The agitated urmen were restrained only by a strong voice that barked out of the shadows. The Enfields came up and bolts cycled. It was a stand off.
Napoo stepped forwards, fingers splayed, patting the air, as he passed the Tommies. “Lower your firesticks.”
The Tommies looked at Atkins. He nodded and the bayonets were lowered. He hoped their urman guide could persuade his kin of their honest intentions and at least find out if they had any information before things went to hell. Atkins glowered and shook his head. An urman with a white-painted face stepped from the shadows. Napoo bowed. “I am Napoo, chief of the Horuk Clan. This urman is Onli of the Tohmii.”
“Those aren’t our real names,” muttered Atkins.
“This man is a shaman,” Napoo told him. “They believe given names have power. I spoke our taken names, which have less power.”
“You give your name too freely, stranger.” The shaman rolled his eyes upwards, scanning the canopy. “Here in the Thalpa groves, the spirits may take them. If they haven’t already.”
“The Tohmii are strong,” replied Napoo. “Our names are still our own. We seek kin of theirs, keepers of a great beast. We have followed its spore here.” He pointed at the twin tracks on the ground.
Several of the urmen muttered amongst themselves before one suddenly let out a tongue-trilling alarm. It had spotted Chandar.
“You walk with the Ones,” the shaman said, his lip curled in loathing. “You are not true urmen. You are their chattel!” He gave a signal.
Atkins felt a sting and clapped his hands to his neck to find a feathered dart protruding from his skin above his collar. He plucked it out and looked at it in a quizzical way as it swam out of focus. “Bollocks,” he muttered, through a suddenly drying mouth as his sense of balance went and he fell over. The skull-like visage of the shaman appeared in his tunnelling vision before all faded into blackness.
TIRED AND ACHING, he found himself walking down a cobbled street of familiar terraced houses, the numbers on the front doors counting down as he walked. The sky above was grey, leaden, and laced with the promise of rain. The smell of hops from the brewery hung heavily in the air and he breathed the familiar aroma deeply. With every step he took, he felt the exhilaration of a soldier on leave, nearing the end of his journey. He sensed lace curtains twitching. He could feel the weight of his pack on his back. An old woman shaking a tablecloth into the breeze tutted as he passed and shut the door on him.
A man in a flat cap and shabby jacket passed him on the street. “You’re no better than you ought to be,” he said with venom.
Still the numbers counted down as he walked, and there it was. Number 12. Flora’s parents’ house. Flora Mullins. The girl he had loved all his life. He dropped the pack from his back and began running. As he approached, the door opened and Flora stepped out. She was wearing a white blouse and long skirt, a shawl across her shoulder, no, not a shawl, something cradled on her shoulder in a shawl. A baby. He came to a stop yards from her, his heart wanting to burst with joy and pride. He smiled at her. She smiled back, and he took a step towards her. Someone else stepped from the door behind her, a man in shirtsleeves and braces, a man he knew well, better than any other. His brother William, declared missing on the Somme.
“William! You’re alive. Thank God.”
His brother stepped towards him. The smile vanished from William’s face as he did, contorting into a black scowl of anger and resentment, his hand clenching into a fist.
“Alive? More than I can say for you, you little shit, you bastard, I’ll kill you! I hope you rot in whatever hell you find yourself in!”
He heard Flora scream as William swung at him. The fist connected with his jaw and he went down, the world spinning into blackness, the scream still ringing in his ears.
THE SCREAM WENT on and pain flooded his consciousness. He opened his eyes. He was lying on his side. He tried to move and couldn’t; his hands were tied behind his back. He strained his neck to find the source of the screams. It was Nellie. She was lashing out at their captors with her legs, the accuracy of her kicks hampered only by her calf-length khaki skirt, until they kept their distance, regarding her warily, and she had to settle for glaring at them. Atkins’ eyes met those of Mercy. “Bastards ambushed us with blow-pipes,” said the private.
Rough hands hauled Atkins to his feet. There were groans of protest around him as the others were pulled up, too. He counted all his men, Napoo, Nellie and Chandar. Their guns and equipment were piled up across the clearing, where some urmen were rifling through their haversacks.
He took in their surroundings. They were in an open space bordered on three sides by forest. On the fourth side, the land came to a stop and dropped away steeply. A gnarled narrow platform, grown out from the tree roots around it, extended out over the precipice.
Stood before the platform was the urman with the white-painted face. The shaman. His warriors stood solemnly around the clearing behind the bound soldiers.
“My name is Jarak,” the shaman said. “I had a clan. I had an enclave. I had honour. Now all that has been stolen from me. I have nothing left but my power. Our chief was weak, desperate, and he found my magic wanting. Your kin came to our land with their spirit, Skarra, saying that their magic can banish the devil that has been taking our people. But why need it take my people when it can take you instead? If you are as strong as you say, then you will make worthy sacrifices to the spirits. Maybe then they will deliver us from the dulgur.”
He nodded and two of the warriors started herding Porgy towards the platform, his feet digging into the tree spoil as he struggled.
“Porgy!” Atkins started forward, but two warriors restrained him.
Porgy cast him an empty glance as he passed. He’d seen the same look in men’s eyes before they went over the top; the look of men without hope.
“Wait,” said Atkins, standing as erect as his bonds and aching body would allow him. His dream was still fresh in his mind, and the self-loathing it provoked still stirred within him. “My given name is Atkins, Thomas, 19644, C Company, 13th Battalion, Pennine Fusiliers.”
The shaman regarded him with interest. “You are not afraid to reveal your given name?”
“No.”
The shaman’s eyes narrowed. He nodded at his warriors who shoved Porgy back with the others, knocking them over like skittles.
“Only, don’t!”
“It’s done,” he said. “Make the most of it. Get out of here alive.”
Atkins walked out onto the platform under his own steam, a little unsteadily, but his resolve seemed to impress the shaman. He was the NCO in charge. It was the right thing to do. It might not pay for all the wrong he’d done, but this was all he had. It would have to do. If this could buy his section time to free themselves, then all to the good. Right now, his brother’s words were still fresh in his mind; never mind that they were a dream, they only served to remind him of his own thoughts. He deserved whatever fate had in store for him.
The shaman anointed Atkins’ forehead with some greasy, rank smelling unguent. Atkins flinched involuntarily. He looked straight ahead at the horizon, framed on either side by the entwined and fused branches and roots that formed the living wood platform. Beyond it, the jungle tumbled headlong over the precipice, falling in a tangle of branches, roots and liana as the ground plunged away, where, hundreds of feet below, the jungle continued almost uninterrupted by the drop.
The shaman called out in his own tongue, his arms thrown wide in invocation. Warriors with spears urged Atkins to the edge of the platform out over the precipice. Around him, the boughs and roots of the platform groaned and squeaked. The wood beneath his feet had been worn smooth. How many other sacrifices had it taken over the years? How many had plunged to their deaths here? He looked straight ahead, the sense of vertigo making him stagger, but the root rails prevented him from falling. Far out across the jungle below he saw another escarpment rising on the far side. A discolouration of the jungle canopy below, marking out a long, wide, straight line, caught his eye. It didn’t seem natural, but he had other things on his mind.