Pat Kelleher - Black Hand Gang

At first I denied the possibility even to myself, but my condition has begun to show and can be hidden no longer. I cannot continue to work at the Munitions Factory for the shame of it. There was a frightful row and my father is in a terrible rage for they know the child cannot be William’s. He demands to know who the father is, but I have not told them. William was always a hero in their eyes but since he has been missing, he has become a saint and they will have nothing gainsay it. They told me that to do such a deed behind my fiancé’s back I must be a wicked girl and he was all for throwing me out on the street there and then, but my mother, God bless her soul, calmed him down. They are to send me to board with my Aunt Peggy in Ulverston. Tom, I am afraid they mean to take the baby from me once it is born and give it up to an orphanage. I do not know what is to become of me. Alive or dead, I fear William will never forgive us and that is anguish enough, but to lose my child, Tom, that would be more than I could bear.

Oh, Tom, I know you are a good man. You have to come home to me and make this right. I do not know what I would do if I lost you, too. I need you, Tom — we need you. I pray ardently for your safe return. Write by return of post if you are able. Each day I do not hear from you weighs heavily on me.

ATKINS READ FLORA’S letter several times on the long journey back to the entrenchments. The tear-stained paper in his hands left him reeling with a vertiginous sense of guilt. He was so self-absorbed he barely noticed as Gazette fell in beside him.

“Want to talk about it, mate?”

“No. Not really.”

“Fair enough. Fag?” he said, offering a crushed Woodbine. Atkins shook his head.

“So, Dwyer the devil worshipper, eh?” said Gazette. “Bloody hell, that was a turn up for the books and no mistake. The most notorious man in England. Think of the reward money we’d get if we could turn him in, eh? Pity he scarpered. If there’s any justice in this world he’ll be a bag o’ bones by now.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

Porgy trotted up and was about to speak when Gazette shook his head, so Porgy just matched his stride with theirs and they walked along in uneasy silence.

“Wait, something’s wrong,” said Pot Shot behind them, holding up a hand. “Half Pint’s stopped grousing.”

Eyes turned to look at the curmudgeonly private being carried along on a makeshift stretcher. Behind him, Napoo was being carried on another, Poilus now constantly at his clansman’s side. Around them walking wounded limped along in ones and twos or helping those blinded by Chatt acid, all of them constantly herded along by the nurses, like sheep.

“Half Pint, what’s the matter?” called Gutsy, over the ever-present rumble of the tank up ahead.

“Shhh!” warned Sister Fenton. “Poilus has given him crushed berries of some sort. It seems to have numbed his pain.”

“And his ability to complain, too, by the sound of it,” said Pot Shot.

“No it hasn’t,” said Half Pint drowsily, “I just don’t know where to bloody start.”

“Off on the wrong foot, knowing you, probably!”

“No thanks to you, you bugger,” said Half Pint, sticking up a pair of fingers in Gutsy’s direction. Gutsy puffed out his cheeks with relief.

EVERSON DROVE THE men on. They had made longer marches than this in France and in worse conditions and he knew they wouldn’t be safe until they reached their entrenchment. But would it still be there? That was the question that went through the mind of every man in the column, the thought that made every one of them sick at heart.

WEARY, FOOTSORE AND hungry the bedraggled column marched on, although the two day trek back was not without incident. Along the way, a small group of Chatt soldiers harried them, although they mostly kept their distance, still awed by the sight of the ironclad.

When they reached the open veldt the trail they had followed days ago was still there, cutting across the vast expanse of tube grass, but to what would it lead them?

The answer to their prayers came on the wind in the form of a faint insect drone. A dot in the sky resolved itself into the flimsy shape of Tulliver’s Sopwith as it circled them. Seeing the biplane raised their spirits and sent their hearts soaring. A rousing cheer went up as it passed low overhead. They waved their rifles and hats jubilantly above their heads and were delighted to receive a waggle of the wings in return. Knowing that that the muddy field they called home had not disappeared in their absence, their mood became more ebullient. The aeroplane wheeled above them once more, then flew on ahead, leading them home.

JEFFRIES STAGGERED UP the hill, away from the crashing sounds in the forest below. Whatever it was, it had been following him for some time now.

Escaping from the edifice in the confusion, he’d managed to pick up his dropped weapons and equipment, although the barrel of one Enfield was broken beyond use and he’d had to discard it.

Panting, he reached the crown of the hill and dropped his equipment. Paled into grey by the distance he could make out the Khungarrii edifice behind him, still smoking. He took the map out of his pocket, unfolded it and smoothed it out on a rock. His eyes flicked from the parchment to the landscape and back again as he orientated himself, matching landmarks to symbols. He turned the map. Satisfied, he studied it more closely. He tapped a Croatoan sigil thoughtfully and looked out over the forest towards a line of hills some twenty miles away before folding the parchment away again. He checked his rifle, picked up his load and set off down the far side of the hill.

He was on the final road to meet his god and when he did, The Great Snake would rise again.

EVERSON HARDLY RECOGNISED the trench system when they saw it. In four days, Company Quartermaster Sergeant Slacke had begun to turn the field of Somme Mud into something resembling a defensible stronghold, a corner of a foreign field that was to them, for now, all that was England. A fire trench now ran all the way around the perimeter with saps and OPs projecting out into the scorched earth cordon.

Everson went to the hospital tents, where Napoo and Half Pint were made comfortable. They were gravely ill, but stable. All they could hope for was that infection didn’t set in. Padre Rand, who had been melancholic all the way back from the edifice, insisted on discharging himself from the MO’s care. Everson was keen to hear about his experience.

“I don’t know what to say, Lieutenant,” he told Everson. “What I experienced there severely tested my faith to the point where I rejected my God, but then,” he said with a self-effacing smile, “even St. Peter failed that particular test as I recall. Jeffries had me fooled. He had everyone fooled. I’m sure he had some machinations of his own. What they were I don’t know, but I do know he was willing to sell us all into slavery to get what he wanted. And these Khungarrii, although they look hideous to our eyes and their culture is like none I have encountered before, would we have reacted any differently in their shoes? Even so, I have a horrible feeling that we may have started a war where none was looked for.”

Everson rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, briefly wishing the entire world away, before dragging his hands down his face to confront it again with a sigh of resignation. “Could we have avoided it? Did we do the right thing?”

“‘When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child,’” quoted the Padre. “We’re warriors, Lieutenant. We understand as warriors, we think as warriors. Was it the right thing to do? Only God can judge, although in mitigation, I must say, we are British.”