“You can’t blame them for rioting,” said Pot Shot, remonstrating. “We’ve had no rest or pay for four months. We haven’t suddenly found ourselves back on Earth, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to, either, does it?” The lanky Fusilier shot a sullen glance at Atkins. “Don’t you think the rest of those poor buggers deserve to know, too?”He was talking about the Bleeker party, and Atkins knew it. They all did.
He wanted to do the right thing, and of course, he had sympathy with those rioting, all of which made his choice to stand here right now all the harder.
He shook his head. “That’s not our problem. Lieutenant Everson ordered us to keep it secret, remember? And for good reason.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” countered Pot Shot. “Even so, if there isn’t a way back, then we’re not exactly anybody’s army anymore are we? Maybe we should all have a vote,” he suggested.
“What, the women, too?” said Porgy, never usually given to deep political thought.
Gazette poked him in the shoulder. “You’re only worried that if they get to vote on everything, they’ll never let you walk out with them again,” said the taciturn sniper.
Atkins watched the mob approach the Battalion HQ, hands bristling with trench clubs, sticks and rifles. Porgy, Gazette and Pot Shot stood beside him, blocking the way.
“Go back,” he warned them.
Bains stepped to the fore, the shaft of an entrenching tool in his hand and a greasy smile on his face. “Well that’s the whole point isn’t it? We haven’t gone back, have we? We’re still here. All we want is a chance to make a new life for ourselves.”
Impatient, the men behind Bains began to jostle, bracing for a fight.
Atkins raised his voice and addressed the rabble. “Is that what you all say?”
Bains took a step forward, daring Atkins to react. “They’re not going to listen, Atkins,” he said, “not even to you. You don’t have any believers here. In fact, most of these men think you’re a bit of a sham. Those campfire tales of you fighting Jeffries, magic bolts of lightning, demons, all that?” He wrinkled his nose in contempt. “Don’t believe ’em. You’re no better than I am. You’re just a jumped-up lance jack who wants a bit of glory. Well, they don’t give out medals for bullshit.” He paused and shrugged. “Unless you’re on the General Staff, of course.”
“You ain’t half pushing it, Bains,” said Porgy.
“On the contrary. It’s Everson that’s been pushing it for far too long, and it ends here. Where’s Everson?” He looked around and began singing. “If you want to find the CO, I know where he is, he’s down in the deep dug–’”
A gas gong rang out. Everson stood on the trench bridge above them, the artillery shell casing hanging at the end of the bridge still swinging where he’d struck it with the butt of his Webley.
“You men! Stand down. That’s an order. I’ve asked once. That’s more than generous, given the circumstances. I won’t ask again.”
“We don’t take orders anymore,” yelled Bains. “We’ve done our duty, but there are no Huns left to kill, no King to tell us what to do, no country to fight for.”
“It doesn’t excuse mutiny,” said Everson, looking down at him.
“It does if you don’t recognise military law anymore.”
“Your uniform says different. Now disperse and go back to your dugouts,” Everson ordered.
From around the camp, indiscriminate rifle fire popped and crackled.
“You hear that?” he said. “Every bullet you and your fellow mutineers squander means one less creature we can kill, one less horror we can dispatch. So each round you waste only hastens your own deaths.”
“Or yours,” countered Bains with a sneer. “At ’em, lads!”
The mob rushed the Tommies in the trench.
Porgy grabbed a sandbag from the parapet and swung it round. It smacked a mutineer on the side of the head with a thick, wet thud, slamming him into the trench wall.
Atkins hooked the shoulder stock of his Enfield behind a mutineer’s knee, snatching the man’s leg out from under him. A shunt of his shoulder sent him over.
Striding forward, he drove the shoulder stock of his rifle into a stomach of another and brought it up, cracking the gas-masked man on the chin as he doubled over, then swung it down on the back of his head, driving him onto the duckboards.
He never thought he’d be fighting his own. But he fought with a desperation born of fear, knowing that everything he held dear depended on Everson staying in command. Every man jack of these mutineers was an obstacle to a goal that was his guilt and his disgrace. He knew that they were stuck here. He knew with more certainty than these poor bastards did. He chose not to believe it. He chose to hold on to a possibility so slim it could be said to be barely there at all. It was the one Everson had pinned his hopes on, too. Every moment he was stuck here in camp was a moment lost, a moment when he could be pursuing Jeffries, the only man who might conceivably know of a way back. Back home to Flora, his missing brother’s fiancée and, to his eternal shame and joy, the mother-to-be of his own child.
Bains grabbed Atkins’ rifle.
“What makes you better than me, eh? What really happened in Khungarr between you and Everson and Jeffries?” he grunted.
“Really?” snapped Atkins, snatching the rifle from his grip. “I saved a chatt’s life.”
A shadow crossed his face and he flinched instinctively. Bains took advantage of the distraction and melted into the mob.
Atkins glanced up at the parapet to see Sergeant Hobson leaping over the sandbags, using the firestep below as a springboard as he leapt into the fray, swinging his trench club. Atkins didn’t envy the mutineers now. He’d seen Hobson in trench raids and he fought with a brutal efficiency.
Atkins’ brow furrowed with mock concern. “I was worried you wouldn’t get here in time, Sarn’t!”
“Thanks for saving me a few, lad,” said Hobson, raising his trench club, and as he waded into the skirmish, skulls cracked and punched faces flung bloody mucus into the air.
BAINS, SEEING THE tide turn, scrambled up the side of the trench and made for the makeshift bridge that spanned it, where Everson stood. All pretence at negotiation was gone now. This was a bloody coup.
Everson caught the dull yellow shine of a brass knuckle-duster and a glimpse of a short blade. A dirty little weapon, he thought, as Bains charged him; a Hun souvenir.
He moved off the footbridge to meet Bains, blocked the first punch thrust and grabbed Bains’ wrist. He stepped past and brought the handle of his revolver down on the back of Bains’ head. Bains’ momentum carried him across the bridge into the gas gong. It clonged as he slipped, lost his footing and tumbled over the edge into the trench.
His unconscious body lay awkwardly on the duckboards below, a red stain spreading over the wet wood of the duckboards and bleeding into the muddy sump below.
Standing on the footbridge, Everson combed his hair back off his forehead with one hand, establishing order and decorum in his own mind once again. He looked around for his cap, picked it up by the peak and placed it on his head, just so, with a nod of satisfaction.
“Mop this lot up, Atkins,” he said.
INTERLUDE 1
29th March 1917
My Dearest Flora,
We’ve been back in camp for a while now. Don’t worry. It was still here when we returned, despite my fears. At least we have fresh rations now, if you can call what the mongey wallahs cook up fresh.