Another War

Chapter Seven

They found one soldier in the shadow of the workshop wall. He was just standing, swaying slightly backwards and forwards, holding his rifle loosely in his arms. The rain fell on him as it did everyone else.

Thacker motioned for his troop to halt, then approached the man slowly. He swung a borrowed torch around until he found the man’s name tag.

‘Patterson? Easy son.’

He got close enough and reached out to take the gun from Patterson’s unresisting grip. Slowly, the squaddie became aware of the officer, and that he wasn’t wearing a respirator. He slid back his hood, and unbuckled his own rubber mask.

‘It got Gary, sir.’

He pointed at three separate shapes on the ground down by the paint-peeled kitchen door.

Thacker dispatched two men to investigate. They got within a few feet, and recoiled in horror.

‘Sir, he’s in pieces.’

Thacker walked over, shining his torch. There was a head, together with part of the right shoulder. There was a torso, one arm attached, one arm not. And there were the legs. As if the body was a statue, and dropped to the ground.

Or perhaps frozen.

‘Patterson? Did you see what did this?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Was it like an octopus that walked on its legs?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, much to the consternation of the others.

‘Did you hit it?’

‘It’s over by the wall, sir. I just kept on firing. I don’t think there’s much of it left.’

A cluster of torch beams darted to the wall, picking out the gouges in the brickwork and the dark splatter that was still dripping in sticky strands to the ground. Thacker drew his pistol, chambered the first round, and advanced.

It was there, in the angle between dirt and building. It looked like an explosion in a python’s nest. There were thick, ropy tentacles coiled this way and that, joined by thin shreds of dark, rancorous flesh where its head had been. It looked very dead.

‘Someone keep an eye on this.’ He waited until a couple of rifles had been trained on the remains, then went to inspect the soldier.

The man’s protective suit was covered in a veneer of ice, and where the body had broken, he could see layers like tree rings: clothes, skin, flesh, bone.

‘What happened to him?’ asked someone.

Thacker knew, but didn’t tell. He looked around and saw a corporal standing nearby. ‘You, man.’

‘Sir?’

‘Take charge. Stand right here, in a circle, facing out, away from the buildings as best you can. Patterson, reload and come with me.’

Almost in a dream-like state, Patterson wandered over, and Thacker shook him hard.

‘Time for nightmares later. Right now, we’ve got a job to do.’ Still holding onto his arm, Thacker dragged him around the front of the building to the main doors. He shouted to the pair of guards on duty there: ‘Radio. Get the Warrior down here, along with every last man who can carry a weapon. Break out the anti-tank rockets and grenades.’

Patterson stumbled along behind him. ‘Sir? What’s happening, sir?’

‘I think we’re being invaded.’ He deposited the man with the guards and flipped out his mobile phone. It rang and rang, and finally:

‘Dickson.’

‘Thacker. We have a situation.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Ankhani. Lost one man, sentry killed it.’

Dickson was silent while he digested the information. ‘You think there’s more?’

‘Pound to a penny there are. I’m taking up defensive positions around the house, and if I get the chance, I’m taking out the machine.’

‘You mustn’t do that. That machine is of paramount importance.’

‘That’s how they’re getting through, and I’m going to shut it down, one way or another.’

‘No.’

‘And while you’re there, tell the PM to keep the nuclear option open.’

‘Don’t touch the machine, Thacker. Do you hear me?’

‘Try and stop me.’ He flicked the phone shut and ignored the immediate call back. ‘Radio, now.’

One was pressed into his hands.

‘Comms. I want you to get on to Whitehall, find the most senior officer on duty, and tell him I need men, ammunition, tanks, artillery, gunships and ground attack aircraft. With a bit of luck they might offer us a platoon or two.’

There were soldiers, white-faced, running down the drive. The Warrior had lumbered to life, as had a couple of four-ton trucks and a Land Rover. Their headlights were bright and sharp. They hurt Thacker’s eyes and ruined his night vision. He turned away, blinking.

‘Move fifty yards out. We’ll dig in there and set up a firing line.’ As he spoke, he saw thick grey ropes snake out around the front door, feeling its weight before opening it. He shot at the door, and the tentacles rushed back inside. ‘Run.’

The four of them ran towards their own advancing line. There were shouts for them to duck, to get out of the way, but Thacker urged those with him on until he thought he’d covered enough ground.

‘Down and turn. Fire at will. Aim for the heads.’

And now he could see why the soldiers behind him were so desperate. Ankhani, bloated ichor-filled sacs with glittering eyes, were bounding on their sinuous grey limbs towards him, closing the distance with a tremendous rush of speed. A dozen, two dozen, more, were charging him, spraying black mud in a storm around them.

He was momentarily transfixed, lying on the sodden ground, feeling the moisture wick up beneath him and the rain fall on his back. He heard the man next to him click his rifle to automatic, and the roar of gunfire.

The muzzle flashes were sparks of flame, the empty cases a red-hot cascade of metal that sang over his head. Thacker came to, and tried to pick his targets.

The Ankhani burst and fell, their fragile heads ripped apart by the force of the bullets. As more men lay in the mud and aimed their rifles, the noise grew from singular pops and individual rasps of gunfire into a continuous bellow of rage.

Still they came, pouring through the front doors. The Warrior trained its cannon there and fired until it ran out of shells.

Thacker retreated from the front line, ordering a dozen men to support those by the kitchen door. Some wise sergeant was issuing fresh clips of ammunition before they were needed.

Two men lifted a fat green crate from one of the trucks.

‘Those the missiles?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Do you know how to operate them?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Get the lid off.’

Thacker picked up an armful and moved to clear ground. The soldier extended the firing tube, flipped up the sights.

‘Take out the doors.’

The soldier’s colleague checked behind. ‘All clear.’

The air shivered, and the missile shrieked towards the Hall, propelled by a shaft of light. It disappeared inside, and a moment later, a flash, a rumble, and the front doors pinwheeled away.

‘Next target. First floor, leftmost window.’

The soldier was supplied with a fresh launcher.

‘All clear.’

The western edge of the Hall fell on itself. Slates flew from the roof like demented bats.

‘Again,’ said Thacker.

This time, the outer wall threw itself to the ground in a collapsing sheet of brickwork. Timbers split and floors fell. A blizzard of debris spilled out.

‘Good. Now, the banqueting hall.’

The missile there ignited the great pile of wood. Ruddy light began to dance through the windows of Henbury Hall.

The torrent of creatures had slowed to a trickle. Every time one appeared, it was immediately cut down by a hail of bullets to subside in a quivering, pulsating heap.

The fire took hold quickly and hard through the bone dry and desiccated building. It burned so fiercely and thoroughly that Thacker had to pull his troops back twice. Shapes, twisting and writhing, could be seen in the flames.

The gunfire died away, stopping of its own accord. Some men got to their feet, staring into the heat. Others lay their heads down and pressed their cheeks into the slick mud.

Thacker checked. No one had died.

‘I suppose,’ said Henbury by his ear, ‘I should be upset to see it go.’

‘How did you get out?’

‘I walked. One of the medics leant me these crutches.’

‘Someone’s going to be on a charge.’ Thacker turned back to the blazing house. ‘It was almost easy.’

‘Only because you had the men and the weapons. Before, there was me and Adams, a pistol and a shotgun. Not so easy, then. If we’d had a regiment and half a dozen gatling guns, I rather think we’d have made a go of it.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. My apologies. God, but they’re ugly.’

Henbury adjusted his grip on the elbow crutches, his hands still getting used to the plastic handles on the aluminium frame. ‘You used rockets. At the machine.’

‘I’ve tried to destroy it. I might even have succeeded. I’m rather assuming they hadn’t thought of anti-tank rounds in Pharaoh’s day.’

The house growled and shifted. A rush of sparks lifted up into the night sky, winking out one by one.

‘Still, it’s getting a good roasting,’ said Henbury.

‘Yes. Tempting to get out the marshmallows, but I shall have to organise my troops, check how much ammunition we have left. If it had gone on much longer, we’d have been down to bayonets.’

‘You wouldn’t have wanted that.’

‘So I understand. We lost one man to those monsters, and that was one too many.’ Thacker kicked the ground. ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’ll get someone to escort you back to your tent.’

‘Can I keep the crutches?’

‘As long as you promise not to go wandering off again.’

‘You have my word.’

Thacker walked slowly away, giving orders in a quiet voice as he went. Quite enough excitement for one night, he thought.

Dickson arrived just before dawn. He got Thacker out of bed to survey the damage with him. The embers of Henbury Hall were still glowing red hot, and neither man could approach too closely. Once in a while, something settled in the ruins, releasing a puff of ash and a tongue of fire.

The out-buildings had gone up, too. Their timbers had been baked beyond combustion point by the blaze, and had spontaneously burst into flames.

The air shimmered with heat haze, incongruous on a chill, overcast morning.

‘Was it really necessary?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Thacker, suppressing a vengeful smile. ‘There were hundreds of them, and they just kept on coming. For a while, I thought we’d be overwhelmed. One touch from them, and you’re dead.’

‘So you just mowed them down, then destroyed the house.’

‘Not quite how I remember it. I had the house blown up while we were mowing them down, not after. But,’ said Thacker, ‘you weren’t here, and so didn’t see how evil they looked. You’d have put a full clip through each one even though one bullet would do. That was our problem in a nutshell. I had to stop them coming out of the hall, and ultimately, the machine, before we had to resort to hand-to-hand combat. If that had happened, you’d be looking at fifty-odd corpses and the countryside swarming with Ankhani.’

‘I’m sure I’ll read it in your report,’ said Dickson, dryly. He tried to peer through the haze. ‘That’s the west end of the house, over there?’

‘You can’t see it. It’s buried under a section of roof somewhere in that area.’

‘Good riddance, you say, I expect.’

‘Robert Henbury thought it worthwhile losing his ancestral home for the chance of taking out the machine.’

‘Really? Somehow, I couldn’t see him moving back in. Thacker, that machine was important, desperately important. They’ll want your head on the block for this. You’ll get your Court Martial papers by the end of the day, just as soon as the lawyers can work out what charges to bring.’

‘And there I was thinking they were going to give me another medal I couldn’t tell my family about.’

‘I told you the machine had to be saved.’

‘The machine was how they got into the hall in the first place. I cut off their retreat and their supply line in one fell swoop. I did go to Sandhurst, you know.’

‘You were responsible for saving the machine…’

‘I was responsible for saving the lives of my men and the civilian population of this county. If this is the way this conversation is going, I’m going to end up punching you and they really will have something to court martial me over.’ Thacker turned away for a moment, then back again. ‘You didn’t see them, coming at us like a flood, like darkness itself was trying to get us. God only knows how the line held, but not one man ran. Not one. You should be proud of them. They did their duty and more, last night.’

‘Do you know how much shit I’m going to get over this? We’ve screwed the Americans around for two days, and we’ve bugger all to show for it.’

‘Dickson, I don’t care.’

They stared at each other, waiting for someone to blink. Thacker was damned if he was going to give in, and clearly Dickson felt the same way. Eventually, they were interrupted.

‘Mr. Dickson? The fire engines you ordered are here.’

‘Right.’ He broke away. ‘Major Thacker. I think your job here is done. You and your team can head back to Porton Down.’

‘As you wish.’ Thacker couldn’t have been more glad, but it would have been bad form to show it. He turned on his heel and stalked off, every step putting a satisfying distance between him and Dickson.

They’d loaded all their instruments on the back of a truck, and packed up the Warrior with the sensitive papers. Thacker’s men were clambering aboard a second truck, when he had a sudden, perverse thought.

Inside the tent, Henbury and Adams were dozing on their cots. They hadn’t had much sleep last night, and for the everlasting night before it, trapped in the Hall in some netherworld.

‘You’ve got a choice. You can stay here with Dickson, or you can come with me. It might be that I have to hand you back at some stage, but since possession is nine-tenths of the law, I can make that as easy or as difficult as I like.’

Adams sat up, and looked at Henbury.

‘I’m not saying that I’m not going to ask you a thousand and one questions or use you as subjects in medical tests,’ continued Thacker, ‘but I will ask your permissions first.’

‘I don’t think we’ll get the same from Dickson, sir,’ said Adams.

‘I think you’re right.’ Henbury swung his leg out over the edge of the camp bed and Adams levered him upright. ‘Won’t he try and stop you?’ he asked Thacker.

‘Only if I, or someone else, tells him. And he’s busy trying to retrieve what’s left of the machine. He’ll need lifting gear. I told him there’s part of the roof on top of it.’

‘That’ll keep the cove occupied. Come on, Adams. Pass me those crutches and we’ll throw ourselves on the mercy of the Major.’

With a nod to the guards, Thacker led Henbury and Adams to his waiting Land Rover. ‘Get in.’

‘Should we lie down?’

‘Only if you want to make yourselves really uncomfortable. Trust me, you’re part of this convoy and no one wants to inspect the vehicles of a biological weapons unit. They just want to get rid of us as quickly as possible.’

Thacker jumped into the front seat, and tapped the dashboard. The driver started the engine and headed slowly towards the stretch of country road they’d driven in on.

‘Don’t look so nervous,’ said Thacker. ‘You’re supposed to be here, yes?’

Both his passengers were sweating, and looking around with sharp, bird-like movements.

They turned onto the road, and started to speed away. Down in the valley, the column of dirty smoke rising into the air was now joined by a twin of steam, as the fire engines damped down the embers.

‘Will he find it?’ asked Henbury.

‘Of course he will. Pieces of it, all over. He might even be able to put it together again, but he’ll never make it work.’

‘And if he does?’

‘We’ll shoot the Ankhani, one by one, or by the hundreds, just like we did last night. Time has marched on, gentlemen. We can destroy things now in ways you never dreamed possible.’