Wells felt his revulsion, his anger, bubbling up. “You are a stain upon English soil!” he blurted, impressing himself with his colourful phrasing even as his long-repressed emotions finally broke free. “You manipulate and lie! You murder in cold blood and call it patriotism! And now you plot to subvert our very democracy, all to entrench your vile vision of empire for generations to come!”
Spry rocked back his chair, an insufferable smirk on his face. “It seems you have me... what is the phrase you people use? Bang to rights?” The smirk vanished in the blink of an eye, and Spry’s face hardened. “So I will ask you again. What is in the bag, Herbert?”
Wells held Spry’s stare as he reached into the leather satchel and carefully removed the device. Two reels slowly revolved in their metal housing. “This is a device for recording sound,” Wells explained. “Every word you have spoken here today, every conspiracy and treason, is stored on these magnetic discs and can be...”
Spry slammed his hands flat on the desk, startling the civil servants who by now were very keen to remove themselves from this intrigue. “Yes, yes,” boomed Spry impatiently. “A recording device, invented by one Daniel Albone, yes? Who do you think ensured that the appropriate Martian science found its way into his hands?”
“But... but once word of this gets out, your plan will be...” Wells tried to regain his righteous composure, but could feel his confidence hissing out of him like a punctured tire.
“Word of this will not get out,” Spry said, coldly. “You have played your part perfectly, dearest Herbert, but it is time for you to leave the stage. By the time this reaches the newspapers—the real newspapers—tomorrow, your recording device will have become an improvised explosive and your role as the publisher of a traitor’s pamphlet will be all anyone needs to know. My lucky escape from the laboratory proved many things to me, Herbert, but most of all it showed me that to truly succeed you must prevail in conflict, even if that conflict is manufactured. And for conflict, one must have an adversary. What God-fearing Englishman wouldn’t vote for a Prime Minister who personally faced down a bomb-wielding madman in the very heart of His Majesty’s government?”
At this, Wells slumped. He had been a fool to think he could outwit a man like Spry, whose schemes were laid months, even years, ahead of time. He thought back to the creature in the jar, and the thoughts that had scratched at the edges of his mind. Had the creature tried to warn him? Or had it plotted with Spry to ensnare him deeper? Wells no longer trusted his own memories. He was dimly aware of the civil servants scrambling out of the room, and of policemen bustling in.
As he was cuffed and dragged away, the magnetic recorder fell to the floor. Its reels stopped moving. Wells looked back one last time and saw Spry, smiling and, for the first time, truly satisfied with Wells’ work. What had he really done to change the terrible course that lay ahead? All those words, all those ideas and warnings contained within The Alarmist, sent out into the streets and pubs, the workhouses and alleys of London, like germs injected into the veins and arteries of an imperial body, so confident in its future, so complacent. What had he done? Maybe nothing. Maybe just enough. “Neither do men live nor die in vain,” Wells called over his shoulder as he was led away. He allowed himself a smile as the door slammed closed behind him. That, he felt, was a good line to end on.
Last Shot
a tale of daring, by
CHRIS ROBERSON
“I’M TELLING YOU, Sam, I can feel it in my bones. Today’s going to be our lucky day.”
“Whatever you say, Eddie,” Private Samuel Howe answered with a shrug. He didn’t share the corporal’s confidence, not least of which because Corporal Edward Jenkins’s hunches so rarely turned out to be true. If Eddie’s bones were to be believed, then they would already be back home on Earth by now, but here they were still stuck on bloody Mars. Sam managed to suppress a sigh of exasperation, and then added, “But any day we’re out of the thick of it is a lucky one, I guess.”
The truth was, they were supposed to have returned to the front lines ages ago. The broken arm that had put Sam on medical leave in the first place had long since mended, and Eddie could only pull that ‘just a mild case of shellshock’ gaff so many times before he got himself sectioned for good. But then the orders had come down that the bulk of the expeditionary force was to pull out in an emergency withdrawal, and in the confusion that followed the transfer orders for a pair of lowly non-commissioned officers just sort of fell through the cracks.
So the two of them had spent a couple of extra days lounging around the medical ward, sleeping late in the mornings and whiling away their afternoons with a deck of cards. Sam was worried that Surgeon Major Reynolds would get sniffy about them slacking, but before that happened Eddie overheard the medico complaining to an orderly about the lack of regular supply runs since the rest of the forces had pulled out, and saw a golden opportunity.
“We can fetch and carry for you, sir,” Eddie had told the Surgeon Major. “We know the way to the depot, so it’s no trouble at all.”
If he hadn’t already been so overworked and harried, it’s likely that the Surgeon Major wouldn’t have fallen for it. But he was, and he did, and so instead of being sent back to the front lines to help fight the last holding action, the two of them were strolling down the corridors of the Martian city in their fatigues like they didn’t have a care in the world. Sure, it wasn’t quite so relaxing as playing cards in their dressing gowns, but it was a damned sight better than being out in the thick of it squeezed into their vacuum suits and in danger of being stomped on by an enemy tripod or vaporized by a Martian deathray.
“I thought the supply depot was down that way,” Sam said when they reached the junction at Piccadilly Circus and Eddie hooked a left down the Strand. When Eddie glanced back at him, Sam pointed down the corridor to the right, past a truck parked in the middle of the thoroughfare.
“Never said it wasn’t,” Eddie replied with a grin. “But I’m feeling a mite parched, and thought we might pop in for a pint.” Then he jerked his thumb towards ‘The Ritz,’ the NAAFI canteen further up the Strand in the direction he was heading. “Care to join me?”
As they headed towards the canteen Sam couldn’t help noticing how strangely deserted the whole place felt. Normally the corridors and thoroughfares of the ancient Martian city would be thronged with Army personnel and trucks at this time of day, but after the evacuation it seemed more like a ghost town, and the vast spaces beneath the high arched ceilings overhead felt even more cavernous than normal. Sam wondered if this is what it had felt like when the navvies first arrived to begin adapting the place for human occupation some forty years before.
“Well, this is bleak, innit?” Eddie said as they stepped in through the doorway of the canteen.
Sam nodded. The place was as deserted as the corridor outside, with half-eaten plates of food and dirty mugs scattered on all of the tables. From the looks of it more than a few breakfasts were left unfinished when the evacuation orders came down, and nobody had been left behind to bother with the washing up.
“Looks like we’re on our own, Sam,” Eddie said as he walked over to the bar, which was set up on the far side of the room below a lattice window that reached all the way up to the ceiling which towered high overhead. He slid onto a stool and gave Sam a wink. “Mind pulling us a couple of pints?”
As he stepped behind the bar, Sam couldn’t help glancing nervously around, for fear of being caught where he shouldn’t be. Eddie noticed the glance, and chuckled.
“Don’t worry,” Eddie said, “no one’s coming along, and if they do I’m sure they won’t mind. You can just serve them a pint, as well.”
Sam found a couple of clean glasses, but when he went to fill the first one at the tap, the works just gurgled and wheezed, and nothing but a pitiful spray came spitting out. He tried the other taps but didn’t have any better luck.
“Of all the...” Eddie hopped off his stool and came around the back of the
bar. He yanked open the cabinet and then kicked the keg inside, and his boot against the metal sounded like a hollow drum. He slammed the cabinet shut, scowling. “Cheap bastards!”
While Eddie raged against the inefficiencies and ineptitudes of the NAAFI, Sam wandered closer to the window and looked out over the Valles Marineris. Way off in the distance he could just make out plumes of smoke and the occasional flash of green light, where the rear guard was holding the enemy at bay. Or so he hoped. The word was that the last chariots would be arriving at the dock soon to take the remainder of the ground forces back home, provided the whole place wasn’t overrun by the enemy in the meantime.
“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?”
It was only when Sam turned around and saw Eddie glaring at him that he realized that the corporal had been addressing him. They’d spent enough time together over the years that Sam had gotten pretty adept at tuning out Eddie’s regular rants, and he often had to scramble to catch back up on the flow of the—often admittedly one-sided—conversation.
“I... erm... maybe...” Sam began, floundering a bit.
“The officers’ mess,” Eddie said, apparently repeating himself. “Want to give it a go?”
It took Sam a moment to process that. “You mean, try to get a drink there, instead?”
“Yes.” Eddie rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. “So, are you coming or not?”
Before Sam even had a chance to answer, Eddie was heading back towards the door. Sam cast a last glance out the window at the distance smoke and green flashes on the horizon, and then hurried to catch up.
“If it’s not one damned thing it’s another...” the corporal was muttering when Sam caught up, still in a snit. Then he turned to Sam and continued his tirade, as though he hadn’t temporarily lost his audience for a few paces there. “That’s the army in a nutshell, if you ask me. Spend god only knows how many millions of pounds every year to fight this bloody stupid war, and then cut corners where it really matters.”
Sam only grunted in vague agreement, though he was tempted to point out that free flowing beer taps, while obviously important, were hardly the most vital aspects of their ongoing defense.
“Not that the weak swill that they serve us lowly grunts isn’t making love in a canoe anyway,” Eddie went on. “Whatever they pour out for the officers is bound to be the good stuff, I’ll bet.”
Sam was questioning the wisdom of this plan. Nipping behind the bar in the noncommissioned officers’ canteen was one thing, but sneaking into the officers’ mess? That was another thing entirely. He wasn’t sure whether they could be court-martialed for it if they were caught, but then he wasn’t sure that they wouldn’t be court-martialed for it, either.
“You know, Eddie,” he ventured, “the Surgeon Major was in a right snit about those supplies of his. Maybe we ought to...?”
“He’ll get his precious bandages and whatnot, don’t you worry,” Eddie said, cutting him off. “But don’t we deserve a bit of r-and-r?”
Sam didn’t point out that the two of them had done nothing much but rest and relax for a good long while now, while others had carried on fighting. The corporal had built up a good head of steam, and Sam could see that there was no stopping him now.
He was still worrying about the possibility of a court-martial in his future when they reached the officers’ mess on the far side of Whitehall, just a short walking distance from the forward control and command centre itself. (As Eddie often said, “Just like the brass, to leave us to traipse all over creation just to get our daily bread, and they can just roll out the front door of the command post and right into their own mess hall.”) But as it happened, he worried needlessly. The officers’ mess was even more deserted than The Ritz had been.
“Bastards!” Eddie said as he kicked over an upholstered stool, sending it clattering across the floor.
The kegs beneath the taps in the officers’ mess weren’t empty. They weren’t even there, the hoses from the taps left dangling and unattached. And the bottle racks behind the bar were conspicuously empty, as well.
“Bastards!” Eddie said again, and spat on the floor.
Sam was looking around at the empty tables scattered around the room, and noticed another difference between the officers’ mess and noncommissioned officers’ canteen. There were no half-finished plates of breakfast here, no discarded mugs of tea. The tables were clean and spotless, their near-mirror finish reflecting the ruddy light shining in through the tall lattice window on the far wall.
“What?” Eddie said as he gestured to the empty bottle racks. “Did they take the blasted bottles with them?”
“Maybe they keep the good stuff locked up overnight, and the evacuation orders came down before they’ll restocked for the day?” When Eddie glared at him, Sam pointed out the empty tables, and added, “No unfinished breakfasts, either, so maybe they hadn’t started serving yet?”
Eddie rubbed his chin, a suspicious look in his eye.
“Yeah, could be,” he allowed, “or could be that they caught wind that something was coming down the pike before the rest of us. Knew well enough to get out while the getting was good.”
While Eddie spent a few more minutes rummaging around in cabinets in a fruitless search for libations, Sam drifted over to the window to look outside. He could see the fighting a little clearer from this vantage, the flyboys of the Air Corps dark specks against the grey sky as they buzzed over the enemy formations, the ground infantry swarming like ants as they met the onrushing enemy offensive.
“I hope they pull the rest of us out of here soon enough,” Sam muttered. “Not sure how much longer we can hold out, at this rate.”
Eddie laughed, a mirthless bark, and slammed a cabinet door shut. “You plonker,” he said as he straightened up, glancing over in Sam’s direction. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“What?” Sam was confused. “You mean, that we can’t hold out much longer?”
“No,” Eddie shot back with a scowl on his face, “that they’re pulling the rest of us out of here.”
Eddie was already heading back out into the corridor before Sam had time to process what he’d just heard.
“Wait, what...?”
Sam hurried out the door after Eddie, and was slightly out of breath when he caught up a few dozen paces down the corridor.
“What did you mean, Eddie?”
“Just what I said,” the corporal answered, his tone flat and matter-of-fact. “I don’t think they’ve got any intention of us pulling out of here. Not any time soon, at any rate.”
“Then...” Sam began, then trailed off as he chewed the thought over. “What? They’ve just left us here?”
Eddie shrugged.
“Just how long’s this rear guard action meant to go on, do you think?” Sam added, hearing the tone of desperation in his own voice.
“Haven’t a clue,” Eddie answered. “A good long while, I’m guessing. Because... well, look at it this way. All the yompers out there scrambling around on the battlefield, and with all that equipment? How quick do you reckon all of them can be rounded up and crammed into a boat out of here, eh? Even if they drop everything and run?”
Sam mulled it over. There were a good number of men still out on the front lines, it was true.
“And that’s assuming that the transport is already at the dock, right?” Eddie went on. “Which it isn’t. And there’s no sign of one on the way, either. You still with me?”
Sam nodded.
“So it only stands to reason, right, that they’re counting on us to hold the line for a good while.” Eddie shoved his hands deep in his pockets, shoulders slumped casually as if he were simply out on a stroll. “When the brass gives the order for those poor bastards out there on the front lines to start pulling back, then we can worry about packing up our kit and getting ready to ship out. But until then? We’ve got some time to kill.”
Sam had to admit that it made sense. But one thing that Eddie
had said earlier didn’t anymore in light of all that.
“Then why’d you say that you think this’ll be our lucky day?”
“Because,” Eddie answered with a sly grin on his face, “with any luck we can keep dodging our transfer orders back to the front until then. And we’ve managed it just fine so far, haven’t we?”
Sam trailed behind Eddie as they continued down the corridor. It seemed as though discussing their chances of avoiding any more active combat was lifting the corporal’s spirits, as Eddie whistled a jaunty tune for a few paces before turning in Sam’s direction with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Mind you, it’s not as if I’m in any hurry to get back,” Eddie said.
“We’ll have to get those supplies back to the Surgeon Major sooner or later,” Sam cautioned.
“Not back to the medical bay,” Eddie answered, sounding slightly annoyed. “I mean to get back home.”
Sam turned and gave him a look.
“To Earth, you mean?”
Eddie nodded.
“Bloody Wolverhampton. It was alright when it was just me and Ethel in the flat, but after the in-laws moved in with us there was barely enough room to take a deep breath. The only peace I ever got was when I slipped out down to the pub for a couple of pints, and no matter how long or short a time I was away I’d always get an earful from the mother-in-law when I got home, banging on about something or other.”
Eddie shook his head, chuckling ruefully.
“When I got called up...” He paused, sighing. “Happiest day of my life.”
Sam remembered the day his own enlistment papers had arrived. The mix of thrill and dread he’d experienced when he imagined what lay in store for him on the red planet, and the slow dawning relief at realizing that it meant that he wouldn’t have to go back to his job on the assembly line.
Scarlet Traces: An Anthology Based on H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds Page 21
