Not Dead Yet: A British Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1-3, page 67
He wasn’t listening, so I trailed off, distracted because he was looking north, as was everyone else, to where we all now had a far superior view of the Avon, its curve and the shallows not too farther up. Squinting, I could also make out the enormous slabs in the water, most likely large and sturdy enough to support a horse, which created one of those stepping stone bridges from one side of the river to the other. It had probably been there a thousand years and more.
Savage made a point of hurriedly, and as noisily as possible, stripping off his jacket before commencing to wring the streams of foulness from it, his face scrunching up as he did, upper appendages trembling with rage and I just knew it was my neck he was imagining in his grip. It was an odd way of showing one’s ire. “You stupid, stupid, stupid bastard.” The water continued to run out with every twist of the wool. “You must be stupid, or blind, or both, and a terrible guide to boot.” Now that cut deep.
Baird sneezed then shot a stream of gunk from a nostril. “All right, so the captain made a bit of a mistake and missed the shallows, as well as the stones, you can’t hold that against the fellow. I’ve yet to discover an eyeglass that can see through overgrowth, around bends and down steep banks.”
“Exactly, Major,” I added but allowed him to continue in my favour…
“When it’s all said and done, we had to ford somewhere and nor can you hold Jack responsible for the river rising like that.” He glanced back toward the Worcestershire side, before which the river was still gushing vengeance. “I’ve seen the like in China, for what its worth, rivers can do that, it was just bad luck, is all, probably a once in a ten-year occurrence in our dull, bland and safe England. No, Mister Savage, but I wager we’ve spent all our bad luck for now and maybe for the remaining duration of this expedition,” he made a small and nervous laugh, “best get it all out of the way now before meeting the dead, what?”
Savage squeezed the last of the muck from his jacket and hung it over his horse’s withers to dry. “Bad luck?” He spat into the grass and jerked his chin in my direction. “I wager we’ve not seen the last of it with this cretin following us all the way to Kempsey.”
Baird was about to interject but the sound of the cylinder from Metcalfe’s revolver span on cue, almost as though it was in agreement with Savage’s mean words. “Ah wager tha cap’n’s ah’glass oughta be refunded,” everyone glanced at the American for an explanation and in response, he simply pointed not to me but over my shoulder, “seems it missed one important d’tail.”
And there it was.
Because they’d arrived.
On the side from where we came, almost on the very spot I’d coerced the entire group into fleeing, there was now a large and animated rabble of dead men fumbling about on the embankment, clawing at the long grass while lurching back and forth as though in some semi-permanent mind split over what to do about us. Most appeared genuinely angry at having been so shrewdly thwarted though oddly, there were at least five hunched further back not bothering, almost like they recognised the hazard, complete recklessness and stupidity in further pursuit, of fording there like we did, and I couldn’t help but question whether their ordeal had taught them a lesson about playing too close to a river in a thunderstorm. Because they were indeed drenched through, which perhaps confirmed my earlier assumption that they had, in fact, somehow blundered in, to be carried away, and thus our present predicament. To their credit though, despite their damp raggedy clothing, they looked not half as miserable as my lot. I quickly counted eighteen of the buggers, all but two donned soldiers togs, tattered as they almost all were and several of them still possessed rifles, even if they hung limp from straps snagged around wrinkly necks, useless as I bloody well hoped them to be.
One dared move further down the bank but backed away before so much as dipping a toe. Their mouths ground and gnashed viciously but any noise from clashing teeth or inane bleating was drowned out by the river. On our side of the Avon, things were likewise silent and I guessed that was because finally, the boys were getting a first taste of what I’d spent the last two years of my life doing my utmost to avoid.
Baird was first to move as he slipped from his horse, went down to his knees and began kissing the ground. It was but one more insight into the character of a man I’d taken for a brother. He then went to his saddlebag to retrieve some paper, only to find sludge.
Savage was the first to speak and he briefly pulled his eyes away from the appalling spectacle across the river to direct his enquiry to Metcalfe. “Refund for the glass? Missed detail, you say?” He sneered and turned those intelligent black eyes on me, “I wager the captain’s glass works perfectly well … a fine looking instrument it be, a gift from Her Majesty The Queen, did you know.”
There was a gasp from both Willie and Baird. “Mister Savage, what are you insinuating with such reckless and ill-thought out words?”
Savage had in the meantime removed his shirt to hang over his horse’s rump, revealing a dark and lean, muscular frame covered in burns and scars. “I’m not insinuating anything, Major Baird, what I’m doing is outright accusing the captain of wilfully avoiding the fight, just as he attempted yesterday.” He spoke with a fixed scowl, his eyebrows pulled all the way down to the bridge of his nose as he spoke to each man in turn, the odd whistle emanating from his mouth hardly diminishing the seriousness of his dastardly words, an accusation of cowardice, of all things. He warded off Baird’s impending intervention with a menacing look, all the while paying no heed to me, he was appealing to the others but for what? To abandon me out here alone? “You all saw him with that telescope … never seen the boy move so fast. Well, I put it to you, gentlemen, that he was not, in fact, looking for a ford but for those,” and he jerked that monumental jaw toward the zombies retching from too close.
Baird scoffed, after all, it was such a ridiculous accusation to make. “And why would the captain do that?”
“Why’d you think? To avoid them, of course,” he shook his head as though it were all so obvious and why couldn’t anybody else see it, “which is exactly what happened, did it not?” Savage was staring at the dead with an odd mixture of curiosity and hunger, though no fear, which made me question the man’s sanity more than I already had. “Funny they should appear on the wrong side of the river the minute we just barely get across with our lives.”
Metcalfe was still twisting his moustache with an eye in a half-squint, like he was summing up the situation, while Willie scratched at his stubble, astonishingly, the sound could be heard above the rush of water, but more to the point, I was losing them again.
“Mister Savage, I…”
“Now hold on, Jack,” Baird rushed in on my behalf, “you have nothing to answer for here,” he turned back on Savage who looked a menace from atop his horse. “If there’s one man among us who you most certainly cannot accuse of avoiding the fight, it’s this man here. Everybody knows Jack slew untold thousands of the enemy in both Ireland and Scotland,” he pointed over the river and snorted, “he’s hardly liable to baulk at such a paltry number as what’s over there, so how do you explain that, Mister Savage?”
The traitor grunted, “I don’t know, all I do know is what I saw with my own eyes and on my honour, I say the captain contrived to avoid them.”
There was a sudden mocking laugh from Willie. “Your honour?” He laughed again prompting Savage’s face to twist in rage. “Did you say that to Captain Hawthorn right before you ordered his company to lower their rifles?” Thank you, Colonel, I thought, as he came back to the side of right. I’d be at Kempsey in no time, wench in my bed.
“Damn your eyes, Colonel,” Savage’s horse jolted closer to the man as his eyes bulged, “we’re talking about the bloody captain here, not something that happened two years ago on the other side of the damned world.”
He’d lost them, thank God, but he’d lost them. Baird had already turned away and Willie, looking smug, didn’t even bother responding. What more need be said anyway? Savage had been convicted of treason and sentenced to hang whereas I was Britannia’s most praised and highly valued soldier since Wellington. By rights, at least one of us shouldn’t even be alive. But, I was a fair man, a decent man and a good man, which is why I now offered a branch full of olives to my would-be adversary following his utter failure to have my standing within the group diminished.
“There, there, Mister Savage, even the best of us make mistakes but I forgive you. As for myself, well sir, I think the major already about said it all, I made a small and, in the grand scheme of things, completely insignificant error of judgement with regards the ford but I’m man enough to admit when I mess things up, as must you with your cruel words … on second thoughts, let’s just forget it all … the mission, that’s what’s important, not all this talk of blame and what not.”
“A pox on your words, Captain,” Savage spat into the grass before turning back to Willie who’d by now moved onto readying his pistol for a potshot across the river, “and I still hold that the captain intentionally avoided the fight. And he talks of mission? The cheek of it, and I put it to you that the captain placed the entire mission in jeopardy by his contrived avoidance of the enemy and…”
Willie jerked up from his pistol and growled. “Oh, would you leave it drop, you awful man. There’s your enemy, over there. Do you see it, you rogue? The ones straining to tear at your throat, sir, not Strappy, there sir, over there, by Jove.” There were sniggers and Savage’s entire upper torso flushed crimson.
For several seconds, the traitor continued to display his missing tooth whilst his paw quivered a path towards his firearm. Perhaps now Savage had reason to be even more angry at Willie than myself, for ridiculing him whilst coming in on my side. Such solidarity might be expected from Baird, who all could see had taken a liking to our nation’s hero, while Metcalfe chose not to get involved, but Willie ought to have been assumed impartial, despite his overt animosity. Willie was the highest ranker of us all and ideally, his honour should have been considered beyond reproach, and for all the colonel knew of the truth, that was exactly how I judged he’d taken the situation, fairly. Willie might have been highly peeved at what I’d wrought upon the group but to his mind it had been a mere freak accident, of which I could hardly be held too hard to account, and therefore Savage’s accusing the same man of dishonour and cowardice was another matter entirely, ratcheting up the wild accusations to a whole new level of silliness. To the traitor’s thick mind, he knew what he saw and that was all there was to it, and Savage was still glaring death at the colonel when he grasped ahold of his pistol and tugged it free from his belt, which is just as well the pan’s contents were soaked through and dripping sludge.
Willie had also found his shot ruined and proceeded to slop out the contents of the pan with water from his flask. Savage was already ahead of him and delved into his haversack before pulling out his powder horn, giving it a shake, and finding he’d not thought to fill the thing back at Blenheim or at any point since. This was all happening whilst the dead taunted us with grasping arms, Baird attempted a shot across river, which resulted only in a dull flash and a ball that flopped onto the grass mere paces to his fore, meanwhile Metcalfe manoeuvred his horse to the edge of the bank, faced them, and reeled off ten shots in quick succession, dropping the same number of enemy in half as many seconds, expertly placed hits resulting in heads dissolving in splashes of red, before spinning the guns and returning them home. I considered we were all beginning to regret not bringing revolvers but no matter, there’d be dry powder in the ammunition crate.
“Who’s carrying the spare bloody powder?” Savage demanded with no small hint of an urgent undertone.
We all glanced over at Metcalfe, who was likewise twisting in his saddle toward the box that was supposed to have been lashed to the left flank of his horse. “What tha…”
“Where the bleeding hell is it?” Demanded Savage, before swinging from his horse as though expecting to find the spare munitions in the spot that was presently tenanted by thin air. He carefully inspected the same, ridiculously, then ran around the other side, which was occupied by one of our inventory boxes, the one he’d already had a good rooting through. “Where is it?”
We were all worried by this point and Willie was again giving me looks as in what have you done now Strappy lad. I was feeling the panic simmering within and moved the horse a few steps away from the river, lest they get any silly ideas but I could already see what had happened, and almost as one we all glanced downriver, to where even now, the box was bouncing up and down with the current, caught against one of the bridge’s stone slabs and as we watched, appalled, it began slipping through the gap to wedge itself in between two of the stones protruding from the bed. The river continued to beat at it so that the box slowly began to squeeze through the inlet until the pressure became too much - I saw it all in slow motion - and finally, the build-up of force propelled our gunpowder and ball and cartridges on a non-refundable trip north.
“Nooo!” Savage roared, clasping his head and ruffling his hair.
I hung my head and could feel all their glares boring into me. I also wondered if I could hear the eight remaining zombies laughing.
“Now, now,” Baird started, “it mightn’t be all that bad. Anyone got any dry powder?” Nobody answered. “Colonel, no? Mister Metcalfe, how about you? Those things of yours take cartridges, no? Well, they’d be waterproof, right? Why, surely the slugs in your haversack will see us safe to Kempsey.”
“That’s right, Major, they are, ‘cept ah spent them all shootin’ those dead ovah there just theyn.”
A strange noise began emanating from Savage and I dared flick an eye up to catch him bearing down from too close, his entire body trembling whilst his crop slapped menacingly against his thigh.
Someone else coughed, Metcalfe. “Ah recognise that one o’ two’a you might be tempted to accuse me o’ negligence in mah dooty with regards our ammunition trunk, which is why ah’d inform you all, dear comrades, that this mornin’ ah saw the captain here goin’ into that box for reasons unbeknown t’ me, and ah postulate that in so doin’, he failed to ensure the same was properly secured.” His words were appalling, delivered from a face that displayed neither movement nor emotion, and after having delivered such devastating news, he leaned back with a look that seemed to ask, what are you going to do this time boy.
What I did was again tilt my face to the grass, which was admittance enough I’d done it and there was the patter of hooves as someone approached.
“You were gone a while this morning, Jack?” Baird enquired. “What were you doing?”
I shot them a look suddenly, “attending my business, Major. I’ve been backed up down there ever since London. A lady with whom I’ve since ceased contact thought prudent to feed me persimmons.”
“Then why go in tha crate, Captain?” Asked Metcalfe most helpfully. “You know we don’t keep leaves in with the ammo ’n’ you had a full forest for that.”
“Um,” I wasn’t about to admit I was incapable of loading my own bleeding firearm and had to do it out of eyeshot to avoid embarrassment because that would do for me, surely. For the sake of my own longevity, it was imperative I remained a member of this group because I could not be sent back to Oxfordshire or worse. “I was just looking for something, that’s all. Do I need reason to take stock?” I recalled I’d once heard an officer boast how attack was the best form of defence. I turned on Savage. “You were going through the Yank’s other box, does anyone ask your business?”
Savage barked back, “I ensured the bastard thing was secured before attempting an insane fording of a flooded river, which is why my box is still where it ought to be, attached to the bloody horse.” He moved right up to me, prompting Baird to do the same, may the Gods bless him. “Go fetch it, you dog.” The traitor demanded down my ear.
“What?” I hissed.
“The ammunition, you pox-ridden son of a goat. Go fetch it!”
I threw up an arm. “To the blazes with it man, by now it’s halfway to Coventry.”
Had Baird not been so close I might have had reason to fear being struck. “It’s bad, Mister Savage, but hardly a disaster.” My brother sighed and gave me a friendly look, if grudging. “We fly on to Kempsey … that’s all we can do … nothing much has changed on that score, really. If we’re sharp about it then we mightn’t even see any dead but even if we do,” he fondled the hilt of his ancestral sword, “I’m fairly handy with a blade, I’ll have you know … split the skulls of more Chinks and Niggers than you’ll ever count.”
Stealthily, and with no small hint of self-preservation in mind, I slid a hand down toward the hilt of my own blade and while there, tried loosening the thing in its scabbard but either it was jammed or I lacked the strength to free it. Maybe I was just tired, it was that sort of a day.
Savage threw up an arm and howled. “We’re meant to be the best of the best, us lot, right here, the cream of the bloody crop, yet we’ve not a round between us and look,” he pointed his crop at the dead men still taunting us, “they’re already bloody here, Major. We need ball and we need powder. That cretin,” he meant me, “has caused a disaster and I for one will not breeze through the gates of Kempsey without the means to look after myself. I refuse to impose on the very people we were sent to help, it defeats the whole bleeding objective, you swines. Now,” he fixed his dark eyes upon me, “I propose sending word back to the duke and that we explain to him exactly what the cretin has done and that we need a courier, under a large guard with the promise of a lot of gold in recompense, to deliver us more ammunition.”
Willie was scratching his jaw and nodding, after a moment Baird hummed in affirmation and I had to admit, there seemed little alternative, we needed powder. Realistically, we’d be a day, two at most behind schedule and there was bound to be a nearby hovel to hole up while we waited.
The traitor held out an opened clam and demanded, “a pigeon, if you please, I’d like to tell the duke exactly the kind of man he’s employed.”
