“No. It's just that-I don't know-I feel like I should be somewhere else.”
“Ha! Don't we all!”
They lapsed into silence, broken a few minutes later when Wells said, “I have a theory about it. Your tattoo, I mean. It looks African in pattern. You still don't recall how you got it?”
“No.”
“I think perhaps you were captured and tortured by some obscure tribe. There are still a few independent ones scattered about, especially up around the Blood Jungle where you were found. Certainly the state you were in suggests some sort of trauma in addition to the malaria and shell shock, and the tattoo possesses a ritualistic look.”
“It's possible, I suppose, but your theory doesn't ring any bells. Why is it called the Blood Jungle?”
“Because it's red. It's the thickest and most impassable jungle on the whole continent. The Germans have been trying to burn it away for I don't know how long but it grows back faster than they can destroy it.”
An hour passed before, in the distance, a bugle sounded. Others took up its call; then more, much closer.
Wells used a crutch to lever himself to his feet. He leaned on it, raised his binoculars, and said, “Here we go. Stay on your toes, we're closer to the action than I'd like.”
A single shot echoed from afar and, instantly, the birds in the trees became silent. For a moment there was no sound at all, then came a staccato roar as thousands of firearms let loose their bullets. An explosion shook the port.
Below and to his left, Burton saw a long line of British Askaris emerging from the undergrowth, moving cautiously into the town. They had hardly set foot past the outermost shack before they were caught in a hail of gunfire from windows and doorways. As men fell and others scattered for cover, Wells let loose a cry: “Bloody hell!”
A stray bullet whistled past him and thudded into a tree.
“Get down!” Burton snapped. The two observers dived onto the ground and lay prone, watching in horror as the Askaris were shredded by the crossfire. It fast became apparent that armed men inhabited all the houses and huts. Tanga wasn't a town waiting to be conquered-it was a trap.
A squadron of Askaris ran forward, threw themselves flat, and lobbed grenades. Explosions tore apart wooden residences and sent smoke rolling through the air. Similar scenes unfolded all along the southern outskirts of the town as the allied forces pressed forward. Hundreds of men were falling, but by sheer weight of numbers, they slowly advanced.
A sequence of blasts assaulted Burton's eardrums as HMS
“There goes the Hun administration!” Wells shouted. “If we're lucky, Lettow-Vorbeck was in one of those buildings!”
A Scorpion Tank scuttled out of the smoke and into a street just below them. The cannon on its tail sent shell after shell into the houses, many of which were now burning. When a German soldier raced from a doorway, one of the Scorpion's claws whipped forward, closed around him, and snipped him in half.
Harvestmen were entering the town, too, firing their Gatling guns and wailing their uncanny “Ulla! Ulla!”
Forty minutes later, the last of the troops with whom Burton and Wells had travelled moved past the observation point and pushed on into the more central districts of Tanga. As the clamour attested, the battle was far from over, but it had passed beyond Burton and Wells's view now, so they were forced to judge its progress by the sounds and eruptions of smoke. A particularly unbridled sequence of detonations occurred in the eastern part of the town, and, shortly afterward, a Union Jack was spotted there by Wells as it was hoisted up a flagpole at the top of a large building.
“That's the Hotel Nietzsche!” Wells exclaimed.
Pain lanced through Burton's head.
“Nietzsche!” he gasped. “I know that name! Who is he?”
“Bismarck's advisor,” Wells replied. “The second most powerful man in the Greater German Empire!”
“He-he's going to-he's going to betray Bismarck!” Burton said hoarsely. “He's going to take over the empire! This year!”
Wells regarded his companion, a confused expression on his face. “How can you possibly know that? You're from the past, not the future.”
Burton was panting with the effort of remembering. “I-it-something-something to do with Rasputin.”
“If Ras-”
“Wait!” Burton interrupted. “1914. It's 1914! Rasputin will die this year. I killed him!”
“You're not making any sense, man!”
Burton hung his head and ground his teeth in frustration. A tiny patch of soil just in front of his face suddenly bulged upward and a green shoot sprouted out of it. He watched in astonishment as a plant grew rapidly before his eyes. It budded and its flower opened, all at a phenomenal speed.
It was a red poppy.
Wells suddenly clutched at the explorer's arm. “What's that over there?”
Burton looked up and saw, writhing into the air from various places around the town, thick black smudges, twisting and spiralling as if alive. They expanded outward, flattened, then sank down into the streets. From amid the continuing gunfire, distant screams arose.
“What the hell?” Wells whispered.
Some minutes later, British troops came running out from between the burning buildings. They'd dropped their rifles and were waving their arms wildly, yelling in agony, many of them dropping to the ground, twitching, then lying still. One, an Askari, scrambled up the slope and fell in front of the two onlookers. He contorted and thrashed, then a rattle came from his throat, his eyes turned upward, and he died.
He was covered in bees.
“We've got to get out of here!” Wells shouted. “This is Eugenicist deviltry!”
Many more men were now climbing the incline toward them, all screaming.
Burton hauled Wells to his feet, handed him his crutches, then guided him from the observation point back into Kaltenberg. Behind them, gunfire was drawing closer.
“Counterattack!” Wells said. “Go on ahead, Richard. Get out of here. Don't let me slow you down.”
“Don't be a blessed fool!” Burton growled. “What manner of ridiculous war is this that our forces can be routed by bees?”
Even as he spoke, one of the insects landed on the back of his hand and stung him. Then another, on his neck. And another, on his jaw. The pain was a hundred times worse than a normal sting and he yelled, slapping the insects away. Almost immediately his senses began to swim and his heart fluttered as the venom entered his system. He staggered but found himself supported on either side by a couple of British Tommies who began to drag him along.
“Come on, chum!” said one. “Move yer bleedin' arse!”
“Bertie!” Burton shouted, but it came out slurred.
“Never mind your pal,” the other soldier snapped. “He's bein' taken care of. Keep movin'. Have you been stung?”
“Yes.” Burton's legs had stopped functioning and he had tunnel vision; all he could see was the ground speeding by. There was a buzzing in his ears.
The soldiers' voices came from a long way away: “He's snuffed it. Drop him.”
“No. He's just passed out.”
“He's slowing us down. Aah! I've been stung!”
“I'll not leave a man. Not while he still lives. Help me, damn it!”
A shot. The whine of a bullet.
“They're on us!”
“Run! Run!”
Burton's senses came swimming back. Two men were dragging him along.
“I can walk,” he mumbled, and, regaining his feet, he stood and opened his eyes.
