Not Dead Yet: A British Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1-3, page 64
One of the men seemed distracted by it, the chicken bone he was holding went limp in his hand, and when there was no immediate response, Savage raised the crop again, prompting an instant acquiescing nod. None of this would make a difference, of course, brutalising one of the little people and I half wondered if this display was for our benefit.
“We’ve gone hunting game, case anyone asks, and that one,” Savage jerked his chin towards the man writhing and sobbing on the ground, “he stumbled scratching his arse.”
We continued in ragged formation, Baird and I dawdling at the back, Savage up front some distance ahead.
“Looks like he’s assuming command.” My older companion remarked.
“Either that or he’s keen to get somewhere.”
“Aye, he’s certainly one to … oh, what now?”
This was in reference to the fact Savage had turned around and was even now cantering past Metcalfe and Willie and was charging towards us, his face clenched in determination.
“Bloody fellow must have the hearing of a damned horse.”
“What was that?” Savage demanded of Baird when he reined in. “Never mind, but would the pair of you cease lingering behind like bad farts and move yourselves. I hope to make camp at Childswickam and we’ll not get there at this woman’s pace.” I was in no particular hurry to die and when we didn’t immediately react to his demand, he growled. “Move it.”
“My cargo won’t like that,” I told him, remembering he had a soft spot for them, “oh, won’t you think of the poor pigeons.”
He blinked as his head jerked back. “You’re Captain Strapper, are you not?” Strangely, he began surveying me from top to bottom, his eyes lingering a little longer on my sword, my belly and the twelve barrelled carbine bouncing against the ample girth of my thigh. “The chambermaids spoke of little else but a Jack Strapper whilst they were bathing me, though to look at you, I can not think why.”
Baird interjected on my behalf, “oh, hey now, Major, that’s not…”
“I couldn’t give three flying figs for what it is or what it isn’t. When I tell you to get a move on, you do it.”
Neither of us argued and the chirping became incessant when I increased clip to a trot, we both slowing only after passing Metcalfe, who evidently had yet to make friends with Willie or anybody else. Indeed, if any two of us had thus far made any meaningful bonds then it was Baird and myself, on account of our brotherhood. Willie, perhaps wisely, was staying well away from Savage, who was keeping a distance from all of us and it was only after he’d again galloped past when I could breathe easy, for it was far more comforting having the man out in front where I could keep an eye on him than behind watching me. I knew little about any of these people and had right to trust them even less, Savage perhaps more so than any other. It didn’t take long to realise we were all officers, even if the former Major Savage had been stripped of all rank, he was still a gentleman, supposedly, at least to Churchill’s mind. That there were no regulars present prompted me to question whether this truly was even an elite fighting force or if Churchill, much like myself, merely preferred the company of the better men from the upper classes. That made sense. Who better to employ for such sensitive missions where the very existence of the nation was at stake, a pie eating, ale swilling working man from the northern bleaknesses or an upstanding, trustworthy gent from the southern upper crust?
Colonel Willie pulled up alongside me. “Awfully sorry about all that business before, you know, with the former major.” He spat into the dirt.
I’d forgotten all about it, hadn’t really cared truth be told. I shrugged, “you have history. It don’t mean I need get involved, Colonel.”
He scratched at the fuzz upon his neck and paid no heed to my lack of interest. “I don’t have happy memories of the man and nor does anyone else, Strappy, so take it as a friendly warning, one great soldier to another.” People were like this, they find a famous and well-loved man such as myself and wish only to offload their problems. They think they know me, see.
However, the broaching of the subject had suddenly brought to the forefront of my mind those former nemeses; Lynch and Skinner, and now with a Savage imposing himself on everyone, I could be forgiven for avoiding the fellow as much as possible. It was like I’d been imposed with the cast of a bad Christmas pantomime. “Don’t worry, Colonel, I don’t plan on having much to do with the man, if that makes the whole thing any easier. What he do anyway?” I asked, suddenly curious. “The press was full of it back then, of course, but damned if I remember much about it … was balls deep in my own problems at the time.”
“Of course, Strappy,” he bowed reverently, “well, all I can say is that I’d treat anything he says about heroic deeds with caution. He ain’t you, bigad.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You mentioned losing a friend in the Mutiny?”
“Yes.” He nodded and kept facing forwards, I suspected, to conceal the pain in his eyes. “His name was Captain Edward Hawthorn and there were more than a few good comrades thrown in to boot.” He was silent for a beat. “That animal caused a catastrophe and for that, I’ll never forgive him, no matter what he does here.” He went on to describe how Savage had been sent with a half-battalion of fusiliers to round up several companies of sepoys who’d turned their uniforms inside-out, only, Savage had held a grudge, on account of supposed heroics that had gone unrecognised, and after finding the rebel soldiers, had offered them a deal. They were dead men anyway so there wasn’t much of a decision to be made; join him or die. The problem was, this was all news to his soldiers, those faithful and dutiful men of the English heartlands, and it was an officer of one of the companies in his charge, a Captain Hawthorn, who’d objected and paid for it with his life, along with nearly a hundred of his men. The rest had gone along with it because at the time it wasn’t believed Britain could succeed in restoring order and Savage had carved out his own little Indian fiefdom, naming himself King, no less, and for over a year he’d survived by raiding, reaving, raping and hiring out his men for gold. It was believed that at its height, he’d commanded five thousand deserters and was causing major problems for the British who were struggling to maintain control of their most prized possession. “All that death, Strappy. Of course, we had to go after the animal and when we finally got him, we heard all the tales of butchery, torture and mutilation.”
I exhaled a large involuntary breath and gaped into the back of Savage’s head as it bounced up and down only a short distance to the fore. “No wonder the man’s hated.” There’d barely be a town or village in all England that’d escaped some kind of loss due to his antics. I twisted in the saddle and sought clarification. “You didn’t get him though, he surrendered, did he not?”
“Yes,” Kinmont Willie admitted after a second, “though you can rest assured, it ain’t because he had a sudden attack of conscience,” he shrugged, “for all anyone knows, he got sick of the food and found the women vile. There’s only so much one can do with a king’s ransom in gold if the local harlots don’t do much for you but mark my words,” he reached across the gap to grab ahold of my wrist, “when all this is done, I plan on slitting his throat.”
By the time we’d passed the twentieth milestone heading nor-west through the Cotswolds, we’d not seen so much as a solitary traveller, no supply wagons, not even a scout. For all I knew we were travelling toward conquered territory and only death awaited we stupid fools for attempting this journey. There were birds flying over, obviously, but there was no way of knowing if any had been sent with messages from civilisation, and what few villages we encountered were deserted and silent save for the occasional dog left behind in the rush to escape. One such hound followed us all the way from Enstone to Chipping Norton and only gave up when it found a bitch to hump.
“This was one orderly evacuation.” The small role character remarked as we stopped for a squint in a village that went by the name of Salford. Even Savage jerked on his perch and here was me thinking Metcalfe was joining us merely to make up the numbers, pad things out a bit. “Back home they usually burn down tha whole town rather than let tha Injuns take it, o’ worse, tha Yanks.” The American was glancing at the unboarded windows, tended shrubberies and suet balls left dangling from the trees for the birds, almost like the villagers expected to return at some point and hadn’t bothered to do so much as lock the front doors. I was about to suggest bunking down here, in one of the smart thatched roofed cottages, because I was tired and hungry but that was the moment Savage chose to snarl from atop his horse.
“We’ll water the horses in that pond then be off, we have a few more hours before we make camp so don’t get comfortable.”
Nobody countermanded him, he had a way that certainly made me not want to, and neither did anyone so much as cast an angry expression when his back was turned.
I followed the rest to the pond and whilst my horse, who I’d named Otis, slaked his thirst, I took the opportunity to write an update for the boss. We used small rolls of paper, about the usual width of a standard journal page but only five lines in length and I wrote that we were making good progress, had not yet encountered any issues and that, all going well, we’d arrive at the manor on schedule. Plucking a random bird from the cage, I rolled the paper around its leg and secured it with a short length of fine wire before throwing it high and watching the pigeon soar over the cottages and trees to disappear in the direction from which we’d come. That was easy but taking one of their friends had set the entire cage going so that a fine cloud of dust and God only knew what else spread outwards, forcing me to turn away and commence hacking into the crook of an elbow. It was all too much to take, we’d only just set out and damned if I’d suffer my unpleasant passengers the rest of this confounded journey.
Pondering the solution, I began to root through my wares for a blanket but Marlborough had not thought to supply any. There was, however, one of those large dust sheets you use to cover furniture when packing for removal and I threw it over the cage, thinking that if it didn’t shut them up, it might at the very least save my choking to death on their various rotten discharges.
“What in the blazes are you doing to those beautiful, beautiful birds?” It was Savage who came rushing over from the water, weaving between three horses and almost skidding in a puddle of mud. He grabbed my forearm and squeezed, sending a jolt of pain surging through my arm.
“Ooh, ooh, unhand me immediately, you ruffian.”
He did at once and almost appeared fearful for having laid a hand upon me, taking a quick step back whilst sucking in air. “Whatever could those poor birds possibly have done to deserve being treated so inhumanely? Have you no thought for scaring them, Captain Strapper? And what of their need to see where they’re going? What of their seeing to return home?”
I wasn’t having this, not one bit. “Mister,” he jerked from the usage, “even if I were to pluck out their eyes, they could quite easily find their way back to daddy. Perhaps you’d care for a demonstration? Oh, I’m well acquainted with these rats, all right, been in a room with more than you’ll ever know, bore the stink, the incessant noise, ginger mutton chops and all, what? Make yours look like a eunuch’s gonads by comparison, believe me. Got me into a spot of bother, they did, and I guarantee, whatever you’ve been through these past years, it’s but nothing compared to my suffering, I tell you. Well, sir, no more, I say.”
The others were all taking an interest from the nearby pond, mostly with bemused expressions, except for the American, who was regarding me with something different, twirling his droopy moustache whilst a question seemed to be forming in his head. My eyes were drawn back to Savage, his fists in particular, which were clenching and unclenching, and he minded not that I was aware of it.
“You do so much as touch one of those birds and it’ll be your eyes that are plucked out.” His threats were attenuated by the fact he was still keeping a cautionary distance.
But I wasn’t having this. “If you care so much for your precious birds then why don’t you ride with them and I’ll carry that damned minuscule medical box that’s straining your horse so.”
Ten minutes later, and under the squad’s watchful stares, I attempted to saddle into Otis, and required about a dozen attempts to do so, though in truth it might have been many more, as the horse skittered sidewards, put me off with its snorts and the pigeons, sans dust cloth, persisted and spread their cloud of choking filth particles through my sinuses.
“A word of warning from a brother,” Baird spoke with an undertone as he pulled in beside me once we were back on the road, “I’d be careful around the traitor, Jack, he ain’t worth antagonising. You’re young and your bravery is beyond astonishing but take a tip from an old and wise man … why chance it?” He took a pull from his flask and offered me a swig, which I refused. “We all hate the rogue but you’ll have noticed how some of us are being a little more intelligent about having to bear the man’s stink,” he nodded at Willie, who was riding a short distance in front, “others less so. Don’t be like the colonel, Jack. In a day, two at most, we’ll arrive at Kempsey and like as not there’ll be men there who feel the same way and I hazard there’ll be at least one who won’t take too kind to sharing air, bread and mead with the man responsible for the deaths of so many of our own. Why get involved? Just ride it out, Jack, just ride it out.” He fell silent for a while and I noticed he’d slowed his trot to allow the others to gain more ground on us. “Besides, Jack, I fear you may have other problems.”
It was something in his tone that gave me a jolt. “What in the blazes, what now?”
He pointed his crop at Metcalfe, the former lawman with a bullet hole through the hat. “He’s been asking questions, some rather strange questions. I kept mum, obviously, but Willie don’t have my shrewdness in these things and doubtless the traitor would give you up in a minute.”
“Christ.” I experienced that same blurring of my eyesight that so often happens when receiving the delivery of news most appalling. “What kind of bloody questions?”
He shrugged. “Like asking for confirmation of your rank, your first name, if you were the Strapper with a room in some hotel on Grosvenor Square. He learned nothing from me, Jack, but just look…” he nodded up yonder to where even now the man in question was journeying beside Willie, “of course, they might be conversing about the theatre but that’s not the impression I’m getting.”
In truth, I’d heard little of Baird’s last words and had to grip extra hard the reins to save from falling off my horse. I did have a bloody room at some hotel in Grosvenor Square, the Prince of Saxe Coburg. But what of it? There was very little any of these characters knew about me, which was astonishing considering my station, and about the only people who were aware of my residence in the hotel were the women I took there, and yet here was this American, fresh off the boat making enquiries. It was most disconcerting, aye, in fact, I suddenly felt more uneasy than at any other time since fleeing London, this, on top of everything else. Why was my entire life forever dogged by such rot? That there were at least two, possibly more, potentially unstable individuals within a group of a mere five men. Zombies you can predict to a certain extent, but a damaged frontier lawman who’d seen too much?
I was in a half mind to about turn and reverse course but Oxfordshire was where Fitzgibbon would surely be searching for me, London would be no safer and to make matters worse still, the road had phased into a dirt track and at some point during my funk-ridden preoccupation, we’d entered forest. I knew only too well what had an insane tendency to lurk in such shady and unnatural places.
“Wait … stop!” I heard myself shout.
At the far end of our column, Savage made a double take in his saddle before wheeling his mount and kicking back his heels. He was skidding up within a few seconds. “Captain, is there a problem?” He was all concern, scanning over me and my horse as though expecting to find some major issue; cast shoe, pulled muscle, lost baggage. Willie and Metcalfe had likewise gathered around where the overhanging leaf covered branches were now enshrouding us in shadow.
“Something happen, Strappy?” Willie enquired with a croak fit to raise the dead.
I jabbed a thumb behind. “Why’d we leave the bloody road?”
They each looked at me as though I’d gone mad, we’d been off the road a while already. Savage answered. “We left the road because I led us off it, that’s why. You have a problem with that?”
My head shook of its own accord. “Why’d you do that, you fool?”
There was a sharp intake of air from Baird, Savage ignored my use of the word. “Because it’s more direct and will be quicker as long as we keep the same pace.”
I wasn’t having this. “But we won’t keep the same pace, it’s bloody forest.”
“Then you’ll just have to push your horse more, won’t you, use the leather bit, man, that’s what it’s for.”
I gave him a look as if to suggest he were an idiot which, quite frankly, I was beginning to suspect. “My dear Mister Savage, you’ve spent too long in the hot Bengali sun, baking in a traitor’s gaol, catching brain rot from the food and clap from the women. You ever keep the same pace trudging through mud and overgrowth, weaving in and out of trees and avoiding low hanging branches as you do riding in open country?”
Anger flashed across his face and Willie moved his horse a step away. “We cut fifteen miles off our journey by taking the forest,” his crop was slapping against his thigh with every whistled syllable, “I have business at Kempsey, as have you all, and the forest path guarantees our arrival by tomorrow evening at the latest. Now, if you would like to stop wasting my bloody time…”
I exhaled loudly, which stopped his heels that had already dug in and he had to strain to control his horse as a vein in his neck bulged. “The woods are where the dead hide in wait,” I yelled and could immediately tell from all their expressions that this known fact was news to them. I was getting somewhere and might yet avoid this appalling prospect. “So there you have it and there goes any ground you’ll make when we have to stop and plan our action, not to mention fight it, when we see them all loitering plum in our path and grouped like a bunch of teenagers drinking outside your front door on a Friday night … we’ll not get rid without at least one of us sustaining a bite to the arm.”
