“No.”
“Apparently a thin ribbon of cloud, like a snake, blew in from the sea and rained the seeds. The plant sprouted overnight and it's been growing ever since. It appears quite impassable. I tell you, Baker, those blasted Hun sorcerers know their stuff when it comes to weather and plants. It's how they still drum hundreds of thousands more Africans into the military than we do. The tribes are so superstitious, they'll do anything you say if they believe you can summon or prevent rain and grow them a good crop. Colonel Crowley is having a tough time opposing them—the sorcerers, I mean.”
Baker struggled to process all this. Sorcerers? Plants? Weather control?
“Crowley?” he asked.
The shorter man raised his eyebrows. “Good lord! Your brain really is shot through! Colonel Aleister Crowley. Our chief medium. The wizard of wizards!”
Baker said nothing.
The correspondent shrugged in bafflement, pressed up against the side of the trench as a line of troops pushed past, chuckled as a sergeant said, with a grin and a wink, “Keep your heads down, gents, I don't want holes in those expensive helmets,” then turned back to his 'scope. Baker watched this and struggled to overcome his sense of detachment.
I don't belong here. I don't understand any of it.
He wiped his sleeve across his mouth—the atmosphere was thick with humidity and he was sweating profusely—then put his eye to his periscope's lens.
Two more of the harvestmen were being pulled down into the wriggling flora. He said, “How many men must die before someone orders the blasted vehicles to pull back?”
“We won't retreat,” came the answer. “This is our last chance. If we can capture German resources in Africa, we might be able to launch some sort of counterattack in Europe. If not, we're done for. So we'll do whatever it takes, even if it means pursuing forlorn hopes. Look! Another one has gone down!”
The three remaining harvestmen set their sirens screaming: “Ulla! Ulla! Ulla! Ulla!”
The journalist continued, “Terrible racket. One could almost believe the damned spiders are alive and terrified.”
Baker shook his head slightly. “Strictly speaking, they're not spiders. Spiders are of the order Aranaea, whereas harvestmen are Opiliones.”
How do I know that?
The war correspondent snorted. “They're not of any order now—not since our Technologists scraped 'em out!”
All along the British trenches, men started to blow on whistles.
“Damn! Here comes our daily dose of spores. Get your mask on.”
Baker moved without thinking about it. His hands went to his belt, opened a canvas container, pulled out a thick rubber mask, and slid it over his face. He and his companion looked at each other through circular glass eyepieces.
“I hate the smell of these things,” the smaller man said, his voice muffled. “And they make me claustrophobic. Far too stifling an item to wear in this infernal climate. What say we go back to the dugout for a brew? It's getting too dark for us to see much more here anyway. Time for a cuppa! Come on!”
Baker took a last glance through his periscope. His mask's eyepieces blurred the scene, and Africa's fast-descending night obscured it even further, but he could just make out that on the far side of the weed a thick yellow cloud was advancing, appearing luminescent against the inky sky. He shivered, turned, and followed the other along the front-line trench, into a communications ditch, and back to one of the dugouts. They passed masked soldiers—mostly Askari, African recruits, many of them barely out of childhood—who sat despondently, waiting to go over the top.
The two men arrived at a doorway, pushed a heavy curtain aside, and entered. They removed their helmets and face gear.
“Make sure the curtain is hooked back into place, it'll keep the spores out. I'll get us some light,” the journalist said.
Moments later, a hurricane lamp illuminated the small underground bunker. It was sparsely furnished with two wooden beds, two tables, three chairs, and a couple of storage chests.
“Ugh!” Baker grunted. “Rats!”
“Nothing we can do about 'em. The little blighters are everywhere. They're the least of your problems. In a couple of days, that nice clean uniform of yours will be infested with lice and you'll feel like you're being eaten alive. Where's the bloody kettle? Ah, here!”
The little man got to work with a portable stove. In the light, his eyes were revealed to be a startling blue.
Baker stepped to the smaller of the two tables, which stood against the wall. There was a washbasin on it and a square mirror hanging on a nail just above. He sought his reflection but for some reason couldn't focus on it. Either his eyes wouldn't let him see himself, or he wasn't really there.
He moved to the other table, in the middle of the dugout, and sat down.
“The spores,” he said. “What are they? Where do they come from?”
“They're more properly called A-Spores. The Hun propagate giant mushrooms, a eugenically altered version of the variety commonly known as the Destroying Angel, or Amanita bisporigera, if you prefer your botany, like your entomology, in Latin. It's deadly, and so are its spores. Breathe them in and within seconds you'll experience vomiting, cramps, delirium, convulsions, and diarrhoea. You'll be dead in less than ten minutes.”
“Botanical weapons? The weed and now the mushroom spores. How horribly ingenious!”
The other man looked back at Baker with an expression of puzzlement. “It's common knowledge that the Germans use mostly plant-based armaments, surely? And occasional animal adaptations.”
“Is it? I'm sorry. As I said, my amnesia is near total. You mentioned something called lurchers?”
“Ah. Hum. Yes. Carnivorous plants. They were one of the first weapons the Germans developed. Originally they were battle vehicles, used throughout Africa. Then one day they spontaneously mutated and consumed their drivers, which somehow resulted in them gaining a rudimentary intelligence. After that they spread rapidly and are now a danger to both sides. If you see one, and there isn't a flamethrower handy, run for your life. They're particularly prevalent in the Lake Regions, where you were found.” The journalist paused, then added, “I didn't realise your memory was quite so defective. What about physically? How are you feeling?”
“Weak, but improving, and the ophthalmia has cleared up. I was halfblind when I regained consciousness in the hospital. That confounded ailment has plagued me on and off ever since India.”
“You were in India?”
Baker frowned and rubbed his chin. “I don't know. That just popped into my head. Yes, I feel I may have been.”
“India, by crikey! You should have stayed there. It might turn out to be the last bastion of civilisation on the whole bloody planet! Is that where you joined the Corps?”
“I suppose so.”
There came a distant boom, then another, and another. The ground shook. The journalist glanced at the ceiling.
“Artillery. Peashooters. Firing from the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.”
Baker muttered to himself, “Derived from bandar es-salaam, I should think. Ironic. It means harbour of peace.” Aloud, he said: “The landscape and climate feel familiar to me. Are we south of Zanzibar? Is there a village in the area called Mzizima?”
“Hah! Mzizima and Dar es Salaam are one and the same, Baker! Incredible, isn't it, that the death of the British Empire had its origins in such an insignificant little place, and now we're back here.”
“What do you mean?”
“It's generally believed that this is where the Great War began. Have you forgotten even that?”
“Yes, I fear I have. It began in Mzizima? How is that possible? As you say, it's an insignificant little place!”