The Ironclad Prophecy Read Online Free PDF

made from spit, string and paper and there were things here that would tear it out of the sky in an instant.
    Nobby stumbled and fell, and Prof picked him up.
    “Not now, there’s a good chap,” he rasped. “Be terribly inconvenient.”
    The clumsy private dusted himself off and mumbled an apology.
    Gutsy rolled his eyes at Atkins. He shrugged his shoulders in return. Nobby suffered from a natural-born clumsiness and was the bane of many an NCO’s life, which was how he ended up in Atkins’ section as a replacement. Atkins wondered how he managed to fall over in the first place since he never raised his eyes from his feet.
    “Going to be one hell of a scrap,” said Gazette, cradling his rifle.
    “Aye,” admitted Atkins.
    “First decent one we’ve had since we got here, if you don’t count the trench raid on Khungarr. I hope we’ve not got soft and flabby. The Lieutenant’s a good man, but I think the troops may be getting away from him a bit.”
    “Aye. He needs something to bring ’em along. This may just be it,” said Atkins. Inside, he felt the familiar pull in his stomach as the tide of fear sucked at his soul with its insidious undertow. “Or it may be his undoing.”
    “Holy Mary, mother of God!” yelped Gutsy, snatching his foot back from a large crimson growth almost the colour of the soil. It shrank back into itself. “It moved! The damn stuff moved!”
    “What the hell is it?” Atkins asked Napoo.
    “Urluf, good djaja,” replied the urman with an eating mime.
    Some of the urmen quickly harvested the mass, tearing chunks off and eating it on the run, passing the lumps around young and old until it had all been consumed.
    Gazette nudged Gutsy with his elbowas he jogged past. “You know that stuff the mongey wallahs have been putting in the broth to pad it out, that you thought was bully beef?”
    “Uh huh.”
    “That’s it.”
    Gutsy gave a dry retch. “And I thought onions in me tea was disgusting enough.”
    “Well the MO said it was fit to eat.”
    “What does he know? He’d give a number nine pill to cure the shits.”
     
     
    A TKINS PUSHED HIS men and their wards on as hard as he dared, driven by the awful, insistent gnashing and drumming. Ahead of them across the plain Atkins could see the hills start to rise as they ran towards the valley. From their current position, the stronghold was still out of sight, beyond the spur.
    “Who’s the replacement that knows iddy umpty?”
    Mercy smirked. “That’ll be Chalky.”
    Atkins hung his head. “Bloody hell.”
    Chalky was summoned.
    “I want you to get your mirror out and send a message to the hill-top OP. Warn the dozy buggers, if they haven’t already seen them, that there’s an entire chatt army headed their way. I reckon we’re only an half an hour or so ahead of the bastards, if that.”
    “Yes, Corporal!” he said snapping a salute and turning smartly to carry out his orders.
    Atkins groaned. “Blood and sand, anyone’d think I’d just gazetted him.”
    He felt a tug at his leg. Tearing his gaze from the ominous dust across the veldt, he looked down to see a young urman child pulling at his trousers. He looked around for a parent. His eyes met those of a fair-haired Urman woman, who beckoned the child away from him. It was only when he looked again, as the child threw himself round her legs, that he noticed the roundness of her belly. She was with child. A desperate longing filled him, an ache he could not ease.
     
     
    T HE HILLS GREW larger, although much more slowly than Atkins would have liked. At last, they rounded the foothill and came to the valley mouth. He heard the faint, reassuring sound of a bugle on the wind.
    Prof slapped Nobby on the back and they began marching with renewed vigour towards the mouth of the valley. “There you go, lad. Home soon.”
    Atkins stopped and counted his men past, along with forty-three urmen.
    “Come on! Get a move on. We haven’t got all day,” he urged.
    The party