The Ironclad Prophecy (8 page)

There was no choice at all and Everson knew it. They could not leave this stronghold, this circle of the Somme earth that came with them. It was all they had left of Earth. It seemed they had their backs against the wall.

“We forewarned your emissary Jeffries of these eventualities,” continued the chatt.

Everson shifted forward in his chair. Atkins, too, stared at the chatt. Only Hobson remained unperturbed.

“Jeffries?”

“He promised to deliver the Tohmii, your herd, to us. You would have been accepted into our colony, given food, shelter, purpose, treated as our own. It is Kurda.”

“He had no damn right to speak on our behalf,” replied Everson with measured fury. “No damn right at all. Man was a snake in our midst. He’s not one of us. He’s –” he searched for a word the arthropod might understand.

“Outcast,” offered Napoo gruffly.

“Outcast,” repeated Everson, with a degree of satisfaction at the sound of the word.

“Nonetheless, an agreement was made and breached,” said Chandar.

“But at what price? What was it that Jeffries wanted from you? What was worth so much to him that he was willing to sell the rest of us into slavery?”

The chatt’s posture seemed to slump. “An old heresy thought long forgotten,” it wheezed.

“Croatoan,” suggested Everson.

“Yes.”

He put his elbows on his desk and leant forward, hands clasped. “Tell me about this Croatoan.”

The chatt’s mandible parted as it hissed, its mouth palps flapping like windsocks in the brief rush of air. “The urman Jeffries asked the same thing before committing the most unforgivable transgression in destroying our sacred repository. Therein lay the basis of our laws, our beliefs. Ancient aromas that bottled the wisdom of generations. Tunnels can be rebuilt, chambers repaired, but the Tohmii have left us dispossessed. Robbed. The Redolence of Spiras gone forever.”

The chatt ran out of air, its human vocabulary tumbling into the incoherent chittering of its own tongue. It seemed to Everson that the thing was cursing.

“That’s right. Jeffries. Not us. Jeffries tried to kill us, too. You were there in that chamber. You saw.”

“Yes. The fact that this One owes its life to this urman is one of the few mitigating circumstances in your favour.”

“Yes, Kurda. You said.” Everson looked to Atkins standing beside the creature. Their eyes met briefly. Atkins’ face flushed and he shuffled uncomfortably. Everson felt a glimmer of almost paternal pride. He had been right about Atkins. But to think that their salvation might hinge on that single act of altruism, well, that was a very slender thread indeed.

Chandar took another hoarse breath. “There is yet another reason Sirigar wants you wiped out. Khungarr is mired in tradition. The coming of the Tohmii has ignited an old debate, long feared and unsought by some. The Unguent of Huyurarr warns against the coming of a Great Corruption. When you made your camp on our burri, the Breath of GarSuleth heralded your arrival with the stench of death and putrescence. Sirigar feared that this was the fulfilment of the long-held prophecy.We sought to discover your intentions. You resisted the will of the Ones unlike any other urman herd we had encountered. Then by your actions you declared yourself a threat to Khungarr and your fate was sealed. Now, through your own actions, we are compelled to seek your destruction. This is regrettable.”

“We won’t surrender, you know. This is our land and we will defend it to the last man.”

“You cannot hope to defeat the massed army of Khungarr,” said Chandar.

Scraping his chair back, Everson stood now. “You’re not up against savages here. You’re up against a battalion of His Majesty King George’s army. We’ve faced the worst that Kaiser Bill could throw at us and survived. And you forget,” he added. “We are protected by Skarra, your god of the dead.” That the Khungarrii had mistaken the appearance of His Majesty’s Land Ship
Ivanhoe
as their god of the underworld was a work of providence and one he had been quite willing to take advantage of at the time, but how long could they keep up the pretence?

“Then where is he?” said Chandar looking around and gesturing to the empty air. “Why does Skarra not come to your aid? The army of Khungarr has retreated. They are waiting to see if he appears. If he does not then they will attack again and carry out the will of GarSuleth as set forth by Sirigar.”

“Thank you, Chandar. You’ve been quite candid. Sergeant, take the prisoner to the guardhouse. Keep to the trenches. Make sure it doesn’t see more than it has to.”

He watched as Hobson, Atkins and Napoo marshalled the prisoner and escorted it from the dugout. He was surprised to see the Padre shaking, as if the chatt had stirred deep, unwelcome memories of his incarceration.

“Padre, go. We’ll talk later.”

The Padre smiled thankfully with an anxious nod, not trusting himself to speak, and hurried from the post.

So it was war, then. And where
was
that bloody tank? It seemed to Everson that Chandar was not entirely convinced of their claim regarding the tank but was unwilling to question the sanctity of Skarra without further proof. If only he had it. The
Ivanhoe
should have been back days ago. He pulled out a packet of Woodbines from his pocket and was dismayed to see only two battered cigarettes left. Once they were gone, they were gone. He had no more left. He doubted the men did either, except the hoarders. Evans, his platoon’s best scrounger, could probably lay his hands on some. Maybe he should ask. He pulled one out, tamped it on the desk, lit it and took a long luxurious drag before exhaling, staring absently at the haze of blue smoke, momentarily lost in thought.

Their arrival had set off ripples across this world, and those ripples were still spreading with unforeseen consequences. The Pennines, it seemed, had spent a good deal of time on this world unwittingly digging a deeper and deeper hole for themselves. Everson hoped it didn’t turn out to be their grave.

A
MID THE CHAOS
of the Aid Post, Edith was trying to hold down and calm a wounded young soldier. He seemed about sixteen years old, barely older than her younger brother and almost certainly not old enough to join up. He lay writhing and whimpering on the mat before her. Nellie had just finished bathing and bandaging the eyes of a lad caught out by an acid spit, and Edith caught her attention. “Nellie!”

They unbuttoned his tunic and ripped open the blood-soaked shirt. The spear must have been barbed. It went in cleanly enough but ripped his guts out on the withdrawal. His belly was a mess. Nellie applied pressure to the wound with a field bandage, but he wouldn’t lie still. He thrashed about in pain, sobbing openly. Blood pulsed up and soaked the field bandage; in moments it was sopping. She discarded it in a tray and pressed another to the wound.

He needed surgery, but there were several other surgical cases backed up ahead of him and it was unlikely this boy would survive long enough to make it to the table.

“Mother!” he cried, through snivelling sobs. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

“Shush now,” said Edith, taking hold of his hand and trying to look him in the eye, but he kept throwing his head from side to side. “Look at me,” she said firmly. “Look at me.” He turned his face to hers but he no longer saw her.

“Charlotte, is that you?” he said with relief, spluttering through the blood.

Edith clasped his hand more firmly so that he would know someone was there.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m here.”

“I love you,” he muttered.

“I love you, too,” said Edith.

He started to smile but the life left him before he could complete it.

Edith felt the corners of her eyes begin to sting with tears. She blinked them away fiercely. It always got to her, the little white lie. The one nurses always told the dying. In her time she had been mothers, sisters, wives, sweethearts, anyone, so long as they eased the passing. Edith slipped his hand from hers and placed it across his chest. There were no words left to say. Just a job to do.

N
ELLIE CLEARED UP
the blood-soaked bandages and left Edith to lay out the body, before summoning the orderlies to remove it to where the Padre would give it the Last Rites as they cleared the space for the next poor soul. Nellie stepped outside to where a brazier burned, tipped the bloodied pads into the fire and returned to the aid tent.

Nellie was looking for her next patient when Half Pint hobbled into the hospital tent on his peg leg, clutching the thigh above it, his face ashen as he looked wildly around. His gaze latched on Nellie.

“Gawd help me, it’s my leg!” he cried, limping towards her.

“Private Nicholls, you’ll have to wait. There are more urgent cases,” she said, only half listening as she glanced around, looking for assistance. Poilus, an urman of Napoo’s clan, was helping to bring more wounded in, some walking, others carried in on blood-soaked stretchers.

“But the pain, nurse. Shooting pains right up me thigh. Sharp they are, like bloody red hot needles,” he griped.

His forehead was beaded with sweat. He gritted his teeth and a grunt escaped his lips as his hand clutched his thigh. He lost his balance and collapsed into her.

“A little help here!” she called as she staggered under his weight.

Edi and Poilus came to her rescue. By now Half Pint’s breath was coming in ragged pants and his eyelids fluttered as he struggled to keep them open, his head lolling back.

Nellie directed the pair to an empty straw mat, where they laid him down. She put a hand on his forehead and tutted. “He has a fever. The stump is probably infected. I told him not to wear that peg leg of his for more than an hour or so at a time, but he was so bloomin’ proud of it. Said the pain would give him something to grouse about.”

“Well let’s get it off him,” said Edith as she began to cut his trouser leg away to reveal the stump. She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, dear Lord!”

Pale roots sprouted from the inert black wood of the carved peg leg, reaching up and entwining themselves around the pink stump before sinking into the flesh of Half Pint’s thigh.

“Bloomin’ hell!” said Nellie. “It’s growing into him!”

“Corpsewood,” said Poilus.

“What?”

“It is corpsewood. It feeds on dead or rotting flesh, but will eat living things if it can. We must get it off him. It will kill him.”

Nellie knelt and, with shaking hands, unbuckled the leather straps that kept the false leg in place. Gingerly she waggled the peg leg loose, attached now only by the roots that fed deep into Half Pint’s thigh.

Edith made to cut them with a scalpel in order to remove the wooden leg.

“No!” said Poilus. “We must withdraw every root cleanly, unbroken. You cannot leave any part of it in him or it will continue to grow.” He pressed his thumb against the flesh of the upper leg, feeling for the roots, finding how far they had penetrated. “We are lucky. It has not grown in too far yet. We may still save him. We must ease the roots from his legs, slowly. Do not let them break.”

Edith placed a strip of old leather belt in Half Pint’s mouth for him to bite on and save his tongue, then leant herself across Half Pint’s torso that he might not witness the operation and to hold him down should he struggle. She nodded at Poilus. He used the discarded length of puttee, wrapped it around the peg leg to avoid touching it, and took a grip. He applied a steady pressure, drawing it back. Half Pint twisted and grunted as he bit down on the leather, hard enough to leave teeth marks.

Nellie’s nimble fingers eased out each of the dozen or so long thin roots in turn as Polius continued to pull. Eventually, the last thin tendril-like tips were pulled free, writhing weakly as they sought flesh to burrow into. She nodded, and Poilus took the corpsewood peg leg, dangling six inches of bloody roots, their tips writhing feebly. Like some kind of changeling child from a fairy tale, Nellie thought with a shudder. She watched as he strode outside and dropped the thing into the brazier. The flames expanded to greet it, burning a blue-green colour. The corpsewood gave off a high-pitched noise, as if it was squealing in pain.

It was only after that she thought perhaps she should have preserved the specimen for Captain Lippett, who was striving to catalogue this world’s flora and fauna, but it was too late now.

Poilus returned and sank down on his haunches beside Nellie and gave the feverish Half Pint a long, appraising look. “He was lucky. It was old wood. We got it out of him in time. He should live. I will get one of our women to make up a poultice for his leg to stop the fever, though what fool thought to use it in such a manner I cannot think. Even the smallest piece can sprout roots and begin to grow again if it finds a living source. Strapping it to someone is as good as killing them.” He shook his head slowly. “I wonder how you Tohmii are all still alive? You treat us as if we are the children, yet it is you who need your hands holding.” He stood up, still shaking his head to himself as he left the tent.

There was another influx of walking wounded. Edith stood up and walked over to them.

Half Pint grasped Nellie’s hand. “You wouldn’t be a good girl and fetch me my lucky harmonica from by the typewriter, would you?” he said, his voice faint and hoarse. “And tell the Loot – tell him... I’m sorry but I think I’ll be a little late with dinner tonight.”