Not Dead Yet: A British Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1-3, page 49
Still, I longed for the opportunity of passing him one day in a quiet corridor whilst carrying my crop, bigad, but one’s luck only ever went so far.
There was also the other lingering fear, that because I was viewed as such a national asset, I’d be used in other ghastly and gruesome ways by those in high places, for the good of the nation, of all things.
A broken leg and crushed internal organs I’d already tried. They’d failed and so I required new ways of shirking my duty without making it appear so and without actually leaving the army and losing the incredibly hard fought for high status I’d achieved after so much suffering. Naturally, I’d been at work in that area, but that’s another story along with how Fitzgibbon took things to extreme lengths in an attempt to expose me, my feud with the rotten man, my rogering his wife and how I ended up actually contriving to be sent away on a dangerous mission, because to remain behind in London was far more perilous in comparison. Last but not least, how the dead, after having devoured their way through Scotland, now turned on England, by Jove, toward the heart of the greatest Empire the world had ever known and toward her hero.
Melville’s mouth plunged open, a sight that had become increasingly familiar throughout the last few hours. “What can I say, I’m flabbergasted and in a way, rather annoyed my taxes have gone toward your house.”
“One of my houses.” I corrected. “Though it really is a palace, in everything including name.” Wasn’t he listening?
He sighed. “The more one gets to know you, the more one is surprised, yet conversely, I’m hardly surprised at all. Though there is one thing…near the end of your story, you said your mind was on someone else. What happened to Gertrude?”
I turned away, not wanting to bring up the memories of my returning to London after the months away, of being handed her cards upon visiting Hazlitt’s, each message more desperate than the last, until the final note broke the news she was returning to Germany because she couldn’t wait any longer and had received an offer of marriage from some Russian prince. Well, if it’d keep them from warring in the future, perhaps my losing out would be worth it.
But it took many months of whoring to put that one behind me, I can tell you and once Strappy was back to his old self, I endeavoured to stay well clear of the ‘lady’ types and to never again allow my better judgements to become sullied with thoughts of love and other such poison. And if I ever required a reminder of just why that was, I need only visit my father in the lunatic asylum.
“Ok, so some things are still a little raw…we’ve all been there. But tell me, please, what was this dangerous mission you contrived to be sent on. Knowing you as I unfortunately do, this is hard to believe. The alternatives must have been truly dire indeed?”
“Are.”
“Excuse me?”
“The alternatives are dire indeed, because this brings us up to date.”
“All apart from how you got here.”
“And I’ll get to that if you give me chance. Will your bladder hold long enough? It’s not like you have a choice, is it? Because what I now have to tell you beats everything else hands down, sir. Which is why I’d like to get out of London as quickly as possible, considering I have husbands out there looking for me. Oh, if only I’d known who I was tupping.”
“Well this is hardly a revelation is it and with Captain Lynch as well as Fitzgibbon, it’s a wonder you never learn your lessons.” He’d spent the last half of my story facing me on his side, exposing his naked form to my violated eyes, but now, mercifully, he turned away, exposing his arse instead. “I’m listening.”
And as the Lord and Lady Fitzgibbon thrashed and screamed and went once more into the throws of ecstasy above, I began my story.
“I’d just been knighted by the queen…”
Keep going for the third instalment from our intrepid Captain.
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Book 3
Foreword
For the Victorians.
Strappy’s Back
It was no rare thing, requiring a full thirty minutes and more to situate myself whenever I entered one of London’s fine establishments, on this occasion The Prince of Saxe Coburg hotel, from where I was accosted by the usual rabble of Victorian society’s supposed finest. Coves like that Dickens chap, who was fast becoming a nuisance, regularly appearing wherever I happened to be and who’d recently completed scribbling some romp about yours truly. Florence Nightingale, who was believed to be chaste, offered to take tea with me at her residence though alas, even if her forty years was of no bother to me, her lack of meat on the bone was. Giuseppe Garibaldi, the famous Italian general, was here too and attempting for the third time to recruit our nation’s hero to help retake Nice from the Frogs.
“We offer’a golda more than you can carry, Captain’a, two Sardinian islands’a. Nizza belongs to Eetaly and I cannot’a bear seeing’a dirty French destroying my home’a. Please, I beg of you, Captian’a.” Humouring him was becoming increasingly difficult as he became ever more insistent I should join his noble cause, as though we didn’t have problems of our own.
“Fitzgibbon?” I’d earlier suggested he harangue my commanding officer, to seduce him with offerings of untold wealth and prosperity, leaving me alone with his wife and the diminished likelihood of being sent on suicidal expeditions. “He’s a far greater soldier than I, what did he say?”
He dismissed my false praise of the man sans so much as a blink. “I do not’a think you need to be present’a for the sculpting of all those statues a’Captain. I checked’a. A good’a artist’a such as’a Gallori can do the work from’a sketch or memoria. Right now, he do mine’a for the Janiculum and I’m here with you.”
Bastard.
And damn his English speaking proficiency.
I furrowed my brow most exaggeratingly, “what was that? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, General, it’s the accent, see, and the bouncing on every syllable is a little over the top for my humble Home Counties comprehension.”
The dogged old man baulked in his gilt-edged finery, “but you understand’a me perfectly last week.”
“I’m so sorry, General, I…I’m sorry…” I began to shift away but was brought back when he snapped his fingers and in from his shadow slinked a John Bull in top hat and cane.
“He said you understood him perfectly well last week.” The interpreter bowed shyly. “It’s an honour to meet you, Captain.”
Increasingly irritated, I glanced beyond the sentimental old fool, toward the girl sat solitary in the corner from where she fanned at her face with a slim punkah, the reason I was here, if I’d ever get there. “You must excuse the old war wounds,” I said to the John Bull, “sometimes I have small recollection of even the most mundane and can certainly not recall ever meeting the general, or any Italian of note for that matter, but might I suggest you inform him that if he can’t retake Nice from the French, of all people, without my help then quite honestly, he deserves to lose it and a whole lot more besides, and one more thing…”
“Yes?”
“Has he been following me?”
Finally, I was able to pull myself away from the rabble and the wicker creaked obscenely as I collapsed fagged into it. “My apologies, Clara,” I yawned and seized the menu, “sustenance and a round or two in my suite up yonder, I reckon.”
She noticed the crop before anything else, strapped ever at my hip, with its moulded rubber grip, looping tie-around cord, long flexible wrapped shaft and its frayed, ragged and worn out leather bit. “Who were those people, Jack?” She asked, still fixating warily upon my faithful companion.
“Huh? Oh, the usuals, the older fellow was Palmerston … liberal fool, can’t abide the man.”
Her hand paused on the way to her teacup. “The Prime Minister?” She asked with that American twang I found so alluring.
I laughed that she would know such things. “Ossetra Royal caviar and steamed Dover sole, I think, how about you?”
She took a delicate sip and settled herself, almost seemed to hesitate, “I have news, Jack.”
“…can surely scoff a leg of lamb too.”
“Jack?”
“A belly of pork to accompany … where’s the bloody waiter?”
“I’m late, Jack.”
“Late where? I already told you we’re otherwise engaged this night.” I raised a finger to the broomstick in ano est and placed my order, “some figs on a side platter too would be nice, oh and some fresh coffee and fetch my lady companion some as well, that bloody tea she’s sipping won’t keep her pepped through the night … chop, chop.” I acknowledged with a wave a brace of conscripts who’d spotted me through the window, there’d be a crowd jostling within a minute.
She regarded me glumly, “you enjoy this life, Jack?”
I shifted and the wicker groaned dreadfully. “I’ll have my man Smith beat them away.”
She reached across the table to take my hand, saving me the strain of having to stand. “No, I mean this … adventuring, danger, putting your life at risk every day. Don’t you ever wish for stability?” She actually said, sounding quite on edge as though my status, immense wealth, celebrity and how they were all supposedly attained had absolutely nothing to do with her desire for me, all laughable, of course, but I found myself truly wanting to allay her fears regardless.
I clocked her appealing blonde curls and sighed as I held up my palms. “Of course, Clara, I wish for this whole damned catastrophe to be over but whilst those creatures continue to roam Britannia, there’ll be little rest for men like me and I dare say, you knew what you were getting yourself in for when you took me on.”
Her expression didn’t improve and now her eyes began to shimmer. “You do little to help, you oaf.”
I met her gaze sincerely and reached out across the table as the sweet scent of whatever toilet water she’d sprayed upon her slender neck met my happy breathing apparatus. “Clara, I promise that the minute we make our country safe once more, I’ll … we’ll … spend the rest of our days on one of my estates picking strawberries and reading only of adventure in trashy novels.” I held her cheek and watched as her smile filled my hand. “So cheer up because haven’t I already proven there ain’t a zombie anywhere that can harm Captain Jack Strapper.” Besides, I had no wish to jeopardise the night’s entertainment.
She laughed, blurted tears across the small yet painfully large divide between us, made a deep sigh and declared, “Jack, I’m pregnant.”
It was the shattering of my nervous system from my Scottish adventure I had to thank, that such news could be delivered sans barely a twitch from my hands that still held so tightly to hers.
I nodded in acknowledgement of this news, “and a wonderful venue for such tidings, indeed, what? Aye. Well, there you have it. Are you enjoying your tea, dear? What is it exactly, Early Grey? Did you know they add the rind of an orange to give it that zing? But the so-called orange ain’t orange at all, but green, by Jove, did you ever hear such nonsense, a green masquerading as an orange … ah, look, there, in your tea, there’s some floating around in the leaves. Come here green, let’s arrest you for treachery, haw-haw … feeling a tad parched myself, dear, and where’s that bloody feast, what? How slow is the bloody service in this establishment? One moment, let me just…” I slinked out from the seat, conceded to leave my shako on the table and forced a path through the admiring throng toward the concierge before changing acutely my trajectory and charging for the door.
Smith was waiting at my carriage and gurned in the simple way he always did. “I wasn’t expecting you back ‘till the morn, sir, or after midnight at least.”
I adjusted my breeches and gripped extra hard my trusty crop. “To Soho, my good man, and what’s left of the whorehouses because tomorrow we’re taking a trip to where it all began.”
Eton
They all gazed at me, a thousand bewitched faces in total thrall to my words that echoed throughout the chapel.
“And so you see…I am just an ordinary soldier…”
From where they were crammed in at the back, the “nooooo” flowed all the way like a wave to ricochet off the fan vault. Beside me at the pulpit and perspiring most fiendish perched Old Tubs and his jowls flapped as he shook his head vigorously from side to side. “No, not you, sir, not you.”
I held up my hands and waited for the reverberation to abate. “It’s true, and I too was once just a modest and ordinary scholar just like you but as the old saying goes, mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”
The applause, cheers and screams were almost deafening and from somewhere near the back there was a surge of ecstatic sixth-formers that threatened to crush the younger lads up front. I had time for a bow, a victorious shaking of fist and a wave before, at Goodford’s instruction, I was stolen off the stage by a quartet of burly prefects, all grinning, and quickly escorted through the corridors with the old codger trying to keep pace behind. Finally, I was ushered inside his office and he dragged himself in behind, sweating and gurning like a circus chimp.
“Captain,” he shook his head in awed admiration, “I’m old enough to remember speeches from both George and William IV and yet neither elicited such rapture and excitement as did yourself just now. I’m quite taken aback and feel I must settle myself with a stiff drink.” He wobbled towards his decanter and poured two shots of poison before returning deskwards. “Why, it was only the other month Charles Darwin gave a speech and…”
“…Who?” Who cared? I waved it away. “All I can say is, sir, that’s it’s good to be back.” I set my riding crop on his desk and leaned back in the seat. “Indeed, I’ve been dreaming of my return for a long time.”
“I say, is that really so?”
“Indeed, it is, sir, alas,” I peeled off my riding gloves and tossed them likewise to the oak, “business, must come first…”
“Ah, yes, business, Captain…”
I glanced emptily about the office, the memories so vivid. Little if anything had changed except for the addition of maybe a few hundred extra markings upon the wall, caused when his birches struck it with every drawing of the arm. Flecks of red also peppered the plaster.
“As you’re aware, sir, Britannia’s on the brink…”
“Yes, on the brink…”
“And Horse Guards requires men.”
“Yes, men…”
“Men, men and more men, men we don’t have, men, men, men…boys, sir.”
He nodded in unhappy acceptance. “We live in sad times, Captain.” Old Tubs had been in bad shape the last time I saw him, which was right before he’d expelled me. Then, gout had caused him to pile on the blubber but now he was larger than ever, despite having evidently been cured, his beard whiter and skin more shrivelled; two years can take its toll when dealing with young boys, though he still possessed those authoritarian eyes and threatening demeanour.
I downed the whisky and enjoyed the sweet burn in my throat. “It has been noticed, sir, particularly by some of the usual rabble-rousers from the lower classes, that conscription has not been seen to affect their betters.”
“Such utter nonsensical claptrap, Captain.” A vein in his neck pulsed at the irritation. “Britannia still needs the wealthy to provide the wealth, for where else is it meant to come from? We own the factories and mills that will fuel our struggle, do we not?”
“Preaching to the choir, sir, preaching to the bloody choir,” I remained stern, “except the problem is I’m not the one you have to convince with your logic and good sense. The lower classes … try using logic on them when Mr and Mrs Soot Face from some mining hovel in Yorkshire watch their seven sons march off to fight the dead when the Mountjoys, Carstairs, Fothergills and Honeybuns remain unaffected from their grand estates.” I shook my head and sighed at the stupidity of it all. “We have to be seen to be doing something, even if as little as providing a token quantity from their betters, or else we risk the masses taking up arms against us, zombies or not, they won’t care once the parishes, by the hundreds of thousands, start pinning names of the deceased upon the church doors.”
Goodford sat solemn. “What is it you suggest?”
“What Horse Guards suggests, sir, just enough conscripts for show, you understand, those above the age of sixteen may be considered eligible but don’t worry, we’ll protect our Eton chaps, keep them off the front lines as much as possible, what? Give them clerk and errand jobs, as much as possible.” I paused. “But I’m asking you to come up with a list of the lesser intelligent, poorer students, any with memorable features, facial ticks, birthmarks, that sort of thing…so they can be seen, sir, fighting at the front, posh accents and all. I know, it pains me too, but there really is no other way.”
Tubs was looking down into his whisky. “So this is what you do now, Captain?”
“No, sir, but I volunteered for this.”
He managed to raise his eyes just enough to meet my own. “I’ll, um, I’ll get to drawing a list, Captain.”
“Thank you, sir…” I exhaled loudly, the awful business taken care of and glanced beyond him to the glass cabinet that housed plaques, trophies, frames and something else. “Say, that’s a fine collection of birches you have there.”
He tried to twist in his seat and had to readjust himself to do so. “Ah, tools of the trade, Captain Strapper, unpleasant but necessary.”
“I remember the student I was,” I stood and stepped in their direction, “if memory serves, I received a tickling or two in my time, sir.”
