The Ironclad Prophecy (26 page)

By their armbands, these were the men suffering from shell-shock.

“What the hell are they all doing?” Carter asked no one in particular.

“I don’t know, but it’s giving me the screaming abdabs,” confided Cox, as they trod warily between the mesmerised individuals.

Private Draper recognised one of the men, an old mucking-in pal. They’d shared a dugout on the Somme. The bugger always had the cheek to complain about
his
snoring. “Townsend? Townie?”

Townsend offered no response. Draper put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him round, only to be met with a vacant stare. “Townie?” Not a flicker of recognition. As soon as he let go Townsend returned to face the direction he had been facing. Draper shuddered when he noticed a large swelling at the base of Townsend’s skull.

“Let me try,” said Cox, “you need to know how to treat these types.” He slapped Townsend across the face. There was not a flicker of anything; not pain, not surprise, not anger, just a small trickle of blood from the mouth that the man also ignored.

“There was no need for that!”

“I was trying to snap him out of it!” said Cox.

“What are they
doing
out here?”

Draper was spooked. “You heard the urman. Evil spirits. Possession. It’s Jeffries’ doing. ’E’s using the ’fluence, I tell you. He’s coming for the rest of us!”

“Draper, shut your cake ’ole before I shuts it for you!” barked Hobson.

“They’re all the shell-shocked blokes, Sarn’t.”

“Aye. Dixon. It seems Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep,” said Hobson. “Nurse Bell won’t be happy having her patients wandering about out here. She won’t know where to find ’em. Carter, Cox. Go back to camp. Fetch some men to help round ’em up and take ’em back home.”

“Waggin’ their tails behind ’em!” said Monroe with a grin.

“Very droll, lad,” said Hobson. “Very droll.”

Private Wilson pushed his soft cap back on his head and rubbed his forehead, perplexed. “Here, Sarn’t. How come they’re all facing the same direction?”

“What’s that, Wilson?”

Wilson pointed it out. “The same direction, Sarn’t. Tommie. Chatt. They’re all facing the same way. It’s fair giving me the creeps seeing ’em doin’ it all together like that. Like a drill parade.”

Now Hobson could see it himself, he could feel the hair on the back of his neck bristle. He had to admit it was damned odd. None of them made a sound. They just stood there. Chatt and man, together.

“That, private, is a bloody good question and one I feel is for better heads than mine.”

Private Monroe yelped with alarm. In the distance, something large rose out of a fog-enshrouded copse. It was one of the great armoured battlepillars. Ignoring them, it reared up to start languorously stripping the disc-like leaves from the treetops.

The party came across two more further on, their great mandibles crunching their way through the tube grass unperturbed by the carnage around them.

Hobson put a hand on their rifle barrels and pushed them down. “Enough. They could be right useful to us, beasts like that.”

“It’s all very well saying that, Sarn’t, but how do we get ’em back?”

Hobson puffed out his chest, played with the end of his moustache, and pointed up at the great larva-like beast. “See that box on its back, just behind its head? That there’s called a howdah. They have them in India when ridin’ helephants. Same principle.”

“And how do we get up there? Magic rope trick, I expect?”

“I’ve got me penny whistle if it helps,” suggested Draper.

Hobson’s eyes narrowed. “If I thought you two was taking the mick I’d have your names so fast me pencil would leave skid marks.”

“Us, Sarn’t? No, Sarn’t. Perish the thought, Sarn’t.”

“Right, then. Wilson, go back and report to Lieutenant Everson. Tell him we’ll need some more men out here, jildi.”

H
ALF AN HOUR
later, the sun was burning off the fog, revealing the strange, new landscape before them with its scattered pyramids of clay coffin balls, earthen banks and trampled tube grass.

Everson watched as a battlepillar lumbered towards the stronghold with a couple of Tommies sat in the howdah behind its head. The other two larval beasts fell into line and followed on behind.

The parties that went out afterwards rounded up the dazed shell-shocked Tommies, carefully avoiding the mesmerised chatts.

Other than them, the veldt was empty. It was true. The Khungarrii army had decamped, although exactly why still remained a mystery.

S
ERGEANT
H
OBSON STOOD
at ease as Lieutenant Everson digested his report. Outside, he could hear ragged and muted cheers as the men celebrated their apparent victory.

“They’ve gone. Just like that,” said Everson, shaking his head in disbelief.

“They seem to have left in a hurry, sir. Weapons have been left scattered around. There are pyramids of the dead, after their fashion and, as you can see, we have captured several abandoned battlepillars and a good many of their electric lance packs. They have been digging sir, but I couldn’t say for what purpose, exactly. Mines, perhaps, to dig under our positions. And then there were the mesmerised scentirrii, sir. Sent shivers down my spine, they did. Especially when we found a number of our mob amongst them, dazed like. Like they’d been sleepwalking. None of ’em seemed to realise where they were or how they got there. Poilus claims they’re possessed.”

“And you, Sergeant? What’s your opinion?”

“Couldn’t say, sir.”

“Hmm.”

The report left Everson with more questions than answers. “It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered. “They had us. Why did they leave? And why abandon their soldiers like that?”

E
DITH COUNTED THE
shell-shocked patients back into the compound. She bridled when she saw them strung together with rope looped around their waists, and accosted the private escorting them.

“Is that absolutely necessary?”

“It were the only way we could get ’em, back, miss. It were like herding cats. They kept trying to wander off. But once we got ’em like this, they came quiet like,” he said, somewhat abashed.

“Yes, well, they’re not wandering loose now. Take the ropes off, please.”

The private obliged and untied each one as they went quietly and compliantly into the compound.

“Thank you,” said Edith with a curt nod, and turned to follow them in.

“Nurse Bell, a moment please!”

Sister Fenton came striding towards the compound from the hospital tents. Edith sighed with frustration. What was it this time? She turned and waited diffidently as the senior nurse approached.

“Yes, Sister?”

“These men were in your charge. How on earth did they get out?”

Edith felt her face flushing. “There was a gap in the wire, Sister. It’s been dealt with.”

Sister Fenton seemed to find that acceptable. “I know Captain Lippett’s attitude to these men is a little harsh –”

“A little harsh?” retorted Edith.

Sister Fenton did little more than arch her eyebrow. Edith knew she’d just stepped over a line and lowered her eyes. “Sorry, sister.”

“As I said,” Sister Fenton reiterated for emphasis, her features softening. “I know Captain Lippett’s attitude is a little harsh, but he does have a greater responsibility here. If you had concerns, you should have brought them to me. I appreciate that you have managed to care for these men in your own time and now that the fighting seems to be over, at least for the moment, I came to see if there was anything you needed for them.”

Sister Fenton’s show of concern caught Edith off guard. She was so used to seeing her as some dried-up old dragon, even though she could scarcely be more than ten years older than herself. Sister rarely, if ever, let that mask slip, but Edith realised that the woman was in an unenviable position. She was alone. At least Edith had got Nellie to befriend, to talk to and confide in, but Sister Fenton’s station as a senior nurse, and a spinster at that, left her somewhat out on a social limb. They didn’t often spare any thought for her or her plight at all. Lord knows it was hard enough for them on this world, amongst all these men, but for her? Was this her reaching out for female companionship?

“Oh. Well, I was just about to examine them. It seems they’ve been out all night and an extra pair of hands would be welcome, Sister.”

Fenton smiled. It was a disconcerting sight. “Right, well, let’s get on, shall we?” she said, rolling her sleeves up and stepping past Edith into the compound, her businesslike mask hardening into place once again.

The soldiers were meandering around aimlessly, some were whimpering quietly, some fidgeting, but it was a restless movement, not the involuntary spasms and jerks of shell-shock.

“I thought you told us that their hysterical symptoms had abated. Do they seem agitated to you?” said Sister Fenton as they walked slowly through the Bird Cage, running appraising gazes over their charges.

“Yes,” Edith agreed, a frown creasing her forehead. “Yes, they do.”

She found Townsend.

“Townsend. What happened? How did you get out there?”

He looked at her blankly at first, recognition only coming a few seconds later. “Nurse?”

“You were found wandering out there,” she indicated the veldt.

“I don’t remember,” he said. “I remember wandering around out there, but I don’t remember how I got there...” he looked at her in entreaty.

She didn’t know how either. Avoiding his eyes, she began checking his hands and arms. There were lacerations, but from what? Barbed wire? Wire weed? She couldn’t tell.

She opened his shirt. The swellings on his body had grown in number over the course of no more than a day. The growth at the back of his head had enlarged. She would have asked one of the urmen who helped out in the hospital tents if the swelling was anything they had come across, but they wouldn’t come near the compound, claiming it was full of ‘bad magic.’

She was distracted for a moment as a breeze picked up and blew stray stands of hair across her face. She pursed her lips to blow it away before impatiently sweeping and tucking the offending locks away behind her ear.

“Bell!” called Fenton with a note of urgency. “Bell, look!”

She looked up. The men were all turning in unison, as if performing some parade ground manoeuvre. They turned into the wind. Was it her imagination, or was there an almost audible sigh of relief, when they felt the wind on their faces as it blew in across the veldt, ruffling hair and billowing shirts?

Fenton strode from one to another. “They’ve all responded in the same manner. Must be some sort of mass hysteria.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen the like. It appears they’re responding to some atmospheric change,” she observed. “What might it be? Air pressure? Temperature? Humidity?” She looked at Bell, who was just as perplexed by their behaviour. “Maybe your concerns were valid after all, Bell. I think Captain Lippett should see this.”

Edith stepped in front of Townsend, who now faced the oncoming wind, and waved her hand in front of his unseeing eyes. “Townsend?” There was no reaction.

She shook another man. “Miller? Miller, what are you doing?”

Miller said nothing. She tried tugging on his arm, but he stood immobile, transfixed by the wind. They seemed oddly at peace. “Miller!” She turned and faced Sister Fenton, a look of consternation on her face. “I don’t understand, Sister. What’s happening?”

“I don’t know, Bell, but the wind seems to calm them.”

Edith looked in the same direction as the men, following their gaze, out across the trenches and the wire weed, out across the veldt with its flattened tube grass, where the last shreds of mist were dispersing; where, among walls of dirt and pyramids of earthen balls, the abandoned Khungarrii also turned to face the oncoming wind.

She looked up into the blue sky, where carrion creatures shrieked and wheeled, awaiting the first warm updrafts of the day, before dropping her gaze to the horizon, towards the great grey line of clouds that hunkered there. They were moving fast, rolling across the sky towards them. Another few hours and it would be upon them.

She shivered. “The weather is turning. Looks like there’s a storm on the way.”