No Man's World: Omnibus Read online

  NO MAN'S WORLD

  OMNIBUS

  Pat Kelleher

  An Abaddon Books™ Publication

  www.abaddonbooks.com

  [email protected]

  This omnibus first published in 2015 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

  Editors: Jonathan Oliver & David Thomas Moore

  Cover art: Pye Parr

  Design: Pye Parr & Sam Gretton

  Marketing & PR: Lydia Gittins

  Publishing Manager: Ben Smith

  Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

  Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

  No Man’s World™ created by Pat Kelleher

  Black Hand Gang copyright © 2010 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

  The Ironclad Prophecy copyright © 2011 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

  The Alleyman copyright © 2011 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

  No Man’s World™, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

  US ISBN: 978-1-78108-313-0

  UK ISBN: 978-1-78108-312-3

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Acknowledgements

  Black Hand Gang Acknowledgements

  13th Battalion Pennine Fusiliers Company Personel

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Interlude One

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Interlude Two

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Interlude Three

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Interlude Four

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Interlude Five

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Ironclad Prophecy Acknowledgements

  13th Battalion Pennine Fusiliers Company Personel

  Preface

  Prologue

  Interlude One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Interlude Two

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Interlude Three

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Interlude Four

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Interlude Five

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Interlude Six

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Alleyman Acknowledgements

  13th Battalion Pennine Fusiliers Company Personel

  Preface

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Interlude One

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Interlude Two

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Interlude Three

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Interlude Four

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Interlude Five

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Glossary

  Bonus Content The Broughtonthwaite Mercury

  Harcourt Sector Map

  Harcourt Hoaxers Extract

  Fredrick Dwyer Wanted Poster

  About The Author

  INTRODUCTION

  THE HISTORY OF military science fiction is, ultimately, the history of World War I.

  Somewhere around the end of the nineteenth century, war changed. Gone was the spectacle of the massed charge, gone the honour of enemies who would share a brandy and cigar once the fighting was done. Heroism gave way to the pragmatism of modern warfare; glory was sacrificed in favour of propaganda and realpolitik. Where only a few years before war was still something to be celebrated, by the end of the Great War it had become ugly and futile.

  Leading this change was the inevitable march of technology. The First World War saw the first large-scale use of the machine gun; it witnessed the first deployment of chemical warfare; it was responsible for the invention of the tank. It industrialised warfare, reducing it to a process in which men were shipped (literally, by boat, train and truck) into a machine that converted them, at length, into land, gained by the yard, the foot or even—at its worst—by the inch, at a cost of hundreds or thousands of lives. War now dehumanised the soldiers fighting it, reducing them to a resource to spend, and—through the politics of war, as seen in the posters and newsreels at home—dehumanised the enemy, making them monsters to be exterminated.

  So we come to military science fiction. In every aspect, we see the shadow of the Great War. Technology plays centre stage, as something that both elevates and destroys the soldiers dependent on it. Men are seen as expendable, cogs in the machine, even as the stories themselves restore their humanity, showing us their small friendships and even smaller victories. And nowhere is the dehumanisation of the enemy clearer than in the insect-like enemies that dominate the genre, from the bugs of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers to the xenomorphs of the Alien movie franchise and all points in between. The insect is the antithesis of humanity, faceless, utterly alien and without ego, and its popularity as an enemy betrays how little respect we have, in the years since the First World War, for those we war on.

  Or does it? Have we ever encountered things like this before?

  IN 2014, BROUGHTONTHWAITE is a pretty little market town about half an hour off Junction 40 of the M6 (Pat tells me he prefers to take Junction 39 and enjoy the countryside). Nothing particularly marks it out as home of one of the great mysteries of the Great War; there’s a cenotaph in the cemetery and a rather smart memorial at one end of St Mary Butts, but otherwise not a lot to draw your attention to the town’s curious history. Dig a little, though, and it’s all too easy to find people willing to bend your ear; ask some of the old soaks at the Dog and Gun and they won’t shut up about it.

  Pat’s got a family connection to the town—his maternal grandmother was born here—and so when we approached him about a WWI-era science fiction, he asked if he could use the Harcourt Crater as the basis of his story. We sa
id sure, if that’s what he wanted—obviously there was a concern that he might be maligning the memories of dead men, but he was working with and had the support of the community—but it’s only since I started reading and fact-checking his work that I found out a little about it. It’s really quite fascinating stuff, and but for how little there is out there about it—no-one’s completely sure how many documents survive, or who has them, or who’s been ordered to cover what up—I’d say you should dig into it yourself. Fortunately, Pat’s done it so you don’t have to.

  ASIDE FROM BEING a singularly exhaustive and insightful record of what little is known of the fate of the Broughtonthwaite Mates of the Pennine Fusiliers, No Man’s World is a beautifully written work. Even before you get to the terrible splendour of the alien world and the fascinating richness of Chatt culture, Pat’s loving descriptions of trench life pull you in and hit you hard; by the time I reached the jump, I almost wanted to go back and just read about life in the Somme a little longer. If that were all the books had going for them, I’d urge you to pick this omnibus up for that alone.

  But the world that poor Tommy Atkins and his chums land on is the star of the show. The plants that kill and eat you, petrol fruit, battlepillars, Chatts, the worship of GarSuleth and his Sky Web; once you sadly put the trench chapters behind you, you enter a rich, wonderful tapestry that’ll stay with you for years.

  SO THERE YOU go. History of military-SF, secret true history, alien exploration, war poetry of a sort. No Man’s World is all these things, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed working on them.

  David Thomas Moore

  Oxford

  December 2014

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  THE STORY OF the ‘Broughtonthwaite Mates’ could not have been told without the help of a good many people. Firstly, I must thank the members of the Broughtonthwaite Historical Society, who patiently answered my endless queries. I’m also grateful to the estate of the late Arthur Cooke for permission to reprint an extract from his seminal book on the subject, The Harcourt Crater: Hoax or Horror? and to Paul Morley, editor of The Broughtonthwaite and District Mercury for permission to reprint material from their archives. Many thanks to my editors, Jon Oliver, Jenni Hill and David Moore for their inspirational input and enthusiasm. Thanks, too, to Pye Parr whose covers have never been anything less than amazing, and to Ben Smith, Lydia Gittins and Michael Molcher at Abaddon Books for their continued support in championing the cause of the Pennine Fusiliers. I must also thank Mike Wild and Faye Joy, who kindly read early drafts and made many helpful suggestions. And my heartfelt thanks to my wife Penny for her love and encouragement. To those descendants of the missing Fusiliers who helped my research, I can only express my gratitude and the hope that, as the centenary of the Pennine’s disappearance approaches, we are closer to uncovering the truth behind the fate of the ‘Broughtonthwaite Mates.’

  Pat Kelleher

  Broughtonshaw

  December 2014

  BLACK HAND GANG

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I WOULD LIKE to thank: Jean Spencer of the Broughtonthwaite Genealogical Society without whom I would never have stumbled across this story in the first place. I am also grateful to Bill Merchant of the Broughtonthwaite Real Ale Society for an insight into the history of Everson’s Brewery and the Everson family in particular. I am extraordinarily indebted to Arthur Cooke, author of The Harcourt Crater: Hoax or Horror? for access to his own private collection of documents, letters and diaries pertaining to the incident and especially to surviving footage from the original Hepton film. I would also like to thank the Moore Family for their permission to view the letters and diary of Private Garside. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Stephen Maugham, secretary of the Broughtonthwaite Historical Society for his enthusiasm and tireless work in tracing original documentation. I should also thank Graham Bassett and the staff of The Pennine Fusiliers Regimental Museum for providing me with exhaustive details on the deployment and movements of the “Broughtonthwaite Mates” prior to November 1916 and whose otherwise polite refusals to supply further information only served to confirm and bolster my own research. I am also grateful to Sarah Purser of the Jodrell Bank Press Office and to Michael Wild for agreeing to discuss, over a pint of Everson’s Old Fusilier, the speculations still surrounding the Harcourt event. Special thanks must also go to Jim Sherman of the War Museum of the North’s Photographic Department and Mike McCulloch of the Broughtonthwaite and District Mercury in attempting to identify soldiers and individuals appearing in the Hepton footage. I would also like to thank my wife, Penny, for her continued support, encouragement and long hours transcribing interviews. Finally, I must also pay tribute to those descendants of the men of 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers who spoke to me privately for fear of ridicule and censure.

  Any errors in this book are entirely the responsibility of the author.

  Pat Kelleher

  13th BATTALLION

  PENNINE FUSILIERS

  COMPANY PERSONEL

  Company HQ

  CO: Major Julian Wyndam Hartford-Croft

  2CO: Captain Bernard Edward Grantham

  Company Sergeant Major Ernest Nelson

  Company Quartermaster Sergeant Archibald Slacke

  Pte. Jonah Cartwright (batman)

  Pte. Charlie Garside (batman)

  Royal Army Chaplain: Father Arthur Rand (CF4, ‘Captain’)

  War Office Kinematographer, Oliver Hepton

  2nd Lieutenant Henry Talbot, Battalion HQ, military conductor

  ‘C’ Company

  No 1 Platoon

  CO: Lieutenant Morgan

  No. 2 Platoon

  CO: 2nd Lieutenant J. C. Everson

  2CO: Platoon Sergeant Herbert Gerald Hobson

  1 Section

  IC: Lance Sergeant William Jessop

  2IC: Corporal Harry Ketch

  Pte. Thomas ‘Only’ Atkins

  Pte. Harold ‘Gutsy’ Blood

  Pte. Wilfred Joseph ‘Mercy’ Evans

  Pte. George ‘Porgy’ Hopkiss

  Pte. Leonard ‘Pot Shot’ Jellicoe

  Pte. James ‘Lucky’ Livesey

  Pte. ‘Ginger’ Mottram

  Pte. Henry ‘Half Pint’ Nicholls

  Pte. David Samuel ‘Gazette’ Otterthwaite

  No. 3 Platoon

  CO: Lieutenant Holmes

  No. 4 Platoon

  CO: Lieutenant Gilbert W. Jeffries

  2CO: Platoon Sergeant Fredrick Dixon

  RAMC

  Regimental Aid Post

  RMO: Captain Grenville Lippett

  Red Cross Nurses

  Sister Betty Fenton

  Sister Edith Bell

  Driver Nellie Abbot (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry)

  Machine Gun Corps (Heavy Section) ‘I’ Company

  I-5 HMLS Ivanhoe

  CO: 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Alexander Mathers

  Pte. Wally Clegg (Driver)

  Pte. Frank Nichols (Gearsman)

  Pte. Alfred Perkins (Gearsman)

  Pte. Norman Bainbridge (Gunner)

  Pte. Reginald Lloyd (Gunner)

  Pte. Cecil Nesbit (Gunner)

  Pte. Jack Tanner (Gunner)

  D Flight 70 Squadron: Sopwith 1½ Strutter

  Lieutenant James Robert Tulliver (Pilot)

  Lieutenant Ivor Hodgeson (Observer)

  For Scott and Callum

  PREFACE

  “There was a Front, but damned if we knew where...”

  THE HARCOURT CRATER is one of the greatest mysteries of World War One, along with the Angel of Mons, the Phantom Archers and the Crucified Canadian. At nearly half a mile wide, it was reputed to be the largest man-made crater on the Western Front. The official explanation was that German mines dug under the British positions in the Harcourt Sector of the Somme were filled with an experimental high explosive before being detonated on the morning of November 1st 1916, resulting in the loss of over nine hundred men of the 13th Battalion of the Pen
nine Fusiliers.

  Indeed, this was the accepted explanation until nearly a decade after the event, when a French farmer ploughing fields which lay along the old front line dug up several mud-encrusted old film canisters and a package of documents. Inside the canisters were reels of film which, when developed, revealed silent, grainy footage of British Tommies seemingly on an alien world. The film itself was shown to great acclaim in Picture Houses around the world and it became a minor sensation. Although there were those who claimed they could identify faces in the footage, in the end most felt it to be it a hoax.

  The success of the film nevertheless engendered an appetite for Space Fiction among the general public that persisted for decades; the film’s grainy, iconic images inspiring thousands of lurid sci-fi magazine covers and pulp fiction stories.

  My research further revealed rumours that the Government had approached the noted inventor Nikola Tesla, who had earlier claimed to have received extraterrestrial radio signals, to try to construct a device for contacting the lost men, but without any apparent success. The government of the day quietly closed the case. They officially declared the whole incident to be a “meticulously planned hoax” and it was consigned to the annals of British folklore, although documents believed to include letters and journals from the men of the 13th were discreetly returned to the families. Some eventually found their way into the hands of private collectors, where I had a chance to view them.

  The original film stock from the canisters, I was disappointed to discover, did not fare as well as the letters. It was stored badly and the unstable silver nitrate composition of the film strips meant that in many cases the film decomposed, although some was salvaged and incomplete footage does still exist.

  For a while, the Battalion War Diary, recovered with the film and allegedly detailing the Battalion’s life and actions on another world, was relegated to the stacks in the Regimental Museum and was surreptitiously ‘misplaced,’ having been considered an embarrassment and a stain upon the regiment’s proud history.