Not Dead Yet: A British Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1-3, page 11
I felt a sinking feeling in my belly, that tonight, again my life would be placed in danger, despite having no intention of being around to see any of it. And if I wasn’t already on edge, I then witnessed the stupidest thing of the expedition so far.
“What’s the bloody colonel doing?”
Sheehan squinted in the direction of the church and focused on the same thing as myself.
Because if breezing into Strabane with a hundred plus horsemen wasn’t enough for the dead to see us, to hear us, or else sniff us, Fitzgibbon was only, right now, proceeding to hoist the Queen’s colours atop the bloody church mast as though we were about to parade for the annual town bake sale. Why not just light a line of pyres and wave them over? Why not have the town cryer announce to Ireland’s dead that the 8th have left the safety of Londonderry’s walls and that there’s a fresh, undefended regiment for them to chomp on. The maniac was busting for a fight, alright, and despite the urgent digging, the men began dropping shovels to salute the damned rag.
It was insanity but if I expected any support from Sheehan, I was to be disappointed. “Ah, now, Captain, you’re new and we probably didn’t get chance to explain the etiquette of the Queen’s regiments.”
While I half listened, he went on to explain that ever since Roman times and beyond, a regiment’s standards, their eagles, symbols or in our case, our colours, were the regiment’s honour. British regiments had two flags, which were our colours. They were our most prized possessions and were formally presented by the sovereign, Queen Victoria, which in battle, had to be defended at all costs. To lose the colours, to have them carried away by the enemy, was the worst tragedy that could possibly befall a regiment, worse, far worse even, than being wiped out to the man.
I had to stand and listen to this tripe as he spoke with a straight face - He meant it, by Jove, which was the lunacy of it all, and I gazed up at the flags, expecting to see what, I don’t know, but what I couldn’t see was anything worth dying for, even if Sheehan and every other fool who’d travelled down with me thought different.
The two rags fluttered in the wind as the mad colonel saluted from atop the church before wiping a teary eye. The first, the Queen’s colour, was the national flag with gold trim and the 8th’s insignia set in the centre. The other had a list of their historical battle honours woven intricately around the regimental emblem, which only now could I see was a woman with her arms broken behind her back into a harp shape, with strings and feathers. It was the same ridiculous image that the men around me had tattooed over their hearts, of all places, which alarmed me greatly. They were all so irredeemably mad.
Sheehan patted me on the shoulder. “I know of everybody here, the colours are safe with you around, Strappy. I know you’d gladly throw down your life, along with the rest of us, to protect them.” He spoke with genuine solemnity, before saluting the colours himself, his face contorting in grim formality, the one man I’d deemed most sane of the lot, now revealed himself as craziest of them all.
My gaping was interrupted when Fitzgibbon pranced out from the church, Pumphrey in tow, and together they turned back to gaze up at their work, oh such a glorious sight, which either wittingly or not, would signal to the dead it was dinner time.
It was sickening to watch the colonel, a supposed war hero, fawn over the man, ensuring the only non-combatant had received the best accommodation in town, the one remaining spare room at The Boar’s Belly. If only I could’ve seen his face upon discovering the other had been secured by none other than Captain Jack Strapper. But Fitzgibbon went far beyond for Pumphrey, which included opening doors, having peasants shoved out of his way and always, the two of them had a six-man armed guard. The safest place in Strabane was clearly at the colonel’s side, which was almost enough to have me at his feet, begging to be allowed in his entourage.
As the evening darkness began to enshroud the town, the first two companies of troopers were ordered out of the ditches to prepare their horses for battle. It was cue enough for me and I was about to find an opportunity to slink quietly off when Sheehan alerted me to a strange occurrence in the southern fields.
It seemed that some nutcase had taken it upon himself to venture on a solo jolly with his horse and even now was thrashing and cutting and thrusting and stabbing at the dead that continued to trickle out from the woods. He waved his sabre in the air before bringing it down upon fresh victims, the whites of his toothy grin and the twitching of his freckled face clear from the ditches. It was an officer, and what’s more, I knew the man, his ginger muttons coarse like unwanted weeds in a rose bed.
“Dolan’s gone insane,” I declared, “can’t we have him sectioned?”
“Sectioned?” Sheehan asked with a surprised tone. “For what, Strappy? For killing the enemy?”
I watched, appalled, for a further fifteen minutes, hoping some spook might do me a good turn and bring him down but it never happened and I wondered if maybe my luck was about to change. If Dolan had become unhinged then there was no telling what he might blabber, even considering that within the 8th, there was never a steadfast way of knowing for sure just who was deranged and who wasn’t. But this latest manifestation brought fresh concerns. If Dolan gave little damn for his life then he was unlikely to care much about other matters either and the last thing I needed was this one officer, touched by the moon, celebrating with the boys their likely victory tonight, imbibing the dark nectar, and telling libellous stories to anyone who’d listen.
I had to do something and as usual in such situations, the first port of call is to get in there first, spread gossip behind the target’s back, plant a few seeds of doubt amongst his fellows as to his state of mind.
I waited for one particular long series of twitches to conclude. “You notice anything odd about Captain Dolan recently? Apart from the obvious, I mean.”
Sheehan turned slowly to face me. “Anything odd, Strappy? Why, no. What do you mean?”
I waved a dismissive hand. “Ah, perhaps it’s just nothing…”
He hesitated and then took the bait. “…Or maybe it’s something. And I think that if a well loved and highly respected officer such as yourself has doubts about one of his colleagues, then I think that, for the good of the regiment, you ought to say.”
I nodded sadly, stepped closer and spoke sotto voce. “Well, you know how close the two of us are…or rather…were. It’s just that I can’t seem to get any sense out of the man anymore.” I fiddled anxiously with my cuff. “One day he’s fine and then it’s like a screw was turned and now not only will my friend refuse to speak with me, eat with me, go whoring with me, even, but here he is acting like a maniac, endangering himself out on the field. I worry for him, that’s all. And what if he was to get into trouble, out there, all alone, it’d be down to us to sally out to the rescue. He’s endangering his comrades…not that I’m overly concerned for myself, you understand…but the others…”
“Oh bejesus, Strappy, maybe there is something in it after all.” He cast an apprehensive glance toward the fruitcake on horseback as he ploughed through a brace of the dead. “What do you reckon happened?”
I rubbed my chin and sighed. “I can’t say I’m sure but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it was because his whore rejected him.” I held my eyes shut for effect. “He was rather taken by her, you see, and it matters not how much he offers…not that he has the tin either, you understand, for he is a poor man.”
“Ah, I can see how that might drive even the best of us to the brink, Strappy.”
I nodded acknowledgement. “It looks to have affected him particularly badly,” I sniffed. “I blame myself, I should have warned him. The perils of falling for a harlot.”
“No, no, and it’s just like you, Jack, but you can’t blame yourself for his lack of experience with the fairer sex.” He glanced into the field, to where Dolan was screeching obscenely as he jabbed an enemy in the back. “The poor man.”
“Poor man, indeed.” I coughed and touched his elbow. “This is strictly between the two of us, you understand?”
“Strappy, of course, you have the word of an officer and a gentleman.”
I left for the alehouse, fully anticipating that within the next few minutes, Dolan’s status amongst the gents would take a severe knocking.
I was sitting by the roaring fire, full tankard in hand while contemplating strategy for shirking my duty when a woman, a few years older than myself, though in truth it was hard to tell, approached and set down my roast beef platter.
Without speaking, she made a show of examining my uniform, pristinely cut and pressed, cavalry whiskers, black and striking, broad shoulders and all round good looks, countenance and air of authority as well as English upper-class superiority. “So you’re the one who ordered the roast beef. Dad says you must be rich.”
I inspected her tits and decided she might be worth speaking with. “Aye, I’m not short of a bob or two, miss, as I see you don’t lack charms yourself.”
She giggled and took the other seat, introducing herself as Tara. “That colonel was awful annoyed he didn’t get your room.”
I crammed down a mouthful of beef, which tasted delectable, like it had been marinaded for several days in red wine, and was thankful I wouldn’t be suffering hardtack and turnip like my comrades. “The colonel deserves what he gets so he can share an abode with the dead for all I care.” I swallowed. “But if that Pumphrey toff pokes his nose around then I want you to give him the silent treatment, alright?”
“Why? What’s he to you?”
“Absolutely nothing is what.”
She grazed a thumb across my own. “Are you not planning on defending the town tonight?”
I almost choked on gravy. “Miss, if there’s a battle, you can rest assured, I’ll be sleeping through it.”
She made a sad face. “Such a shame…I was rather hoping we could do something else.” It was truly saying something about the state of the world when a tavern domestic is more up front than a Soho whore, but then, it’s not every day that old Strappy breezes through town and from what I’d seen of the locals, or what remained of them, the girl would be hard pressed to find better. And for me, well, like I said, I’d seen the locals and tonight, I’d be hard pressed to find better.
I finished my bounty and sank my ale before retiring, wench in hand, to the bedroom.
I strutted to the window to close the curtains but the twilight only revealed the dreadful sight of an artillery piece, which even now was being dragged with a great and constant rumbling across the dirt as it kicked up a large cloud of dust to choke the men marching behind. A cavalry regiment, they knew not what they were doing, and it was a mystery to me where they’d even found it, how old it was, or if it would even fire. From this safe distance, they appeared as toy soldiers as they heaved the clumsy thing into position facing south and then a group of troopers and officers massed around it, the fat one panting against the gun wheel I recognised as Murphy, as the rest stood scratching their heads. It was all the convincing I needed to know my shirking was paying dividends already, aye, it would be an interesting night and I was glad to be partaking in a little something more to my liking, rather than crawling around in the dirt, hacking at ghouls in the dark or else this new beauty, that of playing with gunpowder and loaded cannons. Though such was the terror the gun had instilled within me that little Strappy was failing at his duty also, a most rare occurrence for myself. There was only one thing for it.
When I turned around she was in the act of untying the strings of her maid’s uniform.
“Leave it,” I demanded as I reached for my crop.
For a flash, there was fear and uncertainty upon her face but then she understood, succumbed and giggled, “oh Strappy,” before pulling something from her hair and a mass of brown tumbled down her shoulders.
I cut several practice strokes, relishing the familiar feel and sound of the air splitting apart and motioned for her to take position on the bed, which she did no arguments. “Turn around and hitch up your petticoat,” I demanded and commenced whipping in earnest.
From the first thrash she yelped, somewhere between pleasure and pain, and as I began to apply more pressure, the pink marks, gashes, abrasions and lacerations began to cover her buttocks. After a few minutes she was in tears and begging for me to stop but it was of no matter, because my soldier had regained his vitality, and not even the distant crackling of carbines could diminish it, as I mounted the woman, and neither could the terrible almighty cannon blast, which shook the building to its very foundations. I pounded while somewhere a building collapsed, rutted as a squad of horses clattered down the dirt track, I continued pummelling away to the shouts and screams that shrilled in the night and a bright glow momentarily illuminated the dark. The details my scrutinising senses could distinguish; the slashes of sabres, the popping of carbines, the distant calls and agonising yells of townsmen and troopers alike, the horses’ neighs, the cannon’s booms, officers arguing over minute details, the killing, soldiers weeping over dead comrades until finally, there was an explosion of my own and we both collapsed in bliss upon the bed.
If this was war then perhaps I could get used to it after all.
But at the time, I wasn’t to know that the dead had come, that they’d scaled the ditches and broken through into the town.
A New Threat
If the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars thought they’d had a rough night, they should’ve spent it in my breeches. Instead of fighting the dead, I was fighting an Irish strumpet who clearly had the desire of making the most from the opportunity of boarding one of the Queen’s most gallant officers.
Oh, she’d taken the whip to me, alright, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience and daybreak revealed the marks, grazes and cuts across my arse and back and legs and neck. My face hadn’t escaped the lash either and I now possessed the kind of war wound of which I could be truly proud, across my right cheek.
I staggered downstairs, requiring two hands to the bannister and upon leaving The Boar’s Belly, was greeted by the rotten stench of gunpowder still lingering in the air. After my heroics in the woods, my ankle still pained greatly and the night’s frolic had only exacerbated the prick so that now I could only hobble toward the town, surveying the appalling carnage as I did.
The dead had certainly broken through, some even making it as far as the church where several of them were still writhing about on spears pinning them to the ground. I saw two skewered to a tree by bayonets, their intestines leaking from opened bellies, yet still they attempted to claw at the blades, further disfiguring what was left of their hands. Bodies, both dead and human, townsman and soldier lay scattered in the dirt or on the verges but it was the canal where there was still an active engagement, so I was sure to angle away from that place, where presumably some of the dead had attempted to trample over the half-submerged bodies, only to blunder in themselves, and now there were troopers jabbing at the shapes with lances. But it was owing to the sheer mass of the dead which had enabled them to scale our hastily constructed ditches and as I neared, I could see that their bodies had created a stairway for their fellows to clamber.
A group of wounded, bound together with rope, filed miserably past and I examined each face hopefully for Lynch, or else Dolan, though I was to be disappointed.
“Water, sor, we need water.” One was concealing an arm under his tunic but reached out with the other and I stepped hastily away. They were then herded inside the church before being locked within.
“Quarantine, Jack. Just in case.” It was Major Murphy who spoke from my blind side and upon my whipping around, he gasped. “Oh, my dear boy, are you all right? Oh gosh, in the thick of it as usual, I see.”
I narrowed my eyes as I wondered about just what he was blathering but then he stepped forward and leaned obscenely close, rancid sweat overwhelming the stench of last night’s battle as he invaded my personal space to examine the old clock.
“Looks like you’ve been sharing the brunt of it along with the rest of us, not that I doubted it for a minute. Why, even if all the dead in Ireland attacked this very night, I know you’d be right there at the front, leading the charge as always.” He shook his head in wonderment, his uniform filthy and covered in a mixture of brown and red, with a tear in the thigh, most likely from unsheathing his sword.
I dismissed his concern and tried to glance beyond his inconveniently large form to a cart of corpses being pulled toward a pyre. “It’s nothing Major, really. Just a nick.” With a bit of luck, Lynch would be among them.
“Ah yes, Lieutenant Sheehan regaled me about how you desired no praise after butchering fifty dead in the woods. It’s to my eternal disappointment that again, I missed seeing you in action.” He shook his head sadly. “Probably on your mount thrashing away with your sabre, right, Jack?” There was some truth to that.
A group of officers were gathered further up the track, mostly standing around looking glum and I waved in their general direction, wincing from where Tara must have struck me with particular lust. “What’s the butcher’s bill?”
He gave me a look of concern. “Ten dead from the 8th. The same again injured or in quarantine. Of the locals, they’re still counting.”
I cocked an eye toward the officers but was unable to make out the faces from this distance and, unable to wait any longer, I had to ask. “And of our fellow officers?” Please say Dolan or Lynch, preferably both.
He clasped his hands together as though in prayer. “Thankfully we’re all safe. Captains Dolan and Lynch, in particular, distinguished themselves, although not to the extent as yourself, you understand.”
“Indeed, Major.” My jaw clenched as the pyre was set ablaze and its smoke drifted over on the breeze.
