The Dead Can Wait (33 page)

He gave a squeal, and tried to pull away, but she held firmly onto the probe and, with a terrible sucking sound, the eye plopped from the socket. She released the handle, leaving both eyeball and instrument, which had penetrated the tough sclera of the eye, dangling onto his face.

Delaney screamed and thrashed, pausing only to call her terrible names as a mixture of blood, tears and something viscous ran down his cheek. He stumbled over to a mirror and shrieked at what he saw.

He began to open drawers, looking for something to do serious damage to Miss Pillbody, his vision swimming, the pain boring straight down the optic nerve into his brain. When he had located a large, saw-bladed knife, he turned. But the chair was empty. Miss Pillbody was standing over her bag. From it she had pulled Coyle’s Smith & Wesson. It was pointing its snout straight at him.

‘Is all that true about Liverpool?’ she demanded.

‘You stupid fucking cow—’

‘Is all that true?’

‘Of course it is. Of course it is!’ He took two strides towards her. ‘Look at my face—’

She didn’t want to look at his face. She shot him twice in the chest. As the noise died away and acrid gunsmoke replaced the smell of dental chemicals in the air, Miss Pillbody wondered if the Vauxhall was still where she had left it in Ipswich. She needed to get out of East Anglia fast.

Mrs Gregson found Lieutenant Halford, the man who had been selected from the mass of volunteers to supervise the test drive, walking around
Genevieve,
examining the exterior for signs of damage and rattling the treads to ensure the tracks were correctly tensioned.

‘Congratulations,’ she said.

‘Oh, thank you, Nurse. Although I think commiserations might be in order.’ He turned and shouted to a tankman on the far side of the machine. ‘Taffs, check there is no slack in that track, will you?’

‘Aye, skip.’

‘Commiserations?’

‘I tell you, that Winston could make a grouse vote for the Glorious Twelfth.’ He slapped the side of the tank. ‘Almost made us all forget what happened to the last blokes who rode in
Genevieve
here.’

‘That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.’

He had her attention now. Like many of the tankmen, his face was peppered with grease and oil, but, underneath, there seemed to be a handsome if gaunt young man, with curly dark hair and chocolate-coloured eyes, although one of them was quite bloodshot. ‘Is that giving you trouble?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘Your left eye.’

‘Got a bit of grit or metal in it.’

‘See me later. I’ll irrigate it for you before it does any more damage. Not much use as a tank commander with one eye, eh?’

‘No. Look, Nurse, I’ve got to get on here.’ He half turned. ‘I will call by after this is over, but—’

‘But you need me on board.’

He stopped walking away. ‘On board?’

‘In
Genevieve.
During the test.’

He shook his head and laughed. ‘It’s not a joy ride, miss.’

Careful, now,
she thought.
Don’t bite his head off. He’s just a boy.
‘No, it’s a situation where men might die. Oddly enough, that’s become something of a speciality of mine. Anything happens in old
Genevieve
here’ – it was her turn to smack the riveted side – ‘you’ll need swift medical action.’

‘Shall we start her up, gentlemen?’

It was Cardew. The two volunteer gearsmen picked up their cranks and stepped inside
Genevieve,
followed by the driver.

‘I have to go. Look, if a doctor is needed, we’ll have Major Watson with us.’

‘You’ve seen the major lately, have you?’

Halford glanced over his shoulder to where Watson was deep in conversation with Fairley. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s not a young man,’ Mrs Gregson said, feeling disloyal but pressing on. ‘Nor will he be the most agile member of your crew if an emergency does arise. I am only stating the obvious facts.’ The latter was more a justification to herself than to Halford.

‘That’s as maybe—’

‘You need me. It might mean the difference between life and death for all your crew. I saw what happened to the last lot of young men who were in there. It wasn’t very pretty.’

‘You’ve made your point.’ Halford scratched his cheek in thought. ‘Look, if the major agrees—’

She put a hand on Halford’s shoulder. ‘No, no, Lieutenant. I’ve got a much better idea, we can—’

The engine rumbled into life, the metal plate next to them began to vibrate loudly and four small, black clouds spat out of the exhausts.

‘What did you say?’ Halford asked.

Mrs Gregson leaned in close to Halford to complete the conversation.

THIRTY-THREE

Watson felt like he was entering the biblical fiery furnace as he stepped awkwardly through the low door in the rear of the right-hand sponson. The air was broiling, thick with exhaust and petrol fumes, and several of the men had pulled their coveralls down to their waists, so they were effectively working in their vests. Rather than the usual army steel helmets, they were wearing the new leather ones, which perched on top of the head.

Watson was glad he had heeded the warning not to wear his tunic – he had on a summer-weight shirt, with tie, and had already rolled up the sleeves. With so much flesh on show and so many hot pipes, he had to be careful not to suffer one of the contact burns that Mrs Gregson had described.

The fact that so many cogs and rotating elements were completely unshielded made Watson wonder how many digits and hands would be lost before the war was out. Such accidents were easy enough to avoid under test conditions; he imagined things would be different when war exploded all around. And, as he knew from his earlier inspection, the two big cylinders at the front of the interior contained petrol. An even more horrific scenario filled his mind. Immolation was not a nice way to die.

‘Is it always this noisy?’ he yelled at Cardew. The engineer cupped a hand to his ear. He said something back, but it was like watching a mime. Watson looked around. With no need for gunners, there was a slightly depleted crew. At the controls was Lieutenant Halford, next to him Sergeant Taffs, the driver. At the rear were two gearsmen, Privates Mead and Stenby, whose job it was to engage the secondary gearbox and keep everything thoroughly greased. Sitting in the sponson saddle seats on each side, where two gunners would normally be, were Cardew and, opposite him, a private, who was wearing a gas mask as instructed. Watson hadn’t been introduced, but the private’s role would be to throw open the sponson doors and front visors if the crew became disoriented or deranged in any way. Spare gas masks were hanging on the ammunition racks next to him.

Even over the thudding of the engine Watson heard the clang of metal on metal: the commander was banging the side of the hull with a spanner, as if ringing a dinner bell. All the visor hatches were pulled shut, leaving just the light from the small vision slits, covered with glass prisms, to illuminate the white interior. Tiny festoon lamps offered some feeble assistance, but it was as gloomy as a cellar. Watson swallowed hard, trying to contain a flash of incipient claustrophobia, his instinct to throw open the hatches once more and suck in unpolluted air. Was he going insane already?

The madness, Watson, would be to think this was in any way normal.

True, very true. He took a deep breath of the foul air and tried to relax. Cardew indicated the spare saddle seat next to him, and Watson shuffled over and perched on it. Cardew slapped his thigh in reassurance.

There was a loud squeak as Taffs pressed the clutch and engaged gear. The engine revs dropped as the driver let the clutch back in. More fumes belched. The note changed as Taffs gave it more juice and the gearsmen engaged the sprockets with their secondary gearboxes. Watson’s stomach lurched as the tracks rotated around the circumference of the rhomboid and the inside of the machine became even more cacophonous, something Watson hadn’t thought was possible. Now his eardrums seemed pressed deep into his brain, as if they might meet in the centre. Cardew, seeing his distress, handed over two small blobs of India rubber. Earplugs. Watson nodded his thanks and screwed them in. The racket dropped to just below absolutely unbearable.

The tank jerked, steadied, then moved forward, the vibration and jolts from the unsprung chassis already shaking Watson’s spine.

Here we go
, he thought,
on the Landship of Fools
.

From beneath her gas mask, Mrs Gregson was watching Major Watson intently. He looked distressed and pained but, she supposed, beneath the rubber and canvas covering her head, so did she. Sweat was running down her forehead and fogging the eyepieces. The bulky overalls, designed to cover her curves, were not helping. Even though she only had basic underwear on underneath, it was like being inside a mobile Turkish bath. Thank goodness she had thought to deploy her acoustic swimming earplugs; at least the noise wasn’t too deafening. But the vibration was horrendous, making her feel nauseous, and she seemed to be thrown about like a sack of spuds every time the tank hit a bump. How could men fight in this thing? She had considered simply following the tank on foot, ready to step inside if it got into trouble. After all, it apparently couldn’t go much faster than a brisk walk. But, in the end, Mrs Gregson had decided she had to be closer to Watson. She was concerned about him. Hence her shameless petitioning of Halford to allow her on board.

As he had in Belgium, Watson was acting as if he were a far younger man, as if, for the first time in human history, the slow deprivations of age did not apply to him. True, he didn’t look his age – even though she had no idea exactly what that was, but anyone who had fought at the Battle of Maiwand was no spring chicken – however, she knew that his energy levels were lower than those of the youngsters who surrounded him. The man who had come back from the ice house had the pallor of death upon him and a pulse that barely deserved the name. She had expected him to need a week in bed. But here he was, risking his life in this steel beast. Which demonstrated, she supposed, that Watson still possessed remarkable recuperative powers.

There came another banging on the hull and Mrs Gregson saw the two gearsmen busy themselves on their charges. The tank gave a judder, almost like a mechanical shiver, and then she felt it turning. She took a peek through the observation slit above her head. They were changing direction all right, heading off towards the wire. The pretend no man’s land. But there would be no pretending if this great, galumphing beast tipped into one of the trenches and became stuck fast.

Even over the roar of the engine and the whine of the tracks, they heard the shriek of the wire as it was crushed. Some of it sprang free and lashed against the thinner metal of the sponsons, like the tentacles of a dying creature. Then the world tipped, sending those not holding on stumbling forward. Mrs Gregson cracked her head on a machine gun and almost ripped the mask off her face as pain flashed around her cranium.

Walking behind
, she concluded,
would definitely have been the sensible option
.

Now they were nosing further down again, like a submarine diving, she would imagine. The engine misfired twice, probably as petrol sloshed in the tanks or the carburretor’s float chamber, starving the Daimler engine of fuel, before a laboured change in tone announced more power and the nose began to lift, slowly at first, but then with a constant, deliberate speed. She guessed what was coming next. The tail dipped, flinging them back the other way, but this time she kept her skull clear of any protruding objects. She skinned both sets of knuckles, though, and a brown nail.

Genevieve
’s nose pushed upwards and then fell again with a great smash that blurred the world around Mrs Gregson. She shook her head to try to clear her vision, already limited by the little Perspex roundels in her gas mask.

After frantic work from the crewmen, His Majesty’s Land Ship
Genevieve
was back on level ground and Halford, the commander, thrashed his spanner against the hull. This was not instructions, but a little victory drum roll – the cumbersome
Genevieve
had crossed the first trench. Mrs Gregson smiled to herself at his childish delight. It was Halford who had smuggled her on board. Nobody else had the authority, and it had taken all her persuasive powers to convince him that women in tanks weren’t bad luck. How could they be? None had had a chance to ride in one yet. Although, she admitted, it was a dubious privilege to be a pioneer in this moving Hades.

Genevieve
baulked and swayed now, bouncing over the contours of the no man’s land. Mrs Gregson scanned Watson’s face for any sign of alarm. Would he realize where he was? That he was crossing a replica of the grim place where he had lain, trapped in the filth, waiting to die from a German sniper’s bullet?

But she could see he was more concerned about the compression blows transmitted through his spine and examining the crewmen for signs of distress. She saw something flit over his face: a little tremor. His eyes were staring straight ahead, and he had stopped appraising the crew. He had also ceased blinking. No, he wasn’t taking in what was happening around him – he was watching something else, an internal show, playing in his brain, projected onto the backs of his eyes. A spasm of horror crossed his features and he began muttering to himself. Watson was in trouble.

She rose from her seat, and so did Watson. His mouth gaped open and then he shouted something, the words lost. From beneath his shirt, he pulled out a small, compact gun and fired, a noise loud enough to be heard over the machine. The bullet bounced off the floor, sparking around the tank. Cardew was already wrestling with him.

Mrs Gregson stepped around to the other side of the Daimler, the heat of the engine block soaking through her like liquid. Watson was still thrashing, the gun waving in the air. Another shot might injure any one of them as it flew round the interior. Mrs Gregson did the only thing she could think of. She pulled off her gas mask and helmet and shoved her face into Watson’s, forcing him to recognize her, while yelling his name at the top of her voice. Watson’s mouth dropped open once again and, his eyes wide with madness, he relaxed his grip on the gun and pitched forward into oblivion.