“In exchange.”
Everson, surprised, glanced up at Hobson who shrugged. Napoo was obviously shrewder than he looked. “Yes, if we can,” replied Everson.
Napoo took his weapon back off Hobson and began to walk away through the forest. The men watched. When he realised they weren’t following he stopped and turned around. “Follow.” The men looked at Everson. He nodded slightly and readjusted his helmet. Hobson took the lead and the rest fell into line. Eventually they came to the edge of a small clearing in front of a cave. Outside the cave a fire burned, tended by a woman of similar age to the man, her hair tied back. A younger girl was scraping out the inside of a large beetle shell, the way one might scrape the fat and meat off a hide.
“Wait here,” said Napoo. He went ahead into the clearing where Atkins watched him talk to the woman with big, expressive gestures, pointing back at the woods where they waited. The woman called out. Several other adults appeared from the surroundings or from out of the cave entrance.
Napoo turned and beckoned the Tommies into the clearing where several men stood holding crude spears and bows, eyeing the newcomers suspiciously.
The soldiers walked slowly into the encampment, Sergeant Hobson surveying the area warily. The two parties studied each other. The woman seemed interested in their clothes, plucking at Atkins’ sleeves. She felt the rough texture of the khaki cloth between her fingers and tested the strength of its seams with apparent approval.
A lean-to had been built over the entrance to the cave using thick branches and leaves. Theirs seemed to be a miserable existence, at least as miserable as living in the trenches, thought Atkins.
“Let the men rest, Sergeant. Post a sentry. I don’t want to be surprised again. I’ll go and see what this Napoo needs. Atkins, you’re with me.”
Atkins groaned. He just wanted to sit down. Instead, he followed the Lieutenant and Napoo into the cave. As they did so the ground rumbled and shook. Small pebbles and rocks bounced down the side of the rock face, showers of dirt loosed from the roots of trees clinging to lips on the cliff drummed down,
“It’s another earth tremor!” said Atkins. They staggered hard against side of the cave to stop themselves from falling over. Napoo had stopped and crouched for balance.
Almost as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
“It always happened this time of year,” said Napoo, unconcerned. “The world shakes.” He led them to the back of a cave where a young man lay on a litter of vegetation and fur, his skin slick with a fever sweat, his eyes rolling in delirium. A wound on his thigh had been smeared with some sort of poultice.
“You help him,” Napoo said.
Atkins pulled out his field dressing pack and tore open the paper packing. He placed it over the wound and fixed it with a length of bandage. “It’s infected. The MO needs to take a look at him, sir,” Atkins said. “I can’t help him here.”
Everson was silent for a moment. He appeared to come to a decision.
“Very well, we’ll take him back to the trenches.”
CHAPTER TEN
COMING ACROSS NAPOO had been fortuitous. It was obvious they hadn’t succeeded in finding much to eat on their own and Napoo had information that could greatly aid their chances of survival. So it was that Napoo accompanied them as they carried the injured Urman from the forest.
They met up with what was left of the rest of the platoon at the rendezvous point. 2 Section only had two surviving men. Sting-a-lings had killed several, wire-weed had caught another man and one soldier had been lost to a cave-dwelling creature that had snatched him down into darkness before anyone could get a shot off. 3 Section didn’t return at the appointed time. The rest of them waited for a quarter of an hour. Everson would have waited longer, but the men were anxious to return to the trenches, if indeed they were still there. All in all the losses were slightly better than if they had attacked Fritz head on, but that seemed of little consolation.
Atkins’ arms began to burn with the effort of carrying the wounded Urman on a stretcher as they headed back. He and Porgy had to stop every hundred yards or so. It wasn’t easy, carrying battle order kit and lugging a loaded stretcher over a mile or so of uneven ground, especially when he was weary from lack of sleep and weak from lack of food and had Gordon mewling and wriggling about in his bag.
He felt a great wave of relief when they first heard the sound of work parties and the reassuring refrains of songs drifting over the plain. They passed several groups of men digging mass graves some hundred yards out onto the plain and seeding it with sacks of Chlorate of Lime. They were preparing to bury the rotting corpses from No Man’s Land that had been attracting predators. Another working party was hacking up the fire-crisped carcass of one of the giant worms.
Sporadic cheers and looks of amazement greeted their arrival back at the trenches. Napoo strode through with Everson and Hobson, wide-eyed at the muddy encampment and holding his nose as the stench hit him. It prompted Pot Shot behind him to start singing: “To live with any luck inside a trench / Your nose must get accustomed to the stench / Of the rotten Bosche that lie/ On the parapet and die / ’cos they make a smell that Hell itself can’t quench…”
Off-duty soldiers gathered to watch 1 Section pass. Word got round fast and the discovery of native people living on this world made quite a stir. On seeing Napoo, a number of old soldiers, having served in India, expressed the opinion that it was only right and natural to find someone to whom they were superior. If they were to be stranded on some other world now, at least, it was a place where they could be masters. Britannia’s Colonial spirit was, in some quarters it seemed, still alive and well.
EVERSON AND NAPOO accompanied Atkins and Porgy as they carried the injured Urman to the newly established Casualty Clearing Station. Bell tents and crude tarpaulin marquees served as wards for the bedridden. The walking wounded lay about outside chatting and smoking. The shell-shocked had been fenced in for their own protection, under guard like POWs; their minds broken by the horrors of war and this strange new world that had suddenly appeared around them. Most of them sat quietly and wept, rocking themselves, or else shook and jerked in spastic fits and screamed. Some sought shelter and cover for themselves, desperately scraping sap holes with their bare hands. Every now and then one would completely funk it and run at the wire only to be brutally sedated by the butt of a guard’s rifle. Many men hadn’t time for the malingerings of cowards such as these. Atkins watched them mull about as he passed, his thoughts turning to Ginger. Poor bloody Ginger. He’d rather the lad had funked it proper and ended up in that compound than die the way he did.
The MO’s hospital bell tent had a big red cross daubed on it and they made for that. The walking wounded seemed to give this tent a wider birth than the other and Atkins soon found out why. The sound of fast rhythmic sawing came from within and set his teeth on edge. In a place like that, there was only one thing you could be sawing. Atkins and Porgy put the stretcher down. The young Urman groaned feverishly. Everson collared an orderly. “Fetch the MO immediately.” He turned to Atkins and Porgy. “Go and get yourself some grub,” he said.
“Sir,” they said, saluting. Atkins turned to leave when Porgy caught him by the arm.
“’Alf a mo, eh, Only?” he said.
Nurse Bell was ambling their way, exchanging pleasantries with cheeky wounded soldiers who fancied their chances. Flirting made them feel alive, made them feel wanted, valued. Human. She was talking and laughing with a soldier leaning on crutch, Lance Corporal Sandford from 3 Platoon. Porgy’s eyes narrowed. This meant war. He ran a comb as best he could through his hair over his bandage and splashed his face with water from his canteen.