Not Dead Yet: A British Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1-3, page 72
“Have you ever seen the like?” Savage prevented Willie from interjecting by raising his sword. “And I’ve just about had it with you too, Colonel. You’re blind to the truth because of your hatred for me. Don’t think I can’t see it.”
Willie’s eyes widened. “Mister Savage, I…the mission is what’s important.”
“Aye, so I’m right about that.” Savage showed the gap in his mouth. “And if the mission was truly so important then you’d be standing beside me now, offering yourself to end that which is the mission’s greatest liability. The captain’s been one disaster after another.” He lowered his voice and became more measured, which couldn’t be good. “Look, I’ll make a deal with you … I’ll let the captain away and even say sorry … if either of you can come up with a single decent thing this man has done since you’ve known him.”
Baird raised his voice, “the fellow’s not had bloody chance, the only dead we’ve come across we missed by a whisker and no, Mister Savage, I do not think the captain contrived to avoid them, that’s just lunacy. This man,” he pointed at me, “is arguably the most accomplished soldier the world over … you’ve all seen the bloody articles.”
Savage was quivering by this point. “Bah, it’s all lies, it has to be.”
Baird laughed. “And why would they lie?”
Savage’s eyes flicked up as he searched for an answer. “I don’t know, um, war propaganda. Give the nation a hero, it’s good for morale and by God, it seems to have bloody well worked on you lot. They fooled you all, the entire nation, the Queen included.” He shook his head and pointed his sword in my direction. “I mean look, he’s digging his own bloody grave. Can you imagine Wellington doing such a thing?”
I’d been using the time while they bickered to think strategy and as usual, when all else fails, resort to the obvious. “Gentlemen,” I waited for silence and cleared my throat, straining to sound as reasonable and dignified as possible, my life depended on it, “I realise there are those within our modest party who’d like nothing more than to see me rotting in the ground, why, this very hole here, in fact, and some might even say for good reason, however, I’ve always been a firm believer in money trumping all and you’ll like as not be acquainted with the fact I happen to possess rather a lot of it, too much to know what to do with, actually,” I was already getting the impression that Savage was only allowing me the chance to speak not out of politeness but because he hoped I’d say something that might further reveal my true nature, as he stood there, arms folded, his fingers tapping a rhythm, “now, Major Baird, you’ve foolishly allowed your wife to walk all over you and so I hazard ten thou might keep her quiet, for a few weeks perhaps. Colonel, I’m sorry for Harris’s fate but ten grand ought buy enough seed to breed your own cavalry regiment, not that you’d want to and you, Mister Metcalfe, I have no idea as to your financial situation though I’d suspect it ain’t great considering you crossed an ocean to be with me, how about ten? To each of you gents, that’s double again what you’re earning from Marlborough, the Duke of Churchill.” I propped an elbow on the shovel’s handle and blew the muck from a nail, I’d done a reasonable job looking the squire, aye, which ain’t easy when you’re filthy, dripping with sweat and it was only the night before they’d all witnessed you tearing out your whiskers.
There was an ominous silence, for obvious reasons, and I was waiting for one of these inquisitive fellows to make the inevitable enquiry. As it was, Metcalfe spoke. “Ain’t you furgettin’ someone?”
“Huh?” I blew again at my nails, “oh, yes, so I am,” and then I looked deliberately to each of the three before gesturing to the pit I was standing in, “gents, here’s the deal I’m making to you now. In order to earn this not un-sizeable sum, all you need do is ensure I’m not the one sleeping in here this night.”
From someone, there was a sharp intake of air and as you’d expect, Savage had been shrewd enough to see where I was going with my monologue and was long braced with sabre to ward off any threat, safely knowing that if it were likely to come, it would be from either Willie or Baird, which made the potential need to defend a whole lot easier for him. Suddenly, my position, which only ten seconds before had looked somewhat better, relatively speaking, was now back in doubt.
“Now, don’t all prod the chap at once.” I held out my palms and heard the desperation return to my voice. “Major, Colonel, care for a stab? No, how about I make that fifteen?”
Savage kept his eyes on them. “I think that’s a no, Captain.” And at that, he drew his pistol, I saw it pointed at my chest, there was a flash and I was thrown violently back.
“Damned bleeding powder,” Savage growled before throwing the pistol straight at me. Mercifully, he was no bowler and it glanced harmlessly off the wall of mud, “oh, get up, you wet blanket and let me do for you as you’d have another do to me.”
I would not, for one, my chest felt like it’d been nipped but it was the shock of the thing, you see, that I’d have been dead if not for my earlier brilliance at the ford, and so instead, I curled into the foetal position and began bawling my eyes out. “Please, just let me take Otis and ride away, I promise I’ll never let on about what you did to me here.”
“Get up!” Savage shouted before jumping into the pit. His sabre was still in his hand but to my relief, he sheathed it but only so he had both hands free to yank me up, which he did with incredible strength.
My legs were buckling under my own weight but he kept ahold of my jacket lapels while I made efforts to apologise for attempting to bribe the others to kill him but all that came out were palpitations. He struck me hard in the belly and I went immediately down, retching and struggling for breath.
Something rustled in the distance and then I heard Willie shout. “Zombies!”
Savage had been drawing back his fist for a second strike but soon forgot me and leapt from the pit. “You’re sure, where? Oh, Christ, you’re right.”
“Prepare for the enemy.” Baird bellowed.
It was far from the saviour I wanted but I’d take it all the same and I was already a mind to spill the piled up earth atop myself when Savage appeared hanging over the edge, his arms grasping for my collar and then I was being hauled out from the grave.
“You’re the one with the experience, our supposed hero, so now’s your chance to show us all how it’s done.” He booted me up the arse, pitching me forwards.
I needed a moment for my eyes to adjust before I saw them, shambling forth through the trees, a dozen at least, all in the redjacket of one of Britannia’s infantry regiments. The leader was missing an ear and its head was tilting at some unnatural angle, another had an arm hanging on by mere sinews but they were each just as ghastly. I considered running the other way but Savage was close behind to anticipate any move I made, like I was the concern right now.
“Don’t even think about running, the dead are upon us and we need our gallant hero now more than ever, show us how it’s done, Strappy lad.” His hand was back around my scruff and he used it to push me toward them, my feet attempted to dig in but there was too much forward momentum and, horrifyingly, they were now emerging from the trees.
“Ugh,” was the only sound I could make and I had the appalling premonition that he was about to push me into them, or else take me so close I’d have to fight them alone but then, mercifully he screamed the order right beside my ear.
“Form a line.” It was something, I’d not be alone, at least but then he spoke again, words reserved only for me. “And guess who takes the honour of being centre?” His hand readjusted around my collar. “Are you going to fight, cretin?”
“Oh, God, no, please, don’t make me, I beg you.”
“I thought you’d like that but you don’t have a choice. Now, earn your damned pay, you rogue.” He gave me a final push so that I lurched into the small clearing about twenty paces from the trees, the dead were already in the open and still emerging in numbers. “Sword at the ready.” He ordered me, sounding so calm it was hard to believe, I wasn’t one of these people.
Our pitiful five-man line was forming; Savage immediately on my left beside Baird, Willie to my right with Metcalfe making up the flank, our nation’s hero thrown into the centre, the obvious place the dead would strike first.
They were yards away now, though seemed in no hurry. It was the closest I’d been to them in a long while, close enough I could look into their dead eyes, try to see if anything was there, which there wasn’t, yet still, there had to have been something because they were somehow coordinating this attack, holding back just long enough for the stragglers to arrive so that their full force could be delivered in one monstrous unison.
There was a terrible scraping and Baird was grinning like a Bedlam patient as he unsheathed his ancestral sword. May it tell today. “Let’s have you, come on, nice and easy now.” He kissed the pommel and stood at guard.
Savage, Willie and Metcalfe had likewise drawn their blades, the latter frowning dubiously at his. Panicking now, my eyes flicked across to Savage on my immediate left, he was turned slightly into me as though trying to watch both myself and the dead but his attention was fully on the dead, as was everyone else’s. I was not the concern now but I did have to make my contribution, there was no way out of it, they were here - Here! Might I be forgiven the horses if I made a stout show of it? Would I be allowed to live?
And so, deigning to finally make my first kill, of a genuine enemy, that is, I slipped my clammy fingers around the hilt of my sword and tugged.
It wouldn’t move.
A sudden fury overcame me, that now, of all moments, I’d be struggling with the most basic of actions. I heaved again, harder, but the confounded thing was jammed. I thought about crying, running, dying, even though none of it would help me now because they were upon us. Then, I was struck by a sudden inspiration, I had one option, one beautiful recourse. They’d ridiculed me for it but who was laughing now, you bastards.
The twelve-barrelled carbine was strapped faithfully against my chest and, reaching across, I now unslung the jewelled marvel, pointed it true and awaited the perfect moment, the moment that would tell the most, when all twelve steel cylinders would unleash the most devastating volley of death unto the enemy. Get it wrong and even if the dead didn’t devour us all, Savage would bury me alive anyway, however, time it just right and I’d obliterate the lot in one single twitch of a finger and how could they do wrong by me then? The legend of Captain Jack Strapper would be confirmed.
I’d show them yet. I’d show them all.
They shambled forth, one zombie for each barrel good and primed and naturally, my mind wandered to all those other times. The forest, my first ever encounter that had traumatised me so, where I’d witnessed the disemboweling of those two fine men, the fort at Garrison, where I’d clobbered into a slobbering fiend on those crooked stone steps and sailed it downwards, the chained father of twins straining to eat those poor sweet babies, the entire Scotland fiasco including the gauntlet I’d been forced to fight. All the horrific memories came flooding back and when I shook my head to regain clarity, I found that somehow, and unbeknown to my conscious self, I’d wandered several paces back, my squad had been far too preoccupied with the obvious to notice, and I was now staring into the backs of my comrades.
The stench hit me, the rot, the dead increased speed for the final lunge, sword points were poised, my finger rattled against the trigger, an odd mewing sound emanated from my mouth, my throat, and then the dead struck, sword tips plunged forwards and there was an explosion as I was thrown back to land on my arse some distance away.
“Aaaarrrrgggghhhhhhhh!!!” Came the screams as I was vaguely aware of a cluster of up high leaves taking a whipping.
Blood gushed from Metcalfe’s leg, Willie had tumbled into him, Savage had gone down and Baird was clutching his arse. At the worst possible moment, the zombies had descended upon them all, I sat there aghast, stunned, while Baird, despite what had just overcome them, became a fiend with that blade, Savage was stabbing up repeatedly into eyeballs, Willie had rolled on top of one ghoul to slice off its head and Metcalfe was slamming his hilt again and again across his foe’s cranium, making all kinds of mess. They were like animals unleashed, despite their awful and unexpected injuries, the bodies piled up, oh the terrible squelches, the grunts and groans and all the while the mud turned slick as blood from their own wounds curdled with that of their enemies. All so quickly their numbers were reduced to two left standing, I saw one hitch left to attack the older man and Baird misjudged, or maybe he didn’t know, and the Pagan thrust his blade hard so that it lodged between two vertebrae at the very same moment that Savage decapitated the other. Perhaps the zombie sensed all was lost, or maybe he was just bored, but incredibly, the thing turned on its boot and lumbered off the way it had come, back into the trees to fight again another day, Major Baird’s sacred sword sticking out of its gut.
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed, we’d done it.
When I regained my senses, Willie was lying faced down in the shit while the others were all regarding me with something that might be described as ire. Baird clutched his arse, as did Metcalfe his leg while Savage was tearing strips off his freshly pressed theatre togs before pulling them tight around both his legs. They were all displaying teeth with a rare firestorm behind the eyes.
I knew what I’d done, of course, it’s just that my natural defences would not allow me to believe it, that in a single second I’d wiped out the entire squad. There’d be no denying this one, Strappy lad, sitting there as you were with twelve wisps of black smoke still spouting from the firearm grasped in your paw as the other covered your mouth. Strappy did a whoopsie.
There was a strange silence now, which was unsettling. Had it been I in their position, I warrant I’d be screaming bloody murder at the chap who’d done it.
But, in typical Strappy fashion, my one overriding concern was for myself, as it should have been, and whether or not I could possibly get away with it, to make for Otis and just calmly ride away. Unfortunately, there was at least one ghoul extremely close by and where there was one there were usually many more.
No, I hated to admit it, but even now it was still safer bunking down with a group of hardened men I’d just crippled for life.
Willie rolled over and screamed. “We’re bloody wounded, man, do something.”
Fumbling to my feet, I ran towards them, half expecting to be murdered on the spot but no, thinking logically about it, now I truly was the most valuable member of the team and so I actually felt relatively safe as I approached, all sympathy. “Colonel, are you all right, please allow me to help you…”
There was retching and cursing from all present. Savage was clenching his belt between teeth as he tightened more straps around his thigh - I reckoned he’d have words for me at some point. I wasn’t sure how but by Jove, somehow I’d managed to get them all.
Blood and sick spewed from Willie’s mouth as I put an arm around his waist and helped him inside the house, his feet dragging across the dirt, “oh, I can’t feel a thing,” and dumping him upon the living room sofa. I returned for Metcalfe, “you really gone ’n’ done it this time,” and set him beside Willie.
Baird wasn’t happy at all. “The sword, the fucking ancestral sword, Wolf Bite, damn your eyes, Jack, leave me go, I want that fucking sword returned to me, you swine, that evil fucking thing has it.” Suddenly he was all vitriol. “Jack! The fucking sword, where are you taking me, oh the blazes, my arse.”
Because he was my brother, I gave him the bedroom and he landed bedwards still shouting bloody murder at me, not for having done it to him, oddly, but for the sword. I moved to the threshold and dared look him in the eye, “I’m not going after your sword, Major, I’m sorry.” I closed the door on him before he had chance to respond and for several seconds lingered there to take a breath.
I returned for Savage last, as I deduced it mightn’t have been terrible had he been got at during my absence. As expected, he was the most difficult with which to contend and despite having been hit the worst, with a bullet in both hams, buttock and a calf, he was laughing hysterically, even as he appeared to drop in and out of consciousness. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, Sir Captain Jack Strapper, Excalibur of Edinburgh, the Sword of Stirling, argh, my damned leg, you swine, the Lionheart of Garrison, wherever the fuck that is, Britannia’s hero, ahahaha, why not give him a VC, oh, that’ll be next the way England’s going.” He made sure to give me one or two thumps to the beef, as possibly I deserved, though even now, he was wise enough not to do more than that else the cesspit might have been his ultimate destination.
After dumping him on the living room floorboards, I pottered back to the still opened doorway of the house and there remained for several minutes of solemn respite. Otis clapped a hoof from within the still opened stable, lumbered down as now he was. I went out, patted him on the nose and pressed my forehead against his jowl. “You’ve really done it this time, you idiot. At least I can protect you, old boy.” After shutting the horse inside, I returned to the house and, unsure what the bloody hell I was supposed to do next, I stood there, arms limp by my sides.
Savage was watching me from where he sprawled out convulsing. The blood smeared into the wood and rugs revealed he’d been crawling about somewhat from where I’d shoved him. “Don’t just stand gawping, you complete cretin, get the med box … the bleeding med box!”
The smallest of all the boxes, I found it right away, with its familiar Horse Guards stamp, though damned if I knew what to do with it. “Here,” I held it out to him.
He snatched it away and his hands shook uncontrollably, which caused the tin to rattle as he attempted to prise off the lid. “You were a stretcher bearer in Pan…In Panama, you say, Mister Metcalfe?” He plucked the belt out from between his teeth long enough to groan the words. “Let’s hope … let’s hope you can work your magic with what we have.” The lid popped off and Savage’s head jerked back. “What the devil is this?” He gawped, speechless at Metcalfe, who was having his own problems by the look of ‘im. He thrust a hand within and pulled out, of all things, a lime. “Are we the bloody navy or something?” He threw it at me then another and another, two of them struck the forearm I yanked up to shield my face, the box followed but that sailed safely past, sending limes, half of them rotten, all over the place. “Bah, this whole fucking mission’s been one disaster after another.”
