Pat Kelleher - The Ironclad Prophecy

THE CANYON HADN’T been carved by turbulent river waters. It was a brutal crack, a rift torn suddenly in the skin of this world by some groundquake that sundered the land in ages past. The walls rose almost vertically for hundreds of feet and only in the heat of the day did the alien sun penetrate the bottom-most depths, where great blocks of stone lay strewn where they fell.

The only scraps of vegetation to be seen were large patches of blue-green matter, scattered over the rock-face like lichen, attached to the rock and formed of small blisters of varying sizes that seemed to pulse in direct sunlight, as if breathing. The ones in shadow remained inert, as if asleep. The rocks were pockmarked with shallow circular depressions, where acid from long-vanished blooms had eaten into the surface.

An unremitting rumble filled the rock-strewn canyon, echoing off the walls like some imminent, but never delivered, avalanche as His Majesty’s Land Ship Ivanhoe crawled along, pitilessly shattering small rocks caught under its tracks into dust. Grey smoke billowed from the roof exhaust to be snatched up by the breeze and dispersed behind it as the armoured behemoth crept and clanked through the rocky terrain as if sniffing out a trail.

Not that the crew could see much from inside, where the heat and fumes were a microcosm of hell. Progress was slow. With no suspension, the tank had reduced its speed to a crawl, not wanting to belly or throw a track.

The machine gunners, Norman and Cecil, squinted through the machine gun loopholes for threats as the rocky walls, partially obscured by dust thrown up by the tracks, rolled by with mesmerising slowness, without incident or interest apart from the blue-green pulsating growths. Cecil took a brief shot at them with the Hotchkiss to see if they’d burst. The rattle of machine gun fire reverberated through the canyon, causing Lieutenant Mathers to turn in his seat and glare at him.

It also earned him a clip round the back of the head from Jack Tanner, the ex-prize-fighting gunner. It smacked his forehead into the handles of the gun barrel. “Quit that, you dozy mare. You’re wasting ammunition,” he bellowed above the engine’s roar.

For the moment they were riding with hatches open to try and cool the interior. At least without the Hun firing machine guns at them there was no need to wear the stifling splash-masks and bruise helmets, and in the baking heat of the great iron oven, most of them had unbuttoned the coveralls they wore over the trousers, puttees and flannel shirts of their service dress, and undoing the shirts, too.

At the back of the compartment, by the starboard secondary gears, Alfie wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to keep his focus on the back of the driver’s chair from where, every now and again, hand signals for gear changes would come. When he wasn’t doing that, he was putting grease on the gears every thirty minutes or so. He caught a glimpse of a small love heart on the engine casing in front of him, drawn by Nellie Abbot’s oily finger. He smiled. That was one thing he hadn’t bargained on. One of many; this bleeding planet being one of them. But Nellie, what a find she was. She was different. He remembered the first time he met her, here on this world. They had been celebrating their first fresh food and the Fusiliers’ commander, Captain Grantham, God rest his soul, had given permission for a bit of a bash.

The tank crew hadn’t really socialised with the Fusiliers since they found themselves on this world. They were trained to act as an independent unit and that was the way they liked it. It was part of the attraction of the Machine Gun Corps. They bivvied beside the Ivanhoe . It rarely left their sight. But that night he’d gone for a walk amongst the campfires. A couple of rowdy bloody infantry had tried to engage him in conversation, but on hearing his accent they began to jeer and josh him. So he’d wandered off and took a piss over a parapet into one of their trenches. Cocky northern bastards. He was on his way back to the tank when he was accosted by a young girl in a long brown skirt and jacket, who took his arm, linking hers through his, and talked as if they were old friends.

“Cor blimey, what a night. I just got the old ’eave-’o from my mate. She’s over there talking to that NCO with the crutch. Well, I can tell when I’m not wanted. Mind you, she needs a bit of perkin’ up, bless her heart. Then I saw you in your coveralls. And I thought aye-aye, you’re from the tank, ain’tcha? I ain’t never seen one up real close. Don’t they look funny, like a huge great iron slug? What kind of engine has she got? I bet she’s a beaut. Can I see it?”

He could tell from her accent she wasn’t a northerner, but Lord Almighty, she never stopped talking, and he let her talk, because she spoke of gears and pistons and carburettors and, quite frankly, he’d never met a girl like her. He’d come all this way from one world to another and there she was, large as life and twice as brassy. Nellie bleedin’ Abbott. And he’d shook his head in wonder. She’d spent time in the FANYs driving ambulances and knew how to strip an engine. Had to. No bugger else to do it for her, half the time. She’d ridden a motorcycle once or twice. They talked of the country rides they might take together if they got back, but she wouldn’t have it, not in a sidecar at any rate. Oh no. Not her. She wanted a motorcycle of her own. That was when he fell in love with her. Right there. Alfie’s face split into an involuntary grin at the memory.

The rest of the crew were wary of her. They were used to their secrets, their own company. They didn’t welcome outsiders. They wouldn’t let her in the tank. Crew only, they said. But he’d snuck her in anyway. Once he’d had to shove her out of one sponson door as Jack squeezed in the other.

The crew had been despondent at the time. It looked like their fuel would run out, and without petrol, the tank was just so much scrap. Without the tank they would be transferred into the battalion to be Poor Bloody Infantry again.

But then one of the Tommies had brewed some evil alcoholic concoction that killed a couple of men daft enough to drink it. Unfit for human consumption, they said. But it gave them a new fuel. It ran a little better than the petrol they were used to, but then that was nearly all ‘flogged’ inferior stuff anyway. This new stuff had been distilled from what they now called petrol fruit. They were back in the game.

That was when everything changed.

They had been breathing the fumes for a week or so before they noticed. At first they felt keener, their senses seemed more acute. Colours were brighter, crisper. Sounds were clearer and smells sharper and more distinct.

“It’s the clean air here,” Reggie informed them. “Clears out the tubes!” he said, thumping his chest. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Even Lieutenant Mathers seemed to relax now. Before, he had been a bundle of nerves in the tank, always on the verge of funking it, but now he seemed to relish driving it. Then again, they all did. Mind you, it helped when you were not being constantly shelled by Fritz artillery or hammered with machine gun fire. It was quite like the old days driving round Elveden as if it were a fairground ride. The days when they weren’t in it were fraught with tension and short tempers. Even the engine, after some initial troubles, seemed to run smoother.

It was the fuel itself. They’d heard stories of how the Tommies that had drunk it saw things, hallucinated. That’s why it was declared unfit for human consumption. But they weren’t drinking it. They didn’t have to. Fumes from the engine filled the small confined space. Ordinary petrol fumes would give them carbon monoxide poisoning. They’d end up with vicious headaches, convulsions and, in extreme cases, delirium or psychosis. They’d stagger from the tank and vomit. The petrol vapour would sting their skin and give them itching rashes and impetigo.