One beast, leaping the fallen, clipped the bodies beneath. The beast’s scream cut through the thunderous thrumming of the hooves around it as it tripped and fell forwards, breaking its foreleg. It crashed headlong through the sandbag parapet, its momentum and weight carrying it slithering over the edge into the narrow trough of the trench.
The soldier barely had time to scream before its huge bulk threw him off the fire step. It drove him into the duckboards, snapping planks and bones, where the beast struggled, screaming and kicking, trying to right itself, grinding the Tommy’s body beneath it and smashing the revetments with its hooves. A wild kick splintered another soldier’s thigh, the jagged shards of femur ripping though his khaki serge as it quickly began to stain with blood.
His mates dragged him clear of the bellowing animal, yelling for a stretcher bearer. Quickly, three bayonets were plunged into the creature, briefly increasing the thrashing and squealing. Barely had Everson stepped up and shot it in the forehead, than Bell was out of her funk hole, taking charge of the casualties, as along the front line other panicked animals leapt over the trenches, losing their footing and tumbling madly into the man-made ditches.
Choking dust sifted down from the hurtling herds above as they leapt over the trenches. The men knew enough now to keep their heads down, and huddled at the bottom, their hands over their heads, to sit it out. Some sat back against the parados revetment, their feet braced against the opposite wall, their rifles and bayonets pointed up against the prospect of a clumsy beast. Others lit up what fags they had left and smoked nonchalantly as the beasts thundered and pounded by, feet above their heads, showering them with dirt, dust, and the occasional fear-voided droppings, much to the amusement of their fellows.
Several chanced their heads and took pot-shots at the rampaging creatures from the fire steps. Caught by a stray hoof, one careless man’s neck snapped back, breaking in an instant. He crumpled to the duck boards like an empty sack.
With the thunderous pounding surrounding them, dirt raining down on them, it began to feel like an old-fashioned Bosche artillery barrage of minniewerfers and five-nines. It seemed to last forever. Everson almost laughed at the thought. Who would have thought he’d miss the good old days?
THEN, AS IT seemed the stampeding rumble would go on forever, it was over. The thunder of hooves receded, leaving only the odd squealing animal chasing after the rest.
The men waited, fearing more. It didn’t come and they began to relax, laugh and chatter with the exhilaration of survival. Hobson sniffed, straightened his waxed moustache, picked up his rifle and stood up, intending to peer over the parapet, but shouts of alarm over to his right distracted him. The screams grew louder, moving along the trench towards them. Several fire bays away, he heard shots fired.
A maddened hell hound careered round the traverse, confused and panic-stricken, cornered like a boar in a run. Men leapt onto fire steps and scrambled up the parapets out of its way. Several Tommies skidded to a halt behind it in the traverse and levelled their rifles. It slewed to a halt, snarling and snapping, cornered between the traverse and Sergeant Hobson.
Hobson aimed his bayoneted rifle and pulled the trigger. The rifle jammed. Stoppage. He cursed silently but didn’t back down. He gripped his rifle more firmly and dropped it into a low defensive guard. The bayonet was his weapon now.
Its way blocked, the hell hound attempted to turn in the tight space, but couldn’t. Frustrated and enraged, it snapped at a man’s legs on the fire step, sinking its teeth into his calf and dragging him down off the step, as the man clawed at the revetment, stretching hands that reached down, but not far enough.
It tossed its head, shaking him. Even over the man’s scream, Hobson heard the man’s leg snap.
Hobson let out a roar, and the beast turned its head to look at him. It opened its jaws and let the man drop. Hobson lunged forward with his fixed bayonet; the hell hound shook its head in challenge and sprung forwards to meet him. With a blood-curdling cry, Hobson thrust his rifle, plunging the bayonet deep into the creature’s chest. The hell hound’s attack faltered. Stuck on the bayonet, it snapped at Hobson, who held it at bay with the length of the rifle.
He glanced up at the scared men on the parapets, who looked unsure of what to do. “Well don’t just bloody stand there taking bets. Fire, damn you or I’ll have your names!”
Shaken from their fear, the men took aim and a fusillade of bullets slammed into the creature. Amid the cordite smoke, Hobson felt the rifle take the full weight of the hell hound as it died, and withdrew his bayonet.
Hobson looked at the firing squad on the parapet, glaring up at them from under the lip of his steel helmet. “If I find out any of you bet against me,” he said. “I’ll have your bloody guts for garters.”
EVERSON TENTATIVELY RAISED a look-stick over the collapsing parapet and squinted through the aperture. The dust was still settling, caught as it was by wind eddies.
The bodies of beasts littered the ground: the sick, the old, the young, the unlucky, lay twisted and broken, dead or injured. The living squealed and whinnied in pain.
Satisfied that the stampede had run its course, he climbed out of the trench to survey the encampment. Around the fire trench, others climbed out, too, pushing back their helmets in bewilderment and disbelief at the devastation wreaked by the stampede.
Everson’s heart sank as he turned around. Animal bodies hung from the wire entanglements, trenches had collapsed, tents had been trampled, and hutments razed. It might as well have been a bloody Hun artillery barrage.
Hobson walked up and joined him.
“All that work and we’re back where we started,” said Everson with a sigh.
Hobson stuck out his chest and rocked on his feet. “It’ll give the men something to do, sir.”
“We’re going to have to strengthen the trenches, relay the entanglements, repitch the tents, rebuild the hutments…”
“Still,” said Hobson, brightly. “Plenty of dung for the gunpowder experiments now, I’d say.”
Everson sighed. “Thank you, Sergeant, I hadn’t realised there was such a silver lining.”
Hobson glanced down modestly, and shrugged. “You just have to look for it. Or in your case, sir, tread in it.”
THE STAMPEDE OVER, the gas gong sounded the all-clear. Edith and Sister Fenton climbed out of the dugout. Together the nurses looked out towards the approaching storm.
Edith didn’t relish the prospect of the quagmire the trenches would become under a torrential rain, and she suspected the men wouldn’t either. They had grown used to the comfort of dry trenches and dugouts.
As she watched the storm shadows slide across the veldt towards them, she squinted at the voluminous roiling grey mass in the distance and shivered.
TULLIVER CIRCLED THE trenches in his Sopwith, looking for somewhere to land. The hooves of thousands of bloody animals had churned up his carefully kept strip. They’d trampled the whole landscape to buggery. There had to be somewhere to land.
His attention turned to the oncoming weather, to the great grey-blue mass rolling towards them, blotting out the achingly blue sky as it came.
Only they weren’t clouds. From up here, that much was clear now. Tulliver could see what those on the ground couldn’t. The danger wasn’t yet over because the stampede was never the threat. It was what caused it that was the real threat.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EVERSON FOCUSED HIS binoculars on the storm front and felt a hoarfrost of fear creep down his spine. He adjusted the focus and blurred shadows sharpened into a moment of confusing detail. He lowered the field glasses to get context and quickly raised them again, panning across the rapidly advancing cloud front. He passed the glasses to Hobson, soliciting the Platoon Sergeant’s opinion. “What do you make of it?”