Well, he could tell the truth to the entire regiment and beyond for all I cared, as long as I got to live, and preferably unbruised.
He stuck one through the chest whilst for some abominable reason, unaffected, the thing attempted to claw its way further up the blade, slicing apart its hand with every tug, anything to reach its abuser as the blade, slicked red, inched further out from its back. My saviour turned on me, an expression of sheer disgust upon his sweating countenance. “God save Ireland, but for the love of God, would yee please help us out here.”
I scurried further back against the tree and recommenced screaming in earnest.
“Captain, sor, please, I’ve lost me blade, would yee not see yeerself to helpin’ us?” He smashed one across the face with an almighty backhanded fist, obliterating it in a cloud of mush. Only three left and I dared hope I might live to see another day.
“Oh bejesus, Captain, yee feckin eejit, they’ll kill us both, please…” he glared at me over his shoulder, trying in vain to free his blade as a gurning dead man heaved himself further towards the hilt and coming closer with every strain.
My attention was seized by the appalling sight of the first trooper, who was absolutely lying sprawled out on the ground, his belly opened, intestines strewn across the dirt, and in that moment, I knew, I had to help.
I unsheathed my sword, thrust it into the ground and used it to shove myself up, then…
…I threw the blade to the trooper, fell off balance and into a pile of blood and guts which, in an effort to remove myself from, only succeeded in skidding around within it, rubbing fouled spleens and livers and brains over my freshly pressed uniform as I did. Finally, I was able to roll and heave my filthy frame into a nearby ditch, which was by far the safest available spot and thank yee God, I’ll take it, by Jove, and who would blame me?
The trooper had been so aghast that he’d reached out for the blade and missed, it coming to land in the mud by his feet. “What the feck are yee doin’? Sor, I meant, help by killin’ ‘em.” I pretended not to hear and he gave me another look that words could never hope to describe. “You, sor, are not fit to wear dat uniform, so you’re not. Mark my words, I’ll see to it dat you’re found out…oh bejesis.” He fumbled at a flailing dead hand and, having no choice other than to finally relinquish his sabre, dived for the ground and snatched up my abandoned blade in one smooth action. “Dat sword was wit me at da Charge, yee bastard.” He ran my blade through a dead skull as red matter gushed over his uniform.
His thrust had been masterful, wrought from years spent prodding that training ground post but in so doing, his overzealous lunge had planted his boot firmly within the now blood-drenched earth, something they evidently don’t teach in the cobbled barracks of Londonderry. He glared helplessly down at his sunken welly, to me, then finally at the blade snagged between two vertebrae and, unable to retract the sword in time for another strike, the two remaining ghouls collapsed upon him.
That’s when I saw the most ghastly sight of my life as the thing opened up my saviour’s neck with its teeth whilst my man simultaneously pressed his thumbs through its eye sockets - It fell back.
There was only one of them remaining and my trooper must have been in such terrible agony, indeed, his screams proved just that, and I’ll never know how he managed to summon the strength or will to pull the blade free from the twitching freak on the ground to plunge it through the last remaining monster before collapsing supine in the dirt and guts to labour through his final breaths.
But at the time, I wasn’t to know that and all I could think about was retrieving the blade on the off chance that one of those things might rise up for a second attempt at old Strappy. Well, we couldn’t have that, no sir, so I hauled myself out from the safety of my ditch and staggered toward the decaying monster, my ankle throbbing like bloody hell, reached for the sword that poked up from its head and grasped ahold of the hilt…
…And that was the moment the cavalry arrived.
I froze as the three horsemen surveyed the wreckage about them, glancing from me, to the pile of carnage, blinking, back to me and between several times, rubbing disbelieving eyes. Their wide-open mouths spoke nothing, yet said so much.
Lieutenant Sheehan rubbed his eyes again and shook his head before gazing once more at me, my spanking new uniform covered in such horrific rot, a length of what had to be colon snagged on my crossbelt. “Sir…” he was lost for words as he swung from his saddle and stepped toward me, my hands still struggling to pull free my blade. “Sir…may I shake your hand, sir.”
After the experience, I was still in a daze, but I shook his hand, he refusing to let go for a while as my head fizzed.
He again examined the scene; ten dead enemy and now, apparently, two dead heroes as his eyes pinched together in sadness.
I nodded to my two champions. “They fought gallantly and…”
“…And modest too, sir. I say…” he shook his head with admiration and pumped my hand again. “Sir, not even at the Charge did I ever encounter such bravery as this and you can rest assured, the whole regiment will hear of your deeds.”
I shook the fog away and brushed what was probably a piece of kidney from my sleeve.
Sheehan stepped even closer, all concern. “Are you all right, sir? Are you hurt?”
I gestured to my ankle as I took one small pathetic limp toward my horse, my face contorting from the shooting pain I hoped wouldn’t prevent me satisfying my carnal urges on some Londonderry whore this night. “No, Lieutenant, just a scratch.”
He looked up to the sky and spoke some words in Gaelic, or perhaps it was English. “And that you did all this, whilst in such obvious pain…You see that boys?” He called out for everyone’s benefit with a tear rolling down his cheek. “Captain Strapper slaughtered all the dead whilst unable to even walk…here, sir, now don’t you dare walk even one more step without my aid. Oh, how I wish our two dead friends Logan and Conroy could have witnessed it. How I wish the whole regiment…no, no…the whole of Ireland could have witnessed you.”
It was all a bit too much and though I was simply happy to have survived the ordeal, I didn’t think it would do any harm to keep the truth to myself. After all, soldiers need heroes to look up to, or so I assumed - How would I know? Of course, the 8th already had more than its share of bloodthirsty psychopaths to admire, so what was one more added to the bag? It would be sure to die down and if in the meantime it would ingratiate me with the colonel, make life easier during an apparent apocalypse, then I’d be a fool not to take it. My only desire going forward was not to be singled out by the bloody man and sent on daft initiations that only turned out to be real.
And because, as it transpired, Ireland was in a state of internal chaos, no change there, I had other matters to see to…
…Namely getting as far away from the place as possible.
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Zombie Revolution Page 49
