He was aware of Lieutenant Everson shaking his shoulder.
“Atkins, where’s Corporal Ketch?”
“Gone west, sir. Gas.”
There was a series of explosions high above. Rubble erupted out of the vent followed by faint wisps of chlorine gas and, from somewhere behind them, the noise of gunfire grew louder.
“Damn.” Everson crouched down in front of the Chatt. “Which way to the fungus farming chamber?” he said. The Chatt looked up at him. “Do you understand me? Can you speak?”
“Yes, this one can speak Urmanii.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Chandar.”
“Well, Chandar, we need a way out and you’re going to have to show us. On your feet.”
The Chatt rose as Everson ushered it to the fore. Atkins took up the rear, making sure that Bell was in front of him as he cycled his rifle bolt. They hadn’t gone a dozen yards when Atkins heard shouts and shots behind him.
“Sir,” he said turning round at the sound of running feet. Sergeant Hobson, Gazette and Pot Shot came hurtling round the bend.
“Sir?” gasped Hobson. “How the hell did you get here?”
Everson nodded towards the smoking vent. “Snakes and ladders.”
The burly Sergeant took it in his stride. “Right you are then, sir.”
There were several bursts of rapid fire from behind them as the rest of the Black Hand Gang, freed Tommies and nurses crowded along the passage, pulling the sleds with the injured Napoo and Half Pint on them, Poilus among those at the back fighting a rear-guard action.
“They’re hard behind us, sir,” called Hobson.
“Only!” called Porgy pushing through the throng. “Only! Where’s Edith? Did you find them?” Atkins smiled as he turned aside to reveal Edith Bell stood behind him.
“Edi!” squealed Nellie Abbott, pushing past Porgy and flinging herself into Edith’s arms, then stood back and looked her up and down, taking in the khaki trousers. “Edi Bell! I never took you for a suffragette.”
“Times change,” said Edith.
“You did good,” said Porgy, clapping Atkins on the back.
Atkins didn’t feel as if he had. He could hardly bring himself to look his mate in the eye. “Where is the bastard? Did you get him?” Porgy pressed.
“Jeffries? Got away,” said Atkins. “But he won’t get far out there, even if he makes it. He’ll be something’s meal by night-time, I’ll bet on it. Ketch bought it, though. Gut shot and gassed.”
“Hell’s Bells,” said Porgy. “Can’t say I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t wish that on a bloody Hun.” Nellie and Edith broke their hug and he caught sight of Edith’s face. “What’s the bugger done to her?” Porgy cried, starting forward.
Atkins grabbed his shoulders. “Not now, mate. She’s fine. She’s a tough old girl.”
Reunited, the Black Hand Gang pressed on, fighting a rear-guard action against the pursuing Chatts, the tunnel taking them inexorably downward. It soon became clear they’d missed the fungus farm chamber that marked the way to their excavated exit point. They were lost.
“Where the hell are we?” Everson asked Chandar, but the Chatt refused to answer.
“Sir,” said Gazette, addressing Everson. “There are more Chatts coming the other way. We’re caught between ’em.”
“Not again,” sighed Everson. “Atkins, I don’t want to get caught between a rock and a hard place. This isn’t a good place for a last stand. See if you can’t blow us an exit.”
Atkins placed a couple of grenades against the wall of the passage and pulled the pins. “Grenade!” he hollered, dashing back round the curve. He was beginning to hate these damned tunnels. There were several dull explosions and Atkins felt his ears crackle and pop like a dropped needle on a scratched gramophone record as the concussion wave overtook him.
A cool breeze blew through the resulting hole. Everson braced his hands on the sides and stuck his head through tentatively.
“What’s through there?” he asked Chandar. “Can we get out that way?”
Chandar peered into the darkness beyond and said nothing.
“We mean no harm,” said Everson. “We just want to leave with our people.” Still Chandar remained obstinately silent. Everson shook his head in despair, and then addressed his men. “Right, 1 Section, secure the other side. Make it snappy. This whole thing’s turning into a shambles.”
The weary warriors made their way cautiously through the hole in the passage. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond, they heard the scuttling and frantic clicks of hundreds of Chatt voices. Atkins’ flesh crawled with revulsion at the sound. The only light came from the familiar luminescent lichens, their faint glow barely illuminating the chamber’s details. Long sinuous dry channels covered the floor, converging on an entrance in the far wall. Atkins noticed the frantic activity in them about halfway across the chamber.
“This’ll brighten the place up,” said Mercy, brandishing his Flammenwerfer. Gutsy opened the valve for him. A fiery orange geyser of flame erupted from the nozzle, casting an infernal glow across the chamber, illuminating pale Chatt and Urmen workers dragging clusters of pearlescent white globes away from the intruders, down the channels toward tunnels in the far walls.
“Poilus, any idea what this place is?” asked Everson.
“It’s their nursery,” replied the Urman with mounting horror. “We are under the edifice now, underground. We shouldn’t have come here.”
Around them, the walls of the chamber were full of recesses. They reminded Atkins of a church crypt, only the bodies that lay in these weren’t dead. Chatts and Urmen moved back and forth among them, dragging out helpless pupae. At the soldiers’ end, however, the cavities had seemed empty until Pot Shot gave a startled yelp. Idly poking about in one with his bayonet, he had come across the desiccated remains of some sort of partially formed nymph Chatt.
“Scared seven shades of shit out of me, that did,” said Pot Shot.
“It’s dead. Mummified,” said Gazette. “Been here a while, has that.”
“Ugly bugger, ain’t it?” said Porgy.
“You’d know,” retorted Mercy.
Its head was enlarged and bulbous, three of its limbs withered and deformed, its metamorphosis gone horribly wrong. And the more they looked, the more deformed, dead Chatts they found.
They advanced slowly across the chamber. A round of rapid fire scattered the Chatts seeking to reach a dry channel filled with large fat, white wriggling larvae. Standing over the limbless grubs, Gutsy thrust his bayonet into one with a vicious satisfaction. Thick viscous fluid oozed out.
By now, the rest of the men had scrambled through into the chamber behind them.
“Light!” called Everson.
A Very flare arced up and hit the chamber roof. It fell into a channel filled with grubs, spitting out its harsh white light. The larvae began twisting and writhing in the intense heat, throwing macabre shadows on the walls as more Chatt workers, undeterred, crept forward again in an attempt to save them.
Gutsy let loose another burst of rapid fire.
“Stop!” Chandar cried.
“It’s grubs, sir,” said Gutsy with disgust.
“It’s their young!” said Atkins in protest. “What are we now, Bosche baby-killers?”
Chandar, hissed, clicking his mandibles together in agitation. “This is the Queen’s egg chamber. You have threatened Khungarrii young, there is no way out for you now. Rhengar and the scentirrii will crush you. A pity. You are like no Urmen this One has known. Jeffries promised you to us. This One would have liked to have learned more. This One senses there is much he will never know about you, but GarSuleth wills it.”
“Let us go and we will leave them unharmed,” said Everson.