“Oh bejesus, Strappy, maybe there is something in it after all.” He cast an anxious glance toward the fruitcake on horseback as he ploughed his horse through a brace of dead. “What do you reckon happened?”
I rubbed my chin. “I can’t say I’m sure, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it was because his whore no longer wants to see him.” I sighed and held my eyes shut for a second. “He was rather taken to her, you see, and it matters not how much he offers…not that he has the tin either, you understand, for he is a poor man.”
He nodded. “Ah, I can see how that would drive even the best of us to the brink, Strappy.”
“It looks to have affected him particularly badly. The perils of falling for a harlot, my friend.”
“The poor man.”
“Poor man, indeed.” I coughed. “This is strictly between the two of us, you understand?”
“You have the word of an officer and a gentleman.”
I left for the alehouse, fully anticipating Dolan’s status amongst the gents to take a knocking within the next few minutes.
I was sitting down with an ale beside a roaring fire, contemplating strategy for shirking my duty when a woman, a few years older than myself, approached and placed down my roast beef platter.
She examined my pristine uniform, broad shoulders and all round good looks, countenance and air. “So you’re the one who ordered the roast beef. Dad says you must be rich.”
I glanced over her tits and decided she’d be worth speaking to. “I’m not short of a bob or two, miss, as I see you don’t lack charms yourself.”
She giggled and took the other seat, introducing herself as Tara. “That colonel was awful annoyed he didn’t get your room.”
I crammed down a mouthful of beef, savouring the taste, thankful I wouldn’t be eating hard biscuit and turnip like everyone else. “The colonel deserves what he gets, so he can share an abode with the dead for all I care.” I swallowed. “But if that Pumphrey toff pokes his nose around then I want you to give him the silent treatment, alright?”
“Why? What’s he with you?”
“Absolutely nothing is what.”
She grazed a thumb across my own. “Are you not planning on defending the town tonight?”
I almost choked on gravy. “Miss, if there’s a battle, I’ll be sleeping through it.”
She made a sad face. “Such a shame…I was rather hoping we could do something else.” It was saying something when a tavern domestic is more up front than most whores, but then it’s not every day that old Strappy breezes through town and from what I’d seen of the locals, or what remained of them, the girl would be hard pressed to find better. And for me, well, like I said, I’d seen the locals and tonight, I’d be hard pressed to find better.
I finished my bounty and sank my ale before retiring, wench in hand, to the bedroom.
She closed and bolted the door and made immediately to remove her maid’s uniform.
“Leave it.” I demanded, reaching for the riding crop.
For a flash, there was fear and uncertainty on her face, before she succumbed and giggled. “Oh Strappy.” She pulled something from her hair and a mass of brown tumbled down her shoulders.
I strutted to the window to close the curtains, but the twilight revealed they’d dragged over an artillery piece from somewhere, and were now positioning it facing south. A group of troopers and officers crammed around it, scratching their heads and it was yet more folly if cavalrymen were expected to carry out the work of trained gunners.
It would be an interesting night and I was glad to be partaking in a little something more to my liking, rather than crawling around in the dirt, hacking at ghouls in the dark or else this new beauty, that of playing with gunpowder and loaded cannons.
No sir, I’d happily take my chances with the wench and now I turned on her, wielding the crop and motioning with it for her to take position on the bed, which she did no arguments.
“Hitch up your petticoat.” I demanded and commenced whipping at once.
With the first few thrashes she yelped, somewhere between pleasure and pain. Then I applied more pressure and saw the pink marks appearing with every stroke. After a minute she was in tears and begging for me to stop, which I did just as a cannon blast shook the building’s very foundations. Seconds later there was a crack and I mounted the woman as what had to be several dozen horses from the stables clattering along the dirt track toward the south of the town. I pummelled away whilst the first shouts and screams shrilled from outside and a bright glow momentarily illuminated the night, quickly followed by the building shuddering again.
The details that my scrutinising ears could distinguish; the slashes of sabres, the popping of carbines, the calls and agonising yells of townsmen and troopers alike, the horses’ neighs, the cannon’s booms, officers arguing over minute details, the killing, the dying and all the while I was having the time of my life with the little Irish jezebel.
It was deep into the night when, once more, she clambered aboard. And at the time, I wasn’t to know the dead had continued coming, had scaled the ditches and broken through into the town.
A New Threat
If the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars thought they’d had a rough night, they should’ve spent it in my breeches. Instead of fighting the dead, I was fighting an Irish strumpet who clearly had the desire of making the most out of the opportunity of boarding one of the Queen’s most gallant officers.
Oh she’d taken the whip to me alright and thoroughly enjoyed the experience and daybreak revealed the marks, gashes and cuts across my arse and back and legs and neck. My face hadn’t escaped the lash either and I now possessed the kind of war wound of which I could be truly proud, on my right cheek.
I staggered downstairs, requiring two hands to the bannister and upon leaving The Boar’s Belly, was greeted by the stench of gunpowder still hanging in the air. My ankle still pained me after my heroics in the woods, exacerbated after last night’s frolic and now I hobbled up the dirt track surveying the evidence of the battle’s carnage.
The dead had certainly broken through and had even made it as far as the church, where several of them still writhed about with spears pinning them to the ground or to trees. Bodies, both dead and human, townsman and soldier likewise lay scattered in the dirt or on the verges. And in the distance, I could just make out the source of the folly. The ditches had been scaled owing to the sheer mass of dead, whose bodies had created a stairway for their fellows to clamber up.
A group of wounded, bound together with rope, were herded toward the church and once inside, the door was locked.
“Quarantine, Jack. Just in case.” It was Major Murphy who spoke from my blind side and upon my whipping around, he grimaced. “Oh, my dear boy, are you alright? Oh gosh, in the thick of it as usual, I see.”
I narrowed my eyes as I wondered about just what he was blathering, but then he narrowed the gap and closely examined my face.
“Looks like you’ve been sharing the brunt of it along with the rest of us. Not that I ever doubted it for a minute. Why, even if every dead in Ireland attacked us this very night, I know you’d be there at the front, leading the charge as always.” He shook his head in wonderment, his uniform filthy and covered in a mixture of brown and red, with a tear in the thigh - Probably from unsheathing his sword.
I dismissed his concern. “It’s nothing Major, really. Just a nick.”
“Ah yes, Lieutenant Sheehan told me you desired no praise after you butchered fifty dead in the woods. It’s to my eternal disappointment that again, I missed seeing you in action.” He shook his head sadly. “Probably on your mount thrashing away with your sabre, right, Jack?” There was some truth in that.
A group of officers gathered further up the track, mostly standing around looking glum and I pointed in their general direction, wincing from where Tara must have struck me good. “What’s the butchers bill?”
He gave me a look of concern. “Ten dead from th
e 8th. The same again injured or in quarantine. Of the locals, they’re still counting.”
I cocked an eye toward the officers but was unable to make out the faces from this distance. “And of our officer friends?” Please say Dolan or Lynch, preferably both.
He clasped his hands together as though in prayer. “Thankfully we’re all safe. Captains Dolan and Lynch in particular distinguished themselves, although not to the extent as yourself, you understand.”
“Indeed, Major.” I clenched my jaw as smoke drifted over on the breeze.
As it turned out, this was from the one cannon, which some imbecile, in his lust to play with a big weapon, had double shotted. And Tara must have been shrieking rather loud for me to have missed the explosion and resulting shrapnel which was the death of at least three individuals.
We began up the path and after seeing me limp, Murphy insisted on giving me his shoulder. We were half way to the church when Captain Lynch saw us and headed our way.
“Top of the morning Major…you’ve certainly been in the thick of it and I’m glad to see you’re alright.” Lynch was a sight, his face a cake of blood and burns, probably from powder discharge and his eye patch had been removed to reveal a gaping hole inside his head. Blood had dried to a crust over his sabre, which he still held like it was an old friend he refused to let go of.
“Kind of you to say so, Captain, but I fear my heroics pale into nothingness beside greater fellows such as yourselves.” Murphy readjusted his now bent spectacles.
Lynch quickly surveyed the major, his filthy breeches and jacket, then myself in my still freshly washed and pristinely pressed uniform looking like I was about to go on parade. The man betrayed no opinion or emotion, though he did scowl a little at the gash on my cheek. “Been in the wars, Captain Strapper?”
I made a gracious bow with my head. “As have we all, Captain Lynch, as have we all.”
Silence followed before Lynch gave us the real reason for his presence. “All officers are required presently in O’Leary’s hut…colonel’s orders.”
O’Leary’s shack, not to my surprise turned out to be a sterile two roomed hovel with the kind of exposed stone you could cut yourself on. I was uncomfortable immediately, having to stoop down to enter and remain so to stand. After five minutes my back was beginning to ache while everybody else, Irish, had no problems. It wasn’t their fault, I told myself; breeding can only do so much and they’d all recently suffered from malnutrition. Except this shack was hardly what you’d describe as new build. I know I was being snobbish, but I’m an Eton boy and this was all very new. The room possessed the occasional essential item, a pan and grill that sat above the fire and there was even a table with chairs in the centre, which nobody had yet thought to claim. The room however was largely given over to the large pile of straw that lay heaped against the wall, with pig shit scattered around the edges - And this was the abode of the town chieftain.
As soon as we entered, Murphy was called into the other room, presumably the bedroom, where he now conversed with the colonel and his aids. It wasn’t what usually happened and I wondered what the colonel was briefing to the major before informing the rest of us.
Meanwhile we, for the most part, shivered in the cold or made small talk. Personally, I was busy keeping a distance from Dolan, who leant against the door frame, blocking the exit, his bristles dyed even more red with blood.
Then the door to the other room creaked open and in the group stepped, kicking out straw as they came. O’Leary sat at the table’s head and motioned for the colonel to do the same at the other end. Major Murphy took the other seat and looked visibly shaken - Nothing new there.
The colonel looked stern as always, though from the physical state of the man, he’d clearly spent the night pitching in with the killing along with his men. His grey hair was flecked with red, his eyes worn and tired. Though remarkably the tash was rigid as ever.
Fitzgibbon cleared his throat and motioned to the chieftain at his opposite. “Mr O’Leary, perhaps you’d like to give us the lay of the land.”
O’Leary too cleared his throat, and shot a ball of mucus across the table. I won’t try and regale what he said, as doing so would be an impossibility for this most refined of Englishmen. But rest assured, I took more from the faces of my colleagues, who evidently understood, than I did from the man himself.
For the most part they stood with chins lowered to their chests, making tiny head shakes with glum expressions and many had a vacant look in the eyes. This was maintained for a duration of twenty minutes or more, whilst the Irishman, yet another with the ‘gift of the gab,’ gave what I assumed to be a story, even if there was no way of telling alone from the discharge that sprayed out from between his bottom teeth to create a cloud of mist that hovered over the table surface.
Finally he finished to a chorus of murmurs and then the colonel spoke. “So there you have it. There’s simply not enough food in Strabane or the surrounding villages to supply the whole regiment for any more than a week, ten days at most. And don’t forget we have horses and they require forage. Our supplies won’t last forever and the town don’t have spare either.”
My hopes began to rise as I thought the colonel might just cut this idiot expedition short and we could march back to Londonderry, where I had a bed, a chef and whores aplenty. My prayers were soon dashed.
“Of course, none of that would mean anything, because we’re Britannia’s army and we have such a thing as supply lines, what? Or rather we would have if they hadn’t been cut. You see, Galway is supplied from the south and Galway stores our supplies in a fort at roughly the halfway point to Strabane, at a place called Garrison.” Another settlement given its name by a drunk. “They’ve been cut because the dead broke through into the fort, ate the garrison, presumably left the grain and forage and now our provisions are all holed up useless in some basement with a hundred dead without the inclination or knowledge of how to use them.” He scanned the many glum eyes that peeped back at him. “Now, I know what you’re all thinking and you’re right, because we must take back this fort, clear it of the dead and retake what’s rightfully ours. It’s not just ourselves and Strabane this route supplies, you understand, what? But Londonderry itself! Our families, you see?”
I didn’t like where this was leading and tried to make myself look small, pretty hard when your head’s pressing against the roof and your bowels feel like they could implode at any moment.
“The other problem is Strabane’s still under nightly attack, so clearly the larger part of the regiment must remain behind to defend the place. And for a task such as what we’re proposing, travelling forty miles into dangerous territory and retaking the fort, only the very bravest of the brave will do.”
This is where Major Murphy came in with his first contribution, which was to suck in air. “Obviously it’s an exceptionally risky business and the officer or officers who take command of the mission will likely be decorated.” He looked about as though expecting enthusiasm at the prospect and was left immediately disappointed by the lack of zeal at wanting to die. “And it’s because of the dangers involved that we decided not to simply order one of our finest out there, but to instead ask for volunteers.” He clapped his hands, again in the expectation that some imbecile would be all for it.
But after the thrashing the regiment took last night, for the most part, the officers looked down at their feet, the occasional cough the only sound in the shack. And considering my present company, that not one of this psychotic lot volunteered for the mission screamed about the risks involved - Everybody knew it.
Murphy pushed back his chair and slowly stood, shaking his chubby head with disappointment. “When I joined this regiment, I was told it was the bravest in all of Ireland…no, no…the Empire. And now I look at you…survivors of the Charge and how you’ve been beaten so badly by the dead, it’s turned you into a bunch of cowards.” If his little speech had meant to inspire it was backfiring spectacularly. Perhaps it would
have sounded better if the major hadn’t been swatting in a classroom when the men he insulted were charging headlong into Russian artillery fire.
He now paced between the officers, not one of them stepping back to give him room. “They got to you…the dead, they got to you all. You’ve all been spooked and quite frankly, I’m appalled at the lack of pluck, courage and bravery.” He clapped eyes on me and it was the only time in my life I cursed my height. “Except for you, of course, Captain Strapper. There’s nothing more you need do to prove yourself, no sir, your bravery is set in regimental stone for future generations to aspire to, so as for my prior words you may excuse yourself.” Oh the relief when he broke eye contact to once again berate the rest of them. “But as for the rest of you…well, what have you done since the Charge, huh?” He continued pacing about as the hostility built within the small confines of the hut. “I should have listened to my father and joined the 4th. ‘Fergus, says he, what d’you wish to join the 8th for? They’re nothing but a bunch of foul smelling drunkards who can’t fight and live only off their past glories. Fergus, says he, you should join the 4th, a real fighting battalion and…’”
“I’ll do it.” Came the voice from somewhere.
There were gasps and every head tried to find the source of the madness. I wasn’t sure I’d really heard it myself. It wasn’t like anyone would actually volunteer for this.
Major Murphy craned his neck and scratched his head. “I’m sorry, did someone say something?”
“I said I’ll do it!” The madman stepped forward, eye patch and all.
There were more gasps as Captain Lynch pushed his way out from some corner of the room toward the major, whose eyes widened with delight.
Not Dead Yet: A Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1 - 2 Page 10
