Gentleman of War Read online

Gentleman of War

  by Chris Yeoh

  Copyright © 2015 Chris Yeoh

  All Rights Reserved

  This ebook is, and always will be, free. Do not pay for this ebook. Please enjoy and share this work freely but do not do so for any monetary gain, or any other type of remuneration.

  Thank you for choosing to download this book.

  Author's Forward

  Gentleman of War (GOW) began as a seed of an idea some years ago, and finally took on some sort of shape in November of 2011, when I participated in my first ever NaNoWriMo. As I sat on my friend's floor in London listening to a Doves CD I'd picked up in some bargain charity shop, I wrote the first words of what would (30 days later) become the larger, formless first draft.

  Then for three years I left it. My writing has progressed, and my ideas have carried on with reckless abandon, but I found myself reading over and over this work, remembering the characters, and wanting to fix the (at that point) many, many mistakes. Not only did I want to see a creative writing project through to the end, I felt like I owed it to the characters to give them all the decency of living within a good story. So I did just that.

  And now here I am, presenting to you my first ever ebook, and also my first ever book.

  If you like (or dislike) this book, why not come and play with me on twitter: @Chris_Yeoh

  Or, you can read my blog: crowsef.wordpress.com

  Table of Contents

  Prologue – From the diary of Cpl. N.E. Plumsworthy

  Chapter 1 – The first day

  Chapter 2 – Yourself, dearly

  Chapter 3 – From the diary of Cpl. N.E Plumsworthy

  Chapter 4 – Blighty

  Chapter 5 – From the diary of Cpl. N.E. Plumsworthy

  Chapter 6 – Your feasts and your finery

  Chapter 7 – Radio Interlude I

  Chapter 8 – From the diary of Cpl. N.E. Plumsworthy

  Chapter 9 – In an English country garden

  Chapter 10 – First watch

  Chapter 11 – The things that come crashing down

  Chapter 12 – Radio Interlude II

  Chapter 13 – Something very bad

  Chapter 14 – The Aftermath

  Chapter 15 – From the diary of Cpl. N.E. Plumsworthy (the death of Cpl. Plumsworthy)

  Chapter 16 – Last words

  Chapter 17 – The death of Britain

  Chapter 18 – Every man to do his duty

  Chapter 19 – This new society is not where we left it

  Chapter 20 – From the diary of Neven Plumsworthy

  Chapter 21 – Radio Interlude III

  Prologue

  From the diary of Cpl. N. E. Plumsworthy

  We called them Martians for they had no other name.

  When they bore down upon us in droves from on high, they offered no treatise, no declarations, and certainly no gentleman's agreement. Had they called out to us, we would have responded, would have bartered, bargained or surrendered. Instead, the only sounds uttered unto us were the clicking of multiplicitous claws, sinewy carapaces sucking and frothing as they slid together like fleshy armour, and the vague sound of chittering when they moved.

  They moved like darkness, blotted out sun with shade, and where there was life they left only death. To a world that had begotten noise they left silence, save for animalistic, primal, oozing sounds. They either were not capable of speech, or they thought any war between them and mankind would not last long enough to justify the effort. Humanity became a toy within a disinterested cat’s mouth.

  We made plenty of noise on our part, more than enough for the two combatants, and then some. Our penny-fiction had become bullion-reality, as all of the monsters we had so brazenly mocked in cinemas and books came out to bite with the sharpest of teeth and the strongest of grips. So we simply called them Martians.

  But there was a time before. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering it, but if in the right frame of mind, I can recall my old life. At this point, even the life I lived as the war unfolded and the world fell to the fire seems so much more preferable. So few questions. So many more friends, comrades, and lovers. And, dare I say it, glimmers of hope?

  I am twenty-six now. I look twice my age. Thrice, some might say. My age seemed like a salient point to include, I do not know why. I distinctly recall looking up at my father when I was but a boy, as he sat, hunched over a writing desk, intimately involved in his diary.

  Of what he wrote I do not know, perhaps of the radio on his desk that had broken several years before, perhaps not. I never liked the radio. Too often I would find myself measuring time in sounds, I knew the length of every orchestral song, every beautiful aria, counting down the minutes until I would be seen to bed; to sleep and to most likely have nightmares. After it broke, my father would from time-to-time pick it up, gaze at the bronzed grill on its front, sigh, and put it down. He always had too much on his mind to fix it, or at least that is what he muttered. Instead he took to writing in silence. A heavy sound, one that must have hurt my father to remind him of failure and inaction, but left me in a temporal dead zone which allowed me to enjoy my evenings.

  My father would sometimes catch me looking up at his diary, and chide me. “It is an old man's way of remembering the things he wants to forget,” he would joke, smiling a humourless smile.

  So now I, in turn, write. I feel I have grown, far beyond the years of my father. Far outreached those I once looked up to and who in turn looked down on me. I will write this for all the things that we should remember and for those things that I do not see us likely forgetting. I am changed. Despite myself, I am changed. From what, dear reader, I cannot answer. Into what, I should be so lucky to know. That would be one of the things I have forgotten.

  I suppose this diary is a testimony to the future. Maybe something deep down within me hopes to be remembered through this. This diary is for anyone who is around to read it, in the hopes of understanding me, us, and Them.

  I am not so arrogant to think that a book could be based solely upon me. I have been unremarkable, both at an early age and in my (what I am hesitant to call) 'active' service for King and Country. So let me speak of the people I knew, and of the things that have happened to us. Of them and those I am certain. So that you might understand what happened to us, should the time ever come when we are no longer in danger, and the memories are no longer so visceral that one's hands would be slashed should he or she reach out a short distance.

  Chapter 1

  The First Day

  "From the British Broadcasting Corporation, this is an emergency broadcast," an impeccably well-spoken man enunciated clearly into his microphone. Anyone listening attentively enough, although none were, would have heard a slight wavering in his cadence. A slight cracking creeping cautiously into his tone. A stiff upper lip wobbling.

  "I say again, this is an emergency broadcast. Do not tune out your set. Please await further instructions."

  Mystery sounds lived and died in the background. Wherever this recording was taking place, it was certainly not in a studio. It did not possess the stuffy quality that people were used to hearing. Families sat around their respective radios, pausing in-between bites at dinner to hear what was to happen next.

  The man speaking was James William-Stonesworth, an unfamiliar voice on the radio. Not the regular broadcaster to be found at six o'clock sharp. Nor was he even the regular presenter at 5.49pm, when this particular broadcast was taking place.

  William-Stonesworth was, it could be said, the first on the scene. What had happened was this:

  Not ten minutes before, as the minute hand gradually climbed its way up the hour, a colossal crash was heard a hundred yards from the studio. The windows, floors, and desks in
side the recording house had all murmured and clattered about in disapproval.

  He and the others had pressed their faces up to the windows. As acrid, black smoke billowed out from the unseen site, conjoining with the smog already perpetually hanging moodily over London, a few flames began to rise from the building site near the studio.

  The noise had startled most, and panicked everybody else. Radio silence had followed where instead there should have been news followed by light entertainment programs. The studio scrambled about for the next few minutes, in semi-excitement as the first signs of fire-fighters began to crest the far hill and arrive at the scene.

  "Bomb!" someone yelled. "We're being shelled!" she continued. That seemed to be the leading thesis, and everyone prepared as best they could.

  William-Stonesworth marched for the doors, dragging a poor runner with him.

  "How much cable can we get?" He demanded.

  "I beg your pardon, sir?" the young man spluttered.

  "Cable, you fool, for a microphone. I need you to gather me a spool and feed me a microphone out of the window. Is that clear enough?"

  "You're going outside, sir?"

  He clucked his tongue louder than any man had ever done so before. "Yes, I'm going outside. Now get to it or I will have your job and the job of everyone you hold dear." Baseless threats were his bread and butter, as well as aggressive flirtation with the secretaries. This passionate overreaction was something a more experienced employee would have put down to his flamboyancy. Unfortunately, this novice was not yet learned in this, and so set about the task with near reckless abandon, his own fearful fire being fuelled by the general anarchy sweeping the studio.

  The wire flexed precariously from the second floor window, not helped by the fact that William-Stonesworth would give it the occasional, curt tug were it to be taut at any point. As he walked, he spoke with perfect diction into the microphone. He was advancing upon the scene pace by pace, a bride with an impossibly long, thin, black wedding train.

  "From the British Broadcasting Station, this is an emergency broadcast. I say again, this is an emergency broadcast. Do not tune out your set. Please await further instructions."

  Several colleagues gathered around and peered out at the curiosity, careful not to trip on the swaying cable running out of the window. William-Stonesworth continued to walk and talk as another figure, a fireman in a thick overcoat and a dented helmet, hurried the opposite way down the road, clearly with the intention of intersecting him.

  "British Broadc..." James William-Stonesworth began, but the other man put his hand up.

  "Sorry mate, there's an awful fire down the street and I have to stop you here," the fireman said, gracefully ignoring the oddity of a man pulling a gradually increasing length of wire out behind him.

  The reporter was unflappable. "I am here to report on the incident which lies behind this building. Is it a fire?"

  "It's not just the fire, sir," the fire-fighter became deeply uncomfortable. "It's what started it."

  "What was it?"

  "To tell you the truth sir, I'm not entirely sure,” the man's eyes were red, bloodshot.

  "What does that mean, are we being shelled?"

  The fire fighter became acutely aware that the microphone in William-Stonesworth's hand was recording. "Sir, perhaps you should put that down and return to your home or place of work."

  Just then, they and everyone tuning in at home heard a horrible crash. The fireman whipped around and wavered in his stance. William-Stonesworth stood able-bodied, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He put a hand to his moustache and wiped some of the phlegm that had been depositing there as he expectantly salivated. A building, close to the impact zone, was collapsing, tumbling like a sandcastle being kicked at from the outside, chunk by chunk.

  Instead of the resounding noise of this destruction echoing through the streets, it was countered by another, and then overtaken in volume and intensity. A sound of laughing, or at least William-Stonesworth would have described it thus had he had the time. But not just laughing; high-pitched, squeaking and squealing, like a giant rodent learning the breadth and depth of its vocal chords. A group of rodents. An army of rodents. It was frightful, and carried in full around the country to all the people listening via William-Stonesworth's microphone.

  Then, a shape emerged, slowly, from around a corner framed by the tongues of flames. A black cloud at this distance, one that crawled upon its belly down the now smouldering, empty London street. More than crawled, it walked, it ran. It was chasing something. A group of people, William-Stonesworth realised, just in time to see them enveloped. The cloud, parted, yet each half seemed to remain the same in volume. One half sank away, dividing into smaller entities and careening down side streets. But a main force still bore down upon them.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," his mouth was dry. Salivation and anticipation had been replaced with an arid desert of anxiety. "My name is James William-Stonesworth. I am reporting to you live from the streets just outside of the British Broadcasting Station on today, the first of November, nineteen hundred and fourteen. Here in London, at just before the hour of six in the evening, a deafening boom was heard from our studio windows. I have traversed outside to the street below and I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the encounter I am now having is most peculiar."

  "I don't think we should be out here, sir," his companion said, edging backwards.

  "To describe it would be difficult," William-Stonesworth continued, unabashed and eschewing the fireman for cowardice. "But it is unlike anything I have ever seen. A gigantic force, an energy if you will, moving to and fro as it approaches. The motivations are unclear, but I have strong doubts about the terrestrial nature of this unknown thing. Perhaps a heavenly body?"

  He was waxing lyrical now, beginning to indulge in the descriptions, having redoubled the initial vigour that brought him outside. The nagging reminder of the people who had previously been running and were now absent still bothered him, but he paid little heed. The mind works wondrous denials when confronted with the stupendous.

  "Sir," the fireman said in his loudest voice. "I really think we are in danger here and I believe we should move inside as quickly as possible."

  "I don't think that will be necessary," William-Stonesworth turned to him, but the man was gone. He had run in an opposite direction, down an alleyway, leaping so high to avoid piles of boxes that adorned the corner. He was frightened. He was not twenty yards away when a black shape shot out from the shadows and tore his head off. William-Stonesworth stood silently, imagining in his head the many fathers around the country harrumphing, and standing from their chairs to turn up the volumes on their various radio sets.

  A few seconds passed, but they could have been hours for James.

  "Ladies and... Ladies and gentlemen," he stuttered and stammered. He realised he was face to face with a being that had, in that instant, lost all allure and mystery for him. "I think, everyone should stay in their homes and alert local authorities."

  The being turned away, still distracted by its kill. Despite everything in his body screaming against it, he took a step towards the alleyway.

  "You... are a vulgar beast," he said, keeping the microphone a respectable distance from his face.

  "I think I may be peering into the face of God's wrath."

  The microphone was silent. The entire radio station was silent. It was the last time they ever broadcast. People at home sat back, not relaxed, but rather somewhat resigned. The mood was not one of calamitous tidings; it was one of intrigue, and of some mirth.

  People had assumed the entire thing was some sort of avant-garde radio play. It was semi-dismissed by the audience, as they, either too stupid or too cynical to know better, continued about their day unaware of the fate that was to befall them.

  Overall, the terror was risible, and applauded as a little more than a masterpiece of narration.

  It was these precious hours in between realisations that
cost the British public dearly.

  Chapter 2

  Yourself, Dearly

  It was an unrecognisable London, Neven noticed. In the past, many a day had been spent by him and his mother travelling into the centre of commerce and civilisation to potter about, whiling away the hours between responsibilities and the grave. Central London had been a home away from home. But it was an unlovable return for its favourite son.

  Where he had once traversed Great Portland Street holding his mother's hand, now he clutched a gun. Clammily, it slipped and slid about in his grip. It was a dirty rifle, unused since its creation, and left to rust in some armoury in the countryside. He wished he too could have been left on a shelf, but he and others had not been so lucky.

  Now, he crept up a road so dilapidated it barely deserved its nomenclature, and he was afraid. Information was patchy, and scarce. Of all things, the mood was also unrecognisable. Beyond the normal sullen mood worn by the many commuters, the town itself was silent. But it was not dead. No, there was in fact a sense of anticipation, of waiting. A dragon with one eye open, that might at any moment lick its lips and raise its head, wiping away any pretence of inaction.

  He steeled himself, noticing his feet lingering behind those around him. He couldn't shake the sense that he was doing it to avoid being picked off from the back.

  But by what?

  Who knew? It wasn't his job to know. Or to think. A few more months in the officers training program and he might have been privy to some information to help him, to console him, to give him the upper hand.

  Whiskers stopped. Sergeant McDonald in actuality, but his secret alias was born from his impressive moustache, kept impeccably clean given the circumstances. The men said he had been into the city twice already, and was here when the original incident happened. Unstoppable, it would probably have read on his gravestone, had his final resting place not been lying face down in this squalid street, cooking like an egg.

  "I think we're far enough now," he said briskly, turning on his heels and facing his company. The faint crackle of gunfire some roads over kept everyone alert.

  They were the words that everyone was dying to hear, the trudging was replaced by sitting, on whatever they could find. Mostly abandoned stalls and kiosks, but there was quite a lot of rubble as well to make up the urban topography.