The Ironclad Prophecy Read Free Page B

against the Ones. It also served to bolster the numbers of the Pennines themselves.
    On one side of the parade ground stood the single-storey log building that was the small hospital. Huddled around it, groups of tents served as wards and surgical theatres. A group of soldiers stood waiting to be seen by the MO.
    Across the small parade ground, in isolation, was a barbed wire compound, ‘the Bird-Cage,’ where those poor souls suffering emotional shock from the Somme, or from finding themselves here, could be kept safe. Some shook uncontrollably, and others rocked themselves incessantly, or cried or howled in torment. A few sought to hide themselves, however they could.
    The Padre said a silent prayer for them, trotted down into the reserve trench and headed for Lieutenant Everson’s dugout.
    Approaching the gas curtain, he heard a woman’s voice tinged with exasperation. He knew the voice well. Only three women had the misfortune to accompany them to this place. Edith Bell had been one of those kidnapped with him and taken to the Khungarrii edifice. She, Corporal Atkins and Lieutenant Everson had confronted Jeffries, who then gutted the Khungarrii edifice and destroyed their sacred library, setting them all even more at odds with the creatures that ruled this world than they had been before.
    Lieutenant Everson sounded just as frustrated. “Nurse Bell, I’m sorry, but I have over five hundred men under my command. It is becoming clearer day by day that we cannot depend on being returned by whatever forces brought us here. If we are to return, then it will have to be under our own cognisance. That map of his you saw. You said yourself he went to a lot of trouble to get it. It’s obviously important. The sketch you gave us was helpful, but short on detail. Anything else you can give me, anything at all, will be most valuable.”
    Bell sighed heavily. “I know that, Lieutenant, and I have tried. I have wracked my brains. And I can assure you, if I remember the slightest thing you’ll be the first to know.”
    “I’d appreciate that.”
    “Then give me more aid for the shell-shock patients,” she asked. “Captain Lippett has no time for them. He believes they’re nothing but shirkers and malingerers. They’re ill. You can’t keep them in the Bird Cage, like prisoners! You just can’t!”
    “Nurse Bell, Captain Lippett is the Medical Officer here. I don’t think he’d appreciate you going over his head. Please do try and stick to the proper channels,” said Everson with a sigh. “Do I have to tell Sister Fenton?”
    Padre Rand coughed politely outside the rubberised canvas flap that formed the dugout’s door.
    “Enter!”
    He stepped inside. Everson was at his desk. Scattered in front of him was Jeffries’ coded occult journal and various maps and papers they had taken from his dugout. Sat opposite, Nurse Bell took the opportunity to end her interview. She stood up, brushed down her nurse’s apron over her part-worn khaki trousers and bobbed a slight curtsey to Rand as she passed him. “Padre,” she said curtly, pulling the canvas door aside and stepping out into the light.
    Everson looked up from behind his desk, sweeping a hand across the papers and journal before him.
    “No matter how many times I look at this stuff, I come up with nothing. Nothing but that damn Croatoan symbol with which Jeffries seemed to be obsessed. The rest I can’t make head or tails of, even after three months.”
    The Padre felt for him. Lieutenant Everson was a good officer, respected by the men, but where the blame for bad decisions might be passed back up the line to Battalion HQ or the General Staff, here the buck stopped with him. He was the highest-ranking infantry officer left. Whatever credit he had with the men was running out. He had turned more and more frequently to the scattered papers looking for answers, as another might turn to the bible or the bottle.
    Everson gave him a weary smile. “Tea, Padre?