Chapter Seven
“Over there, left, LEFT.” The shout came from a corporal of second platoon. He had seen movement down the narrow street beside him, scores of figures.
Others turned to face the street. The closest Ironside noticed the movement and swung around to bring its Maxim to bear, the other three continued to fire at the fortress wall.
Within the shadows of the street there was clear movement, scores of people, slowly advancing. The people of the town came into view, walking slowly, some seeming to stagger, several dragging themselves along the dirt with clearly visible wounds. Then they came closer, advancing out of the shadows and into the light of day.
A shot was fired, then another. The Maxim fired a short burst then a second. Figures stumbled and fell or were knocked off their feet but before the disbelieving eyes of the British soldiers they began to stand up again. Some trying to rise were trampled by the figures behind them them as they mindlessly advanced.
Shouts spread across the square and more and more soldiers turned to face this new threat.
On Greyhound the left side machine gun turret was denied a clear target, the smoke stack blocked most of his arc of fire forward so he was looking for a target to his left when he saw the sudden shift of men and fire leftwards. He rotated his turret left to bring his main vision slit to bear and stared with disbelieve as a wave of walking corpses came closer to the end of the street and the wide open square.
He pressed down on his trigger and started screaming as loudly as he could. “LEFT, LEFT, ENEMY LEFT”
In the front compartment Houseman and his gunner were focused on the wall of the fort, seeking new targets. The loader crouched ready to reload the main gun but was otherwise unoccupied. Over the steady chug of the idling steam engine he could hear something, faint, but oddly familiar. The voice sounded. “Lieutenant listen, they’re shouting from the rear.”
Houseman could hear nothing but he had a hatch overhead and with the almost complete absence of enemy fire now he risked unlatching the hatch and lifting it a little.
“EFT, ENEMY LEFT.” The Lieutenant automatically turned to the left seeking the target and saw the shambling mass of walking corpse struggling forward despite the fire of most of two platoons.
“DRIVER LEFT, LEFT, ENEMY LEFT, ENEMY LEFT.” For perhaps the first time in its military career Greyhound managed a standing turn without breaking down, but the turret gunner was already frantically spinning the turret rotation wheel and so the turret came to bear on the shambling corpses long before the Land Frigate had turned.
The gunner did not wait for an order, he yanked the trigger and the cannon belched fire and smoke and lead shot straight into the shuffling mob. The entire front of the mob went down, corpses torn apart, arms and legs blown into the air.
The smoke and dust lingered in the still air of the square and street was making it difficult to see.
Movement, one of the corpses blown into the square was twitching. Then it started to move, it flopped its remaining arm forward and began to drag itself closer to the soldiers. Other movement was seen as the smoke slowly began to thin and the volume of fire into the street which had slackened began again.
Many of the corpses had been blown apart or smashed to a pulp but there were scores left and they continued to shamble forward. Shouts began to spread among the closest soldiers. “God Save us, they’re not stopping, we can’t killed them, save us, RUN FOR IT.” That last one was cut off quickly by a sergeant’s fist hitting the man’s face though only the victim was aware of the blow in all the gunfire.
Lieutenant Houseman shouted down to his driver. “Advance, block that street, block the gap!”
Greyhound clanked forward, the grinding of gears and the scream of the steam engine suddenly opened to full power deafening in the enclosed market. The narrow nose of the Land Frigate entered the street then the slopped sides and then the leading wheels and tracks. Filling the street with no more than a foot either side.
The walking corpses set to beating on the thick steel plates, some tried to squeeze down the sides, others who were crawling due to missing legs went under the hull and kept crawling. Cheers from the infantry rang out and shocked soldiers began to come out of cover, the rebels in the fort all but forgotten.
The one legless and single armed corpse still trying to crawl across the dirt of the market was hit with a dozen rounds and its head and chest fell apart.
“Tough buggers eh sergeant?” Lieutenant Fowler had been in the thick of the action, firing his revolver with remarkable accuracy and steadying his platoon with his words and presence. More than a few of the soldiers were stunned by the transformation that had come upon the man. The arrogant upper class fool had vanished and the military leader and warrior had emerged.
“LOOK OUT, they’re coming under the frigate!” The first of the crawling corpses had reached the stern of the land Frigate and was coming out into the light. The face of one corpse looked up at the closest soldiers, in life an old man, in death his eyes white and lifeless searching for a victim. The corpse reached out with both arms, hands clenching and unclenching as it tried to grasp the living.
With a rasp of steam escaping from piston joints a massive flat steel foot came stamping down and crushed the corpse’s head into a mush of brain and bone. A second Ironside took position beside the first; both had exhausted their ammunition but were more than capable of stamping on the crawling corpses that came under the frigate.
Greyhound’s main gun fired again, the sound deafening within the narrow street. The storm of shot tore through the tightly packed walking corpses, the few trying to clamber onto the deck turned into a red mist, others further back became a spray of shattered flesh and broken bone. Less than a score remained, too close to the hull for the cannon to reach but still beating their fists against Greyhounds armoured nose and flanks.
More soldiers made it into the square and order was restored. Squads spread out into the other streets, every man alert for ambush or worse, more of the walking corpses. The rebels in the fortress seemed to have vanished, a few dissolute shots from the furthest sections of wall of tower quickly answered by sharpshooters. General Summerby had been just behind the fighting and had heard the reports of walking corpses. He arrived no more than a minute or two after all firing ceased and he quickly accessed the situation and called his junior officers for reports.
The remaining walking corpses were still beating on the hull of Greyhound but the platoons could not see to fire on them so they were formed up, around the square in a ring all aiming at the mouth of the street. A soldier was sent to bang on the rear of Greyhound to pass an order for Lieutenant Houseman to back up. Greyhound clanked backwards, the score or so corpses that were left shambled forward after the Land Frigate then then found themselves the target of over a hundred Martin Henri rifle. Thirty seconds of firing and every last one of them was dead. Again!
General Summerby looked at the street choked with the remains of once more dead bodies and tried to guess how many there had been.
“Lieutenant Fowler, how many of those things were there?”
“Bit hard to tell sir, I would say somewhat around a hundred, mayhap a few less.”
The general then turned toward Captain Greyling who was climbing over the rubble of the ruined house with half of his lancers afoot.
“Captain Greyling, your estimate of the population of this town from intelligence reports and your scouting,”
“Four to five hundred general.”
Every soldier and officer in earshot suddenly gripped their weapons more tightly and began to look around.
Fowler spoke but his question was on every mans lips. “General you think there are hundreds more of these,” he paused and looked at the remains of the closed corpse, “things”.
Then after a few seconds of thought he added “we used a lot of our ammunition here, I’d rather not face a few hundred more trapped in here with no rounds left.”
“Neither would I lieutenant, neither would I.” Summerby looked around. “Captain Ambrose, let’s get ammunition up here for every man. Have the ironsides reloaded; I want the company ready for action soonest.
~
Twenty tense minutes later and the town was in the hands of the British, squads were still kicking open doors to ensure that no more of the walking corpses remained locked away inside a building but otherwise all was quiet.
An impromptu officers meeting was held in one of the less damaged buildings off the market square. A pair of lancers had been sent to ride north to the edge of the hills and find Lieutenant Digby, to summon him and his unit of the levy to the town.
Sharpshooters were spread out onto flat roofs with good lines of sight on the fort walls and gate. The six pounders were tucked behind a half ruined house; they were ready to fire on the fort walls at the first sign of the rebels.
Greyhound was still sitting in the middle of the market square, the main gate of the town had been opened and the medical and quartermaster wagons had arrived and set up behind the steel hull of the land frigate.
All four of the ironsides had been reloaded; they now stood open and empty in the ruins of one of the houses Greyhound had crushed, the partial walls blocked them from the sight of anyone in the fort and had allowed the crew to climb out. Now all four men were resting beside the massive steel suits and drinking deeply from canteens of water.
~
All of the officers were now present along with the Quartermaster and the Doctor.
General Summerby had waited until the last few had arrived before starting this meeting, everyone would be needed for the next stage of the battle.
Once they were all present seated or standing he spoke.
“Gentlemen, we have no choice. We must take the fort.”
Captain Charterhouse looked the general in the eye. “It will be tight quarters up there general, against these walking corpses we will take fearsome losses most like. They were all by the gate in the town, that’s why they all came at us down the same street. They may not make that mistake again”
“I am fully aware of that captain; just as I am aware that the native levy will not fight and that the East India soldiers will not leave that damn mortar of theirs. It will be red coats and red blood that takes the fort and no mistake.”
Captain Charterhouse spoke again. “What about a bombardment, try to kill as many of those things as we can with the artillery?” He glanced across the table to see lieutenants Houseman and Engler both shaking their heads.
Lieutenant Engler spoke first. “Sorry captain, we came ready to support an infantry action, it would take ten or twelve days to get ammunition train up here with enough rounds for my six pounders to take out the entire fort. I can breach the walls but to level the place would take far more explosive rounds than I have.”
As soon as he finished Lieutenant Houseman spoke. “If you turn the fort into rubble you will go in without Greyhound, we would turn a track as soon as enter. We can support from the town but if you level the fort we will be unable to move in there.”
General Summerby silenced the officers with a gesture.
“But I do not believe we can wait. We are facing something I have never heard of before, the very dead are walking and fighting against us. The Arab says it is because of a German and a Magic Book. Let me be clear here. I do not care what is doing it, I care about stopping it.”
“Here and now. There could be three hundred or more of these walking corpses in the fort or there could be none. But unless we stop this here there could be hundreds more buried in the grave yard by the camp and there are thousands more in the grave yards of Cairo. I have been speaking to the doctor and I don’t think we have to worry about bones, just the recent dead who still have enough flesh and muscle left to move them. But there are more than enough of those in the city. Also if the victims of these corpses can also rise and walk again then there is no way the garrison in the city could hold, or this entire country for that matter.”
“No we go in and we destroy every one of these unholy things. I would like this German taken alive if possible, there are a lot of questions to be answered. But if he is killed then so be it. If we find this book we burn it along with all the bodies, ours and theirs. Then we smash this town, poison the wells, and salt the earth. I want this place destroyed utterly. Nothing is to remain.”
General Summerby turned and looked through the open window at the fort, judging the wall and towers. Carefully studying the sloping path that led to the hill top and the small area at the top where wagons could turn to enter the gate.
“Lieutenant Houseman, can Greyhound make it up that path, turn and get through the gates?”
“The path, certainly. That turn at the top, that may be a little interesting. Still never let it be said that the Navy had every failed to try, England expects and all that.” Houseman grinned at the other officers. “Besides, if I can make that turn and breach the fort I will never need to buy a drink in the officer’s mess again.”
The other men chuckled at that.
“Fine, Greyhound leads, I want a platoon right behind her and through the gate as soon as she breaks in. Ironsides right behind them for support then the other two platoons behind them. Simmons I want some of your men with reloads ready to go, crates open. The men will be running through their pouches fast in this fight and I want fresh rounds for them as soon as they call.”
“Digby. Greyling, you get to cork the bottle, anyone trying to escape is yours. Mind you tell your men to look before they shoot. If they see any Europeans escaping try to take them alive. I would like a chat with whoever was running that gun.”
“Over there, left, LEFT.” The shout came from a corporal of second platoon. He had seen movement down the narrow street beside him, scores of figures.
Others turned to face the street. The closest Ironside noticed the movement and swung around to bring its Maxim to bear, the other three continued to fire at the fortress wall.
Within the shadows of the street there was clear movement, scores of people, slowly advancing. The people of the town came into view, walking slowly, some seeming to stagger, several dragging themselves along the dirt with clearly visible wounds. Then they came closer, advancing out of the shadows and into the light of day.
A shot was fired, then another. The Maxim fired a short burst then a second. Figures stumbled and fell or were knocked off their feet but before the disbelieving eyes of the British soldiers they began to stand up again. Some trying to rise were trampled by the figures behind them them as they mindlessly advanced.
Shouts spread across the square and more and more soldiers turned to face this new threat.
On Greyhound the left side machine gun turret was denied a clear target, the smoke stack blocked most of his arc of fire forward so he was looking for a target to his left when he saw the sudden shift of men and fire leftwards. He rotated his turret left to bring his main vision slit to bear and stared with disbelieve as a wave of walking corpses came closer to the end of the street and the wide open square.
He pressed down on his trigger and started screaming as loudly as he could. “LEFT, LEFT, ENEMY LEFT”
In the front compartment Houseman and his gunner were focused on the wall of the fort, seeking new targets. The loader crouched ready to reload the main gun but was otherwise unoccupied. Over the steady chug of the idling steam engine he could hear something, faint, but oddly familiar. The voice sounded. “Lieutenant listen, they’re shouting from the rear.”
Houseman could hear nothing but he had a hatch overhead and with the almost complete absence of enemy fire now he risked unlatching the hatch and lifting it a little.
“EFT, ENEMY LEFT.” The Lieutenant automatically turned to the left seeking the target and saw the shambling mass of walking corpse struggling forward despite the fire of most of two platoons.
“DRIVER LEFT, LEFT, ENEMY LEFT, ENEMY LEFT.” For perhaps the first time in its military career Greyhound managed a standing turn without breaking down, but the turret gunner was already frantically spinning the turret rotation wheel and so the turret came to bear on the shambling corpses long before the Land Frigate had turned.
The gunner did not wait for an order, he yanked the trigger and the cannon belched fire and smoke and lead shot straight into the shuffling mob. The entire front of the mob went down, corpses torn apart, arms and legs blown into the air.
The smoke and dust lingered in the still air of the square and street was making it difficult to see.
Movement, one of the corpses blown into the square was twitching. Then it started to move, it flopped its remaining arm forward and began to drag itself closer to the soldiers. Other movement was seen as the smoke slowly began to thin and the volume of fire into the street which had slackened began again.
Many of the corpses had been blown apart or smashed to a pulp but there were scores left and they continued to shamble forward. Shouts began to spread among the closest soldiers. “God Save us, they’re not stopping, we can’t killed them, save us, RUN FOR IT.” That last one was cut off quickly by a sergeant’s fist hitting the man’s face though only the victim was aware of the blow in all the gunfire.
Lieutenant Houseman shouted down to his driver. “Advance, block that street, block the gap!”
Greyhound clanked forward, the grinding of gears and the scream of the steam engine suddenly opened to full power deafening in the enclosed market. The narrow nose of the Land Frigate entered the street then the slopped sides and then the leading wheels and tracks. Filling the street with no more than a foot either side.
The walking corpses set to beating on the thick steel plates, some tried to squeeze down the sides, others who were crawling due to missing legs went under the hull and kept crawling. Cheers from the infantry rang out and shocked soldiers began to come out of cover, the rebels in the fort all but forgotten.
The one legless and single armed corpse still trying to crawl across the dirt of the market was hit with a dozen rounds and its head and chest fell apart.
“Tough buggers eh sergeant?” Lieutenant Fowler had been in the thick of the action, firing his revolver with remarkable accuracy and steadying his platoon with his words and presence. More than a few of the soldiers were stunned by the transformation that had come upon the man. The arrogant upper class fool had vanished and the military leader and warrior had emerged.
“LOOK OUT, they’re coming under the frigate!” The first of the crawling corpses had reached the stern of the land Frigate and was coming out into the light. The face of one corpse looked up at the closest soldiers, in life an old man, in death his eyes white and lifeless searching for a victim. The corpse reached out with both arms, hands clenching and unclenching as it tried to grasp the living.
With a rasp of steam escaping from piston joints a massive flat steel foot came stamping down and crushed the corpse’s head into a mush of brain and bone. A second Ironside took position beside the first; both had exhausted their ammunition but were more than capable of stamping on the crawling corpses that came under the frigate.
Greyhound’s main gun fired again, the sound deafening within the narrow street. The storm of shot tore through the tightly packed walking corpses, the few trying to clamber onto the deck turned into a red mist, others further back became a spray of shattered flesh and broken bone. Less than a score remained, too close to the hull for the cannon to reach but still beating their fists against Greyhounds armoured nose and flanks.
More soldiers made it into the square and order was restored. Squads spread out into the other streets, every man alert for ambush or worse, more of the walking corpses. The rebels in the fortress seemed to have vanished, a few dissolute shots from the furthest sections of wall of tower quickly answered by sharpshooters. General Summerby had been just behind the fighting and had heard the reports of walking corpses. He arrived no more than a minute or two after all firing ceased and he quickly accessed the situation and called his junior officers for reports.
The remaining walking corpses were still beating on the hull of Greyhound but the platoons could not see to fire on them so they were formed up, around the square in a ring all aiming at the mouth of the street. A soldier was sent to bang on the rear of Greyhound to pass an order for Lieutenant Houseman to back up. Greyhound clanked backwards, the score or so corpses that were left shambled forward after the Land Frigate then then found themselves the target of over a hundred Martin Henri rifle. Thirty seconds of firing and every last one of them was dead. Again!
General Summerby looked at the street choked with the remains of once more dead bodies and tried to guess how many there had been.
“Lieutenant Fowler, how many of those things were there?”
“Bit hard to tell sir, I would say somewhat around a hundred, mayhap a few less.”
The general then turned toward Captain Greyling who was climbing over the rubble of the ruined house with half of his lancers afoot.
“Captain Greyling, your estimate of the population of this town from intelligence reports and your scouting,”
“Four to five hundred general.”
Every soldier and officer in earshot suddenly gripped their weapons more tightly and began to look around.
Fowler spoke but his question was on every mans lips. “General you think there are hundreds more of these,” he paused and looked at the remains of the closed corpse, “things”.
Then after a few seconds of thought he added “we used a lot of our ammunition here, I’d rather not face a few hundred more trapped in here with no rounds left.”
“Neither would I lieutenant, neither would I.” Summerby looked around. “Captain Ambrose, let’s get ammunition up here for every man. Have the ironsides reloaded; I want the company ready for action soonest.
~
Twenty tense minutes later and the town was in the hands of the British, squads were still kicking open doors to ensure that no more of the walking corpses remained locked away inside a building but otherwise all was quiet.
An impromptu officers meeting was held in one of the less damaged buildings off the market square. A pair of lancers had been sent to ride north to the edge of the hills and find Lieutenant Digby, to summon him and his unit of the levy to the town.
Sharpshooters were spread out onto flat roofs with good lines of sight on the fort walls and gate. The six pounders were tucked behind a half ruined house; they were ready to fire on the fort walls at the first sign of the rebels.
Greyhound was still sitting in the middle of the market square, the main gate of the town had been opened and the medical and quartermaster wagons had arrived and set up behind the steel hull of the land frigate.
All four of the ironsides had been reloaded; they now stood open and empty in the ruins of one of the houses Greyhound had crushed, the partial walls blocked them from the sight of anyone in the fort and had allowed the crew to climb out. Now all four men were resting beside the massive steel suits and drinking deeply from canteens of water.
~
All of the officers were now present along with the Quartermaster and the Doctor.
General Summerby had waited until the last few had arrived before starting this meeting, everyone would be needed for the next stage of the battle.
Once they were all present seated or standing he spoke.
“Gentlemen, we have no choice. We must take the fort.”
Captain Charterhouse looked the general in the eye. “It will be tight quarters up there general, against these walking corpses we will take fearsome losses most like. They were all by the gate in the town, that’s why they all came at us down the same street. They may not make that mistake again”
“I am fully aware of that captain; just as I am aware that the native levy will not fight and that the East India soldiers will not leave that damn mortar of theirs. It will be red coats and red blood that takes the fort and no mistake.”
Captain Charterhouse spoke again. “What about a bombardment, try to kill as many of those things as we can with the artillery?” He glanced across the table to see lieutenants Houseman and Engler both shaking their heads.
Lieutenant Engler spoke first. “Sorry captain, we came ready to support an infantry action, it would take ten or twelve days to get ammunition train up here with enough rounds for my six pounders to take out the entire fort. I can breach the walls but to level the place would take far more explosive rounds than I have.”
As soon as he finished Lieutenant Houseman spoke. “If you turn the fort into rubble you will go in without Greyhound, we would turn a track as soon as enter. We can support from the town but if you level the fort we will be unable to move in there.”
General Summerby silenced the officers with a gesture.
“But I do not believe we can wait. We are facing something I have never heard of before, the very dead are walking and fighting against us. The Arab says it is because of a German and a Magic Book. Let me be clear here. I do not care what is doing it, I care about stopping it.”
“Here and now. There could be three hundred or more of these walking corpses in the fort or there could be none. But unless we stop this here there could be hundreds more buried in the grave yard by the camp and there are thousands more in the grave yards of Cairo. I have been speaking to the doctor and I don’t think we have to worry about bones, just the recent dead who still have enough flesh and muscle left to move them. But there are more than enough of those in the city. Also if the victims of these corpses can also rise and walk again then there is no way the garrison in the city could hold, or this entire country for that matter.”
“No we go in and we destroy every one of these unholy things. I would like this German taken alive if possible, there are a lot of questions to be answered. But if he is killed then so be it. If we find this book we burn it along with all the bodies, ours and theirs. Then we smash this town, poison the wells, and salt the earth. I want this place destroyed utterly. Nothing is to remain.”
General Summerby turned and looked through the open window at the fort, judging the wall and towers. Carefully studying the sloping path that led to the hill top and the small area at the top where wagons could turn to enter the gate.
“Lieutenant Houseman, can Greyhound make it up that path, turn and get through the gates?”
“The path, certainly. That turn at the top, that may be a little interesting. Still never let it be said that the Navy had every failed to try, England expects and all that.” Houseman grinned at the other officers. “Besides, if I can make that turn and breach the fort I will never need to buy a drink in the officer’s mess again.”
The other men chuckled at that.
“Fine, Greyhound leads, I want a platoon right behind her and through the gate as soon as she breaks in. Ironsides right behind them for support then the other two platoons behind them. Simmons I want some of your men with reloads ready to go, crates open. The men will be running through their pouches fast in this fight and I want fresh rounds for them as soon as they call.”
“Digby. Greyling, you get to cork the bottle, anyone trying to escape is yours. Mind you tell your men to look before they shoot. If they see any Europeans escaping try to take them alive. I would like a chat with whoever was running that gun.”