The Ironclad Prophecy (46 page)

Snorting like an obdurate old bull, the
Ivanhoe
inched forwards away from the precipice. The men cheered the ironclad on. It seemed beyond all belief that the intrepid machine could take on the weight of the vast creature above. Slowly, however, its little gain was lost and it lurched back towards the edge of the crater, its back end sliding perilously close to the rim. Then, with a lurch, the rear steering tail toppled over the edge.

The track wheels clanked and squealed, trying to gain traction, but as they churned, they ate away at the very ground supporting the ironclad. Its nose rising up off the ground, the tank began to tilt over the edge.

Mathers smiled though the pain. “You’ve made your choice after all, Perkins. You could have left with the others, been reunited with your sweetheart.”

Alfie ignored him. “We’ve got one chance, sir. We’re tipping. We just need a few more degrees to get the gun elevation we need to hit that thing. I need you to be ready.”

The tank lurched, tilting sharply. The sponson door swung open, banging against the bulkhead. Alfie reached out to grab it, catching a vertiginous glimpse of a steep rocky cliff below them, bevelling out to a shrub-covered slope descending into a canopy of thick jungle below.

A spanner skittered down the gangplank, hit the rim of the hatch with a clang and pinwheeled out into the void.

Blanching, he reached out, pulled the hatch shut, and secured it. He didn’t want to lose his balance and topple out.

“This is it, sir!” He lurched unsteadily towards the loaded gun. Grunting with effort, he gripped the shoulder stock under his armpit and heaved the gun barrel up as far as it would go and fired.

The
Ivanhoe’s
gun pounded. Above it, the shell exploded against the Kreothe. The concussion wave sent ripples round the gas sac, before tearing out of the upper side. The blast shrivelled the smaller tendrils beneath it and, with raucous shrieks of alarm, the flock of scavengers that swarmed beneath it scattered. The harvesting tendrils holding the tank whipped back up, like cords cut under tension, and the
Ivanhoe’s
front track horns crashed back down onto solid ground.

F
ROM THE SHELTER
of the trees, Jack and Cecil burst out in a jubilant chorus and Reggie, Norman and Wally joined in.

“The Sub did it! He bloody did it!”

“The Sub
and
Alfie,” Jack reminded them.

Atkins puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. Jesus, that was close. A slow, burning anger overwhelmed his relief. From now on, he was bloody well in charge. He had orders to get the tank back to camp and, now, that was exactly what he was going to do. It helped matters that the tank would have to return with them to refuel. All of a sudden, he was eager to start back.

I
NSIDE THE
I
VANHOE
, Alfie, dazed, picked himself up from the gangway and saw Mathers slumped in the commander’s seat. The visor plates had slammed shut with the impact and nothing but a flickering festoon light lit his plaque-ridden face. Alfie clambered forwards into the driver’s seat to check on him.

Mathers’ chin rested on his chest. Alfie gently lifted the officer’s head to check for injuries. His eyes snapped open. “I can feel it, Perkins, a pressure inside my head, in my belly.”

“We need to get out, sir.”

“No.”

“Sir, we’re on the edge of the cliff.”

“You go, Perkins.”

“Come with me, sir.”

“If I go out now, I’ll die. Whatever’s inside me, they’re making me want to go out there. They need me to go out there. They want me to offer myself to those
things
. But I won’t. I refuse.
I absolutely bloody well refuse.
I am clothed in iron and armed with cordite. I will not go like this!”

Alfie’s eyes met Mathers’, but the iridescent swirls that looped and whorled within them disconcerted him. “Then just drive forward, sir. Away from the cliff edge.”

Mathers shook his head. “The track gears are jammed.”

Jammed? Perkins frowned and glanced back down the compartment, over the top of the engine. “Then I’ll go back and see if I can free them. You hang on, sir.” The gearsman stepped down onto the gangway and edged his way to the back of the compartment.

Mathers continued talking, raising his voice over the engine. “It’s a bloody good machine, Perkins. How you’ve kept it running these past few months is beyond me. A bloody miracle. I was... wrong about you.”

Alfie shrugged it off. Now wasn’t the time for recriminations, least of all against an officer. “You weren’t yourself, sir.”

“Did you know I had shell-shock, Perkins, before I joined the Heavy Section?”

Alfie didn’t know what to say, but felt that the moment called for honesty. “There... there were rumours, sir,” he called back.

The tank groaned and creaked under him as he edged his way past the gun and Hotchkiss towards the starboard gear panel.

“I was buried in a dugout for four hours, couldn’t move a muscle. Dead man lying of top of me. Bugger probably saved my life. Funny how fate catches up with you.” He waved his hand, indicating the interior of the tank. “Here I am, entombed again. No matter how far you run, there you are. It’s a rum old world.”

Something in the tone of Mathers’ voice made Alfie glance back. Mathers was raising his revolver to his temple. “I wonder if Skarra will be waiting...”

Alfie lunged up the gangway. “Sir, no!”

There was a grinding crunch and sudden lurch. The tank tilted, slipping backwards, sending Alfie reeling back down against his gear station. The weight of the hydraulic steering tail, ironically designed to be used as a counterbalance when crossing wide trenches, was now having the opposite effect and was dragging them over the edge to destruction. He felt the tank pitch steeply as it slipped backwards.

Alfie could almost imagine the scene outside, as if he were back at Elveden, watching one of the tank trials. In his mind’s eye, he saw the rim of the crater, weakened by the grinding of the tracks and the weight of the ironclad, begin to splinter and crumble. Boulders tumbled away, drawing with them steady streams of soil.

He tried to reach for the manhole above him, but lost his footing as the
Ivanhoe
tilted further and he fell back against the gear station.

The ground beneath the tank slipped away like sand through an hourglass, crumbling under its weight in a gentle but inevitable landslide of rock, soil and roots. The
Ivanhoe’s
front track horns reared into the air, like a startled stallion, its angle becoming more unstable until, like a sinking ship, it slipped from sight.

A gunshot reverberated loudly inside the iron hull.

Stores broke free and tools tumbled loose, ammo boxes crashed out of their slots. A Pyrene fire extinguisher slipped from its fixings and span toward Alfie. He screamed.

The ironclad went over the edge.

S
HOCKED, THE
F
USILIERS
and surviving tank crew watched as the tank toppled over the rim. From the crater came the sound of tortured metal and rock. Seconds later, there was a loud crashing, an eruption of animal calls and flocks of green-skinned bird-like raptors took to the air in panic from the crater jungle below.

Atkins ran to the edge, Gutsy, Mercy and Porgy hard on his heels. Nellie came running up, in time to see the tank go over the edge. She screamed. Gazette wrapped his arms around her, not so much for comfort as restraint.

Atkins stopped, feet from the lip, and cautiously stuck his head out over the edge. A few loose rocks broke away and tumbled down. “Oh, bloody Nora!”

“Jesus!”

“Buggerin’ hell!”

The drop wasn’t sheer but it was a very steep camber. They could see the twin furrows gouged down the escarpment as if the
Ivanhoe
had been dragged down into hell, fighting all the way. It was possible to track its path down the crater-side, where it had torn trees and plants from their roots before it crashed down through the canopy hundreds of feet below, to be swallowed by the jungle beneath.

Atkins felt sick and lighted-headed. His whole body sagged.

The tank was gone.

Above, the last of the Kreothe drifted sedately over the crater, and the sun began to peer out from behind them, a gleam of sunlight reflecting off the edge of its translucent gas sac.

INTERLUDE SIX

Letter from Private Thomas Atkins

to Flora Mullins

21st March 1917

Dearest Flora,

For a while today, I thought I had lost you forever, but the great big world keeps turning and showed me there is always hope. Sometimes in our darkest moments, that is hard to remember. It’s funny how the smallest and most insignificant of things can give you hope. Today I found it in a lost button.

And for the rest of the day, we tried to winkle something from its shell, had our fortunes told and were stung by some jellyfish. It sounds like a day at the seaside and I wish it had been. I bet I’d look pretty dapper in a blazer, straw boater and you on my arm as we stroll along the pier.

Having said we’d found the tank, we lost it again. I don’t think Lieutenant Everson is going to be very pleased. Nothing to do now but go and face the music, if there’s any music left to face.

I don’t even know what I’ll find when I get back to camp. I have never been so far from it. The thought that it might have vanished and left me here tortures me.

All of us live in daily fear of that, whether we speak about it or not. But then, I suppose that’s selfish. Folks back home live in fear of their worlds vanishing, too. In many cases, theirs have. Too many good men have not returned from the trenches. I vow to you now, Flora, I will not be one of them.

Ever yours,

Thomas

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Each Night, After a Fight...”

A
TKINS FELT NUMB.

He stared down into the crater, not sure what to do next, hardly able to believe that the tank had gone at all. Cecil, Norman and Nellie all tried calling out, for Mathers, for Alfie, hoping for some reply, some sign of life. They shouted until their voices were hoarse. There was no reply but the sound of the jungle.

The tank crew had an urgent whispered discussion, and finally pushed a reticent Reggie towards the Fusiliers. He straightened himself up, cleared his throat and marched over to Atkins. “We’ve had a talk and we’ve agreed, we have to get down there,” he informed him.

“How?” said Atkins, with a shrug. “We have little rope, certainly not enough to reach the bottom. And even if you do get to the bottom, what are you going to do? You can’t get the tank back up here again. There nothing we can do.”

Nellie strode up to him. “It’s not just a tank, there are people down there who might be alive, or had you forgotten?”

“No. Have you forgotten we’ve lost three of our mates for this bloody mob? Have you? Because I haven’t.”

Her face clouded over. “But you
know
yours are dead, Corporal. You saw them. We haven’t. Have you any idea what it’s like to have someone listed as ‘missing’?”

Her rebuke stung. Atkins thought of his brother, William, lost since the Big Push back in June. He thought of his mam and Flora and how they felt and his cheeks briefly flushed for shame. He tried again, in a more conciliatory tone. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t change anything. We were sent to bring the tank back for a reason. I have my orders. I have to report back to Lieutenant Everson, if he’s still there to report to.” He cast a meaningful glance at Chandar, who hung well back from the crater’s edge, chittering to itself, and fiddling with its damn tassels.