The Beasts of Rats' Alley

"I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones."

- T.S Elliot, The Waste Land

The sergeant’s face is obscured by his disc-shaped Brodie helmet as he raises his whistle to his infected mouth. Only rotten teeth and the bloody corners of his skeletal grimace are visible as the shrill screech of the whistle echoes across the trench.

‘Forward.’

Not a command, an instruction, an instruction to die and die willingly. Die for your country. Die for your empire.

The soldier mounts the ladder, his Lee-Enfield rifle in hand. He is grateful the rain has stopped. On his flanks, a thousand brave men in their khaki uniforms, and circular helmets, mount ladders of their own. A thousand comrades emboldened by whiskey and illusions of heroism. Together, they are primed to face horrors that, if survived, will be carried with them for the rest of their lives.

The soldier gazes out into the grey hellscape, taking in the incessant scenes of barbed wire, torched and shattered trees, puddles of filthy water, bomb craters, monstrous swamps of mud and a mess of entangled bodies of fallen friends and foes. The opposing lines easily visible in the clear weather and, every two hundred yards across, pillboxes protrude from the enemy defences. The machine gun nests haunt the minds of the combatants as their eyes inevitably fall upon the starved predators. Hungry for slaughter, the mechanical fiends patiently await the call for the frenzy to begin.

After living their entire lives in the brief interval following the whistle, the men enter the wasteland. They march into the realm of the primal, into the hands of Phobos. If they keep their head, they might survive. If not, they will soon be corpses. Fear rules these lands and all who walk them leave something of themselves behind.

The phalanx of bayoneted riflemen glimmers in the sun and, in unison, they charge with a bold war cry that falls on deaf ears as the enemy makes their stand. Artillery and machine gun fire claim the men on the soldier’s left and on his right. One by one, they fall. Old friends, new friends. One by one, they are reduced to matter. Squashed insects, writhing in agony. There they lay, bloody pulps drowning in mud, pleading for the coup de grâce. In the chaos, the soldier drops his rifle and yet cannot stop. He must keep moving.

The blast of an artillery shell knocks him off his feet. Winded, he rolls into a large crater, seeking refuge from the carnage and is not alone. ‘How far from the German trenches?’ asks the corporal. The soldier gives him no answer, just a glance. The corporal understands – the soldier’s expression says all that it needs to. The attack has been a failure. Hundreds are dead. Retribution is coming.

Both soldiers lean against the slopes of the crater, up to their knees in mud, blood and rainwater. The wind changes. The bullets stop and the hellish orchestra of artillery has an intermission. At last, he can breathe. Is it over?

‘GAS-GAAAAS-GAAAAAAAAAAAAS.’

The corporal clutches his gas mask, shredded by shrapnel. He looks to the soldier, gas mask halfway on his face, and lunges for his throat. In the mud they wrestle, choaking each other, punching and clawing, heads forced into the hellish sludge amassed in the depths of the crater, each fighting for his life. The corporal’s expression twisted in that of a rabid animal as he pins his comrade down and tears at the straps of the gas mask with his teeth. The soldier takes one hand to gouge at the corporal’s eyes, blinding him with a handful of mud, and breaks free his sheaved trench knife with the other. The corporal is quicker. He draws his own blade, slashes wildly, and catches the soldier in the arm, spilling blood into the filthy red puddle like a river breaking into the sea. They break apart but it’s too late for the corporal, the thick mustard cloud of infernal foulness is upon them, descending into the crater. Blood flows freely from the corporal’s battered nose and defeated eyes as, gasping for air, he digs his nails into his windpipe. He coughs up bloody mucus that splatters into the eye pieces of the soldier’s gas mask and convulses hideously while drowning in his own discharge. Rest in peace sir.

Minutes have passed, maybe hours. The soldier remains in the crater, inches away from the corpse of the vanquished corporal. His rifle lies loyally beside him, forgotten during the desperate melee. Must wait until dark to crawl back to the trench. To sanctuary. Back to the frying pan, out of the fire. The screams, groans, and tears of the wounded and dying fill the evening as they slowly bleed out or are consumed by the swamps. The rats will feast tonight.

Clear night sky, the full moon is out. The soldier peers over the edge of the crater. All quiet, the wounded are now mostly too far gone to make noise and the dying are mostly dead. He is, however, far from alone. Five, ten, maybe twenty of them. Beasts. Creatures. Can he be sure they are real? Quadrupeds, primates possibly. They stand tall with slender ape like limbs, arched backs and dog-like faces with sharp fangs dripping with blood and illuminous crimson and gold eyes embedded in their canine skulls. Feasting. Feasting on the blood of the wounded, feasting on the souls of the dead and there are rats. Thousands of them, millions. They fill the trenches, the craters, the hollowed bodies. Hungry, hungry, hungry. Their infinite legions scourge the wasteland of the dead and dying and wash away any hope of salvation in this land of unrelenting horrors.

How long until they find me? How long until they feast on me?

Then he is back in the trench. They call him a mad man for running across no man’s land like that, even if it was under the cloak of night. Lucky he didn’t get picked off by a sniper. They are glad that he made it at least.

‘Better get that arm looked at. Did you see what happened to the corporal?’

The next day the barrage begins again and persists throughout the night. The doctor had determined that the soldier’s arm injury was not deep enough for him to grant exit passage from the battlefield. With every ache of the dressed knife wound he wonders why the corporal could not have just set him free.

The soldier and his war-ravaged platoon are burrowed one story underground, like sickly rodents, and the relentless barrage rages on. With each shudder that covers them in dust, each shake of the ground that leaves them trembling, each earth-shattering bludgeon to their collective sanity there is an antiphon of agonised wails of terror and despair that harmonises across the labyrinth of trench lines.

How many dead? How many maimed? Will we be next?

Closing his eyes is no escape, all he can see is the corporal, blood flowing from his face like a waterfall and the rats, the rats, the rats. He cannot even hear them now, their squeaks and steps masked by the screams and thunder of shellfire. Bigger now after their feast. The size of cats, perhaps the size of dogs. Everywhere you look, everywhere they reside, and they are getting bolder. With his eyes shut, he feels them running over his feet and neck. Biting at his ears, tearing flesh from his arms and legs, burrowing into his mind.

The barrage finally concludes, and, as night falls the following day, the soldier draws the short straw. His turn on watch. From the relative sanctuary of the lookout post, once again, he timidly peers out into the dead of night. The wasteland is barren, devoid of human life. The rats have seen to that, and the quadrupeds are back.

Did they ever leave? If we are in hell, who is to say there should not be demons?

Spawned from the mud, the creatures prance and dance around the still bodies. Leaping from crater to crater, searching for a temporary nourishment to their unquenchable thirst. This time they are unsuccessful, the rats have been thorough, the battlefield has been drained. In rage, the beasts tear at the throats and limbs of the withered bodies and the moonlight catches the appendages tossed between them. The soldier’s helmet falls and sinks into the damp ground as he rips clumps of his hair out, he cannot look away. One of the beasts projects its bright canine gaze directly upon him, the eyes of crimson gold burn into his soul. It’s the largest, the leader of the pack. He sees how its simian hands unveil shadowy sets of claws as it stands on its hind legs. Ten feet tall, it roars out a diabolical wolf-like howl and, as if on cue, all twenty of the creatures bring their hunt to a halt, stand up and turn and face the soldier. Twenty sets of volcanic eyes light up the wasteland like a wildfire.

He runs. He runs and he runs, and he keeps running until they catch him.

Days, weeks, and months pass. In the night, the soldier is afflicted by night terrors and his excruciating screeches of rats, bodies, blood, and beasts echo through the corridors of the ancient gaol. No one answers him, no one cares to. One day he is walked to a courtyard. Someone covers his eyes with a blindfold and it is darkness. It is just him and the corporal now. The soldier hears someone else bark out an order to take aim and fire. He does not hear the shot.