Black Hand Gang (20 page)

He had pointed out a fruit tree, the large purple fruits of which were the size of mangoes and wincingly sweet. This gave Mercy an idea. To be fair it was obviously an idea he'd had for quite a while because it didn't take him long to put it into action. In an abandoned dugout, Mercy constructed a crude still from water drums and Ticklers' jam tins, and even managed to scrounge some copper piping for a condenser. He also acquired some yeast from the cooks' supplies.

One night Mercy slunk into the Section's dugout carrying an old stone rum jar, almost tripping over Gordon as the creature chatted the seams of Pot Shot's shirt. "Here, he said. "Try this. I've already sold half to some lads from 4 Platoon."

"You haven't been nicking the rum rations, have you? Hobson'll have your guts for garters," said Porgy.

"Relax, this is my own mixture, isn't it?"

"You mean -"

"He's been brewing this stuff in secret for days," said Gutsy, shaking his head. "I tried telling him it wasn't a good idea. If he gets caught he'll be for the high jump."

"So what's this gut-rot called then?"

"Flammenwerfer," said Mercy with a grin. "Who's first?"

Porgy and Half Pint pushed Atkins to the fore. "Go on, Only! Put hairs on your chest, will that."

Mercy, laughing, poured a large tot into a dixie can and thrust it towards Atkins.

"Down! Down! Down! Down!" the others chanted.

Egged on by the rest, Atkins, wanting to be a good sport, grudgingly emptied his dixie in one draught. He immediately regretted it, stumbling back, half-blinded by stinging tears as the liquor burned down his throat. Flammen-bloody-werffer indeed. Although, as he fought for breath, he thought 'Gas Attack' would have been a more appropriate epithet. He could feel a pounding begin at the base of his skull until the beat of it filled his head. The burning liquid etched a path down his insides to his stomach where it seemed to reach flashpoint and ignite, expanding to fill his entire body. His limbs began to tingle and throb to the beat of his pulse. As he wiped the tears from his cheeks, he began to feel dizzy and light-headed. Blinking, he tried to speak, but it seemed that his vocal chords had melted.

The faces of the men before him began to contort, twisting and turning like a Futurist canvas, their features malleable, fading and shifting. The khakis and mud greys around him began radiating kaleidoscopes of geometric patterns that burst against his retinas. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head in an attempt to rid himself of the vision, opening them again only to find the scene around him stubbornly ablaze with guttering colours. He tried to speak again, but his voice sounded so far away and foreign he could barely hear himself let alone distinguish what he was saying or whether it made sense. He was finding it hard to breathe. He thrust a finger down the collar of his shirt and pulled at it. He looked down at his feet impossibly far below him and a wave of vertigo washed over him. Arms reached for him but he batted them away and struggled to put one foot in front of the other as he broke away from the garish India rubber limbs that tried to claw him back.

He clambered out of the blue-tinged trenches that expanded and contracted in waves before him, threatening to swallow him, and ran over sky blue mud with teal vapours rising in convection eddies. Above him, the sky boiled gently off into magenta hues. Time seemed to contract and expand in waves, too. One moment he was stumbling across crusting mud then next he found himself oozing slowly across the deep red stubble of the burnt open ground beyond as the orange fronds loomed towards him.

Two lidless eyes stared back; multicoloured whorls like oil on water dancing on their dark surface, watching him from the foaming purple undergrowth before shadows crept in from the periphery of his vision, occluding all...

Noises intruded on the blackness. Atkins felt himself surface from dark depths as diffuse light seeped into his consciousness. The noise grew until he thought his eardrums would burst. He sat bolt upright, gasping for air like a drowning man breaking the water's surface.

"Eyes!" he cried. "There's something watching us!"

Gentle hands urged him back down. Everything seemed raw and tinged with garish colours, like a hand-tinted photograph. The after effects of the Flammenwerfer, he expected. Things still wavered slightly, washing gently to and fro. He went with it and sank back into the pillow.

"There, there, you're safe. You've been hallucinating," said a soft warm voice. It was Sister Fenton. She soaked a cloth in a bowl of water by his stretcher and gently wiped his face. "That was a stupid thing you did. It could have killed you. How many of you drank that filthy stuff? Three are over there. One is blinded, another two have lost their minds. One poor wretch stumbled into a flooded shell hole and drowned. You were lucky." She held his head and gave him a sip of water. His dried, cracked lips stung as the water moistened them.

"Where..."

"You're safe. You're in the Casualty Clearing Station. Your friends brought you in. They found you wandering about - out there."

"Mercy," asked Atkins.

"Pardon?"

"My mate, Mercy."

"Is he the one who brewed the liquor?"

"Yes," he rasped.

"Hmm," said Fenton with a note of disapproval. "Well he'll get what's coming to him. He's in custody on a charge. There's to be a Court Martial."

Captain Grantham, Second Lieutenant Everson and Lieutenant Jeffries sat behind the table. Everson hated this part of the job. Already that morning they had heard several cases. The penalties for even minor infractions were often excessive and out of proportion for the supposed crime. And as the accused this time was one of his own he felt a little ashamed too. Evans had always been one to run close to the wire. He looked along the table. Captain Grantham was playing nervously with his fountain pen, clearing his throat every minute or so. The only person who seemed relaxed with the situation was Jeffries. Since most of the men who tried the liquor were in 4 Platoon, Lieutenant Jeffries had a personal stake in the case. One of his men had died, another had been temporarily blinded and another had been relegated to the stockade with the shell-shocked. Everson heard Hobson's bark outside. He shifted position, sitting upright.

"Prisoner and escort, halt! Right turn!"

Evans entered the dugout flanked by two soldiers.

"Prisoner and escort, halt! 'tenshun!"

Evans stood to attention, his thumbs extending down along his trouser seams, looking straight ahead at the wall over the officers' heads, his face emotionless but for his eyes betraying a flicker of fear.

"What's this one?" asked Grantham.

Everson read from the charge sheet regretfully, "The accused, 98765 Private Wilfred Joseph Evans, 13
^th
Pennine Fusiliers, a soldier of the regular forces, is charged with, when on active service, wilfully destroying Army property without orders from a superior officer and with brewing and distributing alcohol."

"Which frankly doesn't cover the half of it," said Jeffries. "Several of my men are in hospital and one is dead because of this man's actions. Brewing and distributing alcohol in the trenches. In fact, worse than alcohol. The report from the MO says here that the liquor, while being extremely alcoholic, also contained some form of noxious opiate, causing hallucinations. This man's expertise with the still equipment suggests to me that this isn't the first time he's done this."

"With respect, Lieutenant," said Everson. "There is no evidence he knew the ingredients to be harmful."

"Nevertheless," pressed Jeffries in clipped and measured tones. "I would ask for the maximum sentence."

"Has the accused anything to say in his defence?"

Even if he had, thought Everson, it wouldn't do him any good.

"With respect -" began Evans.

"Respect?" barked Jeffries, shouting him down. "You know nothing of respect, Private!" He turned and whispered to Grantham.

The Captain had a glazed look in his eyes, almost as if he had given up. He nodded, and then spoke up. "The unauthorised use of Army property will not be tolerated. I will be issuing a general order expressly banning the fermenting of alcohol for consumption forthwith. Sergeant, make sure his equipment is put beyond use. As for you, Private, penal servitude not being practical at this point, I hereby sentence you to Field Punishment Number One. I trust you will learn from this. Dismissed."

"Sah!" barked Hobson. "Prisoner and Escort left turn. Quick march."

Hobson marched Evans and his men away.

Grantham sighed, pushed his chair back and began shuffling his papers together in preparation to leave when Lieutenant Tulliver and Lieutenant Mathers entered.

"Excuse me, sir," said Mathers. "Tulliver and I have a request. If I might?"

"Eh?"

Jeffries leaned forward and looked past Grantham at Everson, his eyes narrowing. Everson shrugged.

"It's about the still your private constructed, sir. I understand you've given orders for it to be dismantled."

"Yes, dashed bad show. Showed the fella what for, though, eh, Jeffries?"

"Sir," said Jeffries darkly.

"Damned right."

"Well as you know, my tank and Mr Tulliver's plane only have limited supplies of petrol. Without it, our machines will be useless. Although unfit for human consumption we might be able to use this liquor as a petrol substitute."

"Of course!" said Everson, "that's a capital idea!"

"You agree with this, do you, Mr Everson?" asked Grantham.

"Resources are scarce, sir, and petrol supply is very limited," said Everson. "I believe Quartermaster Slacke only managed to find forty gallons. With Napoo's help, we've managed to find food and water and started to build up our stores. If we can solve the fuel problem as well, then that will increase our chances of survival. Without petrol those machines are just, well, so much junk, if you'll excuse me gentlemen."

Mathers shrugged indifferently.

Tulliver nodded in agreement. "No, you're right. If we can gather more of these fruits that your man found then we can distill as much fuel as we need. You know what they look like, where to find them?"

"Napoo does," answered Everson.

"Ah, yes, Napoo," said Jeffries quietly. "And just what exactly are this Napoo's motives?" He had been sat quietly listening, thinking. Jeffries seemed to do a lot of thinking, to Everson's mind. Which wasn't a bad thing in general. Too many officers didn't think at all. Jeffries, though, seemed to think altogether too much. Now, he uncoiled from his nest like a snake. "Who is he? What do we know of him?"

"He offered us help and knowledge when we needed it in exchange for aid with his kinsman," said Everson.

"Oh, and he has been helpful," admitted Jeffries. "To a point. He has warned about these... Khungarrii, yes. But the question is what else does he know? Is there anything he isn't telling us? You know virtually nothing about this world including, I might add, how we got here."

"I'm sure he'd tell us if he knew," said Everson.

"Your faith in human nature is heart-warming," said Jeffries, condescendingly. "But
is
he human? If this is a different world how can he be?"

"He seems to be an honest soul," said Everson.

"And again," said Jeffries. "Does he even have a soul at all? I'm sure Padre Rand could dispute your claim."

"What's your point Mr Jeffries?" asked Grantham.

"My point, sir, is that we know nothing about this native, his loyalties, his people. How do we know they aren't hiding anything from us?"

"They have no reason to lie," said Everson.

"Speak plainly, Mister Jeffries," pleaded Grantham, rubbing his temples as if the very concepts Jeffries iterated pained him.

"Aren't we rather getting off the point here?" said Mathers. Jeffries shot him a glance as he continued. "Captain, have we your permission to commence distilling fuel for our machines?"

Grantham sat down heavily in his chair with a sigh and waved them away with his hand. "Yes, yes, of course. Take whatever you need. We must keep them going, I suppose."

Tulliver grinned and patted Mathers on the shoulder as they left, eagerly talking about plans to construct a bigger still.

Jeffries watched them go, like a cat watching another, warily, as it skirted its territory.

"Captain, if I may?" said Everson, rising.

Grantham, looking tired and worn, glanced up at him and nodded mutely.

"Sir," said Everson, putting his cap upon his head and adjusting it. "Mr Jeffries."

"So you have no objection then, sir?" asked Jeffries, in Everson's hearing.

Grantham looked up. "To what?"

"To my questioning this Napoo character, of course?"

"No, none at all."

"Good," said Jeffries under his breath, "good."

Everson realised that Jeffries was playing a dangerous game over this Evans incident. Since the repeal of flogging, the British Army had to resort to other imaginative forms of corporal punishment. Field Punishment Number One consisted of the convicted man being lashed to a fixed post or gun wheel for two to three hours a day without food or water, often deliberately in range of enemy fire. Asserting authority and discipline was one thing, but there was no telling how the men might respond to the brutal and public punishment out here. Separated from their home, their loved ones and now their planet, the trenches were a powder keg right now. The men were discontented, fractious. The last thing they needed was a reason to riot.

Everson entered the small dugout that was being used as a guardroom. "That was a damn foolish thing you did, Evans, bloody irresponsible!" he said, sitting down on the bunk bedside him. He pulled a hip flask from inside his tunic.

"A drop of the real stuff?" asked Mercy, meekly.

"You should know," said Everson as he unscrewed the cap and passed the flask to Evans. Evans took a slug.

"Aaah." He wiped his lips on his sleeve and passed it back. "Gilbert the Filbert's really got in for me hasn't he, sir?"

"Oh, believe you me; he's like that with everyone. No quarter given, but you bloody well asked for it. I warned you. What the hell did you think you were doing?"