Almost preternaturally fast, Gazette swung his rifle round, following the movement, before dismissing it.
“What the fuck?” Another ran through Porgy’s legs.
Then a gaggle of the critters scuttled out of the undergrowth.
Atkins’s eyes narrowed as he stared into the gloom of the forest surrounding them. Something had made those things funk it. Another gesture and the rest of the section sought hasty cover behind the lip of the old Nazarrii edifice ,scrambling at their chests for their gas hoods.
Hood in hand, Atkins called out. “Don’t fire unless you have to. We may have to repel more than one attack until they can haul the Ivanhoe up.”
“And then they’ll be in for a surprise,” said Porgy, his voice muffled by the layers of chemically impregnated flannel.
Atkins removed his soft cap and tugged the hood over his head, tucking it into his collar. The world yellowed and cracked, filtered by the mica eyepieces. He could feel his forehead begin to prickle with sweat under the thick cloth.
For a moment there was only silence and tension. Sweaty palms gripped barrels. Eyes scanned the wall of forest from behind dirty lenses of the gas hoods.
Zohtakarrii scentirrii swarmed out of the forest like cockroaches, leaping from the cover of the trees with angry, rattling hisses. Those with swords and spears bounded like grasshoppers, covering the space between the forest and the ruins in seconds.
One launched itself over the shattered wall. Atkins, braced against a large block of rubble, thrust up with his bayonet, slipping the seventeen-inch blade up into the soft abdomen, and used the chatt’s momentum to swing his rifle like a pitchfork. He threw the chatt over his head, pulling the trigger as he did so. The chatt flailed through the air and fell against the rubble blocks, where its carapace cracked and a thick dark ichor seeped out of its broken body.
Gazette settled down into cover and picked off charging chatts with mechanical precision, flanked by Pot Shot and Porgy.
The ruins, though, were in danger of being overrun. Further afield, Atkins heard the sound of shooting. The chatts were flanking them and attacking the main rescue party. And he and his section were about to be cut off from the rest of them.
“2 Section! Fall back and give covering fire!” yelled Atkins.
They didn’t have to be told twice. The section retreated to the rear of the ruins to give covering fire to Atkins and his Black Hand Gang.
ON HEARING THE first shots, Everson barked orders. “Stand to. Fix bayonets. Gas, gas, gas!”
There was no gas, of course, but the hoods protected against the chatts’ acid spit and the command had been drilled into the men. Everson saw no point in changing it.
Everson turned to the Fusilier astride the battlepillar as it and its partner continued their obstinate plod forward, each footfall hauling the tank nearer. If they could get the tank to the top, then it could turn the tide for them. They might not be able to drive it, but its machine guns and six-pounders would bring much needed support. They had to cover Woolridge and his battlepillars for as long as possible.
He called up. “Woolridge, whatever happens, keep pulling. We need that tank. We’ll buy you as much time as we can.”
Woolridge waved his acknowledgement from Big Bertha’s howdah. Ferris and Carlton manned the battlepillar’s forward machine gun. Merrick and Bailey took the rear.
Woolridge saw Atkins and the two rearguard sections retreating towards the main party across the no man’s land of scrub, with the lines of chatts advancing behind them.
“Covering fire!” he yelled.
Ferris and Carlton opened fire, their elevated position giving a good beaten zone. The Lewis gun chuddered out in short bursts, shattering carapaces and felling advancing chatts.
The rest of the platoon, having taken cover, yelled encouragement as Atkins’ men pelted towards them, some helping injured or blinded comrades.
They reached the safety of the firing line, hurdling over the crouched soldiers.
BIG BERTHA AND Big Willie were now advancing beyond the front line towards the chatts, as they continued to haul their ironclad load from the crater. For Woolridge to do his job, Everson couldn’t afford to lose ground to the enemy.
There was nothing for it; they would have to attack and defend every yard they could. Their only problem was lack of ammunition. Whatever they faced today, even if they were to repel it, they would still need to conserve ammunition for whatever happened afterwards. To be out here this far from the trenches without ammunition would leave them effectively defenceless.
Everson summoned the nearest private. “Ellis! Tell the NCOs. On my order, we’re going to advance towards the enemy. Single-round fire.”
“Sir.” The Fusilier dashed along the line as the first wave of chatts sprang towards them.
Everson blew his whistle and the sections stepped out from behind cover.
The skirmish line advanced: the bombers, flanked by riflemen, took advantage of the close bunching of chatts as Mills bombs arced through the air to explode in balls of fire and red-hot shrapnel, throwing limbs and razor-sharp shards of carapace whirling though the air.
“It’s pig-sticking time, lads!” howled a Corporal, and the air was filled with cries and roars honed on English training grounds under the eyes of disdainful NCOs.
The Tommies charged with bayonets and crashed against chatt carapaces in close quarters fighting, too close for electric lances to be effective, fighting to hold the line. Everson slashed and parried with his sword, taking out his frustrations with every cut and thrust.
Atkins swung his rifle and bayonet, countering parries and thrusts from spears and swords, his khaki tunic becoming mottled and moth-eaten as drops of acid spit burnt themselves away against the thick serge. Chatts swarmed around them, like ants on jam. Again and again he stabbed, countered, swung the stock of his Enfield into the horned and nubbed carapaces, blocked blows with the barrel. As one chatt fell, another took its place. Under his gas hood, Atkins howled with frustration and rage, and the muscles in his arms began to burn with the effort.
The Fusiliers advanced past Big Bertha and Big Willie. Arcs of electric energy blistering the air around them as the chatts’ lancers found their range.
The left flank of the line began to weaken and the Tommies were pushed back, but wheeled round to protect the straining battlepillars.
BELOW, IN THE crater, the sound of gunfire and screams echoed off the walls. The working party paused.
“Jesus, what the hell is going on up there?” said Mitchell. “Sounds like an attack.”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to be stuck down here,” said Cooper. He scrambled up the scree slope, stones slipping out from under his feet as he climbed.
“Cooper, who said you could leave your post? Get back here!” ordered Corporal Talbot.
Cooper ignored him, reached the vine rope by which they’d descended, and began to climb, hand over hand.
“What are you going to do?” Owen asked Talbot.
Talbot’s shoulders dropped in defeat. “Nothing,” he said. “Leastways, not yet. I’ve got his name, and he’s climbing towards a fight, ain’t he? He’s not deserting.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but maybe we should all be up there, Corp,” said Fletcher.
The tank groaned and clanked, clawing its way up the scree, like a faithful hound attempting to scramble up to help its master.
“Maybe we should, but our orders were to see to the tank. That’s our job.”
WOOLRIDGE JABBED THE driving spikes between the segmented plates behind Big Bertha’s head, urging the beast forward.
“Come on, girl, come on,” he urged, willing the larval creature on.