“I have not that power.”
“They’re coming through!” said a private keeping watch by the bomb-blasted aperture through which they had entered the chamber.
With no choice, they moved further into the nursery. Everson and 1 Section led the way along the runways between the dry channels. “Which way out?” Everson asked Chandar.
The Chatt gave a kind of shrug, as if any answer was useless now.
Atkins noticed a glint in the shadow beyond one of the apertures, the dull sheen of lichen light on carapaces. From an opening across the chamber came the martial sound of marching.
“Stand To!” said Everson. “We’ll make a stand against this wall, use the channel in front as a fire trench. Sergeant Dawson, set up the Lewis gun on our flank. Hold until they spread out and we can take down the maximum number.”
The group of thirty-odd soldiers, barely even a platoon, fell into a practiced routine, seeking what cover they could in the shallow channels and setting their rifles on the banks.
“Otterthwaite, see if you can’t persuade them to stay back in the tunnels a little longer,” ordered Everson.
“Right you are, sir.” The sharpshooter looked down the barrel of his rifle towards the tunnels. He picked his target and squeezed the trigger. A squeal followed the rifle’s echoing report. Otterthwaite fired repeatedly, but the march of feet and the dull clatter of armoured insectile shells grew into a din as the first of the Chatt soldiers emerged from the gloom of the tunnels.
The nurses, Padre Rand, still under the influence of his otherworldly ennui, Half Pint, Napoo and others too wounded to help were set to the rear against the chamber wall. Nurse Bell took up a rifle from one of wounded men. “They’re not going to take me,” she said through gritted teeth when she met Nellie Abbott’s questioning look. The driver acquiesced mutely. A private with an arm in a sling offered her his bayonet. Nellie took it.
Sister Fenton stepped forward and Bell thought she was about to scold them but she, too, nodded sternly at another wounded soldier. “Give that to me,” she said, indicating his bayonet. He handed it up without protest and she gripped its handle self-consciously. The other two nurses looked at her nonplussed. “Belgium,” was all she said. All of England had heard of the Bosche atrocities there in the early years of the war.
In the fire channel Atkins nervously awaited the order to shoot. Seeing the massed ranks of insects before them was unnerving, but seeing them along the rifle barrel, it became business, and a business he knew how to do. He picked his targets and waited for the order.
To his left and right Gutsy, Porgy, Gazette, Pot Shot and Mercy were doing the same. He met their eyes one by one, an unspoken conversation of wordless encouragement and silent goodbyes. If this was it, they would give as good as they got and take as many of the damn things with them as possible when they went. The anger he’d felt at himself, Atkins now turned outwards towards the Chatts.
THE FIRST WAVE of Chatt soldiers swarmed onto the floor of the nursery chamber.
Brandishing his revolver, Everson stepped forward, bringing Chandar with him. “We just want to leave,” he called out across the chamber.
A Chatt stepped forward from the ranks.
“Rhengar,” said Chandar. “Njurru scentirrii of the Khungarrii Shura.”
“Let us go,” called Everson. “Allow us safe passage out of here with our people or we will destroy your young, your nursery!” He deplored the tactic, but he felt he had no choice if he wanted to save his men. They were cornered.
Rhengar hissed. In turn, the Chatt soldiers began to hiss, some beating the flats of their short swords against their chests.
“Well, that’s not good,” muttered Everson, and then nodded to his Platoon Sergeant.
“This is it, lads,” called Hobson. “Pick your targets. Fire!”
THE LEWIS GUN opened fire, raking across the lines of Chatts who fell, toppling into the partly vacated channels only to be trodden on by ranks of their fellows as their advance continued.
Covered by insects wielding electric lances, spitting Chatts charged forward spraying jets of acid from their mouths, leaving several men screaming and clutching their faces.
Any moment now, they would be upon them. Atkins readied himself for fighting at close quarters.
“We’re going to need something bigger than bullets,” yelled Gutsy to Gazette, hefting a grenade from his pack, from the bottom of which projected a stick. “Rifle grenade.”
“Not from my rifle you don’t,” said Gazette. “Bugger up your own bore.”
“Well there’s nothing to lose now, is there?” said Gutsy inserting the shaft of the stick into the barrel of his rifle. He put the stock of the rifle butt against the ground and aimed the barrel towards an opening on the far side of the chamber, through which Chatts were swarming. He pulled the safety pin from the grenade and then pulled the trigger. The bomb arced across the chamber and exploded within the ranks of Chatts, shredding body limbs in a hail of shrapnel. Showers of dust and debris rained down from the chamber ceiling.
“Bloody hell, Gutsy, you’ll bring the whole place down on top of us,” said Pot Shot.
The tremors grew stronger and a deep rumble filled the chamber.
“That wasn’t me,” he protested.
The Chatts wavered uncertainly, their leader — Rhengar — holding them in line as the rumbling continued. To the Tommies’ left, the wall began to crack and crumble before exploding out into the chamber with a tremendous roar as the great bulk of an armoured beast crashed through it.
It was the Ironclad, Ivanhoe, covered in the dust and dirt of shattered earthen walls as it rolled implacably forward. It came to a halt, its engines growling and filling the chamber with acrid exhaust fumes, its great six-pounder guns trained on the ranks of Chatt soldiers. Light from the breached wall behind it filtered through the settling dust, bathing the tank in an ethereal glow.
A cheer went up the from the Tommies, while the Khungarrii hissed and backed away from the terrible vision before them, sinking down on their long-limbed legs, cowering as if in obeisance to the enormous beast.
“Skarra,” hissed Chandar, also sinking down.
“Skarra?” said Everson.
“God of the Underearth. Dung Beetle Brother to GarSuleth himself, who takes the dead and guides them through their last metamorphosis so that they can rise and dwell in the sky web of GarSuleth forever.”
Another rumble filled the air. Everson looked up at the roof and, in that moment, Chandar saw its chance and scuttled back along the wall behind the line of Tommies to the hole through which they’d entered, now covered by another cohort of Chatts.
“Sir!” said Hobson, swinging his rifle round to follow the limping arthropod.
“No, let him go, Hobson,” said Everson. “Best save your bullets. We might need ’em.”
Safe, Chandar turned, and its eyes met Atkins’, who stared back wonderingly before the scentirrii parted and the old Chatt was lost in the swarm.
“Follow the bloomin’ light,” yelled a face peering out from a loophole in the side of the ironclad. A hand pointed needlessly to the gaping hole behind the landship.
Everson ordered the men towards the breach, the nurses and injured going first while a burst of fire from the landship’s forward machine gun kept the Chatts at bay. Everson and 1 Section kept the retreat covered, before abandoning their position and falling back to the tank. The confused Chatts, hampered by their superstition, held back.
Everson banged on the small door in the rear of the left gun sponson. It opened a crack. “You’re not coming in. There ain’t room!” the leather and chain-mail masked crew member retorted.