No Man's World: Omnibus Read online

  There was a confused chatter as everyone suddenly attempted to talk over each other, each speculating on what it was they expected to find; certainly nothing to which the British Empire was not an equal.

  “Gentlemen, please,” said Jeffries. “This is all idle speculation. There is no point in raising false hopes at the moment though, as Captain Lippett so rightly states, it is something we should keep an eye out for. And when I’m up in Lieutenant Tulliver’s machine I shall certainly endeavour to seek such signs as will assuage your doubts.”

  UNDER THE COVERING watch of a Lewis machine gun section, 1 Section had pulled the Sopwith out onto the plain and had spent an hour trying to beat some kind of take-off strip from the tubular undergrowth there. They’d managed to clear about a hundred yards or so and hoped it would be enough. Tulliver walked the strip wincing and sucking in breath through his teeth. The ground was bumpier than he’d wished. Ideally he’d have the AMs fill the pot holes, but here that wasn’t going to be possible, at least not this time. Maybe he’d have a word with the infantry captain.

  Tulliver and Jeffries climbed aboard the Sopwith. Tulliver had checked it out earlier. There was about half a tank of fuel left. Quite what he’d do then, he didn’t know.

  “We won’t be going too high today,” said Tulliver. “But you’ll have to be prepared to use the machine gun. We don’t know what kind of flying creatures are up there.”

  “Oh don’t worry about me,” said Jeffries. “I’m sure I can handle myself.”

  “Well, bear in mind you’re going to have to stand to fire and there’s no safety harness. Contact!”

  A private swung the propeller around. It juddered to a halt. He seized the blade in his hands and swung down again. The engine caught. “Chocks!” Two more soldiers pulled the makeshift blocks away from the wheels and the aeroplane began to inch forward as if impatient to get into the air and be free of the heavy, lumpen earth. It began to bounce clumsily across the uneven plain. The jarring stopped as the wheels left the ground. Tulliver pulled back on the stick and angled the nose up as the ground dropped away. He peeled to the right and flew over the pat of Somme mud as he climbed. He was excited to be in the air again. Only here did he feel he could be himself. Over on the horizon he could make out a line of thick black clouds as he reached a thousand feet and the world below began to take on a familiar maplike feel. Far from feeling alienated by this wondrous new landscape, up here he felt as if he were in the company of an old friend. He began looking for conspicuous landmarks; the flashes of sunlight off water caught his eyes. He looked down and saw a ribbon of silver a mile or so from the brown stain of the Somme. He turned to Jeffries behind him and pointed down. “A river!” he bawled over the sound of the wind and the engine.

  Jeffries formed his finger and forefinger into an ‘O.’ Tulliver thought that a little odd. He’d only met a couple of other people that had used that specific gesture. Most just used thumbs up. One was an American flying with the Escadrille Lafayette, the other, more recently, was that Artillery officer, what was his name?

  “Are you sure we haven’t met?” he yelled over the engine’s roar. “You seem familiar! Do you know a chap named Hibbert?”

  Jeffries shook his head and Tulliver shrugged, but couldn’t dismiss entirely the feeling he knew the man from somewhere. He turned the machine and from their vantage point, the circle of Somme was sat near the head of a wide valley, enclosed by hills on three sides. On one side of the valley stretched a large forest. Beyond it lay a large plain bounded by a range of hills. The silver ribbon of water ran down from the hills and threaded itself through the forest before reappearing on the plain. If it was coming down from the hills maybe it led to some sort of—

  There was a tap on his shoulder. He wiped away the oil spray that was beginning to mist his goggles and glanced back over his shoulder, Jeffries pointed down. Tulliver tilted the wings so he could see a herd of tall, three-legged creatures moving across the plain. That’s when he noticed the shadow ripple over the ground and pass over his machine. He immediately pulled up and banked so he could look around. He pointed up, indicating that Jeffries, who was sat behind the wings and had a better view, should look around. Then he saw it. A great shape above them like a flying manta ray, but it had hind legs with large talons and a long neck that ended in a small head with a wide mouth, displaying sharp teeth. It was easily bigger than the Sopwith and with claws and teeth like those could rip the aeroplane to shreds if it got close. It had obviously been following the herd of whatever-they-were and saw the Sopwith as a territorial intruder. It came at them from the side. Tulliver hoped Jeffries was on the ball. He was. Standing up in his seat he swung the Hotchkiss machine gun round and opened fire. The creature closed its wings momentarily and dropped out of sight below them.

  Damn. He couldn’t afford to let it get beneath them.

  “Hang on!” he yelled to Jeffries. Tulliver banked sharply and spun down in a wide spiral looking for the creature. It reared up almost immediately in front of them.

  “Hellfire!”

  He pressed the fire buttons on his machine gun, spitting lead and tracer bullets at the beast. It let out a long, pained cry and vanished over the top of the machine as Tulliver pushed the stick forwards sending the aeroplane into a shallow dive. As the creature passed overhead Jeffries fired, raking its body with a line of bullets that left it spurting a bluish viscous liquid.

  “Go round!” yelled Jeffries. Tulliver banked, keeping the wounded creature within the circle of his turn. Jeffries kept it in his sights and let off another couple of bursts, one ripping through the membranous wings, another shot hitting it in its head, exploding the skull. The lifeless beast plummeted from the air, the drag from its wings sending it careening into a drunken tumble.

  “Calloo Callay!” Jeffries yelled triumphantly as he leaned over the lip of the cockpit to watch the dead beast crash into the plain with an explosion of blood and offal.

  Tulliver, wary of any more of the creatures, was eager to get down.

  “Have you got enough?” he shouted.

  “Yes, it’s dead!”

  “No, have you got enough information for the map?”

  JEFFRIES TURNED, SAT back down in his seat and pulled out the clipboard. He marked the stream and the forest. He’d seen no sign of cultivation or farming, no patchwork of fields, no smoke, which was vaguely disappointing. He nodded emphatically and gave his ringed okay sign to Tulliver, who turned the aeroplane about and headed back up the valley towards the muddy charnel field they had to call home for the present.

  As he did so, Jeffries caught a glimpse of something gleaming in the far distance across the plain, as if it had caught the light from this world’s sun. He struggled to turn around and see. He could have sworn he saw some sort of huge spire far off, almost smeared into obscurity by the intervening aerial perspective of the atmosphere. The machine bucked on a pocket of air as it descended and dropped heavily, leaving Jeffries’ stomach briefly somewhere above his head. When he looked again the fortuitous angle was lost and the spire had vanished. But it had nevertheless ignited a gleam of hope in his heart. He smiled to himself. This was one thing he wouldn’t mark on his crude, despairingly blank map. He well knew the value of information as currency. This would only strengthen his position in the long-term and, until he knew its true value, he would sit on it and let his investment accrue.

  TULLIVER CIRCLED THE field of mud as he came down and brought the machine about so that the hastily cleared green strip was ahead of him. He pulled back on the stick, opened the flaps, slowing the aeroplane down to just above stall speed, and cut the engine before they hit the ground. He saw the waiting soldiers run towards them as the Sopwith bounced and trundled to a halt.

  He tore off his flying helmet and goggles before clambering out of the cockpit. The Tommies gathered round the machine like excited schoolboys, barking questions at him and Tulliver took the opportunity to bask in the moment.

  JEFFRIES WA
S LEFT abandoned by the machine as Tulliver and the adulating scrum around him moved off. The airman had almost recognised him. Of all the damned luck to get stuck with the same pilot that took him up when he was using Hibbert as an alias. He didn’t need anyone putting the pieces together yet, he needed more time. He would have to do something. He was reaching over to put the helmet goggles and gloves back in the cockpit when he noticed the tool box in the bottom of the craft. His usual methods might attract too much attention now, but an accident? He looked back toward the mud flat. No one was about. He leant over and dragged the box towards him. Something to make sure that Tulliver didn’t come back from his next flight? Flicking the little hooked catch he opened the wooden box to reveal a jumble of tools; spanners, wrenches, screwdrivers, wire cutters. He smiled...

  INTERLUDE TWO

  Letter from Private Thomas Atkins

  to Flora Mullins

  4th November 1916

  My Dearest Flora,

  Things haven’t gone quite the way the top brass expected here so I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to post this.

  I know you must be sitting at home thinking me among the missing, too. Although we’re not so much missing, as lost. It’s the rest of the world that’s missing. What will my mother do? Both her sons among the missing. She must be heartbroken. I wish I could tell her I’m alive and well, although I’m not sure I like it here. The wildlife seems none too friendly. I thought rats and lice were bad, but they’ve got things here that put them to shame.

  I’ve been picked as part of a foraging patrol, going out into the countryside to pick fruit and berries and the like. Mercy says it sounds like a bit if a lark. It’ll make a pleasant change from digging trenches though and no mistake. With no Hun to fight, that’s all they’ve had us doing the past few days, and on rations too. I tell you, we’re all getting fed up of Maconochie and Plum and Apple here. Half Pint says we’ll end up looking like jam tins at this rate. So here’s hoping we find something edible.

  Ever yours,

  Thomas

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Death, Where is Thy Sting-a-Ling-a-Ling…”

  “GOD DAMN IT!” said Captain Lippett. It had been a bad couple of days for the surgeon. Apart from the usual round of battlefield wounds and infections there was a new rash of cases as the perils of the world about them began to make themselves known. The carcass of one of the worms was hacked up and roasted on the open ground between the supervision and support trenches, by some men who hadn’t had fresh meat in weeks. Those who ate the meat died agonising deaths in the night. It seemed from what Lippett was able to determine that the flesh was poisonous, containing some kind of toxin to which man had no immunity.

  A Lewis gun team broke out in bloody pustules after eating a variety of knobbly yellow fruit that hung full and ripe, weighing down the rustcoloured boughs in the small grove of trees near the mud perimeter. The boils proceeded to swell at an alarming rate and to a grotesque size, disfiguring the face and body until the skin became taut like a drum, causing immense pain, before bursting so that those infected were left with terrible open wounds and died of blood loss or septicaemia.

  After that the order was not to taste anything but to bring it back for the Medical Officer to conduct tests on to determine whether it was fit to eat or not.

  2 PLATOON HAD been ordered to scout out the wood that lay maybe a mile away. It was the farthest any party had yet been. Although they didn’t say it Everson could tell the men were nervous. A platoon had gone out on a search for water the previous day, following the directions garnered from Tulliver and Jeffries’ reconnaissance flight. They had lost four men to animal attacks.

  After Stand To, breakfast and parade the forty-two strong 2 Platoon headed out across the plain in Indian file. Every man had one in the spout. They all remembered the attack of the hell hounds and knew they were out here somewhere. Behind Atkins came Hepton, carrying his camera and tripod and several canisters of film in haversacks. He had asked for permission to join them, eager to record the wonders of this new world, if not the horrors, for he knew such vivid sights would sell seats. Then came Ginger, cooing happily into his gas helmet haversack in which he had stowed his new pet. Gordon’s flaccid whiskery snout poked out of the flap. Pot Shot, Gazette, Gutsy, Porgy, Half Pint and Lucky brought up the rear of the section, carrying a couple of rolled up stretchers to help carry whatever they managed to harvest. Sergeant Hobson and the other three sections of 2 Platoon followed on behind.

  Atkins felt his stomach tighten. If the entrenchments disappeared back to Blighty while they were away they would be stranded. He, and every other man in the platoon, kept glancing back anxiously until the small escarpment of the mud field was lost from sight amid the thick tube-like grass. After that, their only comfort was the distant bark of NCOs heard through the man-high fronds that now surrounded them.

  “At least if they stop we can tell that they’ve disappeared back to Blighty,” said Pot Shot.

  “Yeah, I never thought I’d be grateful for an NCO,” said Mercy, throwing a glance behind him at a sullen Corporal Ketch. Atkins watched as the edge of the forest grew closer. The fronds began to thin out and become shorter until the platoon found themselves merely wading though them, hip deep, as they approached the edge of the woods. The trees, if that was what they were, seemed to be similar to those in the odd copses they had observed growing in the vale about the entrenchment; great thick trunks that split into boughs protruding radially from the trunks and ending in large, flatish leaves.

  Those facing the sun were open. Those that faced away had closed, like inverted gentleman’s umbrellas. Some were already beginning to open in anticipation of the sun’s movement. A number of the trees vied for supremacy, some growing taller than their fellows in order to best deploy their umbrella leaves and absorb the maximum amount of sunshine. At the edge of the wood Everson called a halt. “We’re here to find food. Don’t try anything yourselves. You saw what happened to 1 Platoon. We’re just here to bring back samples of anything we find that might be edible. Captain Lippett has ways and means of testing them, so let’s leave it to him, shall we? We need to be careful in there. We don’t know what kind of wildlife we’ll find. The damned beasts we’ve found so far have been none too friendly so watch your back. Don’t take any chances. We’ve got two hours, and frankly that’s longer than I want to spend away from the trenches under the present conditions and I’m sure you all have similar concerns.”

  There were noises of agreement among the platoon.

  “Right. 4 Section will hold this position in reserve with the Lewis gun. We’ll meet back here in two hours. If you get into any danger, your NCOs have whistles. I’ll go in with 1 Section. Good hunting!” As they moved deeper into the wood, the trees they saw on the perimeter, unable to obtain enough sunlight, soon gave way to stranger vegetation. Some of this had great green tubers running down its sides, embedded in its huge thick trunks, like great veins. The trunks rose straight up, without interruption from bough or branch, into the canopy where they seemed to explode with foliage, each competing with its neighbours for the nourishing rays of the sun.

  Further in, they came across a tree, an entanglement of thorny weed wrapped around its base. Here and there the mass supported large dark red blooms. Strands of the weed climbed up the trunk, wrapping itself so tightly about it that its barbed thorns drove deep into the bark, a clear thick liquid oozing from the puncture wounds.

  “It’s like living barbed wire,” said Lucky, scuttling sideward to avoid a tendril as it moved weakly towards him.

  “What kind of hell world is this?” said Porgy, shaking his head. Even as they watched it Atkins could see this wire weed grow, spreading out feelers across the ground under some vegetable imperative he couldn’t fathom. The men skirted the slowly spreading carpet and pressed on.

  The clatter of their weapons and gear was smothered by the surrounding vegetation and, every now and again, sharp cries and calls from th
e canopy or rustles and snaps from the undergrowth startled them, but they saw nothing.

  As they advanced cautiously through the wood Everson heard something ahead. He put his hand up to hush the rest of the section.

  They stopped and cocked their heads, listening intently, fingers poised on the magazine cut-off catch on their rifles. The lieutenant beckoned them forward, a warning finger on his lip. They pushed slowly through the undergrowth until it parted to reveal a large sunlit glade. There, hopping about, feeding on close cropped grass, were a pack of Gordons. They squeaked as their furry snouts probed the ground, no doubt looking for some sort of insect or ground dwelling creature upon which they depended. In the middle of the clearing, towering over them all like some beneficent totem was a tall plant. It consisted of several stems, each as thick as an average man, entwined about each other and rising to a height of around eighteen feet. At its tip was a large bulbous yellow head and around the underside, hanging from the nodule, were small pods of varying sizes, like ripening fruits. A sweet smell hung around the glade. Atkins’ mouth began to water. “Fascinating,” said Hepton, as he fixed his camera box to the tripod and began cranking away.

  “Sir,” said Pot Shot, addressing the lieutenant. “Do you think we should try picking one of those fruits for the MO, sir?”

  “My thoughts exactly, Jellicoe,” said Everson, “once we make sure those damn creatures aren’t harmful.”