The Ironclad Prophecy (29 page)

Chandar clicked and chattered and, making its sign of deference, began to back away. It seemed to know, or at least suspect something.

Gutsy clapped a heavy hand on its shoulder. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

Atkins rounded on it. “What is this place?”

For a moment, Chandar gabbled in its own language, its mandibles and mouth palps moving rapidly in a torrent of clicks and tuts before it remembered, caught its breath, and translated the words into something they could understand.

“It is forbidden!”

A loud clang shattered the silence as a hatch swung open on the tank and the crew emerged, blinking and disorientated in the light, coughing and wheezing.

Nellie, looking for Alfie, saw Mathers stumble out and clutch his stomach. She pointed it out to Atkins with a nudge. They watched as Mathers pulled his hip flask from under his rain cape, lifted the splash mask chainmail aside and took a slug. He straightened up. A breeze blew across the clearing and he turned into the wind for a moment, as if wistfully looking for something, half-remembered.

“Ah, here come our land navy privateers,” said Prof, nudging Chalky.

“What did you say?” said Cecil, his blotchy face clouding over as he rounded on the Fusilier. “Nobody calls the crew of the
Ivanhoe
mutineers, least of all mud-sucking infantry!”

“No, what I said was –”

Prof staggered back under the lad’s tackle, trying to block Cecil’s furious punches.

“Oi!” shouted Jack, striding towards the pair and pulling them apart. He grabbed Cecil and yanked him back by the collar of his coveralls. “This isn’t the time or place.”

“But he was bad-mouthing our mob!” insisted Cecil.

1 Section gathered protectively round a stunned and shaken Prof and the two groups regarded each other with animosity.

“That’s enough!” yelled Atkins. “Christ knows there are enough things out here that want to kill us without bloody doing it ourselves!”

T
HE ALTERCATION BARELY
registered with Mathers as he strode between the two groups, scarcely acknowledging the Fusiliers. “Nesbit, that’s enough. We haven’t time. They are inconsequential,” he said. He had other, higher matters to attend to, matters that did not require their presence. This was Hush Hush business. “Our evil spirit dwells within. So let’s make it quick. I don’t like being outside the tank any longer than necessary. The pain is worse out here. Grab your revolvers and weapons and follow me.”

With derisive mutters and black glances at the Fusiliers, the tank crew fell in behind their commander as he strode towards the ruined edifice. He didn’t need to look back at the
Ivanhoe
for reassurance, for Skarra was with him. He could hear the god’s insistent ever-present whispers in his mind, directing him, encouraging him.

A
SUDDEN FLUSH
of fear washed over Alfie. He turned and looked back at Nellie, taking comfort in the calming, yellow glow she gave off. By comparison, the rest of the tank crew around him radiated ugly, bruised hues of suspicion and paranoia. He knew which he preferred.

Frank gave him a shove. “What are you going to do, run after your long-haired chum or stay with us?”

“Nellie can look after herself,” Alfie said.

“The right choice, Alfie boy,” said Frank, leaning in close. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

M
ATHERS’ SUDDEN DEPARTURE
caught Atkins off guard. Why the hell should he have expected anything less from a madman? “Lieutenant, wait! Where the hell are you going? Come back, sir!”

Driven on by his own rationale, Mathers didn’t even break his stride, but continued towards the ruins. “You forget, Corporal, I have a spirit to kill and when I do so, I shall become even greater than I am now. I shall add its power to my own. Skarra has promised me!”

At the mention of Skarra, Chandar hissed gently and made a sign of reverence towards the tank. Could it be that Mad Mathers was actually convincing Chandar of their deception, Atkins wondered? After all, if Mathers had started to believe it...

The tank commander had reached the overgrown, cavernous entrance and led his men into the ruined edifice.

A low, continuous moan issued from its depths.

Atkins hoped it was just the wind through the tunnels.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Across the Untroubled Blue...”

O
UT ON THE
veldt, the ominous low rumble that accompanied the line of leaden grey clouds in the distance continued long past the point where it should have died away.

Everson made his way from the fire trench, along the sap. The disappearance of the Khungarrii was weighing heavily on his mind. What the hell were they up to? He didn’t know and he didn’t like it. This damn planet was full of unknowns. He seemed to spend too much time just reacting to things and trying to keep their heads above water. So far, he’d been lucky. This latest manoeuvre by the Khungarrii, vanishing like that, had unsettled him. All he could do was keep the men stood to in expectation of – of God knew what, frankly. However, they could only do that for so long and they were reaching the end of their tether already. He felt himself floundering, not knowing what to expect next.

The sap came out by the old Poulet farmhouse. Lieutenant Baxter and his machine gun section occupied the ground floor. They had set the Lewis machine gun up in a window bay, the walls reinforced by sandbags.

Baxter took him aside and, in a low voice, proceeded to question him. “Everson, any idea what the hell is going on out there? Where have the damned chatts gone to?”

“I don’t know, Baxter. They seem to have abandoned the field, but whether it’s a feint or not, I just don’t know. Keep your eyes peeled. I’ve only come here for a look-see myself. The Hill OP will keep us informed. As soon as I know anything, you will, Bernard.”

He patted the officer on the shoulder and, with a shrug and apologetic smile, started up the stairs to the observation platform.

The whole of the upper level had been roughly refloored with wooden boards, and the old roof, which had been in danger of collapsing, had been removed. Most of the upper walls had been saved. Loose bricks had tumbled down and the rubble still lay scattered around the farmhouse walls. It was open to the elements but for a large tarpaulin that flapped and snapped over his head in the strengthening breeze. He stopped and sniffed. There was a pungent odour on the wind. Damp. Acrid. Rank. Animal.

“Sir!” The Corporal and two privates on watch snapped to attention as Everson arrived up the stairs. Everson found the RFC Lieutenant, Tulliver, there too, checking the weather. A makeshift windsock billowed in the breeze.

“Anything to report?” asked Everson, walking up to the empty window frame and looking out over the now desolate veldt. The heavy grey clouds sailed towards them with the threat of rain. Beyond, the rumbling persisted. “What the hell
is
that?” he muttered, half to himself.

“Sir!” snapped the Corporal, calling his attention to flashes coming from the OP up on the hillside. Everson watched them for a moment, spat out an oath, pulled out his field glasses and raised them to his eyes.

A dust cloud rolled along the veldt. Was it the Khungarrii again, hoping to catch them with their guard down? He quickly scanned the field deserted by the alien army. He spotted the immobile chatts facing the oncoming storm with an almost preternatural patience. He focused on the dust cloud. It seemed to stretch right across his field of vision, obscured only by the foothills of the valley.

“Hell and damnation! It’s a bloody stampede.”

“Stampede, sir?”

“Animals, Corporal, thousands of bloody animals headed this way, driven before the storm. When they pass the head of the valley I want you to fire a flare. Understood?”

“Flare. Understood, sir.”

“Tulliver, get your machine off the ground, do it now before the thing gets trampled! I don’t want to lose it.”

“You’re not the only one!” He didn’t have to be told twice. He sprang down the stairs in several leaps and pelted off to the cleared take-off strip.

Everson trotted down the stairs and rushed out of the farmhouse, past the machine gun section. “Bernard,” he yelled. “Bloody stampede. Best hole up there and stay under cover. They’ll be here soon. Let’s hope they decide to go round instead of through, eh?”

“Maybe we can help ’em decide?”

“Be obliged to you!”

Everson jumped down into the sap and ran along the jinked trench back to the outer fire trench ring. At least down in the trenches the men should be safe; well, safer. Any animals that got beyond the wire weed should just jump right over them.

At the junction with the fire trench ring, he turned right. Privates turned and looked at the sight of an officer running as he darted past, body swerving round the sandbag traverses, looking for the first NCO he could find. It was Sergeant Hobson.

“Sergeant, there’s a stampede headed this way. Keep the men stood to. And for God’s sake, preserve your ammunition. Don’t fire unless you have to. Send runners and pass the message on. Everyone else to the dugouts. We can’t guarantee their safety if they’re in the open.”

“Sir.”

Everson ran on through several more bays and took a sharp left down Pall Mall, the first communications trench he came to. Scarcely slowing his speed for the tight confines of the trench, he wove down the zigzags, careening off revetments and almost colliding with a ration party bringing up hot soup.

“Gangway!”

“Christ, watch it you silly –”

Everson didn’t wait for their mortified apologies. The soldiers in the trenches and dugouts might well weather the stampede in relative safety, but there were the tents and huts in the middle of the encampment that would be vulnerable, most of those housing the sick and the wounded and several small clans of urmen. He had to evacuate them into dugouts. He didn’t want to think about the consequences if he didn’t.

He collided heavily with someone running the other way, winding himself. He looked up to see the kinematographer straightening his wire-framed glasses.

“God damn it, Hepton!”

“You’re in an awful hurry, Lieutenant.”

“That’s because there’s a bloody stampede headed this way.”

He caught the eager glint in Hepton’s eye as he pushed past.

“Alien animal stampede? I say, that’s excellent!” he heard him call back, from beyond another jink in the communications trench, as he put distance between them.

Everson shook his head as he ran on past the crossroads that connected with the support trench. The damn man was all about the sensational. Well, let him have his stampede. If he got trampled underfoot for his film, it was no skin off his nose.

He took a left turn into the support trench, the inner ring. Traffic here was heavier and he had to slow down.

“Private!”

“Sir?”

Everson jerked his head in the direction of the parados. “Give me a leg up.”

“Sir?”

“Now!”

The private, nonplussed but knowing better than to ask, linked his fingers together, palms up. Everson stepped into the cradle and the private boosted him up, over the parados sandbags, to the open ground in the centre of the ring of trenches. He made his way to the hospital tent with its shabby fading red cross. He strode in, sweeping the flaps aside.

“Lippett? Where’s Captain Lippett?” he demanded of the white-coated orderly.

Lippett stepped out from behind a hung blanket cordoning off a section of tent for private use – his office.

“Yes, Lieutenant, what can I do for you?”

“There’s a stampede headed this way. You need to get your patients down into the dugouts.”

“Stampede? But some of them can’t be moved.”

He had no time for this. “Now, Doctor!”

The Doctor spluttered at the impudence. Again, Everson didn’t wait for a retort and heard Lippett giving orders to the orderlies and ‘light duty’ injured.