Not Dead Yet: A British Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1-3, page 73
“Well, at least you’ll not get scurvy,” I dared say, which prompted Savage to roll onto his chest and begin pulling himself towards me. I simply stepped away and he gave up.
The following hour was an experience, which dragged on into the next and the one after that. They had me search the place for something to pluck out the balls. The owner had possessed a collection of knives and tools that had to have been used for gutting and skinning hare and Savage selected two slender knives that looked like they were meant for slicing some of the finer cuts. Willie, who was being very quiet, offered his flask that was filled with brandy and Metcalfe took a large pull while I waited with the implements that were set over the coals in the stove. Wrapped in a cloth, I handed them over to Savage who leered down on a dreadful wound smack in the middle of the ham.
“You did this to us, you can bloody well watch.” He ordered when I tried to turn away but the minute those things delved into Metcalfe’s meat, turn away I did. The screams, however, could not be ignored and so I tried to concentrate on staring into the forest.
Might the dead come back? And if they did, what then?
By the time the ball was retrieved, and subsequently chucked at me, Metcalfe was unconscious. Savage poured water and brandy over the wound but in the absence of any needles, all he could do was cauterise the skin with hot coals before binding the wound several times with shreds from his ever-diminishing shirt. “Like as not, you’ve killed him, you swine, as you’ve killed us all, yourself too.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that last bit but I decided against reminding the man that only moments before, it’d been I he’d had digging his grave at sword point and that now, fate appeared to have decided on a different course. How bad was I supposed to feel that now it was Savage, along with the rest, in a spot of bother, and that all I could do was potter about and wait for fate to play whatever hand it would. No, from the moment I was cast out, or arguably before, since Metcalfe wanted to do for me with pistols, I was given leave of all moral responsibility to do well by any of these people. Oh, I felt bad for Baird, and even a little for Willie, but they’d both played roles in what would have been my own death.
It was worthy of consideration, that despite the best efforts of so many individuals, time and time again, it was I who’d demonstrated a greater propensity to remain not only alive but largely unhurt into the bargain. Savage was merely the latest in a long line of ruffians who’d attempted to cause me harm, in fact, I’d say the cove was lucky to have come out of it as well as he did and to that end, I had one thing to say to him.
“If I were you, I’d be very careful with your threats from now on, sir.”
He regarded me seriously and nodded, almost in concession to my words for how could they be argued with. I was now the one with the power, at least in this group. He shuffled across to Willie. “Colonel, your wound?”
Willie waved a weak hand, as if to say, don’t bother. “I’m dying, leave me.” The words were likely true. The colonel was lying faced down revealing a large and dark wet patch covering the lower portion of his redjacket all the way to the tail. I assumed I’d got him in the lumbar.
Savage prodded him insistently. “Your wound, Colonel.”
“Oh, leave me be, damn your eyes.”
“Suit yourself,” Savage grunted and then threw up across the floor. When he recovered, he crawled back into his space and clinked the two knives together, ripped away what was left of his breeches and then twisted into a painful looking position. “Get out.”
I didn’t need telling twice and so I skulked into the pantry and as the screams filled the cottage, I sank into a corner and buried my head between my knees.
Our Nation’s Hero
A few hours past, mostly in silence, save for the occasional scream and cry for morphine or mothers or this new one, which I was expected to deal with.
“Believe me, I’m pained to ask you, of all cretins, for this favour but I’m liable to burst without your help so stop standing there looking like the village idiot and help me, man, I need to empty my bowels.” That must have taken some swallowing of pride, especially for a man like Savage. It confirmed my earlier suspicions though, that the balance of power had shifted and now I was the most valuable member of the group. All it took was maiming them to a man. “Well?”
It wouldn’t be pretty but what else could I do? So I stooped to haul him up and almost collapsed when he placed his weight upon my shoulder, covering me in blood and sweat as he did. He brought Willie’s rifle along to use as a crutch and after a few minutes of groaning and flinching, we arrived at the obvious place for it, the empty grave that’d been intended for me. Grimacing and clenching from the strain of the movement, he squatted precariously before the hole, leaning into the rifle stock for balance. His face tightened, there was a blast and the pit was sprayed by all manner of nastiness.
“Well don’t just stand there, you cretin, go fetch some bloody leaves, man.”
I half considered not doing it, since it was a most undignified task and a bit too much of a come down from my station as the nation’s hero and besides, if I did this, where would it end? But no, I sighed and deigned to help the man because despite what he might have thought about me, I was not all that bad, and we were in a forest, after all, so gathering leaves was hardly a problem, even for me. I slinked off, returning with a bundle and prayed he’d require no assistance with their application. Luckily, he didn’t, though I needed to hold him steady whilst he freed one hand from the rifle.
“Perhaps it’s ironic that now…that now I’m the one shitting in the grave while at your mercy, don’t you think?”
I nodded, it hadn’t escaped me. “I much prefer things this way.”
“Is that why you did it?”
“Did what?
“Shoot us, you imbecile.”
“No, it was an accident.”
He nodded. “That’s hardly a surprise either. Wherever you go, accidents appear to follow like a puppy follows his master.” He reached around with a clamful of leaves and squinted. “Lord only knows how you ended up where you are today. You must know somebody or, more likely, you have something on somebody very bloody important … oh, give me strength. I mean, I look at you, often intently, for long periods trying to figure it out, whatever it is. All I see is a fat imposter fresh from lunch with his wet nurse. Oh, you’re tall, for sure, but fat. Did I ever tell you I once uncovered a spy from a pool of twenty-five officers who’d defected with me?” He tapped his temple with a finger. “Instinct, you see. They sent the man to assassinate me but in the end, I wasn’t the one dying under an elephant’s foot, squished like a worm under a boot. Got a confession out of him, I did, after watching him intently, I could see it, plain as day. For all my weaknesses, I pride myself on being able to get the measure of a man and I’ve no reason to believe I’m wrong about you.”
At any moment I could so easily have pushed him into the pit, covered him with earth and be done with it.
“I saw that, just then, see? I know what you’re thinking, so why don’t you?” He waited, knowing full well I lacked all that it took. “Aye, just as I thought. The Strappy from all those articles wouldn’t have even hesitated, not when I was about to do it to you, and I truly was too, another minute, perhaps. Help me up.” He pushed down on the stock and the strain from the effort made fresh blood swell through the strip of shirt tied around his thigh. “You’ll pay dearly for this, you rogue. You’d better hope all those bootlicking articles about you are true, you’d better make all this right somehow, fix it, my body, Metcalfe, Willie, Baird, this country, you filth, and you’d better do it now … oh, my bleeding legs … because if you don’t, I will personally make it my life’s mission to ruin you.” Assuming you survive the next day, you awful man. “Wherever you end up, wherever you find yourself, you’d best be watching your back, Captain, day and night, every single day, because I will be there, always, you hear, I’ll haunt the rest of your days.”
I helped him back to the others from where he passed out, a welcome rest from him and such threats he longer possessed the capacity to fulfil. After that, I called in on Baird, who was far easier to deal with and even pleasantly talkative, despite evidently being in such terrible pain.
“Don’t worry about me, nobody ever died from a bullet in the bum, Jack.” He hobbled and laughed to himself, even as his entire arm quivered around my shoulders. “We had Florence Nightingale in the Crimea. Now we’re stuck with Florence Strapper.”
We both had a right laugh at that and I apologised for not looking quite as good as she.
“Oh, she had a face like a Notre Dame gargoyle … probably why she was there in the first place rather than back here with some husband but she ran a tight ship, I’ll grant her that.”
I’d met Florence Nightingale on several occasions and he was right about the face.
“The lady with the lamp, we called her, and to us she looked like an angel as she patrolled the wards by night,” he wiped his arse with a clamful of leaves, “mind you, we were all doped up silly on laudanum and more than one of us found Jesus, not me though, obviously, not that they didn’t try. Still not married, from what I hear, not that she didn’t have offers, despite everything.” When we returned to the room, I assisted him supine and was surprised when suddenly he grabbed ahold of my lapels and pulled me to within a nose. “I’m dying, Jack.”
I moved away, shocked at the swift change in mood. “Oh, Major, you do complain, what was it you just said about a bullet in the bum? What if your old regiment could see you now?”
“No, no, no,” he waved it away and proceeded to unbutton his jacket.
I recoiled. “What … what the devil is that?” The sight and stench were both beyond overwhelming.
“The bastard bit me, is what. Right on the belly. It was the same chap who stole my sword, Jack.” It was more than a wound, the ghoul had torn away everything; jacket, shirt, flesh, muscle and some intestine. Even his leather belt had been notched. My brother sighed and allowed his head to sink into the pillow. “Was bit by a nigger as a young officer in the Ashanti War but it never felt anything like this. Septicaemia and the shakes for a few days, bowels that felt like they were liquifying but I’d take that any day over this.” He swallowed and sounded so drained in comparison to only a minute before. “The pain sears through my body like fire yet I’m so tired and drowsy I can barely even feel the bullet you were kind enough to give me. Explain that one, Jack? What kind of a man bites another like that? Oh, yes, that’s right, they’re not men, not anymore.”
“I should probably leave you, Major. You must rest.”
His hands were back on my lapels. “The mission, Jack! That’s the important thing, Britannia, and I worry now that it’s all in grave danger.” He settled back down as the sweat welled upon his forehead. “I truly wanted to see the thing through, to know it was done but at least you survived, Jack, so I know the job will be finished, that I can be sure of. And the lads, they’ll be safe with you watching over them, that I know too. Just see them right and complete the mission, that’s all I ask of you, our gallant captain.” This had to be delirium. “Oh, I know you made the odd blunder but don’t let any of it go to heart, that’s the advice from an old man who’s seen it all, even the best of us make mistakes. Why, Wellington himself fudged his first battle, did you know, sent men to their deaths at the dead of night in some pox ridden Indian swamp. Never did it again after that because he learned, Jack, he learned, which is what I know you’ll do too.” He laughed and shook his head. “Fitting, ain’t it; you, Wellington … two greats. Oh, don’t take their mean words to heart, they’re hardened men but they’ll get over it, even if they won’t likely forget, they’ll get over it. Just keep their bellies full and their pillows plump and you’ll be right, see off any threats from the dead in the meantime, should they come, and they’ll forgive.” He winced and coughed terribly into a closed fist, spluttering phlegm all over his chops. “And ne’er will they be so safe. Oh, I know they blame you for all this, but not I, Jack, not I. I don’t blame you for suggesting we ford the river when we needn’t, for purposefully avoiding the dead, for singlehandedly losing our ammunition, for drowning the pigeons and cutting off our communication, for allowing the horses to wander off, for all the bad blood around here. They might, but not I. Cut from a better cloth, you see. I mean, what the fucking hell were you doing standing behind us all with your damned fucking gun pointed at our backs?”
I jerked at that but remained silent, it was all rhetorical anyway, and this was his big speech.
My brother sighed, “I don’t fear death, as well you know, welcome it even, just so long as I go charging at it sword in hand.” His face twisted and he turned to look away. “Oh, Jack, I have a terrible confession to make.” His head shook slowly. “I’m afraid it’s all one big fraud.”
“What? You’re not a soldier?”
He turned back and blushed even as the colour was beginning to drain from him. “Oh, I’m a soldier, all right, forty years experience seeing more countries and conflicts than I care to count but the VC, Jack…”
“The VC,” I shrugged, “what of it?”
“It’s all fraud.” His eyes clasped shut. “Sure, I went back into the field, again and again, retrieving ladders and whatnot, rescued a dozen or so of our boys under heavy sniper fire, took two bullets in the back, but that’s not why I did it.” His hand moved down to conceal the medal, so ashamed he was. “You shouldn’t look at it, not a man like you, a real hero.”
“Major, I’m confused.”
“As you would be, Jack, as you would be. That a man like you cannot relate to a fraud like me, I’m hardly surprised, you see, I had to go back because of the sword … I’d lost it.” Suddenly, his eyes were huge and bloodshot. For such a valuable implement, he sure liked misplacing the thing. “That’s why I went back, not for the good of the battle or my comrades but for my own soul and they rewarded me for it. Oh, I’ve carried this burden around so long and that I should offload it onto one such as you, I’m truly sorry.” It was excruciatingly hard not to double over in hysterics, little did he know, the fool. He muttered something incomprehensible and rubbed at his wrists. “And I lost it again, Jack.” He shivered as the sweat poured from his face. “The torment that swells within me, it’s too much, too much, Jack, unless…” he was up again, all energy with an unexpected fire in the eyes, lust even, and then they turned down toward my sword, of all things. “A beautiful thing that. Say, I couldn’t ask a favour, could I?”
I took his hand and was astonished at how cold it felt. “Anything, Major.”
He gazed into my eyes with a deliberation and intensity I’d never before seen in him, indeed, I’d never before seen in another man and I suspected my friend was about to make his dying wish to me, a wish I’d have an obligation to fulfil. I already suspected what that wish might be and was relieved to know I’d have no difficulty in bringing it to fruition. “Just make sure you’re here when the time comes. Slip that hilt within my grasp that I may go storming to Valhalla in all my glory.” His face softened, as though a huge weight had just been removed from him. “And what a way to be sent to meet the Gods, my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, hell, my fifth great-grandfather … a sword that’s done so much as yours.”
I squeezed his hand and felt oddly at peace. “I promise.”
He dozed off almost immediately and as I left the room, my brother appeared at peace with the world. Unfortunately, as I was to find, this was in great contrast to the others, whose situation had taken an unexpected sideways turn.
Savage and Metcalfe were lying on their sides in the midst of a large scattering of newspaper. They were rustling through the whole lot with abandon and generally getting blood all over it. I remained in the threshold, unnoticed, and watched.
“Here’s another, looks like he’s at the theatre with that socialite bitch.” Savage separated it from the disorder and placed it upon a pile several inches high. It was then I saw the topmost sheet, along with the one that replaced it, bore my likeness along with headlines in large black font where my name, ‘Strappy,’ stood out again and again. “I bet she willingly spread her legs believing all the lies. What’s this? Is that … Charles bloody Dickens?” He showed the article to Metcalfe.
“Looks like him t’ me, standing there raaght b’side that sonofabitch.”
“‘The Great Expectations of Captain Jack Strapper’ … a catchy title,” the book had been critically acclaimed, though I’d yet to read it. Savage plucked out another and squinted. “‘Britannia’s greatest soldier does it again.’ Look at him here, sitting heroically upon that horse and no mention they had to winch him in the saddle, and who’s that? Only the bloody Prime Minister lingering in the background like some supplicant. Disgusting. Like I told you, Mister Metcalfe, the whole country’s gone insane.”
“Bain, take a look at this, ah told yah it was large.”
He snatched another from Metcalfe’s grasp and his eyes widened. “‘A plan of Strapper Palace, which is set to encompass an area twice the size of Woodstock,’” he gasped, “it has its own railway line and station. Arise, Sir Jack, I know you’re there, you cretin, stop hiding in typical Jack Strapper style and get in here.” I did. “Well? This your house then?”
I cleared my throat and looked down toward the blood-sodden rugs. “That’s, um, that’s one of my houses.”
There was silence for a while after that until it became so uncomfortable that I had to look up to check they weren’t dead, they weren’t, but they’d both been stunned mute.
