Red Devils

13

When Isambard Gray, seventh Earl of Pocklington, had commissioned the building of this extravagant stately home in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, he could hardly have envisaged what he’d find there today. His grand yet idyllic country retreat, constructed well off the beaten track, was alive with activity. The grounds of the manor, beautifully tended and immaculately coiffured during peacetime, were now fulfilling a far more practical purpose. Several of the vast lawns had been dug over for the cultivation of vegetables on an almost industrial scale. Others now resembled great tented villages; makeshift barracks and temporary field hospitals and training grounds. There were aircraft and other military vehicles hidden in the shadows, draped with tarpaulins which, every so often, would be hurriedly pulled back to allow a swift launch from an improvised airfield. A squad of new recruits jogged through the middle of the organised chaos in their mid-splattered PE kit; shirt and shorts, pale white legs redraw with cold.

Wilkins had mixed feelings whenever he returned here. It was good to be back in England, that much was certain, but Pocklington Hall was only ever a staging point – a place where he was debriefed, then re-briefed (although he’d already been questioned at length by a fellow agent on the way here). It was hard at times, but everyone had to do their bit. Wilkins forced himself to focus on the end-game to keep him going. He imagined a future time when this damn war would be over. A future he could share with Jocelyn. Maybe they’d settle down somewhere and bring up a couple of children together. Strange that such a seemingly normal plan felt out of reach today, like a naïve fantasy. There was much work to be done before then. Many mountains to climb. It was also funny, he thought, how nervous he felt when he knew Jocelyn was near. More anxious, sometimes, than when he’d been in battle.

The jeep he’d been travelling in for the last hour or so was a tired old jalopy. Damn noisy, too. The track along which they were now driving was pot-holed and uneven, worn away as a result of the heavy military equipment which had been dragged up and down here so many times in recent months. The din and his nerves and his lack of sleep combined to leave him feeling uncomfortably nauseous. What he’d have given for a few more hours sleep before having to face the colonel. There was little chance he’d get even another five minutes shuteye today.

The winter morning sun was beginning to climb over the treeline, bathing the English countryside in a warm yellow-orange glow, long shadows stretching. The jeep came to an abrupt halt outside the ornate entrance to the manor house, wheels crunching in gravel. The driver – Teddy Jones, an unfailingly cheerful Brummie chap – let him out. Wilkins looked to see if he could risk disappearing around the back of the building for a quick cigarette first, but no such luck. Wilberforce, that lily-livered fool, was already waiting for him at the top of the steps. ‘Wilkins,’ he shouted down. ‘Good to see you, old boy. The colonel’s waiting.’

‘Now there’s a surprise,’ Wilkins mumbled as he smoothed his hair then brushed dirt from his sleeve before begrudgingly saluting. ‘And how’s the war been treating you, Wilberforce? Not caught any enemy troops hiding in your filing cabinet?’

‘Ease off, old boy. Not my fault I’ve got a dicky ticker. Now let’s not dawdle, you know what Colonel Adams is like if he’s kept waiting.’

‘Quite.’

Wilkins overtook Wilberforce and marched through the manor. He’d no time for the nervous, cowardly little man. That speck of Belgian mud I’ve just flicked from my sleeve has seen more action than you, he thought but didn’t say. Wilberforce, an infuriating pen-pusher, was a mummy’s boy. And when mummy was as well-connected socially as Lady Brenda Wilberforce, getting yourself diagnosed with a plausible medical excuse so you could stay safe in middle-England, far from the front line, was a cinch.

The manor was heaving with people. A veritable hive of activity. A grand, wide, sweeping oak-carved staircase went up, but Wilkins and Wilberforce went down, taking a dingier and far narrower staircase tucked away in one corner instead. At the foot of the stairs was a grey metal door, guarded on either side. Two stony-faced privates saluted and stepped aside, one of them opening the door to allow the officers through.

For all that was happening above ground level, there seemed to be ten-times that activity unfolding underground. The space below the manor house was immense: a vast, cavernous room filled with the low chatter of hundreds of people hard at work. Artificial yellow light barely filled the place, the fug of cigarette smoke limiting visibility even further.

In the very centre of the room, under the largest, brightest light, was a table-top map of the unfolding war in Europe. Several Wrens pushed markers representing troops, tanks and supplies around the map, informed by others with notes taken from the most recent radioed reports from around the world. Wilkins’ attention was automatically drawn to the area around the Ardennes. The German offensive was marked out in a large bulge coming from the east. The allies clearly had a huge task ahead of them. As well as the Nazi army, they were also having to contend with the ever-increasing forces of the undead, which were represented on the map by the same model tanks and soldiers, daubed with bright yellow paint. Wilkins found it disconcerting just how much yellow paint he could see. It wouldn’t be long before there was more yellow than anything.

Colonel Adams’ distinctive, bellicose voice boomed across the operations room. ‘Lieutenant Wilkins.’

Wilkins turned and saluted the colonel, then followed him into his office.

No time for niceties. ‘Shut the door,’ the colonel ordered.

‘Yes, sir,’ Wilberforce said.

‘And do me a favour, Wilberforce?’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Be on the other side of it when it closes, there’s a good chap.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Wilberforce said again, sounding crestfallen, and he obediently shut himself out.

‘I really can’t abide that man,’ the colonel said. He gestured for Wilkins to sit down on a desperately uncomfortable wooden chair, then poured him a tumbler of whiskey and slid it across the desk.

‘It’s a little early, Colonel.’

‘Believe me, it’s not. Drink.’

Rather than sit down, the colonel instead perched on the corner of his desk and looked down on Wilkins with the intensity of a displeased schoolmaster. There was a brief, awkward silence which the colonel quickly ended. ‘Well? Are you just going to sit there all day, Wilkins, or are you going to give me your assessment of what you saw out there?’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s all been a bit of a blur.’ And he knocked back his whiskey in one.

‘I’m sure it has, but things are going to get a damn sight worse if we don’t take action. Now tell me, are things out there really as bad as I’m being led to believe.’

‘No, sir, they’re worse. Much worse.’

‘How so?’

‘This new foe we’re facing is like no other. They are already dead. This makes them both fearless and largely indestructible. And when people are killed by this unearthly new enemy, regardless of which side they were originally batting for, they all turn.’

The colonel thought for a moment and poured himself another drink. ‘I’d already heard as much. You’ve been on the ground though, Wilkins. I want your fullest and frankest assessment of the situation.’

‘It’s grim, sir. Getting worse by the day. By the hour, actually.’

‘And how do you see things panning out?’

‘I’m no strategist and I—’

‘What’s your gut feeling, Lieutenant?’

‘Follow the logic of this scenario through, Colonel.’

‘Logic?’

‘Quite. But consider the facts. The dead have extraordinary resilience and aggression and the curse which has blighted them is contagious. There will inevitably come a point when they outnumber the living.’

‘That’s what I feared.’

‘I foresee there being a tipping point, perhaps not too far away, when the living become the minority. Then, eventually, we’ll disappear altogether.’

The colonel knocked back his second drink. ‘Damn those bloody Nazis,’ he yelled, and he thumped his fist down onto the desk, filling the small office with noise.

‘It’s not completely hopeless, sir.’

‘It certainly sounds that way.’

‘You’ve heard about Polonezköy? The camp where the germ at the source of this outbreak was developed.’

‘I’ve read the report.’

‘Then you’ll also know one of the scientists responsible is imprisoned there.’

‘Yes, and since we received your intelligence we’ve been able to confirm he hasn’t left the camp. In fact, no one’s entered or left the camp in some time, by all accounts.’

‘It strikes me that scientist is our best hope. Perhaps our only hope.’

‘I completely agree, Wilkins. You leave at midnight.’

‘Sir?’

‘You heard me. Come on, man, did you really think I could send anyone else? You’ve experience of dealing with these ghouls first-hand.’

‘But sir, I do think there are other men who are better equipped to—’

‘Dammit, Wilkins, you’re going and that’s all there is to it. You wouldn’t have been my first choice, granted, but as of this morning you’re just about my only choice. There may have been better men, braver men, but…’

‘Sir?’

‘But they’re dead. Some of them dead twice over. Only two of you made it back, and you’re the only one still alive. I need you to accompany the team heading for Polonezköy. The fate of our country is at stake here.’

Wilkins stood up slowly, his body weighed down with fatigue and resignation. He was about to leave but he stopped, concerned by something the colonel had said. ‘Two of us made it back?’

‘What?’

‘You said two of us made it back. Who was the other?’

‘Raymond Mills. Good chap.’

‘I know him. Where is he?’

The colonel paused, and Wilkins began to feel increasingly uneasy. He wasn’t being told the whole story here, that much was clear. Colonel Adams picked up on his uncertainty. ‘Come with me.’

Another staircase leading even farther down, deep below Pocklington Hall. Another guarded door in a place where there shouldn’t have been a door at all. The guard saluted and stood aside.

On the other side of the door, a well-lit room. Small and square, no more than four yards wide and long. At the far end, a hastily-built ante-room. No door. A metal grille two bricks wide by three high. ‘Get me some light in there,’ the colonel ordered. A switch was flicked, and Wilkins peered inside.

Raymond Mills was dead. His uniform torn to shreds, his exposed skin equally damaged. His face was a hideous shadow of the man Wilkins remembered: a cruel caricature of a once brave and proud soldier. Mills’ eyes were at once completely devoid of emotion yet full of anger and hate. When he saw Wilkins and the colonel on the other side of the grille, he threw himself at them and began to fight viciously and pointlessly, trying to get at them.

‘Good God,’ Wilkins said.

‘Poor bastard. He was caught by one of those things just as he was getting on the plane, but by all accounts no one noticed until it was too late.’

Wilkins’ mind was racing. How had they managed to get the infected officer down here? Had anyone else come into contact with him? ‘You have to get rid of him, sir. Burn him, I suggest. It’s necessary to bludgeon the head first to incapacitate him, then burn what’s left to be sure the infection can’t be spread.’

‘It’s perfectly safe, Wilkins. We’ve had our best men dealing with him. There’s no way he can escape.’

‘Then what’s the point of keeping him in this pitiful state?’

‘To study. You’re a decent soldier, but you’re no scientist. Our chaps tell me they need to see one of these things close-up to work out what we’re dealing with. Mills fell into our lap at just the right moment.’

‘There is no right moment…’

‘I understand your concern, but there’s no way out. He’s bricked in, for goodness sake.’

‘And how did you keep him restrained while the brickwork was complete?’ Wilkins asked.

‘He was shackled to the wall.’

‘Well he’s not now,’ he observed as his dead colleague threw himself at the metal grille again.

‘No, there was an incident with his right hand, I believe. But he is completely trapped. He doesn’t have the strength to break through brick walls.’

‘What kind of incident?’

The colonel seemed reluctant. ‘He chewed through his own wrist to get free.’

‘Christ… And you expect me to believe he won’t get out? Have you stopped to consider the implications? Just by having him here you’ve introduced the germ to England. If he should get lose then we’re all done for…’

‘He won’t get out,’ Colonel Adams said, his tone increasingly short. ‘My people know what they’re doing here, Wilkins, and I’ll have nothing bad said of them. They’ll do what’s asked of them and all I expect of you is that you follow your orders, and those orders are to break into Polonezköy camp, find this bloody scientist, get him out of there and deliver him to us alive. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Glad to hear it. Now get yourself some food and some rest. You don’t have long.’

‘Sir.’

‘There’s a hell of a lot riding on this mission, Wilkins. Far more than you probably appreciate.’