On Her Majesty's Behalf (7 page)

No wonder his singing sounded worse than usual,
Burke thought.
He can't hear himself!

Burke had first met Corporal Harrison Jones just a few short weeks before. At the time, Jones had been undergoing what the British liked to call Field Punishment #1, where the victim was tied upright to the wheel of a convenient wagon or troop transport and left to stand there for hours in the hot sun to think about the actions, whatever they might be, that had landed him in hot water in the first place. Burke had given Jones a drag of his cigarette and had even taken a liking to the man's upbeat, yet defiant attitude. When he'd found out that Jones was being punished for taking a shot at a German officer when his lieutenant had ordered him not to, a shot that proved to be successful despite the thousand-­yard difference that separated the gunman from his target, Burke knew he had to have him on his squad. Jones had been his first official recruit, if you didn't count Sergeant Moore who'd been reassigned when Burke had.

Since then Burke had learned that Jones sometimes had a bit of difficulty dealing with authority figures. He'd disobeyed a direct order in the field with Burke, who'd had no choice but to bust him down a rank as a result. The fact that his actions had probably saved the entire squad's lives was the only thing that had kept Burke from leveling a more severe punishment.

Despite all that, there was no doubt that Jones was perhaps the best natural-­born sharpshooter Burke had ever encountered. When they got into the thick of it, Burke would rather have a man like Jones at his side than not.

Fighting to suppress a smile at Jones's ingenuity in finding a way to make his incarceration as unpleasant for his captors as it was for himself, Burke asked the jailer to open the cell door, then had to do it again when he couldn't hear him over all the noise Jones was making.

The jailer pulled a ring of keys off his belt and did as he was asked. When the door was open, he started forward, no doubt intent on using some physical persuasion to get Jones to quiet down, but Burke reached out with his mechanical hand and grabbed him before he could cross the threshold.

“No need for that, Corporal,” Burke said. “I can handle it from here.”

Grumbling darkly beneath his breath, the jailer stuck his fingers in his ears and headed back toward the front doors and his waiting stool.

Burke watched him go for a moment, just a little insurance to be certain the man's temper didn't get the better of him, and then stepped inside the cell. He let the blond-­haired prisoner in front of him continue singing in that horrible off-­key voice for another thirty seconds before gently clearing his throat.

The music, if you could call it that, immediately stopped. Jones was clearly far more aware of what was going on around him than he was pretending. He cracked an eye and looked at Burke.

“Let me guess,” he said with a grin, “you've come to join me for the chorus?”

“Hardly,” Burke replied. “Singing is not in my repertoire of skills.”

“Nor mine!” Jones exclaimed with a laugh and broke into another round of the chorus.

Burke didn't hesitate, just drew back his leg and kicked the other man square on the sole of his foot.

“Ow!” Jones grabbed his foot and began massaging it. “Since when did you become a music critic?” he asked.

Burke was already turning away, heading back into the corridor outside the cell. “Come on. We've got work to do.”

At the suggestion that they might have another mission before them, Jones leaped to his feet and followed. “What do they want from us this time?” he asked.

Burke glanced back over his shoulder. “What do you think they want? Nothing less than the impossible for Burke's Marauders.”

Jones sighed. “Again?” he shot back, as he hurried to catch up, a grin spreading across his face.

 

Chapter Nine

A
N HOUR LATER
the team assembled together for the first time in a small room Colonel Nichols had arranged at MID headquarters for them. Looking around at the group, Burke was reasonably content that their wide range of skills could see them through the job ahead.

Closest to Burke sat the muscular, blond-­haired Jones. Burke was going to be counting on Jones's ability as a sharpshooter to eliminate individual shredders from a distance as they made their way across the city.

Next to Jones was Professor Graves. His extensive knowledge of the shamblers and the occult processes that had been used to create them had been invaluable during their first mission together. The same could be said about the gadgets he produced when not examining undead specimens. They wouldn't have gotten off the burning hulk of the HMS
Victorious
without his personal gliding devices, and his pulse mortars had certainly saved their asses during the escape from Verdun. Burke was hoping Graves's presence would give them a leg up against the hordes of shredders they were sure to face once in the city of London; sometimes a little information made all the difference.

Next around the table were his three new squad members, Privates Cohen, Montagna, and Bankowski. The first two had performed well enough during their jaunt across the Channel to capture a shredder the day before, and Bankowski had dealt with Sergeant Drummond's injuries with quick efficiency. Cohen was a linguistics expert, Montagna a whiz with mechanics, and Bankowski a skilled physician. If they could keep their cool while moving through a city full of shredders and who knew what else, they should eventually become skilled veterans and welcome members of the squad.

The last man at the table was Corporal Benjamin Williams. A dark, curly-­headed kid from rural Virginia, he'd been selected for their first mission as a result of his knowledge of things that go boom. He'd been a coal miner before the war, having started working in the mines at his father's side at the age of eleven. He could do things with dynamite that Burke hadn't even known were possible. Before joining the Marauders, Williams had been part of the team that had tunneled beneath the enemy lines at the Battle of Passchendaele and blown up the German company headquarters and half the Messines Ridge in an overwhelming display of military pyrotechnics.

The eighth and final member of the team was Sergeant Drummond, the Black Watch noncom who would be leading them across London to the last known location for the King and Queen. A veteran like Burke, Drummond would be invaluable once they were in the thick of things.

“All right, listen up!” Burke said, calling the meeting to order. “We've got a convoy to catch in under an hour and I want everyone to be clear about what's ahead of us before we head out.”

He glanced around the table. “I shouldn't have to remind any of you that what is said in this room is Top Secret and can't be shared with anyone without specific permission from me or Colonel Nichols, but I'm going to do so anyway. Are we clear?”

A chorus of “Yes, sir”s came back to him.

Burke went on. “Our orders come direct from the president himself and you all know what that means—­no one wanted the job before they gave it to us.”

A few quiet chuckles bounced around the room.

“By now most of you have probably heard about Brigadier General Calhoun's ill-­fated attempt to enter London. What you aren't aware of is the reason for the attempt.”

Every man had his attention squarely on Burke at this point.

“Calhoun was acting on credible intelligence received by the Military Intelligence Division that members of the royal family were alive and well inside Buckingham Palace.”

“You can't be serious,” Jones said.

Burke nodded. “But I am. Quite serious. In fact, it was Sergeant Drummond who brought that information to MID's attention in the first place,” he said, pointing at the burly British sergeant in the process.

As one, the group turned to look at Drummond, but he had his attention on Burke and pretended not to notice.

“We'll get to Sergeant Drummond's role in all this in a moment. For now, it's important to know that Calhoun's mistake was thinking that he could get in, rescue the royals, and get out again if he had a large enough force—­and it cost him three entire divisions. Clearly he didn't take the nature of the shredders into consideration during planning for the mission. Professor Graves?”

Graves cleared his throat. “Shredders not only have extraordinary hearing—­several degrees better than a German shepherd's, if I had to hazard a guess—­but some kind of innate sense that informs them when living beings are near, as well. They can remain unmoving for hours, even days at a time, until the proximity of a live human being wakes them up, so to speak, and acts like a homing beacon for them.”

“In other words,” Burke cut in, “Calhoun screwed up in more ways than one. The sound of all those men and machines, combined with the presence of such a large group of ­people, brought out every shredder for what must have seemed like miles to the beleaguered troops. They didn't stand a chance.”

“Those poor bastards,” Montagna muttered beneath his breath and Burke didn't disagree. Those poor bastards was right.

“So how do they expect
us
to pull it off?” Williams asked, unknowingly mimicking Burke's very question from several hours earlier.

“Number one, we're not going to go in there ringing the dinner bell like Calhoun did. A small, specially equipped team has a much better chance of penetrating the city limits and reaching the palace without being detected than a group the size of the one Calhoun utilized.

“Number two, we're not going to try and cross half of Great Britain on the way to the palace. A plan is in place to get us into the city before we move out on our own.

“And number three, we have a secret weapon in Sergeant Drummond.”

Jones narrowed his eyes and stared at the recalcitrant sergeant. “And how's that now? Doesn't look like much to me.”

Given his years in ser­vice, Burke knew that Drummond must have met more than one soldier with an authority problem and no doubt was more than capable of handling them. His hunch was proven correct when Drummond glanced in Jones's direction, winked, and said, “You should see the view from here.”

Burke thought it was exactly the right kind of response for a guy like Jones: calm, confident, and without the need to pull rank or take umbrage at the remark. Jones must have thought so too, for the scowl vanished from his face to be replaced by a good-­natured grin that told Burke Drummond had passed Jones's test.

Pretending not to have heard the exchange, and therefore avoiding any need to discipline either party, Burke continued his briefing.

“Sergeant Drummond is a member of the famed Black Watch regiment, Fourth Dundee Battalion, and served with distinction at Neuve Chapelle, the Somme, Arras, and Ypres. More important, his company was part of the King's Guard when the Germans attacked London. Unable to get word to Allied Command through the usual channels, the King ordered Sergeant Drummond to lead a squad through the city to the coast, where they hoped to meet up with other British units who could provide assistance to the beleaguered group holed up inside the palace.”

He had their undivided attention now. “Sergeant Drummond fulfilled his mission by making his way out of the city and across forty kilometers of what can only be described as enemy territory before running into my patrol several days ago in Southend-­on-­Sea. He has agreed to lead us back across the city to the palace so that we can carry out our mission of rescuing any survivors that remain.”

Burke picked up a large map of the city of London and unfurled it on the table in front of the team. Glancing up at Drummond, he said, “Sergeant? If you would be so kind?”

The other man nodded. “Righto. Here's the plan, boys.”

Drummond stepped over to the table, pointed to the blue swatch on the map that represented the Thames River and then traced its route from the sea into the heart of the city. “Rather than trying to go overland like General Calhoun, we'll be taking a boat upstream as far as we can go. The river will help mask the sound of our passage and even if the shredders hear our motors, they won't be able to do anything about it unless they've suddenly developed the ability to walk on water.

“Our objective is the Westminster Bridge, which is here,” he said, pointing to a spot just south of a major bend in the river and just north of the part of the city known as Lambeth. “From there we will move directly down Great George Street, past Parliament Square, until we reach the Birdcage Walk.”

Drummond's finger traced a route across the bridge and along a road that ran along the southern boundary of St. James's Park.

“Birdcage Walk will take us directly to the Mall and Buckingham Palace. From there we can enter the palace the same way I got out, through the Ambassadors' Entrance on the southeast side of the complex.”

Drummond leaned back and looked at them all. “From the bridge to the palace is roughly three kilometers. Shouldn't take us more than a few hours to get in and get out again, hopefully with His and Her Majesty in tow.”

Seeing that Drummond was finished, Burke spoke up again. “It is unlikely that we'll be encountering any shamblers during the mission, but there will be plenty of shredders. Professor Graves has been studying one of the creatures firsthand for the last several days and I'm going to ask him to share what he's discovered so that we can be ready to deal with them when the time comes. Professor?”

As Graves began talking about the considerable differences between the two classes of undead, Burke leaned back in his chair and considered the mission ahead of them.

It all sounded so simple,
he thought.
Just a quick little jaunt down to the corner and back again.
But he knew from personal experience that it was going to be anything but. Those three kilometers were going to be damned difficult, depending on just how many shredders were still hanging about and whether his squad's arrival was noted by them or not.

And getting back out again with nonmilitary personnel in tow?

Burke didn't even want to think about that.

Instead, he turned his attention to the question of arms and equipment. He was inclined to carry as little as possible, not wanting the equipment they carried to slow them down at any crucial moment, but at the same time he was worried that if they got stuck overnight, they were going to need everything they habitually carried in their haversacks for survival.

He began mentally going through their standard gear, trying to see what they could cut and what they'd have to carry with them on the mission ahead.

In addition to his bedroll and a change of clothing, each man carried a field kit that contained a mess kit with utensils and a condiment can, a personal kit with toiletries, and a first aid pouch with a ­couple of ready-­to-­use dressings and bandages, all jammed into a haversack.

Additional equipment—­tents and pegs, coils of rope, candles, maps, compasses, matches, additional clips of ammunition—­rounded out the rest of the gear the team usually carried, divvied up between them.

Armament-­wise, each of the enlisted men carried a Lee Enfield rifle, the bolt-­action magazine-­fed repeating rifle that was the standard weapon of the American doughboy. The Enfield fired a .303-­caliber cartridge, and a well-­trained marksman could get off anywhere between twenty and thirty rounds in sixty seconds, making it extremely efficient.

A cartridge belt at the waist carried twelve clips of five rounds each for the rifles, while hanging from the outside of each man's pack was a canteen of water, a box respirator and gas mask, a trenching tool, and a sixteen-­inch bayonet.

Given the gas the Germans had dumped on London during the attack, the masks were going to be incredibly important and Burke made a mental note to grab additional filters for each man.

The enlisted men might be carrying Lee Enfields, but Burke, on the other hand, was armed with a Thompson submachine gun, just as he had been for their last mission. The Tommy gun had, for the first time, provided the Allies with a portable machine gun that was as deadly as it was useful. The stocky weapon was fitted with a drum magazine that delivered its fifty-­round capacity at a rate of six hundred rounds per minute and could be switched out in seconds by a trained operator. Burke had grown to appreciate the weapon's ability to knock down broad swatches of opponents with little effort; he just wished he had enough of them to hand out to all the men.

In addition to the Tommy gun, he also carried a Colt .45-­caliber 1911 firearm in a holster on his hip. A double-­pocket magazine pouch containing two full magazines for the pistol was attached to his cartridge belt. Both he and Sergeant Drummond also carried two British Mills bombs, or hand grenades, that could be set to a timed delay of four to seven seconds before throwing.