Gentleman of War Read online

  *

  He came down the stairs to no ovations. Everyone headiness of the newcomers was long since over, it seemed. He passed through, and instead went to the door and out into the bar. Tom was at the front door, peering out through the window.

  "Tom?"

  "Christ!" the rotund man leapt out of his skin. "You're quiet."

  "I'm sorry. What are you looking at?"

  "Ol' Baton of Britain's gone for a piss, a cigarette and a walk it looks like," Tom replied, turning his attention back to the outside scene.

  "The who's gone for what?" Neven asked. He began to cross the room, sheer curiosity informed his movements.

  "Oh, the lad from the posters. You know, 'STAND PROUD BRITAIN' and all that malarkey."

  Neven blinked, it was one rather strange turn of events after another. But each one incongruous with the previous, leaving no precedent for reaction; the residents of the pub were on different pages to each other. "I didn't realise he was a real person."

  Tom grunted, and shuffled his feet. "You're gun's 'ere." He walked away from the door.

  "Oh my," Neven breathed. "Sorry." He recovered it from its leaning post and cradled it. The weight of it was growing sickeningly familiar, but no less light. He looked up and saw his helmet on the hat rack as well, took that too. Some people wore hats to revere God, his own was for a more militaristic deity, he noted soberly.

  With his bundle, he began to step towards the door when the window was shrouded by a silhouette. Neven had barely the time to extricate himself from the inner door-step before the wood buckled open and slammed against the adjacent wall. Holding the handle impassively was the Baton of Britain, ashen faced and smelling of smoke. He looked at Neven, who returned the gaze.

  "Something's out there," he said both to and through Neven.

  "What?" Tom and Neven asked in unison.

  "Something. Coming this way," he stepped inside quickly, stamped his boots and shut the door.

  A cold shiver went down Neven's spine. He traced it from neck to arse, and then he instinctively forced his helmet on.

  "Let's go to the back room," Tom half-asked, half-requested.

  As they walked, Neven fell into step with the burly newcomer, "What did you see?"

  "Not much, but nothing I haven't seen before," The Baton looked down at his bandaged arm as though it were throbbing a warning. Neven did not want to guess where such a wound had come from.

  They reached the back room and Mary instantly had a sense of the situation from Tom's expression; such a bond forms between a couple after a certain time.

  "What did you see?"

  "Umm. Shapes," The Baton said, shifting from foot to foot.

  "Lots?"

  "A few, maybe one or two."

  The conjecture was killing Neven; it struck him that no one knew what was out there, indeed what had been out there. The situation was like a group of blind people trying to describe an exotic animal they had been refused all previous contact with. He was going to open his mouth to speak when something else did all the talking for him.

  A shrill call, somewhere beyond in the streets, resounded off of every glass, every table, and every soul in the room. Everyone who had not been silent beforehand was now. The call was met by similar cries, similar piercing clicks and clucks.

  “What is that?” a voice asked.

  "Is that language of some kind?" another said.

  "Sounds like movement to me," Frank offered.

  They may both have been right.

  "Oh Christ," Church stood up. "You all need to hide, or leave. Now."

  There was a dry thud against the front door. It shook the old timber right to its semi-rotten core.

  "I'm afraid that Private Church may be correct," Neven was trying his officer voice, but it was diluted now, weak and unsatisfying. He looked towards the dark end of the room. Those conscious enough and of able-body were sat in their beds. But at least eight or nine lay still, blissfully unaware of the goings-on.

  The well-spoken lady, having not moved from her seat, tugged once more at Neven's uniform. He looked down.

  "Can you kill them?"

  Neven was taken aback. He looked at Church, and for a brief moment they shared the kinship of ignorance.

  "I... suppose so."

  "I'll bloody find out," Church said. Another thud at the the wall, it was moving around the building this time.

  "Whatever it is, it's going around the side. The front door is open. We can make it out and down the street. All of us."

  "Not all," Mary said, and Neven remembered the infirm. A thorn grew in his heart.

  "And go where?" Charlie was on his feet, fists clenched. He was incredibly nervous.

  "The train tracks," Church said. "We came from them not yesterday. We haven't had any trouble there."

  "And then what?" Frank asked. "Keep running?"

  "If you want to live, that is my understanding," Neven replied sharper than he imagined he could, but probably what the situation warranted. Unity would be crucial, he realised.

  "Okay," Frank said simply. "Okay.” He stood and took a place at Neven's side.

  Polly was clambering out from the beds and trolleys. She was shaking.

  "Please, everyone form an orderly queue. Private Church will lead you out of the door and towards the train tracks. Parents please hold onto your children at all..."

  The window at the far side of the room smashed and several people screamed. Disorder reigned and Church levelled his rifle.

  "Get away from the window!" He yelled above the noise. He fired a shot, far louder than everyone had been anticipating. Then another. Everyone gathered by the door. The Baton of Britain, one hand clutching the bear trunk, the other on the doorknob, flung it open.

  "Church!" Neven exclaimed. "Get these people out of here."

  Church, unaware if he had hit even the slightest thing, levered the bolt back on his gun, then stomped past Neven and out of the door. The people flooded out, leaving drinks, books and possessions strewn around.

  "Well, we can't leave them." Mary insisted, casting a gaze over those not borne to their feet.

  Never had a truer nor a more obvious thing had ever been said to Neven's ears. Yet beyond it, the statement was trivial and childlike. They were in trouble, the kind that London had been in for some weeks now. Big trouble.

  "Mary," Tom hollared. "I'm sorry, we don't 'ave a choice!"

  "We can't leave them!" she wailed.

  The far wall began to disintegrate under duress, and water from the rain from outside spattered into the room through all manner of new holes. Neven tried to remain unfrozen but it was hard. He considered firing his own gun, but decided it would have been like whistling in the dark.

  Phillipa, some voice in his head reminded.

  It wasn't even a conscious choice. It was complete primal instinct. He raced up the stairs. The door to the bedroom was still closed, and when he opened it he found the girl peeking out from the curtain, crying again. When he came up, she looked like she would rather not have seen anyone else.

  “It's time to go,” she said.

  The bath had been drawn, but it was unused. The still, steaming water reverberated ripples with every shockwave.

  "Come on!" He said, offering his hand.

  If there was something in that moment that made her trust him, he was grateful. Perhaps it was his brave forcefulness. They came to the stairs of the landing as the crashing against the walls turned to screams. It was all a bit too familiar.

  And Neven was going to run again.

  Eschewing the stairs, they made their way across the landing to the end window. With the butt of his gun, he broke the glass and began to climb out onto the ledge. The drop was not far, only a few feet onto the porch above the front door of the pub, but the old roof was steep and angular.

  "You first," was all she had to say.

  He made his way onto the roof, slick with water now. The tramping of boots and shoes was just below th
em as many fled. He could see in the half-light people going in all directions, having lost their senses to fear. Half his mind was on this, half on the direction of the train tracks, which meant he wasn't concentrating when he lost his footing and fell to the cold stone floor of the London road. Phillipa climbed far better, and landed on her feet with an unladylike grunt before helping the young soldier to his.

  Screams not only emanated from the pub, but from the streets around them. It was a cacophony of despair, the attackers the conductors.

  "There's Church," Phillipa pointed at something the winded Neven had no chance of seeing, but he believed her and they scampered along the road as fast as they could.

  "Help! Oh God!" someone yelled in the darkness, before darkness took their voice as well, replacing it with a chittering sound that ran like wet icicles into the brains of those that heard. For a few more minutes, the streets were alive with men, women and children alike all in varying moments of panic, some dying, some likely dead soon after anyway.

  These thoughts Neven had to push to one side if he was going to cope. The train tracks fast approached, and when he and Phillipa finally hopped down to rest on the sleepers, they saw the extent of the damage.

  In the dim half-light, they saw that barely a dozen patrons of the Lamb and Lion remained.

  Chapter 5

  From the diary of Cpl. N. E. Plumsworthy

  Church, Phillipa and I had escaped again. It was becoming quite a common problem. But so many that night did not make it to the rendezvous point, and perhaps that was our fault. The unintelligible commands we barked as the walls came crashing down likely fell upon deaf ears. In retrospect, leading them out of the door without at least a semblance of their objective was a huge mistake.

  Not a few minutes had passed, huddled by the railway line, when we as one realised that no more people were coming. The chittering and chattering died away as quickly as it had set upon us, but for the sake of safety I suggested we move under a bridge not far from our location.

  Sitting in the dark under a wet, mouldy bridge was an unpleasant manoeuvre. Everyone was miserably exhausted, yet very much awake. No one could bring themselves to say anything; the silence had swallowed us. It had taken us all in some small way; the unlucky ones bodily, the rest of us in mentality.

  It was hard to tell who was alive and who was dead. Occasionally, Church's hand went to a match, which was struck for a cigarette. In those brief seconds, a small beam of light traced from his pocket to his face and shone onto those squatted next to him: Frank and Polly. I knew Phillipa was alive; she was pressed tightly against me, shivering. As dusk turned to twilight, more shadows became clearer further down the tunnel. Since they had yet to murder us, I supposed that they might be fellow Lamb and Lion survivors. A big man in an overcoat, who I later deducted in the morning light as Tom, was balled up, weeping softly into his arms - it did not give me much hope for Mary.

  "Now what?" Phillipa asked. We must have been dozing, as some hours had passed. I awoke with a start, and had an answer on my lips.

  "I shall cross back to the pub to see if I can find anybody who got... lost," I shot a look at Tom, but he wasn't listening.

  "Do you want me to stay here?" Church asked, more pleading than usual. His hands were gnarled and bloody, he must have fallen somewhere along the way.

  "Probably for the best," I remember telling him. "See to the women and children."

  Whether she had already intended to, or decided based upon my final statement, Phillipa rose from the ground.

  "I'm coming," she spoke simply.

  "Me too," Frank said. He had lost his glasses somewhere and immediately looked younger yet his eyes were milky, fragile.

  We three emerged, blinking from the tunnel, and into a realm of pure adrenaline. I was scared again, as much as I had been last night; the morning visage of a quiet London pretending business as usual did nothing for my heart rate. She was a less-than innocent co-conspirator in our collective fates. She had sent the boogeyman again.

  To rattle our cages.

  To break our windows.

  To steal away our weak and wounded.

  I climbed out onto the platform, taking Phillipa's and then Frank's hands. We slowly marched towards the scene of the carnage. For a street or two, I thought we were going the wrong way, almost no evidence remained of last night’s unrest. But we rounded a corner soon enough and what I saw would have made me sick had I eaten anything.

  To save whosoever reads this diary the same fate, I will only describe in brief what I encountered carnage and blood. The woman who had not a day ago pulled upon my coattails had been pulled apart. A bed, which I recognised as once holding an infirm, was redder than it was white now - and dripping. Most of the bodies had been left in the street where they had dropped. Some must have been dragged from out of the pub, but others were likely left inside too, though we neglected to look.

  "Hello?" Frank hollered in every direction. "Anybody here?"

  There was no response. Granted, it was a pathetic rescue attempt, but what would you, my dear reader, have me do? No prisoners had been taken, nor any mercy granted. Those who were not fast enough had simply been gobbled up.

  "Looks to be the work of animals," Phillipa said bleakly, clinically, something about that made it seem all the worse.

  I couldn't help thinking about what a member of Church's company had said: "Aliens." Could it be?

  I had read many a penny-fiction in my time, and had been to many a cinema to watch the latest offerings our technology had to extend to us; fascinating and deeply terrifying. Was there truth behind the fiction?

  At the time, I only had a Biblical sense of the whole thing; a great swarm, a great plague. Like the ones of Egypt. Had we mocked the Almighty in some way? Was this His divine judgement? Maybe our creations of fiction had been an invitation to Him to bring our worst nightmares to life.

  Not that I vocalised these thoughts at the time. Preaching and sermons when wading through the fallen seemed so inappropriate. Or, I suppose entirely appropriate, but nevertheless I didn't have the stomach to open my mouth lest the stench rot me from the inside out.

  We returned to the group; informed them that we had found no more. Tom said nothing, but retreated away, and my heart died a little.

  "Where next?" someone asked.

  "Out of London," Polly pleaded, and that seemed to be the general consensus.

  "There's an old cavalry base, not too far from here," Frank, who was becoming an asset with each growing day, said. "Officers, I think. Famous; some of the King's guard train there."

  Big walls, armaments, a pantry, and good British men - what more could one need from the world? So we decided, those of us who still cared. The others came along through lack of choice.

  Chapter 6

  Your feasts and your finery

  Neven was sadly happy to see the end of London. Never had the city he had grown so fond of in his youth seemed so dishevelled. The last thing he had expected weeks ago would be that the urban landscape he had loved so dearly would become a twisted jungle of wrath, one whose tentacles stretched out as if to swallow him. When he was younger, he would ask his mother to stay. Just one or two more days! He had protested. Now his very words came back to mock him, choked him in his own mouth. Gave him a cold feeling all over; numb.

  "What's in your bag?" Phillipa asked, her footsteps falling into line with his at the head of the group.

  Neven looked over, his eyes sweeping across glorious fields of wheat and maize. And yet, they were overgrown, too fruitful and too generous in their yield. No one had come to tend to them, and they were becoming thick with weeds.

  "Hmm?" he answered with a question of his own. He had heard hers, but was caught between trying to think of a charming answer and wishing to hear the sweet melody in her voice again.

  "Your rucksack. What do you carry in it?"

  "Oh," he swung it around on old straps to meet his chest and waiting hands. In one swift mo
vement he opened it.

  "Everything a growing boy needs," she said, gazing in. “Nice revolver,” she added, gazing at the six-chambered weapon lying on top of everything else.

  "Ammunition, rations, sleeping equipment and cooking implements," he said more specifically.

  "It all looks unused. For the most part," she remarked.

  "Hasn't been mine for long," he admitted.

  "Who did you steal it from?"

  He smiled, failing to meet her eyes and instead concentrating on the road. It was a long cart-beaten path. Grey and yellow gravel formed the basis, with various patches of grass erupting like geysers here and there. Occasionally a larger stone would outcrop. The sides of the path were thick with rotting vegetables.

  "I haven't really been a soldier for very long."

  "But... you're a corporal," she was less playful now, more quizzical.

  "I was in the officers academy," he said with a little more reticence than he imagined he would.

  Among the group, he felt like it was a dirty word.

  "A fast track to the top?”

  "Well," he was unsure how to respond. "I..."

  "Doesn't matter," she laughed. "Not now, anyway."

  He was damn near frustrated with how easy words came to her, yet how hard they fell into place for him.

  "You're a good soldier, I'm sure."

  He tried to imagine there wasn't a hint of patronising tones in there.

  "Neven!" someone up front said.

  The line stopped, as did Neven's heart. What now? A quick padding of boots on dirt and Church was by his side.

  "Sorry to interrupt your chat but there's something you should see."

  "What?" he asked dismissively.

  "A house. Up ahead."

  "We've passed many houses," Phillipa said. Church shot her a look, which was well-reciprocated. He turned back to Neven.

  "Come. See."

  He started off down the road.

  Neven turned back to the group to make sure they were all accounted for. Phillipa followed his gaze; Frank and Charlie were not ten feet behind, and had heard it all. Polly and a young boy called Simon were staring blankly, feet twisting into the gravel. She held the boy's hand.

  Anthony, a veterinarian, was picking through parts of a cob of corn he had not two minutes ago wrestled from an overhanging stalk. Hugging the side of the field, the Baton of Britain was kicking his feet, one hand still gripping his trunk. His body twisted as Neven's eyes met his, as though he was trying to hide his luggage. Some way in the distance, a dishevelled Tom lingered, dragged his feet, dug them sorrowfully about him as though he were hoping the ground would swallow him.