“Khungarrii Urmen can neither script nor scent. After the Croatoan Heresy their own ways were declared sacrilege. All that they were is lost. Urman culture was eradicated. All Urman writings and knowledge wiped out. They are Khungarrii now. No one can read the language, if language it is.”
Jeffries stared at the map. It seemed to be a map of this world. He couldn’t understand how Chandar couldn’t see it for what it was, but then it was entirely probable that their cartography was scent-based and not visually oriented. He ran his eyes hungrily over every symbol, over every mark on the map. Everything he knew from his studies; the style of calligraphy, the type of parchment, told him this was Elizabethan. It was fine, if hurried draughtsmanship. The map was incomplete although it did indicate what seemed to be mountains, forest, rivers and presumably, other edifices. He saw blocks of closely written Enochian and Voynich text that he would have to decipher laboriously. And there, and there, despite the bad penmanship and the foxing, emblazoned on the map in several locations, Jeffries recognised the unmistakable sigil of Croatoan.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVERSON HALTED THE party in a side tunnel to get their bearings. It was apparent to him that these rough tunnels were reserved for worker castes, designed as passing places or servant’s passages, so that the ruling Chatts wouldn’t have to come face to face with them. His father’s house in Broughtonthwaite had similar features.
He got Poilus to ask passing Urmen if they knew where the prisoners were being kept, but he might as well have been asking them the way to the Alhambra Picture House. There was no way they would find the captured soldiers by blundering blindly about these tunnels, the place was a maze with numerous cul-de-sacs and dead ends, so it was just as well he’d got a plan.
“Atkins,” he called.
The private turned from watching the mouth of the tunnel and Everson, crooking a finger, beckoned him back.
“Sir?”
“You still have that confounded creature?”
“Yes sir, it’s getting a bit restless, though,” he said, nodding down at his gas helmet knapsack, which was moving about in an agitated fashion. “I reckon he must be getting pretty hungry.”
“Good, time to take it for a walk then. Let it out, will you.”
He saw Atkins look at Hopkiss, who just shrugged.
“Don’t look at Hopkiss, Atkins, just do it,” said Everson.
He could see the looks in their eyes; it’s a bloody officer, who knows what he’s thinking, just do as you’re told. But he’d learnt to let that wash over him a long time ago.
Atkins complied and pulled a large rat-like creature from his knapsack, its long nose already questing at the air with small, wet snuffles.
“Got a name has it, Atkins?”
“Ginger, er, Mottram, called it Gordon, sir.”
“Very well. Get a leash on him. If Gordon is as hungry as I hope he is I think he might just lead us to our men.”
Atkins put a loop of string over its head.
“What,” said Sergeant Hobson at the sight of the creature, “is that?”
“I believe the men call it a Chatter, Sergeant,” said Everson. “It loves lice. Apparently, it thinks them quite a delicacy. And thanks to this little blighter and Evans’ entrepreneurial spirit none of us here is hitchy-koo anymore, so I’m hoping it’ll sniff out any lice in this place, and the only place I know we can find ’em is on our own great unwashed.”
Hobson gave a sceptical grunt before turning to Hopkiss and hissing, “You trying to tell me that’s what I paid me thruppence for, Hopkiss, to have that thing rooting through my smalls and shirts?”
“Aye, Sarn’t. Money well spent, I’d say,” said Porgy with a grin. “Ain’t scratched since ’ave yer?”
Hobson muttered unhappily until Poilus, who had been keeping watch, motioned them to keep quiet.
Gordon began scurrying about amongst their feet looking for his new favourite food and Atkins had to yank him back before they all got tangled up in his string leash.
Heads down, they stepped from the worker’s passage into the main tunnel as an eager little Gordon took the lead, tugging at the string in Atkins’ hand. Hobson rolled his eyes at the sight but took up point with him as he’d been ordered to.
The tunnels became lighter and airier. They must have been in an outer spiral because apertures high in the walls filtered bright beams of sunlight into the passageways. They passed several groups of Urmen repairing tunnels, perhaps after the recent tremors, without further incident but there was still no sign of the captives.
Everson watched expectantly as Gordon stopped below a vent shaft up in the wall and raised itself up on its hind legs, its forepaws scrabbling at the earthen wall, the nostrils of its thin wet whiskery snout flaring as it scented something. “Good boy!” praised Atkins, petting Gordon as if he were a prize ratter. The private peered at the opening above his head. “It runs upwards sir,” he reported. He listened intently for a moment then added, “I think I can hear voices.”
But were they Urman or Human? Everson ordered Hobson and Blood to move one of the weapon sleds across the curving passage to form a barricade behind which they knelt, pointing their Enfields into the tunnel behind them. Pot Shot and Porgy used the second sled as a mount for the Lewis Gun. Everson could see sweat beading on their foreheads. Wandering these tunnels wearing full kit and lugging an extra twenty or thirty pounds each was taking its toll.
He made his way through his men to the vent hole two or three feet above him. He removed his cap and gingerly tilted his head towards the vent, but could hear nothing above the curious pops and clicks that issued from it. “Hopkiss, give me a leg up will you?”
Hopkiss handed his rifle to Evans and linked the fingers of his hands together, palms up. Everson stepped onto the offered cradle and Atkins boosted him up so that he could get his head into the vent above.
He could feel a down draught cooling his face and, riding on the breeze, he heard the faint murmur of voices, human voices. If he could just… He put his hands up inside the vent, braced them on the walls and hauled himself into the mouth of the hole, until he was resting on his stomach, leaving his now flailing legs searching for purchase, which wasn’t so much found as offered. Hopkiss’ shoulders, he presumed. He used them to drive himself up into the shaft. With a cautionary shhh to his men below, he started to listen to the faint sounds filtering down from above.
In the warm, cramped confines of the shaft, he became aware of his own body odour. It smelt as if he hadn’t had a bath in weeks, which wasn’t that far from the truth. He began to wonder how long the scent from the dead Chatt would mask it. If, in fact, it still did. He lay still, held his breath and listened. There was a mutter of voices above, but he still couldn’t tell what they were saying. He had to know whether they were Urman or Human before he committed his men. He cupped his hand round his mouth and hollered up the vent. “This is Second Lieutenant Everson of ‘C’ Company. Hello? Are you all right?”
The seconds ticked by as he waited, then he heard a distant, but definite, “Yes, sir!”
“We’re on our way” he called back up. “Get ready to make a break for it!”
He was about to call down when Hobson’s urgent whisper reached him. “Stay where you are, sir!” Then he heard the unnerving chitter of Chatt mandibles below and the familiar sound of magazine cut-offs being flicked open and loading bolts being cycled back in readiness. Slowly he swivelled round in the narrow vent until he was on his back, looking down the length of his body to the end of the shaft and the top of Hopkiss’ steel helmet. He readjusted his pistol grip and waited.