Ginger was no company at all, either. He whimpered and patted absent-mindedly at his tunic. The squeaking from inside it grew more frantic and agitated. As Ginger fumbled to catch his wretched rat his rifle slipped from his grasp. It landed heavily, butt first, on the duckboards. Atkins flinched but it didn’t go off.
“Fuck’s sake, pick your gun up y’daft sod. If Ketch catches you, that’s ‘casting away your arms in the presence of the enemy’,” Gazette hissed, his eyes never leaving the darkening landscape.
Ginger ignored them and carried on wittering and cooing to Haig.
“Shhh. Ginger. Button it!” Atkins’ brow creased, he cocked his head. “Gazette, you hear that?”
From out in the mud came a desperate scrabbling sound, like a drowning soldier trying to claw his way out of a slurry-filled shell hole.
“Just some poor injured sod out in No Man’s Land. Usually is. That or one of them hell hounds from this afternoon caught on the wire. Either way, be dead by morning.”
A scream went up from the forward observation post but it was stifled, drowned out by thousands of shrieking squeaks and the splatter of countless feet. In the fading light the mud itself seemed to ripple like a mirage. But it was no illusion.
From further up the line, the sound of surprised yelps, the discharge of rifles, spattered bursts of machine gun fire leapt from bay to bay towards them.
Alert, Gazette altered his stance almost imperceptibly, shifting his centre of gravity, bracing to absorb the anticipated kick of his Enfield.
“What is it?” Atkins asked.
Gazette just shrugged. He either didn’t know, or didn’t care.
Ginger shuffled about on the firestep as Haig skittered around inside his clothes, squealing, while his arms flailed and contorted trying to reach his ersatz pet. He pirouetted clumsily. Atkins tried to grab his webbing but Ginger tumbled from the firestep, falling awkwardly and cracking his head on the sodden duckboards, writhing and screaming as the rat seemed to bite and claw at him inside his clothing.
“Jesus! Shut him up!” snapped Gazette.
Atkins jumped down and clamped his hand over Ginger’s mouth.
“Keep quiet, you silly sod. You’ll end up getting us all killed if not up on a bloody charge!” Atkins was astride his chest now, a hand clamped over his mouth, trying to keep eye contact with the thrashing soldier, to calm him somehow, all the while trying to undo his tunic and shirt buttons one handed in order to free the damned rat.
“Ginger, calm down, mate. Stop it! It’s me, Only.”
Ginger’s eyes bulged and he tried to scream, but it was muffled by Atkins’ hand. Ginger sank his teeth into the skin between the thumb and forefinger.
“Agh, y’bastard!” Atkins snatched his hand away. Ginger bucked under him.
There was a sudden volley of unintelligible oaths from Gutsy’s bay next door.
“Only!” said Gazette. “Only! Get up here!”
As Atkins looked up Ginger arched his back, turned his head awkwardly to see down the traverse and screamed. Racing round the corner and tumbling pell-mell towards them, over the parapets and channelled by the trenches, came a stampede of thousands of panic-stricken corpse rats scrabbling and scrambling over each other, driven headlong in a frenzy through the fire bays by something out in No Man’s Land, something that had alarmed them enough to flee their cosy cadavers in droves. Not even the artillery shells had ever moved them like this before.
“Jesus!”
Atkins instinctively gulped a mouthful of air and drew his arms up over his head in a desperate attempt to protect himself as the routed rats swarmed over him. Their urgent piping squeals filled his ears as they covered him in a heaving wave of mud, blood and viscera-matted fur. Myriad cold paws scratched and scuffled exposed flesh; clumsy legs and feet finding his mouth, ears or nose while the acrid tang of voided rats’ piss left him spluttering and nauseous.
And then they were gone, the verminous tide receding, washing over 3 and 4 Platoon’s positions to yells of consternation.
Gasping and spitting filth from his mouth Atkins cautiously lifted his head. Ginger was still on the duckboards, curled into a foetal position, sniffling and whimpering, a damp warm patch darkening his khaki trousers.
“Gilbert the Filbert’ll feel right at home among that lot,” said Gazette. He was impassively inspecting three of the buggers he’d managed to impale on his bayonet. “Three with one blow. That’s a dugout record, is that.”
“He’s gone,” Ginger said with a snivel, patting his torso. “Haig’s gone.”
“Yeah, well good riddance,” said Gazette scraping the rats off his bayonet on the edge of the step. “Here, Only, give us a hand.” He stood his rifle against the revetment, stepped down, grabbed Ginger by his webbing straps and hauled him to his feet. Atkins picked up Ginger’s rifle and put it back in his hands.
“Look, I know your rat’s gone. Looks like they’ve all gone, frankly and good bloody riddance. But if you don’t get back on the step, Ketch’ll do for you, got it?”
Ginger sniffed, wiped his nose with the cuff of his tunic and nodded sullenly.
“Sorry. Sorry, Only.”
Atkins straightened his battle bowler for him and helped him up onto the step.
“Good lad.”
The sun was almost gone now. The dark velvet blue of night advanced relentlessly, overwhelming the last crimson smears of retreating dusk; a salvo of stars pock-marking its wake in the night sky.
Atkins had always found some measure of comfort in the constancy of the stars, but not tonight. Tonight, he couldn’t find a single constellation that he recognised. And no moon either, nothing but a faint trace of reddish gas trailing across the firmament. Disconcerted, Atkins shifted his gaze back down to Earth, or what there was left of it.
“What was that all about? Never seen ’em act like that before.”
“They’re rats. Who knows?” said Gazette.
“Something scared ’em.”
“You do surprise me.”
“Something out there. The bodies in No Man’s Land are going to attract every scavenger and predator for miles around.”
“You may have a point,” said Gazette. “But I’ve got this,” he added patting his rifle. “And I’ll put my faith in this any day over anything you think may or may not be out there.”
They’d been here less than twenty-four hours. From what Atkins had seen of this place whatever was out there was probably far worse than anything he could imagine or, more worryingly, something he couldn’t imagine.
“Everything all right here, men?”
Lieutenant Everson came round the traverse into the bay, Webley revolver in his hand.
“You mean apart from the rats, sir?” said Atkins.
“Yes, apart from the rats, Atkins.”
“Yes, sir,” Atkins managed a perfunctory smile. “Leaving the sinking ship, d’y’think, sir?”
“Sorry?”
“The rats, sir. Leaving the sinking ship?”
“Well I wouldn’t put it quite like that, Atkins, but I’m certainly not going to miss the buggers if they really have gone.”
Ginger stifled a sob in the crook of his elbow.
“Is he — is he all right?” said Everson with a jerk of his head in Ginger’s direction, his voice tinged with concern.
“Mottram, sir?” said Gazette. “Yes sir, just got the wind up, sir, that’s all. He’ll be fine.”
Aktins wasn’t so sure but Everson didn’t seem to want to press the point.
“Very well. Any idea who Hobson put in the OP?”
“Jellicoe, Livesey and Nicholls, sir,” said Atkins.