Pat Kelleher - The Alleyman

He saw his rifle some yards away, and levered himself to his feet. The action set off a ferocious pounding in his head. Spots danced before his eyes as he steadied himself. He heard voices calling. He tried to call out, but his mouth was parched and he couldn’t find his water bottle, so he started towards the sounds.

Ahead, white petals drifted down from a tree bough, spinning round in eddies and carpeting the ground beneath the tree. Limping towards it, he realised they weren’t petals, but pieces of card. He could see photographs on some. A slipknot of fear tightened round his stomach. He dropped to his knees and brushed his hand through the fallen photogravures, turning them over. They were photographs of girls, every one, some smiling, some demure, full figure, portrait, occasional French nudes and music hall singers. He knew them all.

Several more fluttered down from above.

Not wanting to, but needing to know, he looked up. He dearly wished he hadn’t.

Fifteen feet above, a body lay face down, splayed awkwardly across a couple of boughs with an arm outstretched, as if reaching for the fallen cards. Pallid whipcord creepers had wrapped themselves around the neck, biting deeply into the skin. The eyes were wide and bloodshot; the fleshy parts of the face were dark purple and bloated with settling blood, distorting the once pleasant features into a grotesque caricature as it stared down through the foliage at him.

Atkins’ voice was quiet but heavy with sorrow, regret and guilt, all bound up in a single word. “Porgy.”

Try as he might, he couldn’t reach his mate’s body. Unwilling to abandon him, he set about collecting up the fallen photographs, Porgy’s ‘deck of cards’. As he did, Atkins felt the tears come, stinging the welts on his face as they tracked down his cheeks. Being alone, he let them fall.

He wasn’t sure how long the voices had been calling. He cuffed his eyes dry and shook off his despondency enough to call out hoarsely, “Here!”

The rest of the section and the tank crew arrived in short order. It took five of them to cut Porgy’s body free and lower him gently to the ground, as Atkins watched, numbed.

Nellie sought to comfort him, putting a hand on his arm.

“Only–”

Atkins shrugged it off, rounding on her.

“Where the fuck were you?” he spat at her. Shocked at his own vehemence and anger, he watched Nellie open her mouth to say something, but he wasn’t listening. He didn’t want to listen. He knew it wasn’t her fault. But he couldn’t stop himself. As if Porgy’s pointless, stupid death had given him permission, all the pain and self-doubt he had kept bottled up over William, over Flora, welled up in a way he hadn’t felt since Ketch died. Atkins’ brutal words had opened a sluice gate, and the rage and pain poured out in a torrent. “I told you to stay where you were. If you’d stayed at the top of the crater, like I said, like I ordered you to, we wouldn’t be in this bloody mess and Porgy wouldn’t be dead! But oh, no, Miss bloody high-and-mighty knew better. This is all your fucking fault!”

The tank crew gathered protectively behind Nellie, and Jack stepped up to Atkins.

“Are you looking for trouble, chum?”

“Jack, Only. Stop it,” said Nellie as the men glowered at each other. “I have four brothers. I can fight my own battles, Jack. I don’t need you to do it for me.”

Atkins balled his hands into fists. He didn’t care. He deserved it. He would take anything the burly tanker dished out; after all, he thought to himself bitterly, wasn’t he the penitent Fusilier?

“Come on, then,” he said.

The longed-for blow never landed. Everson stepped between them.

“That’s enough,” he said. “I’ve already had one mutiny. I won’t have another. Is that clear?”

Jack lowered his fists and allowed Nellie to escort him back to the others, berating him as they went and giving his arm a solid punch.

Atkins continued to glare at the gunner’s broad back.

“Is that clear?” repeated Everson.

“Sir,” said Atkins, grudgingly, his hands relaxing.

EVERSON BREATHED A sigh of relief and gestured Gutsy over.

“Blood, take Lance Corporal Atkins over there, calm him down. Otterthwaite, get Hopkiss’s identity disc and divide his ammunition and food. Then we need to organise a burial party.”

Everson noticed the tank crew in a brief huddle. They pushed Jack from the scrum towards him. The gunner looked awkward and embarrassed.

“We don’t think it’s a good idea to bury them, sir. We should burn them.”

“Burn them?”

“It’s just that the sub – Lieutenant Mathers, sir–”

“I thought you said he was dead?”

“He was, sir.”

“Was?”

“Some sort of fungus reanimated his body, sir.”

Everson pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Was nothing ever straightforward in this place?

“And where is Mathers now?” he asked wearily.

“Sucked into an underground river, sir.”

“Well then, problem solved. Private, we haven’t the time to cut down wood and build a pyre to burn them. We bury them and move on.”

Jack shuffled, unsure.

“That’s an order, private.”

“I DON’T LIKE any of this, Corp,” said Tonkins, as he stood by the fresh shallow grave with his entrenching tool. “I wish I was back in the dugout, making repairs.”

“Well, lad,” said Riley, stood by another, ready to dispense his customary wisdom. He really wished he had a pipe to draw on. These things always sounded better when punctuated by puffs of shag and wreathed in a fog of fragrant smoke, but needs must. “It’s like my old father always said: ‘Hope for the best, expect the worst and take what comes.’ After all, I put in for extra staff in my unit and Battalion sent me you. And look how that’s turned out!” he said, slapping Tonkins heartily on the back.

Tonkins smiled broadly, nodded with relief, paused as a penny dropped and then frowned. By then, Corporal Riley was already halfway across the glade.

AFTER THE PADRE led a brief funeral service for Hopkiss and Jenkins, Everson called Atkins and Riley together, along with Nellie who, although he didn’t like it, seemed to speak for the crew of the Ivanhoe .

Hopkiss’ death had hit the Black Hand Gang hard, Atkins most of all. Everson needed something to keep them occupied other than mere survival.

As he waited for them to arrive, he fished in his tunic pocket and retrieved the scrap of bloodstained khaki serge cloth, and the Pennine Fusiliers button that had once belonged to Jeffries. He played it through his fingers, rubbing a thumb idly over the raised Fusilier badge cast on it as he pondered. With his petrol-fruit-heightened senses, Mathers had been able to divine Jeffries by some sort of psychometry. He had said Jeffries’ trail led into the crater. And here they were. If so, what did that make this, some kind of talisman, some sort of fetish? Did that mean it had some kind of eldritch connection with Jeffries? He shuddered and found himself stuffing the button away in his pocket again, as if to be rid of it, or at least put it out of sight.

“We need to decide our next move,” he said as the others turned up. “It’s clear we have several objectives. One, to find Private Perkins. Two, to see if we can pick up Jeffries’ trail.”

Nellie spoke up. “Napoo believes Alfie has been taken by urmen.”

Hesitantly, Atkins chipped in, “If we’re looking for urmen, sir, there was the tower we saw, towards the centre of the crater. That looked man-made. It should be easy enough to find.”

Everson nodded, relieved that Atkins was engaged. “It’s a start,” he said.

Corporal Riley nodded in agreement. “Don’t like leaving a man behind, if I can help it,” he said.