The Ironclad Prophecy by Pat Kelleher Read Free Book Online Page A

thought as he shot the bolt and flung open the cellar doors.
    “In,” he yelled. “Make for the sap at the rear of the house!”
    Prof, Chalky, Nobby, Pot Shot, Gazette, Mercy and Porgy tumbled into the dark hole.
    Gutsy pushed Chandar down into the cellar and Atkins followed.
    A shadow fell over him as he hit the floor. He turned, rifle at the ready, as a scentirrii sprung through the cellar opening at him. It was dead before it fell on his bayonet, a bullet hole through its horned flat facial plate. Gazette was covering them from the cellar door across the low room.
    Gutsy ushered Chandar through.
    Another scentirrii appeared at the cellar opening. Crouching, spider-like, it let out a challenging hiss. Atkins pulled his trigger but his magazine was empty.
    Gazette fired again, sending it spinning out of sight.
    “We need to get these doors shut,” Atkins said.
    A third chatt sought to clamber in. Gazette killed that, too, and a fourth crawled over the bodies of its comrades to reach them. That, too, fell. No more attempted to come through.
    Atkins steeled himself, reached out and pulled the cellar doors shut, jamming them closed with the handle of a broom that he found stood in the corner.
    Above, he heard the machine gun stutter start up again.
    “About bloody time!” he spat. He clapped Gazette on the shoulder. “Thanks.”
    He staggered up the worn stone cellar steps and out of the house, following his men down the sap trench towards the front line.
    Alarmed by the appearance of Chandar in the fire trench, several Tommies swung their Enfields in the chatt’s direction as 1 Section emerged from the sap.
    “It’s all right, he’s with us,” said Atkins. He looked around and saw a private with a runner’s brassard. “You. Tell Lieutenant Everson that we have someone he’ll want to meet.”

 

     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    “For God’s Sake Don’t Send Me...”
     
     
    T HE HEAVILY SANDBAGGED command post looked out over the lines of trenches, breastworks and earthworks now crawling with Pennine Fusiliers as they dispatched straggling and retreating chatts. Linseed lancers of the RAMC scuttled about with stretchers, collecting the wounded and carrying them back to the aid posts and hospital, while flocks of carrion creatures were already circling and descending on the bodies. Frustrated ‘hell hounds,’ smelling the blood, could be heard howling across the valley.
    Lieutenant Everson looked out through a loophole with his binoculars, across the wire weed entanglements and the bodies that hung on them, already being ensnared and sapped of their life by the slow-moving thorny creepers tightening around them. His gaze didn’t rest there, but was drawn out across the veldt where he watched the Khungarrii retreat.
    They had repulsed them, but only because of their guns, and their ammunition was rapidly running out. Of course, the chatts didn’t know that, but at some point, the Khungarrii would attack again. No doubt they could hold off several such attacks. His counterpart was exceedingly clumsy, tactically. With their short-range weapons, the alien scentirrii seemed to be much more proficient in small police actions, defending their edifice and the like, but the growing confidence evident in recent raids on urmen enclaves showed his nemesis was a fast learner and damned if he wasn’t learning it all from the Pennines.
    The observation posts on the valley hilltops had reported no sign of a support column. They must have been foraging food along the way. Nor were there any signs of siege machines. So they didn’t see this action lasting very long. A short brutal engagement, then, to stamp out their enemies.
    However, if the chatts were to lay siege to the stronghold and this turned into another war of attrition, then God help them. They had barely held their own against the Hun on the Somme. This time, without reinforcements, without logistical support, they couldn’t hope to hold out against such a superior