.
The canal that ran through the settlement likewise had corpses that floated sporadically, faced down in the filthy water.
To my disgust, after leaving behind the safety of Londonderry, Strabane possessed no wall nor ditch and had no gates nor natural defences save for the river that curled around its northern edge from whence we came and from the looks of the place, that hadn’t prevented the dead from stumbling in and causing havoc, mainly from the south. Indeed, it looked as though the Irish had chosen, many years before, to build the town in the middle of nowhere, with no logical reasoning behind its positioning. For the most part, western Ireland was too rocky and useless, with the exception of Galway which, being on the west coast could at least make a trade from fishing. But Strabane?
Then the townspeople saw us and we were instantly mobbed. With my riding crop and an expert hand, I whipped several of them as they stumbled forth with their rotten offerings of bread, fruit and turnips. They greeted us as heroes come to protect them, but I saw them merely as useless idiots who should’ve bothered making the short walk north behind the impenetrable fortifications of Londonderry and safety. No doubt they had their reasons for remaining in dead man’s land and I pictured them in their shacks, having conversations over helpings of carrot broth and whisky about how they were born here and so they would die here - Stubborn fools.
I saw one waif throw herself upon the protection of a cavalry trooper and watched again as she was kicked into the dirt. My immediate worry was that if all the town’s women resembled that, I’d have to abstain from wenching, which would pain me dearly.
And then there were the animals, that usually resided with their owners, but here there were no sheep, cows, pigs, horses or chickens. Only their bones littered the gutters or else were strewn into the canal, with every last morsel of meat stripped.
I saw misery out on the Rugby fields of Eton and up in the houses where fags would line up to carry out our menial tasks, or else face a whipping. But what I saw in Strabane beat everything and all I wanted was to go home.
An old man hobbled out from one of the larger shacks, his flock of twelve children in tattered rags huddled together at the roadside. The man introduced himself to the colonel as the town chieftain and went by the name of O’Leary. Yellow drool seeped from his mouth with every word and I later discovered this was because he was missing too many bottom teeth. He made an offering of some bottled spirit, probably whisky, which the colonel took before handing to an aid and dusting off his hand. The man gestured to the many huts, about half of which were empty, and that we should make ourselves at home, billeting in whichever abode we chose.
The column was dismissed and I watched the idiots scatter like mice in an idiotic attempt at finding the best shack to hole up in. It was like being given the choice over which filthy, diseased slum you wished to die inside - Take your pick and no arguments.
Naturally, I had better ideas and headed straight for the ale house, The Boar’s Belly. It was one of those stone built Irish establishments that would last another five hundred years and more, with timber frames that never went out of style and a sign above the door that read ‘Feck Off.’ Three fiddlers were busy playing some Mick jig I had no chance of recognising, but found myself tapping my foot to the melody anyway. And of course, despite the sheer vileness of the town, and its people, and making an extra consideration for the small matter that they were living through an apocalypse, I wasn’t surprised to see the ale flowing from a never ending tap - This was Ireland after all.
The landlord gave me a cautious look and spoke with the same incomprehensible Paddy accent I was finally beginning to partially understand. “Can I be of service?”
“Bed and board.” I slammed down the fiscal which he took without hesitation.
He then bit down on the gold half sovereign, nodded, then reached around his back and squinted as he pushed it up his anus. “This way, sir.”
“That’s Captain Strapper to you.”
“Of course.”
I made sure to brandish my crop, just so there were no misund
erstandings and I followed him up the narrow steps toward the bedroom. “And I’ll want roast beef tonight, you hear me, none of this Paddy turnip rubbish.”
The bedroom was as expected. A bed, wardrobe, set of drawers, basin and a window overlooking the fields south of Strabane. Not exactly what I was accustomed to, but I doubted even the colonel would sleep as well as me tonight.
I dismissed the man and was caught by movement through the window. Already, a squad of our cavalry were roaming the fields in search of prey and I saw them bring down their heavy blades across the heads of the dead, splitting open their faces and leaving a trail of corpses in their wake.
The dead were stupid and lacked any comprehension of tactics or strategy. They simply wandered without aim or cause, seemingly following only where they knew to be sustenance, in the form of the flesh of the living. As long as our boys didn’t get overwhelmed, then the dead were no match for a soldier on horseback and a sharp separator. But from what I saw, the small squad of cavalry were never tested. The dead’s strength lay in their potential numbers and if they ever grouped, and came at once, then…well…I just hoped I wasn’t there to see it.
Right now, the 8th made a sport of it. And why not? It was easy after all. One trooper removed his helmet and waved it about in the air, allowing his creep to stumble close before removing its head from its shoulders.
They spurted no blood, their circulation not surprisingly having stopped after anywhere between six and thirteen years lying in the cold earth.
And one could easily tell which of the dead had been gone longer than the rest. They lacked flesh and everything else that once made them human, more closely resembling masses of disorganised bones, held together only by thin strips of tendon, cartilage and clothing, the rest long taken by the worms.
They came from the direction of the trees on the hill, to emerge in raggedy formations. The troopers approached the tree lines and then swerved away, either knowing better than to enter or else had been ordered not to.
Out of necessity, I required several visits to the pan and even once purged myself before heading outside.
It was Major Murphy who saw me first. “Ah, hello there Jack, terrible place, terrible business, but we must help these people.” The man carried a shovel and had dirtied his breeches and I wondered why he personally, an officer, was pitching in with menial tasks better suited to fags or the lower troops. “The colonel…he’s on a mission to secure the place…that bloody toff from London, you see…has to be seen to be winning…even if we aint.”
“You sure sound full of confidence.”
He conceded with a nod. “We can’t all be blessed with your abilities, Jack. We’re digging ditches across the southern approach, which is where that O’Leary man says they always come from and the colonel’s put every available man to it…except for officers of course, but I volunteered…got me out of scouting for the dead, you see.”
This Murphy man was after my own heart and having gone up in my estimation over the last minute, marginally, he was still holding a shovel, which was a task I didn’t fancy myself suited to. “Doesn’t it demean an officer to be seen by his men pitching in with hard labour?”
He hesitated and looked down to the ground. “Desperate times…and all that Jack.”
Well he was wrong if he thought I’d be digging ditches in the rocks that this town was stupidly placed on but I did potter in the general direction of the scene, just to give my squad a morale boost.
Lieutenant Sheehan was there, watching over them and correctly not getting involved. “They get nightly attacks from what that O’Leary fellow says and that tonight’ll be no different.”
That was the kind of intelligence I could make use of. “I don’t suppose the boys hacking them down in the fields will deter them?”
“Doubt it.”
Most of the men had stripped to their waists as they dug the long ditches across the southern perimeter. At least a hundred cavalrymen were put to the task along with whatever able bodied town’s people remained, but still, it wouldn’t be enough to finish the job in one day.
“It’s the damned rocks.” Sheehan said, fiddling with a cuff. “They’re everywhere and it aint by half slowing the job down.”
The soil and rocks were being heaped up to make a steeper fortification for the dead to chew on and while I fully expected them to be stupid enough to attack there, if the numbers were great enough, they could simply clamber over each other, or else walk around.
I left with a sinking feeling in my belly, that tonight, again my life would be placed in danger. And if I wasn’t already on edge, I then witnessed the stupidest thing of the expedition so far.
“The bloody colonel…what’s he doing?”
Sheehan squinted toward the church and focused on the same thing as myself.
As if breezing into Strabane with a hundred plus horsemen strong wasn’t enough for the dead to see us, to hear us, or else to sniff us, Fitzgibbon was only, right now, proceeding to hoist the Queen’s colours atop the bloody church mast like we were parading for the town at the local bake sale. Why not just have the town cryer come and announce to Ireland’s dead that the 8th have left the safety of Londonderry’s walls, and that there’s a fresh regiment for them to chomp on. It was all enough to think the maniac was busting for a fight, which he probably was.
And if I expected any support from Sheehan, I was wrong. “Ah, now, Captain, you’re new and we probably didn’t get chance to explain the etiquette of the Queen’s regiments.”
While I half listened, he went on to explain that ever since Roman times and beyond, a regiment’s standards, their eagles, symbols or in our case, our colours, were the regiment’s honour. British regiments had two flags, which were our colours. They were our most prized possessions and were formally presented by the sovereign, Queen Victoria, which in battle, had to be defended at all costs. To lose the colours, to have them carried away by the enemy, was the worst tragedy that could possibly befall a regiment, worse, far worse even, than being wiped out to the man.
I had to stand and listen to this tripe as he spoke with a straight face - He meant it, which was the lunacy of it all and I gazed up toward the colours, expecting to see what, I don’t know, but what I saw was certainly nothing to die for, even if Sheehan and every other fool who’d travelled down with me thought differently.
The two rags fluttered in the wind as the mad colonel saluted from atop the church, wiping a teary eye. The first, the Queen’s colour, was the national flag with gold trim and the 8th’s insignia placed in the centre. The other was of the regimental emblem, which only now for the first time did I see was a woman with her arms broken behind her back into a harp shape, with strings and feathers. Quite ridiculous, yet hardly surprising and a list of the regimental battle honours was also inscribed down the side.
Sheehan patted me on the shoulder. “I know out of everybody here, the colours are safe with you around, Strappy. I know you’d gladly throw down your life, along with the rest of us, to protect them.” He spoke with genuine solemnity, the one man I’d deemed to be the most sane of the lot of em, now revealed himself as craziest of all.
And then the colonel pranced out the church with Pumphrey in tow and didn’t he just make sure the toff saw it, the glorious sight that would signal to the dead it was dinner time.
The colonel fawned over the man and had ensured the only non-combatant had received the best accommodation in town, the one remaining spare room at The Boar’s Belly. If only I could’ve seen his face on discovering Captain Jack Strapper had secured the other for himself. But Fitzgibbon went far beyond for Pumphrey, which included opening doors, moving peasants out of his way and always, the two of them had a six man armed guard. The safest place in Strabane was clearly at the colonel’s side, which was almost enough to have me at his feet, begging to be allowed in his entourage.
I was about to seek out my own safety, when Sheehan alerted me to an occurrence in the southern fields.
<
br /> A nutcase had taken it upon himself to venture on a solo jolly with his horse and even now thrashed and cut and thrust and stabbed at the dead who continued to trickle out from the woods. He waved his sabre in the air before bringing it down upon fresh victims, the whites of his toothy grin and twitching of his face visible from the ditches. It was an officer, and what’s more, I knew the man, his ginger muttons coarse like long grass.
“Dolan’s gone insane.” I told Sheehan. “Can’t we have him sectioned?”
“Sectioned?” He asked with a surprised tone. “For what, Strappy? For killing the enemy?”
I watched for a further fifteen minutes, half hoping a spook would bring him down but it never happened and I wondered if maybe my luck was about to end. If Dolan had become unhinged, there was no telling what he might blabber. But then within the 8th, there was no way of knowing for sure just who was deranged and who wasn’t. Either way, and just to be on the safe side, I thought it best to plant a few seeds of doubt as to the man’s state of mind.
“You notice anything odd about Captain Dolan recently? Apart from the obvious, I mean.”
He turned slowly to face me. “Anything odd, Strappy? Why, no. What do you mean?”
I waved a dismissive hand. “Ah, perhaps it’s just nothing…”
He hesitated and then took the bait. “…Or maybe it’s something. And I think that if a well loved and highly respected officer such as yourself has doubts about one of his colleagues, then I think you ought to say.”
I stepped closer and spoke sotto voce. “Well, you know how close the two of us are…or rather…were. It’s just that I can’t seem to get any sense out of the man anymore. One day he’s fine and then it’s like a screw was turned and now not only will my friend not talk to me, but here he is acting like a maniac, endangering himself out on the field. I worry for him, that’s all. And what if he was to get into trouble, out there, it’d be down to us to sally out and rescue him. He’s endangering his comrades…not that I’m overly concerned for myself, you understand…but the others.”
Not Dead Yet: A Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1 - 2 Page 9
