Pat Kelleher - The Ironclad Prophecy

Something slick and black filled the tank compartment. Something with the texture of tripe.

Tendrils whipped out from the mass, wrapped around Frank’s head, and yanked him into the tank. He didn’t even have time to scream.

1 SECTION RAN hell-for-leather down the narrow sloping tunnel, almost stumbling down the incline. Cracks and rumbles accompanied the sound of tide-sucked shingle behind them, as the creature’s extruded limb ploughed after them, shattering the walls as it went. All the while, the passages resounded to the ultra-low keening rumble that made Atkins want to loose his bowels.

Ahead, the tunnel wall exploded in a choking cloud of debris and dust, as a second tendril smashed through the wall at right angles, cutting off their escape, before punching out through the opposite wall. With the thing approaching from behind, they were cornered.

The men collided to a halt as the tentacle passed in front of them.

Atkins pointed behind them. “Gazette, Gutsy. Watch our backs.”

Porgy groaned. “Jesus, what’re you going to do now?”

“Quit your griping. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“You’ll get us all killed?”

“You’re not afraid of that, are you, Porgy?” said Mercy.

“What? Of course I bloody am, I don’t want to die — when you die they stop your pay.”

Atkins grinned and snatched a Mills bomb from Chalky’s webbing pouch. If he set it off here, the tunnel would channel the explosion. They had no cover. At this distance, the concussion wave would render them senseless. The shrapnel blast would shred them. Standing inches from the passing tentacle, he pulled the pin with his teeth and held down the safety lever.

“Chalky, stab the damn thing with your bayonet,” he yelled.

Chalky hesitated.

“Chalky, for fuck’s sake — Now !”

The lad’s training took over. He charged the still passing tentacle in front of them, as if the Sergeant Major was standing right behind him, and let out a battle roar before thrusting his bayonet deep into the dark, otherworldly flesh. As the tentacle moved past, the blade opened up a slit along its surface. Thick black ichor sprayed out.

Like gutting a fish, Atkins thought. He took a deep breath and, hoping to God this worked, thrust the grenade into the gash as it raced by, flinching away from the stabbing bayonet, taking the bomb with it.

“Down!”

Every man in the section dropped to the ground and covered their head, smashing another couple of amphora in the process. Gutsy pulled Chandar to the floor and pressed its head to the ground. Somewhere beyond the tunnel wall, the grenade exploded, precipitating more showers of dust and rubble.

The tentacle before them reared back sharply from the pain in a reflex action, withdrawing back across the tunnel; a ragged, torn stump leaking a trail of thick, black liquor. Within seconds, it was gone.

“You did it! You banished Jeffries’ demon!” Chalky cried in jubilation. “Thank the Lord. I knew the Corp would kill the fiend. Didn’t I say? Didn’t I?”

Mercy reached out, patting him on the shoulder. “Steady on, lad. We don’t want it going to his head.”

Gutsy rolled his eyes and grinned. “Hear that, Only? Everson won’t know whether to mention you in his dispatches or his prayers, now.”

Behind them came the rumble of a roof fall. The tentacle thrashed about as the creature reacted in shock to its injury, bringing the tunnel crashing down. A great cloud of dirt and dust billowed towards them, overtook them and left them gagging and coughing.

“Go!” ordered Atkins, picking himself up.

The Tommies scrambled to their feet and rushed on. All but one torch had been extinguished. It was enough to light the way, but not bright enough to give them much warning of anything else in the deep dark of the tunnels.

They passed an earlier scrawled 13/PF chalk mark with some relief, and took a broader, descending passage.

As they ran, they could hear muffled thuds and thumps from all around, some too far away to be of concern, some too close for comfort.

It put Atkins in mind of the interminable Hun artillery barrages they suffered when the minniewerfers and five-nines would pummel the front lines for hours or days. The nerve-shredding pounding continued around them, accompanied more and more often by the long, slow rush of tunnel collapses.

“What’s going on?” cried Chalky, flinching at every crash.

The demon creature was thrashing about, trying to find them, Atkins guessed. It was no longer content to use the chatt-built tunnels and passages to hunt them, but was tearing down galleries and punching through chambers, searching for the bugs that were tormenting it.

“I think the damn thing’s reading its shirt, looking for us.”

“You mean it’s chatting us?” Porgy came back.

“You could say that, aye.”

“Bloody cheek!” said Porgy, affronted. “No offence,” he added, nodding an apology at Chandar as it raced alongside with its hopping gait.

They wound their way down through tunnels and galleries, threading their way back through the labyrinth as best they could, avoiding the many tentacles now ploughing through the tunnels in search of them.

The passage roof in front of them bowed and buckled, as cracks appeared . Slivers of silver daylight drove down into the dark confined space, slicing through the dust motes before the roof caved in. A tentacle punched down through the tunnel, and on through the floor, with a force that almost threw them off their feet. They darted to the right, down a smaller tunnel. Further down, daylight streamed in from some kind of window or breach. They were against an exterior wall. Atkins wondered how far they were above ground.

“FRANK!”

Frank did not respond.

Jack darted towards the tank in the vain hope of rescuing him.

The tank came alive. Black tentacles burst from the drivers’ visors, from the pistol ports around the tank, and from the hatches, all thrashing wildly.

Jack ducked and danced, as light on his feet now as he had been in the carnival boxing ring before the war. He edged towards the open sponson through which Frank had been pulled, but was driven back as the tendrils lashed out at him.

Napoo drew his sword and pulled Nellie behind him. “Alfie, stay back!” she screamed, as he joined the others, trying to find a way past the pseudopodia as they whipped through the air.

They took pot shots with their revolvers, aiming for the pistol ports or at the portion of the writhing black mass that presented itself through the sponson hatch. Alfie shouted at them to stop. “You might damage the Ivanhoe !”

Nellie peered round Napoo in horror. “What on earth is it?”

Distracted, Mathers looked towards the tank. He seemed clear and lucid, for the moment. “It is the spawn of the thing that inhabits the ruins. It is not of this place,” he declaimed.

Reggie started towards him, concern etched on his face. “Sir?”

Mathers turned to him and spoke as if he might have been discussing the finer points of cricket over cucumber sandwiches on a summer’s evening. “Didn’t you realise?” He gestured vaguely towards the ruined edifice. “It has no protection of its own against the predations of this world. Its sire found its way inside the ruins for shelter. This one found its way inside the tank. Don’t you see? It’s using it as a shell, as a hermit crab does, to armour itself.”

“But Frank. What about Frank, sir?”

“Frank?” Mathers stared blankly at the tank, unconcerned. “Frank’s gone.”

Norman tried to follow the Lieutenant’s logic. “So you’re saying all we have to do is winkle it out? Then we’re going to need a bloody big pin, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”