Chapter Ten
There were five soldiers left from the squad that had advanced behind Greyhound and then been cut off as walking corpses overran the street. Two of them, Smith and Jones had stayed behind in the alley to fight the corpses. The others had run into the street behind the houses and run into more of the shambling dead. The few that were able to fight their way free had gone straight into the house in front of them. Now they were piling what little furniture was available against the front door while two of them braced it against the pounding of several corpses.
“This if bloody hopeless, that door will never hold. Check out the back, see where it goes.”
The two redcoats not holding the door jumped to obey the corporal’s order leaving him to push a small heavy chest over to the door in a pointless effort at blocking it.
“It’s another street, can’t see any of them dead things though.”
All of them turned to look as one of the planks in the door cracked.
“Out the back quick as you can, you two hold till we reach the back door then run for it”
The two soldiers holding the door shut waited perhaps three seconds then turned and ran, neither had bothered to check that the corporal had reached the back door yet. They crashed into each other in the door way and scrambled through together using elbows and arms to try and batter the other aside.
The five men were in a narrow street that ran behind the houses, facing them were a few crude huts and small brick structures and the wall of the fort, to their left the street curved round the wall and seemed enter a wide open area. To the right a ramp led up to the wall and a broad flat area mostly covered in rubble and the remaining stumps of brick walls that marked the base of a shattered tower.
As they stood there trying to decide what to do an explosion engulfed the broad area of rubble on the wall and a handful of figures in Black Arab robes emerged from the rubble and ran down the ramp towards them. Both sides franticly took aim and fired, the closest Bedouin was hit three times and went over backwards, dead before he hit the ground. The pair behind took a round each, one staggered as he was hit in the arm, the other stumbled and fell as he took a hit in the stomach.
The Arabs tried to fire back but only one of them held a loaded weapon, he fired from the hip then screamed as the recoil tore the rifle from his grip and broke his wrist. His shot took the corporal high in the chest and the redcoat was pitched over backwards and died within seconds.
Then they were in amongst each other and it became fists and rifle butts against each other. As they struggled and fought they did not see another figure come down the ramp, they were too involved in the life or death battle to notice the silver mask, the long coat or the large, ancient, book.
The figure in the long coat ran past them and up the street to the open area where he shouted in a strange language that, had any been close enough to hear, would have struck them as an inhuman sound that no man should be able to speak. No living being heard him but a dozen corpses that stood in the open area did and obedient to the command they shambled into the narrow street to kill everyone they found there.
~
In the fort the other half of first platoon was formed up behind the embattled houses, there were no walking corpses in this street and they were able to form a line to cover the alley further up. A pair of Ironsides and several men of third platoon had been fighting their way backwards down the alley and into the street. They stepped clear and the first of the dead staggered into the street and straight into the fire of two lines of red coats.
One then another then two more of the dead were cut down; one made it close to the line of infantry while the ones in front took the shots but it was smashed aside and crushed by the Ironside.
Lieutenant Ambrose stationed a squad and one Ironside to block the alley and led the rest of his men along the street behind the houses.
Behind them the fire from second platoon was slackening off though none here were aware of it over the constant fire coming from every roof top and the steady line of soldiers reinforcing them suddenly stopped as the gatehouse was cut off behind them.
As they pushed forward only the sergeant who was bringing up the rear noticed that no more men were coming from the gatehouse to join them but before he could report the fact another wave of Corpses staggered down the alley and attacked the Ironside. He turned and opened fire alongside the men standing there and for several minutes the sergeant was too busy to do anything other than load and fire.
Lieutenant Ambrose reached the end of the street where it opened out into the clear area in front of the fortified building that sat against the highest point of the hill. He waved the rest of his men and most importantly the noisy Ironside to stop then peered cautiously round the corner of the last house.
He saw a figure in a long leather coat step through the door into the fortress building and the backs of a number of walking corpses as they lurched into a narrow street across the open area by the far wall.
Once they were out of sight he gestured his men and the Ironside to advance to the corner and into the open area. He sent a few men to check the door of the fortified building and then once no enemies were seen he led the rest to the top of the street facing the gatehouse.
As he now looked down the street towards the ruins of the gatehouse he could see less than a score of redcoats holding the gate, another dozen or more on the rooftops of the houses on one side and Greyhound standing above the rubble of the houses on the other side.
No more than fifty corpses still moved in the street
~
Trooper Mick Delaney blinked and then coughed at the dust that surrounded his face. He was lying on his side, at an angle half standing and half fallen. There was some light coming down from overhead but with all the dust it was hard to see where he was.
What had happened, he had been advancing into the fort, those walking dead bodies had been everywhere, pouring out of the alley on the right. He had been following the leading pair of Ironsides when he saw trooper Clark turn and walk into the middle of the corpses smashing at them before becoming buried.
Trooper Delaney had turned to support him with maxim fire and had been firing into the mob of corpses when the other Ironsides boiler ruptured and the pile of dead was engulfed in a cloud of super heated steam. They told you in training, the boiler goes you are dead. They even ran a demonstration, put a pig in a steel box and vented a boiler at full pressure into it. Cooked it proper, mind you it was tasty.
When the Ironside in front of him had burst its boiler he had instinctively backup up away from the expanding cloud, there was a group of soldiers from third platoon further up the street that were drawing most of the corpses so he began to cover them with short bursts of fire. Several men formed on him and they fired at every corpse that came near.
When his maxim ran dry Delany took to smashing the shambling dead with the piston driven arms of his Ironside. One of the corpses had been knocked down by rifle fire and crawled toward him, it grabbed one of the legs of the Ironside suit and was trying to topple it but Delaney hadn’t noticed the futile effort until he heard one of the redcoats shouting and pointing.
So he leaned the suit forward enough to be able to see down, raised one steam piston powered leg and stamped it down, crushing the corpse, and smashing through the wooded planks under the dirt he was standing on.
Then he woke up here. Right! He had fallen into some sort of cellar. Shit!
It took some struggling to use his left arm to turn the suit enough to then use both arms to stand up, something else the covered in the training course. Don’t fall over, it is a bad thing to do. The Ironsides could not stand up from a prone position, fortunately he had landed on something that left him at an angle and he was able to lever the suit upright.
By the time he got the several ton suit upright he was sweating profusely, his clothing soaked and his eyes stinging despite the cloth headband he used to protect his eyes from sweat.
Looking around by turning the suit he found himself in a cellar, oddly tall but no more than six feet wide by ten feet long, a single opening led into the darkness. The walls had been lined with some sort of rickety shelves and clay jars, most of which had been smashed by the Ironside as it came crashing down.
Then with a wet thump a body landed in front of him, long hair and a blue tunic. A woman, no more than twenty or at least she had been that age when she was alive. Then another corpse came crashing down on top of the Ironside and shattered most of its bones and skull against the armour on the head, chest and shoulder.
Trooper Delaney backed up till he hit the wall then tilted the suit backwards and stretched his head forward and up to try and see what was happening above him, he was barely able to see anything, the heavily armoured grill was angled to look straight ahead only.
He was just able to see one edge of the hole high above him, the bright sunlight, a flash of movement, a dusty red jacket then another figure wearing dirty white. A swinging rifle butt and the white clad figure was knocked backwards into the hole to fall with a wet splat at the Ironside's feet. It wasn’t dead but after hesitating for a second in case he smashed through another floor Delaney stamped on the moving corpse. He crushed its chest and spine and it stopped twitching.
There was no way he was going to climb out of this hole; the opening into the darkness was his only option. He turned the heavy suit and lumbered toward his only way out.
~
Aboard Greyhound both the aft Maxim Turrets had been firing almost continuously, the port turret no longer had any targets but the starboard turret was still providing fire in support of the survivors of third platoon on the rooftops. The port gunner had climbed down into the hull and was acting as loader, transferring belts of bullets from his turret across to feed the almost overheating maxim that was still in action.
Both halves of First platoon were firing at the remaining corpses from the ends of the street, the remains of third platoon were firing down from the roof tops.
Lieutenant Fowler was using a rifle taken from one of the wounded soldiers, having long since exhausted his revolver rounds. His platoon had only three wounded, they all sat at the back of the flat roof tops away from the fighting. All had multiple bites to the arms and legs. Every other casualty had been dragged down and killed as far as anyone had seen.
Thanks to the steady supply of fresh rounds every man had been firing constantly and they had significantly reduced the corpse numbers. Fowler was calling targets so they were all firing at the same dead in order to drop them faster.
Concentrated fire dropped a young man with what looked like a slit throat and the lieutenant glanced around for another target only to realise the only moving things in sight were wearing red coats or were the two Ironsides.
The firing slowed and then stopped completely as the soldiers found themselves without targets.
~
General Summerby and Captain Charterhouse stepped carefully over the piled bodies that carpeted the gatehouse. Most of them locals now unmoving again but more than a few wearing the red coats of British infantry. The whole of second platoon had fallen here and there were three survivors, the doctor was tending to them and he had glanced down at one of the men then up at the General and shook his head. Two who would most likely survive, two out of thirty four!
The two surviving lieutenants were supervising the checking of every single building, shack and outbuilding in the fort to make sure every single corpse was found. Several had wandered into buildings and not come out until they had heard soldiers close by so great care was being taken.
The ramp was still blocked by the quartermasters wagons, a detachment of the quartermasters men were carrying crates of fresh rounds up to the gatehouse by hand and a small unit of naval men had been summoned to see to the land frigates track and to reload its weapons.
The doctor and both of his orderlies were already at work tending to the tiny number of wounded, few of those who had fallen to the onslaught of the walking corpses had survived.
Two of the Ironsides were still active but both were standing covering the last rebel held building along with half of the men of first platoon. The fortified building and its heavy door had resisted the strength of the suits and so it was kept under close guard. One Ironside was still beneath a pile of corpses, the other seemed to have vanished without trace though several soldiers reported to have seen it engulfed in a cloud of dust and smoke and be gone when the smoke cleared.
Several soldiers from first platoon were helping the quartermasters to carry belted rounds and shells into the fort and then left to the secondary street and along to the Ironsides. The main street was so filed with the dead that no man could walk its length without climbing across the bodies.
The remaining sergeants were keeping the men busy and jumping on any gossip quickly but even so far too many of the men were spreading tales. Of what they had seen and in the case of those men of first platoon that had come under fire from invisible Arabs, what they had not seen.
Many whispered of not just the dead that walked but of magic and witchcraft. Even without the casualties they had suffered the men of this company were no longer fit for battle and the sergeants and officers knew it.
There were five soldiers left from the squad that had advanced behind Greyhound and then been cut off as walking corpses overran the street. Two of them, Smith and Jones had stayed behind in the alley to fight the corpses. The others had run into the street behind the houses and run into more of the shambling dead. The few that were able to fight their way free had gone straight into the house in front of them. Now they were piling what little furniture was available against the front door while two of them braced it against the pounding of several corpses.
“This if bloody hopeless, that door will never hold. Check out the back, see where it goes.”
The two redcoats not holding the door jumped to obey the corporal’s order leaving him to push a small heavy chest over to the door in a pointless effort at blocking it.
“It’s another street, can’t see any of them dead things though.”
All of them turned to look as one of the planks in the door cracked.
“Out the back quick as you can, you two hold till we reach the back door then run for it”
The two soldiers holding the door shut waited perhaps three seconds then turned and ran, neither had bothered to check that the corporal had reached the back door yet. They crashed into each other in the door way and scrambled through together using elbows and arms to try and batter the other aside.
The five men were in a narrow street that ran behind the houses, facing them were a few crude huts and small brick structures and the wall of the fort, to their left the street curved round the wall and seemed enter a wide open area. To the right a ramp led up to the wall and a broad flat area mostly covered in rubble and the remaining stumps of brick walls that marked the base of a shattered tower.
As they stood there trying to decide what to do an explosion engulfed the broad area of rubble on the wall and a handful of figures in Black Arab robes emerged from the rubble and ran down the ramp towards them. Both sides franticly took aim and fired, the closest Bedouin was hit three times and went over backwards, dead before he hit the ground. The pair behind took a round each, one staggered as he was hit in the arm, the other stumbled and fell as he took a hit in the stomach.
The Arabs tried to fire back but only one of them held a loaded weapon, he fired from the hip then screamed as the recoil tore the rifle from his grip and broke his wrist. His shot took the corporal high in the chest and the redcoat was pitched over backwards and died within seconds.
Then they were in amongst each other and it became fists and rifle butts against each other. As they struggled and fought they did not see another figure come down the ramp, they were too involved in the life or death battle to notice the silver mask, the long coat or the large, ancient, book.
The figure in the long coat ran past them and up the street to the open area where he shouted in a strange language that, had any been close enough to hear, would have struck them as an inhuman sound that no man should be able to speak. No living being heard him but a dozen corpses that stood in the open area did and obedient to the command they shambled into the narrow street to kill everyone they found there.
~
In the fort the other half of first platoon was formed up behind the embattled houses, there were no walking corpses in this street and they were able to form a line to cover the alley further up. A pair of Ironsides and several men of third platoon had been fighting their way backwards down the alley and into the street. They stepped clear and the first of the dead staggered into the street and straight into the fire of two lines of red coats.
One then another then two more of the dead were cut down; one made it close to the line of infantry while the ones in front took the shots but it was smashed aside and crushed by the Ironside.
Lieutenant Ambrose stationed a squad and one Ironside to block the alley and led the rest of his men along the street behind the houses.
Behind them the fire from second platoon was slackening off though none here were aware of it over the constant fire coming from every roof top and the steady line of soldiers reinforcing them suddenly stopped as the gatehouse was cut off behind them.
As they pushed forward only the sergeant who was bringing up the rear noticed that no more men were coming from the gatehouse to join them but before he could report the fact another wave of Corpses staggered down the alley and attacked the Ironside. He turned and opened fire alongside the men standing there and for several minutes the sergeant was too busy to do anything other than load and fire.
Lieutenant Ambrose reached the end of the street where it opened out into the clear area in front of the fortified building that sat against the highest point of the hill. He waved the rest of his men and most importantly the noisy Ironside to stop then peered cautiously round the corner of the last house.
He saw a figure in a long leather coat step through the door into the fortress building and the backs of a number of walking corpses as they lurched into a narrow street across the open area by the far wall.
Once they were out of sight he gestured his men and the Ironside to advance to the corner and into the open area. He sent a few men to check the door of the fortified building and then once no enemies were seen he led the rest to the top of the street facing the gatehouse.
As he now looked down the street towards the ruins of the gatehouse he could see less than a score of redcoats holding the gate, another dozen or more on the rooftops of the houses on one side and Greyhound standing above the rubble of the houses on the other side.
No more than fifty corpses still moved in the street
~
Trooper Mick Delaney blinked and then coughed at the dust that surrounded his face. He was lying on his side, at an angle half standing and half fallen. There was some light coming down from overhead but with all the dust it was hard to see where he was.
What had happened, he had been advancing into the fort, those walking dead bodies had been everywhere, pouring out of the alley on the right. He had been following the leading pair of Ironsides when he saw trooper Clark turn and walk into the middle of the corpses smashing at them before becoming buried.
Trooper Delaney had turned to support him with maxim fire and had been firing into the mob of corpses when the other Ironsides boiler ruptured and the pile of dead was engulfed in a cloud of super heated steam. They told you in training, the boiler goes you are dead. They even ran a demonstration, put a pig in a steel box and vented a boiler at full pressure into it. Cooked it proper, mind you it was tasty.
When the Ironside in front of him had burst its boiler he had instinctively backup up away from the expanding cloud, there was a group of soldiers from third platoon further up the street that were drawing most of the corpses so he began to cover them with short bursts of fire. Several men formed on him and they fired at every corpse that came near.
When his maxim ran dry Delany took to smashing the shambling dead with the piston driven arms of his Ironside. One of the corpses had been knocked down by rifle fire and crawled toward him, it grabbed one of the legs of the Ironside suit and was trying to topple it but Delaney hadn’t noticed the futile effort until he heard one of the redcoats shouting and pointing.
So he leaned the suit forward enough to be able to see down, raised one steam piston powered leg and stamped it down, crushing the corpse, and smashing through the wooded planks under the dirt he was standing on.
Then he woke up here. Right! He had fallen into some sort of cellar. Shit!
It took some struggling to use his left arm to turn the suit enough to then use both arms to stand up, something else the covered in the training course. Don’t fall over, it is a bad thing to do. The Ironsides could not stand up from a prone position, fortunately he had landed on something that left him at an angle and he was able to lever the suit upright.
By the time he got the several ton suit upright he was sweating profusely, his clothing soaked and his eyes stinging despite the cloth headband he used to protect his eyes from sweat.
Looking around by turning the suit he found himself in a cellar, oddly tall but no more than six feet wide by ten feet long, a single opening led into the darkness. The walls had been lined with some sort of rickety shelves and clay jars, most of which had been smashed by the Ironside as it came crashing down.
Then with a wet thump a body landed in front of him, long hair and a blue tunic. A woman, no more than twenty or at least she had been that age when she was alive. Then another corpse came crashing down on top of the Ironside and shattered most of its bones and skull against the armour on the head, chest and shoulder.
Trooper Delaney backed up till he hit the wall then tilted the suit backwards and stretched his head forward and up to try and see what was happening above him, he was barely able to see anything, the heavily armoured grill was angled to look straight ahead only.
He was just able to see one edge of the hole high above him, the bright sunlight, a flash of movement, a dusty red jacket then another figure wearing dirty white. A swinging rifle butt and the white clad figure was knocked backwards into the hole to fall with a wet splat at the Ironside's feet. It wasn’t dead but after hesitating for a second in case he smashed through another floor Delaney stamped on the moving corpse. He crushed its chest and spine and it stopped twitching.
There was no way he was going to climb out of this hole; the opening into the darkness was his only option. He turned the heavy suit and lumbered toward his only way out.
~
Aboard Greyhound both the aft Maxim Turrets had been firing almost continuously, the port turret no longer had any targets but the starboard turret was still providing fire in support of the survivors of third platoon on the rooftops. The port gunner had climbed down into the hull and was acting as loader, transferring belts of bullets from his turret across to feed the almost overheating maxim that was still in action.
Both halves of First platoon were firing at the remaining corpses from the ends of the street, the remains of third platoon were firing down from the roof tops.
Lieutenant Fowler was using a rifle taken from one of the wounded soldiers, having long since exhausted his revolver rounds. His platoon had only three wounded, they all sat at the back of the flat roof tops away from the fighting. All had multiple bites to the arms and legs. Every other casualty had been dragged down and killed as far as anyone had seen.
Thanks to the steady supply of fresh rounds every man had been firing constantly and they had significantly reduced the corpse numbers. Fowler was calling targets so they were all firing at the same dead in order to drop them faster.
Concentrated fire dropped a young man with what looked like a slit throat and the lieutenant glanced around for another target only to realise the only moving things in sight were wearing red coats or were the two Ironsides.
The firing slowed and then stopped completely as the soldiers found themselves without targets.
~
General Summerby and Captain Charterhouse stepped carefully over the piled bodies that carpeted the gatehouse. Most of them locals now unmoving again but more than a few wearing the red coats of British infantry. The whole of second platoon had fallen here and there were three survivors, the doctor was tending to them and he had glanced down at one of the men then up at the General and shook his head. Two who would most likely survive, two out of thirty four!
The two surviving lieutenants were supervising the checking of every single building, shack and outbuilding in the fort to make sure every single corpse was found. Several had wandered into buildings and not come out until they had heard soldiers close by so great care was being taken.
The ramp was still blocked by the quartermasters wagons, a detachment of the quartermasters men were carrying crates of fresh rounds up to the gatehouse by hand and a small unit of naval men had been summoned to see to the land frigates track and to reload its weapons.
The doctor and both of his orderlies were already at work tending to the tiny number of wounded, few of those who had fallen to the onslaught of the walking corpses had survived.
Two of the Ironsides were still active but both were standing covering the last rebel held building along with half of the men of first platoon. The fortified building and its heavy door had resisted the strength of the suits and so it was kept under close guard. One Ironside was still beneath a pile of corpses, the other seemed to have vanished without trace though several soldiers reported to have seen it engulfed in a cloud of dust and smoke and be gone when the smoke cleared.
Several soldiers from first platoon were helping the quartermasters to carry belted rounds and shells into the fort and then left to the secondary street and along to the Ironsides. The main street was so filed with the dead that no man could walk its length without climbing across the bodies.
The remaining sergeants were keeping the men busy and jumping on any gossip quickly but even so far too many of the men were spreading tales. Of what they had seen and in the case of those men of first platoon that had come under fire from invisible Arabs, what they had not seen.
Many whispered of not just the dead that walked but of magic and witchcraft. Even without the casualties they had suffered the men of this company were no longer fit for battle and the sergeants and officers knew it.