As the Day Watch left the obelisk hill, Mihran ibn al-Hassan studied his companions – the Night Watch – as they set up camp around the obelisk. It was clear there would be a power struggle here. Everyone would want power, or so he’d thought.
‘I am Field Officer Li, and I cannot assume the role of leader.’ The Eastern soldier had been a popular choice. ‘I have no experience of coordinating such a large group.’
‘But you are from an advanced age,’ a leather-clad archer said. ‘You have more knowledge than any of us here.’
‘That is true,’ Li replied. ‘I know how each of your empires flourished and died, I know the history of your nations and the battles your people won and lost – but I have never led soldiers.’ The shiny face shield remained down, which distorted Li’s voice. ‘Personally, I would never choose an inexperienced chief over a battle-hardened captain.’
Several men nodded and Mihran held back the questions he longed to ask about the empire his army had been building.
‘How about the white-haired one?’ A warrior with an obsidian club pointed to the tallest man in the group.
All eyes turned to the blond man, who puffed his chest out and tried to look serious.
‘Why?’ a man with an incredibly long bow asked. ‘He looks like a thug if you ask me.’
‘He is the only race here I recognise,’ he shrugged. ‘I trust him.’
The big man looked confused and asked, ‘How does he recognise me?’
‘Vikings from the settlement of Vinland made contact with the late Mayan Empire,’ Li said, ‘and early Aztec culture – two rotted boat hulls and at least one gene can be traced through the –’ Li paused, then said, ‘Your ancestors may have met.’
Mihran nodded. After the discussion he intended to have a long talk with Li to understand who these people were and what a gene was.
‘So who wants to be leader then?’ the bowman asked. ‘Surely it would be easier to sort things out that way?’
Samas, the Babylonian, stepped forward in his shining bronze armour. ‘I am a captain – I can lead us.’
Mihran sneered at the foot soldier but could tell by the faces around him this was a man they would follow.
‘I have led men into battle and fought side by side with them,’ Samas continued. ‘I would gladly assume the position of leader of this fine group of soldiers.’
Applause broke out amongst the group and Mihran could bear it no longer.
‘What do you know of navigation?’ Mihran asked. ‘How will you lead us to the silver gates if you don’t know their location?’ He stepped forward. ‘What shall we eat and how shall we travel without horses?’
Mihran held Samas’ stare and his cloak flapped open to reveal armour equally impressive as the Babylonian’s.
‘You wish to lead these men?’ Samas asked.
‘Yes,’ Mihran raised his head. ‘My people were chosen to lead and I, Mihran ibn al-Hassan, will be your leader.’
A few warriors shook their heads, while others nodded in agreement. Maybe they had heard of his achievements on the battlefield?
‘And you have answers to your questions?’ Samas asked.
‘Not all,’ Mihran replied honestly. ‘But we will struggle without provisions.’ He pointed to the forest. ‘And we need to get clear of this woodland to maintain our direction.’
‘One man cannot be the expert on everything,’ Samas retorted.
‘Without one clear voice, nobody will listen and the army will fall apart,’ Mihran replied.
A dark-skinned soldier with a short spear stepped forward to speak. ‘I vote for Mihran.’
The bowman said, ‘Well, I vote for Samas, because if we have to fight we need him to direct us.’
Mihran could see the problem here. Many of these soldiers were infantry who looked for a strong fighter to stand with them in battle – they despised the generals who made decisions for them – but Mihran knew an army was more than its muscles and weapons.
Discussions were breaking out throughout the group.
‘Wait. Be quiet!’ Li took the floor once more. ‘We don’t need any more divisions – our group has already split in two.’ The soldiers quietened down. ‘Both Samas and Mihran can lead us. One to lead our journey,’ Li looked at Mihran, ‘and the other to lead in battle,’ with a nod to Samas.
A rumble of agreements ran around the group and Mihran gave Li a nod of approval. It was good to find a soldier of a similar mind.
The Day Watch developed a natural rhythm, walking in single file and alternating the lead and rear every ten minutes. They pounded a rhythm on the woodland floor, keeping their thoughts to themselves as they wound through a forest of golden-barked trees which formed a light canopy overhead. As the descent became less steep, larger trees became visible, along with clutches of giant bamboo. It was unsettling for Althorn not being in the mountain lakes and snowy peaks of his homeland and he felt something was wrong here: his hand instinctively felt for his bone-handled dagger and the touch brought back his memories from the previous night.
Althorn had been waiting for hours tucked behind a hummock of wild grass a hundred paces from the village as the stubborn sun set. I’m getting too old for this, he’d thought, and resisted the urge to urinate, worried the smell would betray his position.
He ran questions through his mind to pass the time and keep alert.
What was that bird calling? A lapwing.
What was his earliest memory? Shooting an arrow from his father’s bow.
How many men had he killed? Fifty? No, it had to be more – there was the grassland tribe who wanted their rival clan’s sons murdered. Had it been a mistake to let those young boys live? Killing children was something he refused to have on his conscience. Either way, the grassland tribe had accepted the burnt bodies and paid him well. If they’d discovered the truth, it had been long after he’d made it back to the mountains.
He preferred the mountains – more places to hide.
Now he had one more king to slay. They were getting younger and he was getting older, he remembered thinking. In his youth, Althorn had stood in the front line of many great battles, slaying men in their prime. Fighting men. But that was long before the defeat at High Ridge when his clan had been destroyed and taken into slavery.
Movement by one of the buildings signalled the change of guard. He had to move fast before the new man’s eyes acclimatised to the light.
Through steady, workmanlike killing, Althorn had made it to the main hall of the enemy village, leaving a trail of dead bodies from his grassy hiding place to the hall’s door. His garrotte had dripped with maroon blood by the time he was done.
Althorn tensed as he hid in the darkness of the great wooden building, to stay focused. The hall was only twenty paces long, but his vision was impeded by smoke from a fire. With the toes of a thief, he made his way across the earthen floor, creeping around sleeping dogs. The curtained door at the other end was his goal – the king’s chamber. Guards slept on either side of the doorway but their open mouths and empty beer horns suggested it would take thunder to wake them. Taking his time, Althorn parted the embroidered curtain and squinted to see two shapes in the straw bed and paused to listen. Two sets of breath. One deep and one shallow.
This was the place.
‘Mother?’ a child called out.
Althorn froze. He hadn’t seen the children in the hall. Speed was vital, so Althorn stepped to the far side of the bed, took out his knife and aimed for the larger shape’s neck.
All hell had broken loose. Vicious fists flew at Althorn, who stabbed again, aiming for the chest: his blade scraping against bone as it twisted between ribs. Screams from the woman beside the dying king were joined by barking from the hall. The king fought back in the dark, gurgling on blood, and the woman leapt at Althorn. A fist caught him in the eye, so Althorn swiped back with his knife hand. The curtain swept back and firelight was cast on the bloody scene.
Everything fell silent.
Beneath Althorn, the king had breathed his last in a twisted shape of agony. Beside him the woman swayed and fell back, clawing at a red line across her throat. She squinted, looking Althorn directly in the eye.
‘Althorn?’ she’d whispered, and breathed her last.
A child’s screams were cut off as Althorn fell deaf, staring at the woman in horror. What was she doing here? And why was she bathed in silver light? He turned to the warriors in the doorway. Why hadn’t they attacked? They were shielding their eyes. Althorn looked down to see the light was coming from him.
Then, in a flash, everything had disappeared.
Now, Althorn took in the soldiers who walked with him: they were too well fed to be foragers or wanderers like him. They must have had every meal prepared for them while they spent their days training for war, he thought with a tang of jealousy.
‘We must find water.’ A spearman, wearing sparkling armour, broke the silence.
‘There must be a stream flowing down this hill,’ the tall female archer answered.
A murmur flowed through the line and, listening in, Althorn could tell the group were realising what he already knew – they were totally unprepared for this journey.
‘We will come across a water source soon,’ Althorn reassured the group, wondering whether his age played a part in the father-like role he seemed to have acquired. ‘The land is levelling out.’
Althorn was probably not much older than the Arab in the Night Watch – Mihran, wasn’t it? – but his years as an assassin, tracking targets across mountains and nights spent in the elements, had taken their toll. The thought of his last kill made him shudder. This was his penance – the gods had brought him here to pay.
‘When we find a stream, we set up camp,’ Sir William bellowed from the rear of the file. ‘Night is drawing in.’
‘Maybe we should spread out to find water?’ John suggested.
‘We could walk in groups, within sight of each other,’ the turbaned swordsman added.
‘Do we have to vote on it?’ Crossley said, showing his neighbour a smile.
‘No, we do not have to vote,’ Sir William shouted from the back. ‘Anyone against the idea can speak up now. We won’t have long until nightfall.’
Split into smaller groups, they covered a width of a hundred paces, and the plan soon paid off when a call from the left flank redirected them to the sound of running water.
‘Thank God for that. My tongue’s as dry as a bone.’ Crossley knelt at the stream, ready to fill his canteen next to the soldiers scooping water with their hands.
‘Wait!’ Althorn shouted. ‘Remember the mushrooms?’ Althorn looked at the blank faces with dismay. ‘We have to test everything we eat and drink. Who knows what effect the water will have on us?’
‘So, how do we test it?’ asked Crossley.
‘Smell… touch. Test some on your skin.’ Althorn ran a few checks to show them how: his elbow, wrist and lips showed no reaction. ‘This is good water.’
The waiting soldiers leapt into the stream, ladling handfuls of icy water into their mouths.
‘We should camp over there,’ Althorn nodded towards a raised plateau. ‘And look for roots and berries before it gets too dark.’
‘How about meat?’ asked the muscular man with the tattooed face.
‘Have you seen anything here to hunt?’ the tall female archer asked.
A silence descended. It was true – no mammal, insect or bird had been seen or heard during their journey. That’s what was wrong, Althorn realised. This forest was too quiet.
John was finding it difficult to fall asleep. He was as comfortable as he’d been in any trench, using his bags as a pillow, and he felt safe because scouts had been positioned in a wide ring around the Day Watch. It was the soldiers by the fire, and their conversations about their last memories, that kept John awake.
‘…the thick of battle,’ one voice held the stage, ‘and the field was pure mud. I led my men into the enemy and broke their shield wall. It was wild!’ John could tell the man was smiling.
‘Sounds like a glorious battle!’ someone agreed.
Why did these men love war so much? John wondered as he drifted in and out of sleep. His grandfather had been the same, telling his big stories from his worn-out armchair by the fire: battles past and present – how they should have been won or won quicker – cannons; horses; comrades; and scars. As a young boy, John had been enthralled, listening to the stories of cavalry charges, sieges and riflemen.
‘Balaclava!’ His grandfather announced the start of a new story with a shout.
‘Hush, father.’ John’s mother tried to quieten him but told John she secretly loved his stories.
‘It was an incredible victory,’ his grandfather said in his thick accent, sticking out his defiant chin.
‘You live in England now,’ John’s father often berated his father-in-law, ‘and I don’t want you giving my customers any reason to shop elsewhere.’
‘Shop is shut,’ John’s grandfather would reply before continuing with his story.
John’s grandparents and his mother had emigrated to London in the 1880s along with thousands of Jews fleeing the anti-Semitic pogrom in Russia after King Alexander II’s assassination. John could remember his grandmother’s sweet smile and hot soups, but little else. His mother told him how she’d often taken him to the art galleries, to see the great works of Russian art, but his grandfather only had time for the military museums and libraries, where he would read the Russian newspapers and complain about the state of his homeland.
John wondered how many times he’d heard his grandfather’s stories. When he’d reached his teenage years, the stories had grown repetitive and tiresome, his grandfather louder and grumpier. He was bitter, and wouldn’t listen when John argued back.
‘The Russians won at Balaclava,’ John told his grandfather more than once, ‘but Britain and her allies won the next battle and won the war.’
‘This,’ his grandfather held up his medal from Balaclava, ‘is victory.’
John’s father told him there was no arguing with a man proud of the country that had driven him out, but still John tried to talk sense into him. So of course it was John who bore the brunt of the old man’s lecturing, until he started to resent it, and to even feel ashamed of his grandfather’s nationality. Then the Great War broke out and, when Russia became an ally, every conversation led to the same conclusion.
‘You must fight for your country, John!’ His grandfather would stare at him. ‘Defend your land!’
John stared into the tree canopy above and tried to push the memories away. The palm of his burnt hand pulsed with dull pain, so he cooled it on his gun again. He listened to the talking around the fireside again, as someone asked Althorn about his last memory.
‘I have fought in many battles.’ John could hear sadness in Althorn’s voice. ‘But my last kill was… nothing heroic.’
‘Remember what the obelisk said, Althorn.’ John recognised the tall archer’s voice and was sure Crossley had called her an Amazon. ‘We are the chosen – you are a great warrior or you wouldn’t be here.’
‘But why was he here?’ John thought. He wasn’t a great warrior. He’d been practically forced to sign up for Kitchener’s Army and had hated his war. He never wanted to fight and didn’t want to do it again… he was a coward compared to these brave fighters. You are a great warrior or you wouldn’t be here. With her words circling his mind, John had finally slipped off to sleep.
Samas led the left flank of the Night Watch through the dark forest, while Mihran led the right alongside Li, whose green visor had become their focal point. Samas cast a look back at the scores of silhouettes of soldiers he now commanded: each carried a different weapon – some of which he’d never seen before – and they fought with differing styles. He wondered how he would command such a unit and thought of the variety of men he had led into battle. They were from across the vast Persian Empire and many didn’t speak the same language, yet all had fought well once they had been drilled and knew the commands Samas shouted.
Samas found it hard to believe that it was only that morning he had walked through the army encampment on the dry Cilician plain between mountain and sea, with children in the camp stopping their games to watch him.
‘He’s one of them,’ he’d heard one wide-eyed boy whisper, eyeing the crest on his breastplate which told of his elite status.
Samas gave them a mock salute and smiled to himself when he had passed. At their age, he had been practising sword fights just like them, while the real battles took place within earshot.
He pushed his helmet on and walked with head held high through the rear ranks. When he reached his men at the front, who stood on the banks of the river Pinarus, he could see the Greek army, led by their new Macedonian king, Alexander, swarming across the grassland beyond.
Samas gave individual men words of encouragement then turned to address them all, seeing the colossal bulk of the Persian army behind: a monstrous crowd of tense muscle and glinting metal.
‘Who are these newcomers who come to test our blades?’ Samas shouted and gave a mock laugh. His men were well trained and ready to die for their Persian king but he saw nervous eyes. ‘Today we show the gods what men we are!’ He yelled and raised his sword. ‘Today we show them,’ he pointed his sword at the advancing Greeks, ‘what defeat tastes like.’
Samas gave a drill call and, in a well-rehearsed move, the entire unit moved one step forward and released a deafening yell.
The Persian war machine was soon brought into action as the Greeks arrived. Cries filled the air and a cloud of Persian arrows flew over Samas, darkening the sky before diving viciously, thirsting for Greek blood. Engagements flared on the flanks while Samas’ men held the river bank as the opposing infantry thrust their long spears over the shallow water.
‘Hold!’ Samas shouted and his men waited out the tense, hour-long minutes.
Through the din, Samas heard distant calls for changes in formation. Something was wrong, he thought. A charge of Greek horsemen appeared at the ford to his left, triggering a volley of Persian javelins. Samas knew the infantry to his left would move to protect the ford, pulling his men in too. To the right, the Greek cavalry were cutting off the Persian horsemen, so Samas had to defend the ford or the cavalry would have a clear line through to Darius himself.
With a rousing call, Samas turned his men away from the riverbank. ‘Time to do some real fighting!’ He raised his spear. ‘Turn and march.’
The unit walked, sped to a jog, then sprinted with each call from Samas. He was right – the Greek cavalry were already cutting through the infantry line.
‘Attack!’ Samas yelled from the front as they ran full speed into a wave of horsemen. ‘Strong arms and strong legs!’
The weight of the men crashed into the cavalry, with spearheads stabbing the Greek riders and shields knocking the horses to the ground. Samas dodged lances and lunged with his spear to dismount a rider. With a deft sidestep, Samas thrust his short sword up through the rider’s chin, killing him instantly.
And it continued: blood; slicing; gore; and death. After five bloody minutes, the Greek cavalry retreated and Samas caught his breath as he called his men to order, creating a defensive wall of shields and spears.
‘Here they come again. Hold!’ Samas ordered without thinking – he was a machine now: reacting; fighting; defending; leading.
The enemy cavalry wheeled around to smash into the left flank and, as they slowed, Samas leapt at the nearest horseman, parrying and lunging like a man possessed. Now in his element, fighting hand to hand, he swept his way through his opponents and into the Greek infantry. Samas was as one with his weapons: turning gracefully to meet each new foe and attacking with animal speed and ferocity. Spear and sword felt like extensions of his arms as, with a burst of power, he lunged forward to cut down two Greek hoplites. He felt the sound of battle fade away but kept fighting and, as he pulled his spear and sword out of each hoplite, saw a light grow around him. A cool breeze washed over him as the nearest soldiers stepped back.
Then, in a flash of white light, everything had gone.
Now, in the forest, Samas listened to the footsteps behind him and the snapping branches as the army progressed. He hadn’t spent much time in woodland but had expected to see more wildlife. In fact, he was yet to see a single creature in this new land.
‘It’s very quiet,’ Samas whispered to the man with the longbow.
‘No birds or mammals,’ the archer agreed. ‘Just that deep noise.’
‘What deep noise?’ Samas slowed down.
‘Can’t you hear it? A low rumbling sound, like a waterfall? It started a few minutes ago.’
Samas shook his head and sped up to join Mihran. ‘The English archer can hear rumbling.’
Mihran seemed more annoyed with Samas for breaking the silence than for his warning. ‘And?’ he asked without turning to look at him.
Li had taken him seriously, stopped walking and was pressing buttons on a wrist strap now.
‘I need to run through the wavelengths,’ Li whispered, ‘infrared is picking up something… spread out quickly!’ Li’s voice amplified. ‘As fast as possible! Seriously, spread out! Run that way or that way.’ Li backed away. ‘Just run!’
‘What is it?’ Samas asked.
He got no response, but heard a whisper. ‘They’re extinct…’
Samas ran through the forest, keeping up with Li and Mihran.
‘What is it you see?’ Mihran asked.
Samas turned his head and heard distant rumbling. ‘I hear it now.’
The ground trembled beneath their feet.
‘Shit! They’re heading straight for us,’ Li shouted, ‘RUN!’
As the forest exploded behind them, Samas threw himself behind a log with Mihran and Li. Crouched, Samas dusted himself off and peered into the darkness. Several large shapes came crashing through the trees, scattering the warriors into the darkness.
‘What was that?’ Samas asked after the shapes had passed.
‘An elephant,’ Li replied.
‘Then we must be in India,’ Samas said.
‘Nothing to indicate we’re on the Indian sub-continent,’ Li said. ‘The other animals give us no clue… rhino, mastodon. My night vision gave me a good look at the elephant when he passed – a war elephant, circa AD100.’
‘What is AD?’ Samas asked.
‘I’ll explain later,’ Li replied. ‘First we need to regroup.’
Samas shook his head. ‘And what is night vision?’
‘This visor,’ the cover slipped back with a touch of a button, disappearing into the slim helmet, ‘allows me to see in the dark.’ The visor slipped down again without a sound.
The idea of seeing in the dark was easy to accept, many desert creatures did it, but what Samas had seen beneath the visor shocked him.
‘So you can see in the dark!’ Mihran had overheard.
‘Sure,’ Li replied, ‘and they’re coming back!’
‘Over to you.’ Mihran patted Samas on the shoulder with a grin. ‘Now I will see how good you really are.’
Samas tried to ignore the taunt as he ordered. ‘Regroup. Injured men can wait.’
He thought back to his training. Although the Persian army had elephants, they had yet to use them against Alexander. Samas had simply been told to get out of an elephant’s way if he ever saw one and let the archers pick off the riders.
‘Regroup! Regroup!’ Mihran shouted out across the forest.
He’s doing that just to get the elephant’s attention, Samas thought, and tried to control his emotions.
‘Okay,’ Li said. ‘It’s coming straight for us – we have fifty seconds max!’
Samas thought quickly, weighing up his troops, and then called out orders. ‘Archers, behind this fallen tree. Spearman, take the left flank. After my call, count to five then attack. Everyone else with me on the right flank. And Li?’
‘Yes.’
‘I need it to run straight through here.’ Samas gestured to the long clearing, and noticed Mihran was watching him closely.
‘Sure,’ Li replied as a beat of immense angry feet pounded towards them. Li stood at the centre of the trail of destruction, visor glowing green, weapon poised.
The rumble grew, a wild shriek ripped through the air and the enormous silhouette burst into the light of a flare set off by Li.
The elephant was covered in metal armour and drapes, with gore and blood dripping off its spiked tusks.
‘Ready.’ Samas felt the ground shake beneath him. ‘NOW!’
The soldiers with him on the right flank leapt into action, yelling, throwing whatever was to hand: spear, rock or helmet. The elephant stumbled, whipping its tusks. Seconds later, the left flank burst into life, stabbing the charging elephant with long spears and pikes. The elephant’s red eyes streamed as it swung its tusks wildly and stumbled. Li fired a series of pulses into the forest ahead, setting the leaf litter alight, and the archers stepped forward, dropping a fallen branch in the elephant’s path, tripping it up with an almighty crash.
Samas grabbed a pike and ran to finish the elephant off, but a flash of yellow light dazzled him and he stumbled to a halt and clasped his hands over his eyes. Through his fingers he saw a jet of pure sunlight burning deep behind the elephant’s eye, leaving a steaming hole in the corpse’s head.
Everyone stared at Li.
‘Why didn’t you let us kill it?’ Mihran barked.
‘I don’t agree with cruelty to animals,’ Li replied.
Samas looked at the dead elephant and shook his head, wondering how that didn’t count as cruel. ‘Why didn’t you just use your…’ he gestured at the rifle, ‘…weapon in the first place?’
‘Too risky,’ Li replied. ‘I wasn’t sure how my rifle would work here.’
‘You will give us a warning next time,’ Mihran bellowed.
Samas caught his breath and turned a 360-degree circle listening for other sounds. He spotted the archer who had been first to hear the stampede. ‘What do you hear?’ he asked.
‘They’re far away now,’ the archer replied. ‘Listen: you don’t mind us eating it, do you? I’m bloody starving!’
An hour after making camp around the dead elephant, the Night Watch were eating thick slices of charred elephant steak. Samas sat with Li, who had explained where many of the soldiers had come from. Mihran shared a fire in silence with Olan the Viking and the chatty, tattooed Carthaginian was laughing with an Egyptian warrior.
Samas looked at Li. ‘Tell me about the great Achaemenid Persian Empire,’ he said. ‘Did it grow to encompass the world?’
‘Do you really want to know?’ Li asked.
‘Of course,’ Samas replied without thinking. Why wouldn’t he want to know?
‘Well.’ Li’s visor remained down. ‘After Alexander the Great conquered–’
‘Alexander the who?’ Samas asked. ‘You don’t mean… the Macedonian? The Great? You must be joking.’
‘No. Which battle did you say you were taken from?’
‘We were fighting near Issus,’ Samas replied.
‘Ah…’
Samas felt his heart speed up. He knew the battle was shifting in the Greeks’ favour, but surely they didn’t win?
‘I’d better start from the beginning,’ Li said and talked of Samas’ battle at Issus. Of how Alexander’s cavalry had broken through the line and Darius had fled the battlefield.
Samas stopped eating and stared into the fire.
Alexander, Li explained, was possibly the greatest general of all time and had gone on to take the city of Tyre, Gaza and the Egyptian region. ‘Do you want to know more?’ Li asked.
Samas nodded. ‘Everything.’
A sense of guilt was rising in his stomach. Surely, if he had been there, this wouldn’t have happened. He needed to know it all.
Li continued with Alexander’s short but epic life and the end of the Persian Empire as Samas had known it. The scale of events overwhelmed him and his guilt slowly ebbed away. What could he, one man, have done against such a war machine? He had been just one spear in a sea of blades.
‘So, all this happened before you were born?’ he asked.
Li nodded.
‘But you lived in a different world – a different time.’ He paused as a thought came to him. ‘When the beasts attacked, you said they were extinct. Which ones were you talking about?’
Li’s head dropped. ‘All of them.’
‘Even the elephants?’
‘Yes.’
‘And yet you killed it,’ Samas said.
Li took a second to respond. ‘The soldiers are more important.’
Samas sighed and looked at the people around them, new weapons and strange faces, and struggled to accept they were from different times. He sighed, remembering his father’s old stories of great battles. From what Li had said, Samas’ battles were just old stories now too.
Samas thought of mushrooms, obelisks and elephants, unsure of what they would encounter next, and looked up through the canopy to see early dawn was giving the branches shape.
‘There’s something else I want to ask you,’ Samas said. ‘About your face, I…’
Li pretended not to hear and yawned. ‘Oh, I’m tired. Best get some sleep.’
Samas nodded back. ‘Yes, of course.’
A secret it is then, he thought.
When John woke he knew something was wrong.
He saw leaves above him and remembered he was lost in a forest with a group of strangers – but something had changed overnight. Staring through the yellow leaves at the faint sky above, he stretched to ease his aching joints but his arm felt numb and heavy. He pulled back the coat he’d been using as a blanket and gasped: his palm was stuck flat to the side of the black metal body of his machine gun, near the trigger. He tried to prise his fingers off the metal but they were stuck fast, and if he pulled harder he would tear off his skin. How did it get stuck? He hauled the gun onto his lap and stared at his fingers and palm – which were embedded a quarter of an inch into the metal. He had to hide it. John looked around: everyone was asleep. He pulled his numb arm and gun up to his chest, stood up and walked away, only to stumble over a foot, slip and crash on his back.
In a flash, the tattooed face of the Maori loomed over him.
‘Sorry.’ John’s voice came out higher than he’d intended.
The Maori’s wide eyes narrowed and he spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘Why wake me?’
‘It was an accident, I…’ John looked at his arm.
The Maori tilted his head and stared.
‘I just woke up and it was stuck,’ John said.
Movement behind the Maori caught John’s eye, so he sat up and covered the gun with his coat.
‘What is happening?’ John recognised the Amazon’s whispered voice and curved silhouette.
‘His hand is stuck to his weapon,’ the Maori whispered.
John let her study his hand. ‘They’ve become one.’ She moved close to feel John’s brow. ‘What is your name?’
John swallowed. He hadn’t been this close to a woman for months. ‘John,’ he replied.
‘I am Euryleia. Do you have a fever, John?’
‘No I’m fine, really. I burnt my hand yesterday when Delta-Six shocked me.’
‘The flying man?’
John nodded. ‘I cooled it on my gun.’
‘But how could such a thing happen?’ the Maori said.
‘This land is strange.’ Euryleia removed a leather canteen from her belt and poured a trickle of water on John’s hand. ‘Does this help?’
John frowned. The water made his hand tingle, and it felt like his hand was being drawn into the metal. He pulled but his hand wouldn’t budge.
‘No, sorry.’
At this rate his hand would be inside the gun in a few hours.
‘How am I supposed to walk with my arm like this?’ John looked at the rest of the group who were waking. ‘I don’t want to slow us down.’
‘Is it heavy?’ Euryleia asked.
‘Yes,’ John said. ‘If you give me a hand we can strip some parts off it – make it lighter,’ he said, thinking how he could unclip the magazine, bipod and butt and maybe remove the cooling shroud from the barrel. But he’d have to carry the stripped-off parts in his bags.
Euryleia smiled but her eyes were full of concern. ‘Maybe I can fashion a sling from your belts and bag?’
John pictured the soldiers he’d seen at the Belgian field hospital with lost limbs or blinded by gas: they’d been told they could adapt, but few had lived a life they could call normal. What if his hand didn’t come off? Would his arm have to be cut off? Or would it be stuck forever?
‘That would be great.’ John looked up. ‘But don’t tell anyone. I’m sure it’ll get better.’
Several hours later, and well into a full day of hard walking, the monotony of the woodland and the rhythm of the pounding feet took hold of the Day Watch and questions drifted along the line.
‘Why are we here?’ a Roman soldier asked.
‘It’s a challenge,’ Sir William answered, striding ahead at point.
‘But why us?’ John asked.
Althorn answered. ‘Maybe we are being punished?’
‘What?’ Crossley stared at the Celt. ‘Why are we being punished, exactly?’
‘For the lives we have taken,’ Althorn replied, his expression hidden by his hood.
‘Now listen to me.’ Crossley slowed Althorn and the leaders down. ‘Every life I took was an enemy soldier – Nazi, SS, Italian, you name it – all enemy soldiers.’
‘But every death is still a life taken,’ Althorn replied.
‘And countless lives saved. Jeez!’ Crossley threw his arms out.
‘Why do you think we are here?’ Euryleia asked Crossley, but he stayed silent.
‘All we know,’ Sir William said, ‘is we must get to the silver gates.’
‘And what happens when we get there?’ the Maori asked.
‘Who gives a crap?’ Crossley shook his head and stormed off in a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘We’ll find out when we get there.’
‘What race did he say he was from?’ Sir William asked, with a look of irritation and confusion.
‘American,’ John answered with a smile.
During a rest break, John eyed up Crossley’s brown lace-ups with a pang of jealousy. What he would give to replace his cracked, hobnailed boots? They creaked like iron gates and carried the stench of the last latrine he’d waded through.
John took in the rest of the soldiers too: nearly a hundred of them, and so different from one another. They were nothing like the men in his battalion. When they’d first met, they’d been boys and knew nothing about war. They’d seen pictures and read enough stories to make war seem glamorous – they would be heroes! How little they knew. These soldiers around John now were older, and something in their eyes told John they’d seen death, had killed to stay alive and lost friends. That was all war was to John.
‘Are you tired?’ the Maori asked.
‘I’m fine – just getting used to the weight,’ John replied and stretched his back, which had been twisted by the awkward position of the gun.
‘Let me carry a bag,’ he offered.
John thought about declining but didn’t want to be rude. ‘Thanks.’ He passed his bag of gun parts over. ‘I’m John, by the way, John Greene.’ He stretched out his left hand.
‘I am Mata.’ He accepted John’s extended hand with a look of confusion.
When they resumed their walk, John and Mata’s conversation flowed and naturally came back to their wars.
‘And you fight in lines cut into the ground?’ Mata asked.
‘Yes,’ John answered. ‘Sometimes we take over Fritz’s trench, but sooner or later we end up back in the first one we dug.’
‘And you have shelter?’ Mata asked.
‘Some, for officers and stores,’ John replied.
‘Sounds like a pā, but we build ours on hilltops.’
‘Good idea.’ John pictured water flowing downhill, carrying turds and dead rats with it.
As he and Mata walked on in silence, the talk of muddy trenches reminded John of his night in the crater. It felt like a story John would tell about someone else, not himself. They’d called him a hero when they found him tucked up in the bomb crater with a puddle full of empty shells and the shards of the tree stump that had saved his head a dozen times.
‘You’re a living miracle,’ Edmonds had said.
‘No, no,’ John had protested: he’d just been cut off from the unit.
His platoon had advanced across the narrow strip of land towards the enemy line, hidden by smoke from the earlier bombardment, and John’s job was to carry the Lewis gun to the right flank where he and Jones would cover the infantry from flanking fire. Wire-cutters had been at work throughout the night, clearing a path for the main body of soldiers, and they had a couple more Lewis gunners with them to pick off the German machine guns fixed in the trench.
The artillery sounded far away but then all hell broke loose. Shells exploded around them, sending the soldiers running for cover, and their shouts were heard by the enemy, who opened fire with their machine guns. A shell exploded near John, throwing him clear of Jones. He’d panicked, he admitted that now, but his panic had saved him. He’d grabbed cartridges off the ground and scrambled into the nearest hole with his gun. He flipped the bipod out, pointed the gun at the enemy and waited. He could hear men dying and put his gas mask on when the acrid stench of burnt flesh and cordite wafted his way.
When the shouting stopped, he knew he was alone, but was given no time to think about what to do. Out of the smoke came the enemy, and John defended himself. Over and over again. He would release a burst of fire, then reposition his gun a foot to the left, then fire at the next shadow, and so on. Time became irrelevant as his world turned into an endless grey storm of lightning and death, with wave after wave of Huns attacking and falling before him. Cold night and wet day crept past with John in constant fear, warmed only by the heat of his machine gun, which steamed and fizzed in the rain.
‘We only found you ’cos we saw the whites of your eyes, Johnny!’ Taylor said the next day.
John hated being called Johnny.
The rest of the boys had been grateful.
‘Well done, mate. Saved our bacon, that’s for sure.’
‘Yeah, we’d have been gonners if Fritz had got through.’
The lads acted strangely after that and reckoned he would get a medal. They looked up to him in a way which made him feel uncomfortable, like they expected more from him.
‘Looks like you had enough ammo, eh?’ Smithy had grinned. ‘Nolan reckons you must have shot a hundred Huns – a whole bloody pile of ’em!’
He was just doing his job, John had told the officers: he’d fixed his gun and held the line. He didn’t know which way to run, but he couldn’t tell them that. John pictured his gr andfather shouting and scowling : fighting was a soldier’s duty! Never run!
John looked at Mata and wondered what his battles had been like. Eventually, he built up the courage to ask what he’d been dying to ask. ‘Mata, why do you have those markings on your face?’
‘My moko?’ Mata ran a finger over the intricate black lines across his forehead and down his cheeks.
John nodded. ‘And the ones on your arms.’
‘They’re marks from important times in my life: battles; children; my wife.’ Mata grew in size as he spoke of his people. ‘Special designs from my tribe. They show other warriors how strong I am.’
‘I see.’ John smiled and wondered what tattoos he would have if he were a Maori. One when he married Rosie and another the day Joe was born. One for signing up for Kitchener’s Army, one for his first kill and another for the night in the crater. But would he want those reminders on his body? He was already scarred by Rosie’s death, and the tin soldier around his neck reminded him of Joe – he didn’t want any reminders of war. He just wanted to be home.