Pat Kelleher - The Alleyman

Napoo regarded her solemnly. “I cannot give you that hope. On this world, the likelihood of an injured man not falling prey to a predator is small.” He bowed his head and turned from her.

Unwanted tears pooling in her eyes, Nellie watched horrified as pale tendrils unfurled from the stems of ebony corpsewood and felt their way towards the body of the small fallen animal before burrowing into its flesh, almost as if to illustrate Napoo’s point.

It wasn’t the only thing attracted by the small, broken carcass. From a puckered fruiting body, a fibrous white fungus spread slowly, weaving a cobweb of filaments across the soil as fine white mycelia quested through the humus towards it. The fungus wasn’t fast enough. The corpsewood was already desiccating the carcass.

Nellie turned her head away, unable to watch.

Around the tank, the creaking continued, punctuated every now and again by sharp reports that they initially took for gunfire.

Moving so slowly she wouldn’t have noticed had she not been still, it was possible to see the large pallid creepers that draped everything, gradually entwining themselves round the trees, seeking to choke and leach the life from them.

As she watched, it became clear to Nellie that there was a battle going on here, a battle she and the others were ill-equipped for. Two sets of competing flora were in a struggle for dominance: the forest and something else. Down here, the trees were engaged in a slow war and they seemed to be losing. Nellie felt uneasy being caught in the middle of it.

A SHOUT FROM Napoo roused her from her maudlin thoughts. He had found footprints.

They were human-like, but they weren’t the distinctive hobnailed bootprint of the Tommy. These were smooth, less defined and deeper.

“Someone else has been here,” he explained. “They arrived here. See? Lighter.” He pointed out the shallow footprints across the clearing. “They left carrying something heavy.”

Nellie stared at them. “Alfie?”

A continuous cracking sounded through the clearing. This wasn’t the slow vegetable conflict she had begun to realise was all about them. This was something altogether faster and heavier. Something that was crashing through the undergrowth towards them, and gathering pace.

“Into the tank. Look lively!” cried Jack.

Without waiting to see what was coming, they scrambled through the sponson hatches, Nellie and Napoo with them, the urman more than a little unwillingly. Once inside, they slammed the hatches shut and sat panting in the dark.

The crashing stopped. There followed loud low snorts and several heavy thudding footfalls. A low wet sniffing proceeded around them. The tank juddered as something large butted it.

The tank’s crew glanced at each other in the semi-dark, came to a silent consensus, then loaded the guns and machine guns and flung themselves to the pistol ports, peering out, looking for their assailant.

“We can’t drive this, there aren’t enough of us,” said Wally, scrambling into the driver’s seat, trying to ignore the dried viscera that once belonged in Mathers’ head.

“Yes, there are,” said Nellie.

“But you’re a woman,” said Norman.

Nellie raised her eyebrows. “Yes. And this is the starboard track gear. This is the first speed. This is neutral,” she said, showing him the gear levers.

Across the starting handle, Reggie grinned.

“Do you want me to tell you how the differential works?” she asked defiantly.

“I can see why Alfie likes you,” said Reggie.

“All right!” said Wally. “Start the engine. Norman, get up here. I need you to operate the driving brakes.”

It took four of them to turn the giant starting handle between the Daimler engine in the middle of the cramped compartment and the differential in the rear. The engine coughed unwillingly once or twice until it caught and roared into life, and the electric festoon lights flickered on.

Nellie couldn’t stop the broad grin from spreading across her face as she took hold of the gear lever and waited for Wally’s command. The thrill was muted when she saw the love heart hastily drawn in the grime of the engine casing. The heart she had once drawn for Alfie. She tried to ignore the dried blood at her feet. Was it Mathers’ or Alfie’s?

Napoo sat by her feet, hunched by the sponson door, his hands over his ears. She wanted to comfort him the way he had her, but she had a job to do.

She heard the two bangs from the wrench Wally wielded to communicate above the engine’s roar and put the lever into neutral. The tank began to turn clockwise, presenting a broadside to the creature.

Cecil struggled to bring the six-pounder on the port side to bear on the thing as it paced round the tank. He squeezed the trigger. The loud report filled the compartment, contained and echoing off the metal walls.

Nellie gasped at the noise, loud even over the roar of the engine directly in front of her. It was beginning to get hot in there. She could feel the perspiration prickling her hairline. And that smell. Was that the petrol fruit fumes? She wondered what effect it would have on her.

The tank rocked again under the beast’s charge.

To Nellie’s left, Cecil let loose a burst of machine gun fire, the cartridge shells clattering to the floor and rolling out through a slot in the gangway.

The engine spluttered.

Jack leapt forwards and began working the manual pump for the starboard petrol tank by the commander’s seat. Reggie did the same on the other side. The engine coughed a couple of times and died for good.

“We’re out of fuel,” he said in disbelief, his voice loud in the sudden silence.

Outside, they heard a thrashing in the undergrowth and a howl of frustration and pain that receded into the distance.

“It’s gone,” said Wally.

Nellie breathed a sigh of relief, her ears ringing. “Is this – is this what it’s like all the time?” she asked Reggie, not sure whether she was drunk on the exhilaration of battle or the fumes.

“Mostly?” asked Reggie.

“Mm-hmm.”

Reggie shook his head. “It’s worse.”

They clambered out of the dead tank. The ground was churned where the ironclad had turned. Black ichor dripped down the side of the sponson. It looked like Cecil had hit the creature. Jack grinned and rubbed his finger knuckles across Cecil’s head as the lad beamed with pride.

They had used the last of Ivanhoe’s fuel to fend off the attack. It had survived the fall into the crater, but without fuel the Ivanhoe was twenty-eight tons of scrap.

“So what do we do now?” asked Reggie.

“We find Alfie,” said Nellie decisively. She looked around at the crew, an iron determination in her gaze, almost daring them to challenge her. None did. Even Norman, if he had anything to say, kept it to himself.

Taking what supplies they thought useful from the tank, they took a last look at the Ivanhoe and set off into the crater to find Alfie.

IN THE SHADE of the abandoned ironclad, the pale feeding tendrils of the ebony corpsewood saplings inched towards Mathers’ freshly dug grave.

The fungus, too, stretched out a fine filigree of threads towards it and this time reached the prize first, its mycelia spreading out over the mound, like a hoarfrost blanket, as they began probing down through the newly turned soil for the freshly buried remains…

“IT WANTS WHAT?” said Everson in disbelief as he looked up from the daily reports.

Sergeant Hobson stood before the desk and winced in apology. “Petrol fruit fuel, sir. The chatt asked for it quite specific, it did, sir.”