“Lieutenant,” I called out. “We need a box of shells over here right now.”
I turned, expecting to see Timkins getting the long box off the donkey’s back. Instead the corridor was empty, there was no sign of our lieutenant, nor of the donkey, and more importantly, we had no more ammo to hand.
“I’m out,” Mac called from the barricade.
“Me too,” shouted Benson, just as a large black beetle forced its way forward. Jock stabbed it in the eye with his bayonet, then sliced a leg from under it. It was a small victory, for another crowded in immediately to take its place, with more coming over the top from behind it. Jim Woods tried the same trick with his bayonet but was grabbed tight in a huge pincer and swept away out of sight before any of the rest of us could move. His screams were loud, but mercifully short lived.
“I’m out,” another man shouted from the line.
The beetles were now forcing themselves against the overturned tables and we were being pushed back to avoid being swamped, back into the corridor. If we were pushed back all the way to where it opened out into the temple, we would then be overrun in seconds. I had few choices left. I emptied my revolver into a huge beast that was threatening to charge through our defenses all on its own, and gave the order.
“Fall back, quickly now. Back to the temple, and back to yon staircase. It’s our only chance.”
As a man, we turned and fled. I heard, but didn’t see, the old tables of our barricade being torn into so much kindling as the beetles came through after us. Then there was only the sound of our running footsteps on stone and the ever increasing howl and drone of the beetles as they forced their way over and around each other in their desire to flood into the temple.
The lieutenant was already on the staircase behind the statue, trying to coax the donkey up the narrow steps. He saw us coming across the temple floor and with a squeal like a startled child turned and ran, bounding up the steps with no seeming thought to the danger of falling. He was soon lost in the gloom above. I had no time to consider his treachery just then, I had to get the men organized before we were completely swamped. Luckily for us the donkey did not bolt with the lieutenant, and stood long enough to allow Mac to divest it of the ammo box.
“Fill your sporrans, lads,” I called out as I tried to find the box of cartridges for my revolver. “Then up the stairs, sharpish.”
That was my plan, the only one I had, but I soon saw it wasn’t going to work. The beetles swarmed into the temple, pouring through the archway and quickly covering the whole floor, if we turned our backs on them we’d be taken immediately. Our only option was a retreat up the stairs, but not a full, running flight, we’d have to take it slowly, watching our backs the whole way.
And hope against hope that the buggers would give us the time to make some kind of an escape.
One thing I didn’t have to worry about was the donkey; as soon as we got the ammo off its back it turned and fled up the stairs, following Timkins into the darkness above.
“Follow that donkey,” Mac shouted, and got a dry laugh from the rest of us. Then the beetles were upon us, and our fight for survival really began.
As a man we backed away to the stairs and started up. I was among the first on the stairs, next to Mac, Benson and Hynd and the four of us did our best to provide covering fire for the poor chaps bringing up the rear. Having to fire over the heads of our men sorely hampered our effectiveness; we couldn’t help them with the closest beetles, instead we could only hope to keep enough of them at bay so that the nearest could be dispatched.
It worked, for a time at least, with us four at the top dragging the ammo box up with us, step by agonizing step, dispensing shells and providing covering shots where we could. But one by one the chaps fighting below us started to succumb to the encroaching horde of black carapaces. Ally Dunlop fell when he was too occupied with a pincer heading for his face to notice the smaller beetle that scuttled below his defense. It took a swipe at his shin, opening a wound down to the bone that sent the man to his knee, then quickly under a squirming, ravenous pile of the beasts. Colin Campbell stepped into his place and lasted as we backed up half a dozen steps, but a big brute of a beetle, ten feet long or more, barreled its way through its brethren, up the staircase and launched itself straight at the man. He put a bullet in its left eye and sliced its legs away from under it with his bayonet but its momentum carried it forward. A huge pincer caught Campbell by his waist, and his struggles, and the weight of the beast itself, toppled them both off the steps and away down to the temple floor, now some ten yards below us. At least the man was dead before he hit the ground, for the feeding frenzy that followed was a terrible thing to behold.
After that we developed a strange kind of rhythm for several minutes, reloading, dragging the ammo, then volleying covering fire before starting the process all over again. Nim Asbury was now our last line of defense, he took to it with gusto. He’d dispensed with the Lee Enfield in preference for his service sword, which he used to great effect in slicing legs and popping eyeballs, all the while weaving and bobbing like a dancer, keeping himself just out of reach of advancing pincers. He was one of the strongest, fittest men in the squad, but even he weakened eventually. He mistimed a thrust; his sword stuck between adjoining plates of the closest attacker’s carapace and was dragged from his grasp. A beetle caught him by the ankle, another took him around the thigh, and he too tumbled away out of view to the ground that was now thankfully lost from sight in gloom below.
Still we climbed, ever higher into the darkness. There was little light to aid us from the temple below. When I chanced a look upward it was only to see a sheet of black, whether it was rock or merely a clouded sky I could not tell. In truth, it scarcely mattered, for it looked like we would be taken long before we reached the end of the staircase. The last two men, Smith and Henderson, both fell within minutes of each other, until there was only Benson, Hynd, Mac and me standing.
“I’m right sorry to have got you lads killed,” I said as I shot out the front legs of the nearest attacking beetle. Mac leaned over my shoulder and speared the beast through the right eye, before sending it tumbling away with a push.
“Dinna talk shite, man,” he said, edging past me to take what should have been my place at the rear. “We’re no’ done yet.” He put a bullet into the head of a huge beetle, an instant before it was set to lop off his head. Then, dropping the rifle at his feet, he stepped forward and swung his backpack at the thing. I heard the pipes inside the pack squeal, and the beetles below us, as if in reply, answer with a louder drone of their own. The huge beetle Mac had shot wavered, and I thought it might tumble over. Then it steadied, and pushed forward. Mac planted his legs firmly against the join of step and rock and pushed back, grabbing its front legs and holding the beast high and away from his body. Its bulk covered the staircase, blocking any access from below. Mac had effectively created a new barricade, one that would only hold as long as he had his strength.
“Now, awa’ ye go, man,” Mac said. His muscles were bunched tight, and the strain showed in every feature, but he managed a grin, his teeth showing too white in the dark. “Get up the stairs. If yon wee jobbie Timkins is nae here, he must have got out. Go find him and give him a kick up the arse for me and the lads.”
Even then I might have stayed, but Benson and Hynd dragged me away, and put themselves below me on the staircase. They stood over the remaining ammo in the box, loading their weapons. I took the chance to reload my revolver with the last six cartridges I had in my sporran and moved to cover them, but they too pushed me away.