The Battle of Harmingsdown: Chapter 11

Historians and scholars, take note; this was not the first appearance of what later became known as a trench-crawler. A prototype trench-crawler first entered service in the Spanish army during the Battle of South Waterdyer, resulting in the deaths of seven soldiers and the operators within, after the machine exploded. That battle is not commonly known of, and while much debate is possible in regards to whether the effectiveness of this trench-crawler was overstated, no one can deny the simple chronology of the war: The Battle of South Waterdyer had occurred only half a week ago, word had not yet spread to the far end of the front where Harmingsdown lay, and no one present had seen or even heard of the monstrous device that was now barreling over the trenches like a mad rhino.

“Bring it down!” Colonel Muggeridge shouted over the fray. “You, get on the telegraph and tell HQ what’s happening. The rest of you men, charge ahead! Put your backs into it! We’ll show that metal blighter what-for!”

Pausing in his run, Edmund climbed up and peaked over the top the trench to get a better look at the machine.

It was a brilliant idea; one that Edmund recognized from antiquity. Some clever ancient strategist had spoken to a mathematician and realized that while one large shield could protect one soldier from one direction, Ten large shields could protect ten soldiers from every direction. Then, some daydreaming philosopher scribbling in the margins doodled a wheeled chair surrounded by centurion shields, and that was that.

Now, that enterprising Spanish genius had strapped a steam engine onto those thick treaded wheels and given the modern soldier a place to stand. It was a rolling fortress, bristling with muskets pointing in every direction. Smoke poured from the rifles as the soldiers inside fired at anything that moved, and British soldiers screamed as their limbs were perforated both by the bullets of the Spaniards and their own bullets ricocheting off the steel armor.

The machine was easily big enough for five or six soldiers to sit inside. Its armor was heavy steel, and its wheels were thick with a large belt stretched between them. The belt was covered with what looked like rubber slats, such that while one wheel was dangling over a trench, the others were still touching the ground, and the machine continued on.

Edmund watched with amazement It’s a train engine that carries and lays down its own tracks.

It steered itself too, Edmund noted, as the wheels on each side spun independently, twisting the monstrosity this way and that as it crawled over the trenches.

“Charge, I say!” Muggeridge’s voice carried over the fray. “Show it what we’re made of!”

“The fool’s going to get them killed!”

Edmund ducked back down into the trench to see Major Schtillhart by his side.

“The bullets aren’t doing anything!” the Major shouted. “That’s steel armor on that thing; it’ll take more than rifles to stop it!”

“What can we do?” Edmund asked.

Completely by accident, or so he thought at the time, Edmund’s natural Mouldeness had surfaced; he had voiced the simple question with a perfectly pitched tone, such that there were two different ways Major Schtillhart could have heard it:

“What can we do, except follow the order our superior officer has given us? We are soldiers, and we obey orders,” was one way.

The other: “What can we do that’s better than our orders?”

Edmund realized that how Schtillhart heard the phrase would say a lot about who Schtillhart was.

Schtillhart stared at Edmund for a moment, his muscles working at his mouth, alternately loosening and tightening as if his brain were in his jaw. Finally, he peeked over the trenches again.

“Do you have an idea of how to stop that thing?”

It was a good question, one that Edmund did not entirely know the answer to. He recognized several of the important principles at work in the Crawler’s design. Leverage, wheel and pulley systems, several interlocking plates to provide both stability and security…

“I might,” Edmund admitted, “if I can get closer.”

“Get closer, then,” Schtillhart shoved Edmund down the trench. “I’ll organize a retreat to get our men away from that thing until we know how to deal with it.”

“How will you convince the Colonel to retreat?” Edmund asked.

Schtillhart grimaced. “I’ll think of something. Carry out your orders, Lieutenant!”

The two men ran off in opposite directions, Edmund getting nearer to the machine while Schtillhart’s voice carried over the chaos, “Fall back to the rear trenches! Fall back! Save your ammunition and fall back!”

It wasn’t hard for Edmund to find the machine; it’s grinding gears were amplified by the winding trenches like a giant pipe organ. Before long, Edmund was only a few meters away as it rumbled across the landscape.

Edmund turned down another trench, then another to head the machine off, and then…he stopped. Where was it? He could hear it all around him, but he couldn’t tell precisely where the sound was coming from. It was too loud.

Hopping up on a nearby box, Edmund’s head crested the trench just as the shadow of the machine roared over his head.

The whole earth shook as Edmund dropped down, narrowly avoiding having his head crushed by the machine’s treads. Colliding hard with the mud, Edmund watched as the machine crossed the trench as though there were an invisible bridge just above Edmund’s head. Spinning wheels and strange machinery flashed in front of Edmund’s eyes as the monstrosity passed, vanishing on the other side of the trench as loudly as it had arrived.

For a moment, Edmund lay on his back, the image of the machine’s underside imprinted on his brain like an afterimage. For one brilliant moment, Edmund realized how close to death he had been, his head crushed under the monstrous treads of the machine.

It was at this moment that Edmund had two revelations.

The first revelation, which had the most long-reaching and significant affect on Edmund and his world-view, was as follows: Machines can be cold.

It was a startling realization, uncomfortable in its unfamiliarity. For his entire life, Edmund had believed that the world functioned like a machine. Societies, countries, relationships, everything worked in tandem with something else. There was comfort in that; it meant that the world was fathomable. For all his confusion and bemusement when confronted with the ways of the world, he never lost faith that he could — with time, effort, and clever application of logic — understand.

Now, for the first time in his life, Edmund realized that this was not necessarily the truth of it. Machines, for all their comprehensible function, were not inherently good. They could be poorly maintained, inefficient, and limiting. It placed his previous behaviors in sharp contrast. If Edmund had performed his role as an ABC Clerk properly, as every good cog should, things would have turned out the worse for him, the worse for his family, and possibly the worse for Britannia as a whole.¹

His second revelation was far more practical, and immediately useful. After recieving such a close view of the machine’s underside, he now had an understanding of how the machine must work. If the axel was connected to that gearshaft, and the pipe carries the water, then that piston must be the breaking system, and that must be…

Picking himself up, Edmund leapt through the trenches, ducking and slipping his way through the mud to get closer to the rolling monster of metal.

“Sir!” Edmund glanced at the sound to see Old Tom running towards him. “Sir, Major Schtillhart has given the order to fall back! Please come with me sir!”

Edmund was not interested in explaining how he was the exception to the order; not when he realized the Corporal had thoughtfully brought along a rifle.

“How accurate are you with that gun?”

“Sir?” Old Tom blinked. “I’m…quite good with it, sir, but if you’re thinking of shooting through those gun slits…the way it’s bucking and rolling about, I don’t know what I’d hit!”

“If the machine stopped moving for a moment, could you hit the stabilizer pin on that machine?”

“The…what?” But Edmund had already run past Old Tom, getting closer to the trench-crawler as another volley of Spanish gunfire erupted from it’s innards.

Edmund had a plan, this is certain. After all, he would not have charged headlong towards the machine without some plan for bringing it to a halt long enough for Old Tom to fire off his shot. Unfortunately, we will never know what his plan was, as no sooner had they gotten within ten meters of the machine, they were brought up short by a roar.

“Charge!”

Edmund almost didn’t hear the cry as three consecutive rifle-shots burst out of the trench-crawlers’s side. Sailing over Edmund’s head, a solder made a flying leap, the enemy bullets barely missing his chest.

Edmund ran down the trench, glancing up at the Crawler as he tried to follow it as best he could. The brave soldier — a Sergeant from the look of it, though the smoke was hard to see through — had climbed onto the top of the machine and was hacking at the armored shell with his bayonet, periodically pausing to fire ineffectively into its top, sending bullets ricocheting about the battlefield like hornets.

It did the job. Whomever was inside the machine driving it was confused. The machine stopped moving.

“Corporal!” Edmund shouted, gripping Old Tom’s shoulder, “Fire at the Stabilizer pin! Now!”

Old Tom, a soldier through and through, began to obey orders before he knew what the orders were. He slung his rifle from his back and hopped onto the closest firing box, leaning his rifle against the ground. “What am I firing at, sir?”

“Rear wheel, right side, a quarter meter towards the front, hugging the bottom. It keeps the whole thing stable. Shoot now!”

“Aye sir!”

Old Tom adjusted his rifle, aimed carefully, and fired.

Edmund hopped up on the box next to him, ignoring the uncomfortably close quarters as he watched the Crawler began to spin in a clumsy attempt to shake off its rider. The brave soldier had climbed down the side of the beast, and was clinging gamely with one hand while stabbing his bayonet towards the gun-slits with the other.

At first nothing seemed to happen. Then, as the machine spun about, the wheels begin to wobble.

“Get off, you fool!” Old Tom shouted, hopping down from the box and running through the trenches towards the machine. “You’ll be crushed!”

Edmund did not run; he simply watched as the trench-crawler wobbled some more, and the wheel axles groaned and snapped. A moment more, and the wheels all along the right side broke away, rolling across the ground until they fell, free of the rubber treads, into the trenches.

The trench-crawler itself, heavy with solders, rolled down into the nearby trench and turned belly up with a sickening crunch. Screaming, shouting, and cheering echoed over the trenches, while distant boos and jeers floated across from the Spanish side.

Just like a rugby match, Edmund reflected. Good show for our team. Point for us. Now shake hands, see you next year, lets share a drink down at the pub.

Only it wasn’t like that. Not this time.

By the time Edmund had reached the overturned trench-crawler, they had already pried the thing open, and were pulling six Spanish soldiers from its insides. They were screaming, crying, whimpering, and begging for help in the smooth and flowing language of their homeland.

“Colonel Wickes! Colonel…other Wickes!” Colonel Muggeridge’s barking voice carried over the chaos. “I am placing this monstrosity under your care. I want you to learn everything about it, what? I want you to focus all your attention on this…this machine. See to it, won’t you?”

“Of course, Colonel,” the thick form of Mr. Wickes pushed its way through the hot steam and smoke, circling the overturned trench-crawler. “Such an ingenious design, we would be delighted to inspect it for you.”

“Very true,” the spindly form of Mrs. Wickes appeared around the other side, gently brushing spidery fingers along the metal armor. “I can already imagine several methods of how to improve it. Please remove these…soldiers. They are in the way.”

“You don’t want to be here now, sir,” Old Tom stepped in front of Edmund as he approached. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

“What happened” is a common question in situations such as these. For people like Edmund, it is also an unnecessary one. Edmund recognized the wounds: five of the six Spanish soldiers had been scarred terribly by deep burns and scalding. The sixth had lost an arm but wasn’t bleeding nearly enough for a fresh wound, unless it had been cauterized.

Somehow, the steam engine inside the machine had exploded, or at least fractured, bathing the insides in superheated steam. Six horribly burned Spaniards, and a single British soldier…who was being carried away…

Edmund pushed past Old Tom. He had almost reached the stretchers side when a medic stepped between the two of them. “He’s badly wounded, sir. We need to begin work right away.”

“Tell me as soon as you’ve finished,” Edmund said, staring at the face of the soldier. Even covered in blood, it was recognizable.

The soldier’s eyes flickered. “Now…that’s a voice I…remember…”

With a final gasp, Edmund’s cousin, Kolb Poppomas fainted dead away.

---

The Eastern Medical Station, Edmund was grateful to see, was cleaner than any other section in the trenches. Fresh water was sealed in large barrels for cleaning, soap stacked in neat little piles next to burners for sterilizing instruments. Clean cloth, thin needles…everything a doctor would need, save one thing; room.

The Hospital section was packed full with beds, each occupied by a sleeping or groaning patient. The few attendants had to pick their way back and forth through the mess, stepping like a nanny through a nursery. Everyone was so tightly packed that the instant a soldier was considered well enough to rest, they were shoved outside onto small cots that lined the nearby trenches.

Of all the solders, Kolb was the one with the worst injuries by far. While the other soldiers had been struck by bullets, Kolb had been on top of the machine when it had tumbled over. His body had been crushed, and had the soft mud of the trenches not yielded, his bones would have been powder.

As it was, he was still partially awake when Edmund moved to his side.

“Well, well, well…” Kolb’s eyes flickered. “Master Edmund…I wasn’t dreaming, then? I am shocked to see your…salubrious semblance in such a strenuous setting.”

“Cousin Kolb,” Edmund nodded his hello. “I did not know you had enlisted.”

“Of course not,” Kolb coughed weakly, his usually clear voice now rough and haggard. “I told no one, and I will thank you…to likewise tell no one I am unfortunately incapacitated.”

“I didn’t see your name among the stationed soldiers here.”

“No?” Kolb winked with his one good eye. “Not old Kolb Glendwich? I must have been there somewhere.”

“Ah,” Edmund nodded. “I see.”

“I thought I saw that trenchant Ung trudging along the trenches yesterday,” Kolb wheezed. “I didn’t believe my eyes, that the fool dared to show his face in uniform again…” he paused, his eye darting over Edmund’s uniform as if suddenly recognizing it. “Only a private? Did you misplace your pips, or am I dreaming some strange nightmare?”

“Lieutenant Mauve,” Edmund whispered. “At your service.”

“Ah,” Kolb grinned. “A dream, then.”

“Are you in any pain?”

“My malefic miseries are mollified through the miraculous medication of Morphine,” Kolb grinned. “I feel nothing at all.”

“Good,” Edmund drew up his sleeves. “Then this won’t hurt.”

As fast as he could, Edmund inspected every bandage, every wound. He had studied enough cadavers to recognize most of the scars on Kolb’s body and what had caused them. A bullet wound here, a sword cut there; nothing particularly vicious or life-threatening — or, for that matter, recent.

The clumsy children’s fist of war / that throws its toys down on the floor / leaves them broke in mud and scum, / how cruel to break what is so numb.

The recent wounds were bad enough. The trench-crawler had broken his legs in three places, his left arm in two. His right arm was bandaged as well, but no cast was necessary. His head was tightly bound, letting his skull heal from an obvious bludgeoning from his assault.

“Doctor, are you?” Kolb asked. “I heard you graduated from Grimm’s…barely.”

“I’m a clerk in the ABC,” Edmund admitted. “Most everyone thinks I am not a genius.”

“Oh, well done,” Kolb said, with such drugged ferocity Edmund was uncertain how sincere he was. “Lieutenant Mauve, a clerk on the front lines. The Family must be proud.”

“We all must do our duty,” Edmund said. “Speaking of which, why are you here? I would have thought someone such as yourself would stay well away from such a dangerous place.”

“Ah, how little you know me,” Kolb sighed. “It is true, were my circumstances changed, I could have circumvented this frustratingly fickle fracas. As it is, I find myself slave to fortune.”

“But don’t mistake me,” he lifted his head, “I am not unhappy here. You of all people, ‘Lieutenant Mauve,’ must recognize what war actually is? Why, it is life! The purest most condensed form! We enter the war ignorant of what awaits us, save that there is the possibility of great glory, fortune, and purpose. But do we achieve it? Rarely. More often we achieve death.”

“Why did you jump on the machine?” Edmund asked. “You could have died then and there.”

“Why hurtle my human form at the herculean machine of death?” Kolb shook his head, his wandering eye focusing on Edmund’s with a clarity that startled. “Why not? If I do not die today, I will die tomorrow. Or the day after. It is fortune that decides who lives and who dies; not Generals, not soldiers. Given enough time, everyone in these dirty ditches will die, to be supplanted by serviceable soldiers from home. The only question is when.” Kolb wheezed as his head fell back on the pillow. “I chose to live this war charging into battle, to grab what glory I can in both hands. War is life, ‘Mauve.’ Our only inevitability is death.”

Kolb’s good hand sought out Edmund’s, gripping it tightly. “I have been in the trenches for months, ‘Mauve.’ I have seen how this story ends for hundreds of soldiers. Glory in death, or cowardice in life. Do you remember when I taught you, back when you were only eight? I told you about shadows, Edmund. Shadows and mirrors, smoke and illusion. Everything is smoke, everything is mirrors. None of it is real, and none of it matters.”

Edmund waited until Kolb’s eyes had closed, and his breathing was slow and steady in half-sleep, before he let go of his cousin’s hand.

Morphine was a powerful narcotic, Edmund knew, else Kolb wouldn’t have suffered from the delusion that nothing mattered. There were things that mattered, Edmund was certain. The Moulde Family mattered. Britannia mattered. If nothing else, the trench-crawler mattered, if for no other reason than it had crushed Kolb’s body and terribly burned six Spanish soldiers.

“How is he?”

Edmund turned at the sound of Major Schtillhart’s voice. “Major? What are you doing here?”

“I came to see the man who disobeyed my direct orders,” the Major stepped closer to the bed. “He was a very brave man. Stupid as hell, but brave.”

“That’s not an overtly original observation,” Kolb muttered through his sleepy haze.

Schtillhart didn’t smile. “Will he pull through?”

Edmund studied the look of concern on Major Schtillhart’s face. It was a look he couldn’t remember seeing on an officer before. “It will take a long time,” Edmund answered. “He should be transferred to a real hospital.”

Schtillhart blinked, seeing Edmund as if for the first time. “Lieutenant Mauve? What are you doing out of uniform? Where is your sash and pips?”

Edmund was once more impressed by the Major’s attentive nature. “Didn’t want to get them bloody, sir.”

“Right.” Schtillhart rubbed the back of his neck before waving Edmund aside. “Well, don’t let me see you out of uniform again.”

“The Moulde Family owns a very good hospital in Brackenburg. We could send him there.”

Major Schtillhart nodded. “Yes…yes, fine. Please get the paperwork ready, will you, Mauve? I…have something I need to do.”

Edmund made his way through the sea of groaning bodies before he reached open air once again. There, he saw Old Tom leaning with his back pressed firmly into the muddy trench. When their eyes met, he nodded his head back the way Edmund had come. “Never thought I’d see that, in all my born days. An officer in the medic station.” He shook his head. “Everything’s wrong these days.”

“What do you mean?”

The Corporal winced, realizing he had spoken out loud. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just an old Corporal complaining about the good old days.”

“When officers stayed out of the medic stations?” Edmund guessed.

“No,” Old Tom paused thoughtfully, “no, not that. Used to be you could get a bit of glory in the army, see a bit of action, become a real man…now, it’s all changed.” He took a deep pull of breath through his teeth. “We had an agreement, you know? Us and the Spaniards. We’d not hurt them much, and they’d not hurt us much…but now they’re burying scrapnel in our legs, burning bullets…this giant machine thing…”

“We’re using mines,” Edmund reminded him, “and fighting with fire.”

Shame flashed across Old Tom’s face before he pulled his lips back in a grimace. “And now, we’re going to send six Spanish soldiers back home with burns all over their bodies. You think their Generals’ll believe we didn’t do that to them?”

“I thought we didn’t torture.”

“We don’t, but they won’t believe it,” Old Tom shook his head again. “This war…it’s getting worse. It’s not just death we’re dealers in now, it’s pain.” Old Tom looked around at the gathering of wounded. “And then, hand to heart, I hear a Colonel shout an order to charge, and a Major…A Major shouts an order to retreat. Ran from squad to squad, he did, and told each one to fall back and save themselves and their ammunition. Didn’t care about glory, just cared about his men. Now I see that Major walking through the trenches lined with wounded, a look on his face like…” He stopped, and shook his head again.

Edmund waited until it was clear Old Tom had nothing else to say. “I have a message I need sent to the Spanish army.”

“You do?” Old Tom blinked. “What is it?”

Edmund wasn’t sure, exactly. He could see the shape of it in his mind, but the specific words would need careful choosing. “I don’t have it yet. I’m…an aide to one of the officers. He needs the message sent quickly.”

“But you don’t have the message yet.”

Edmund shook his head. “He’s a perfectionist.”

Old Tom shrugged. “Alright then. No skin off my nose. If you need a message sent, come find me and I’ll see if I can get it over the trenches. I should warn you, things are changing. What happens to your message once it gets there…” he shrugged.

“That’s good enough. I’ll come by later with the letter, or maybe Sergeant Ung. Don’t tell anyone about this, will you?”

Old Tom sniffed. “Tell anyone about what?”

Edmund was about to remind him, when he recognized the Corporal’s intended irony.

---

It only took the better part of a week for the Wickes to finish work on their own version of the trench-crawler.

“As you can see here,” Mr. Wickes’ cane rested on the diagram, crumpling the paper, “we have improved on several of the weaknesses of the Spaniard’s machine.”

“Jolly good. Yes…yes, I see,” Colonel Muggeridge said as he studied the Wickes’ design with the eye of one who didn’t know a single thing about what he was looking at.

Edmund, however, did know what he was looking at.

At least somewhat; he did not know as much as we know now: The T-1 “Chesterton” was the prototype Britannian trench-crawler of the famed Battle of the Ironclads, and while Edmund was ignorant of the second most historical event that was yet to come, he was aware that the Wickes had improved the Spanish machine. They were smart enough to use a diesel engine, Edmund noted as he studied the blueprints. They stabilized the wheel-pins and are using better vent-placements…

“I say, it’s almost a land-ship, what?” Muggeridge finally clasped his hands behind his back. “Incredible. I say, I hope ours will be a bit more stable than theirs was. We don’t want our soldiers to be tipped over by a lucky bullet, what?”

“Of course not,” Mr. Wickes pointed. “You can see here, can’t you? That will solve any and all issues that caused the Spaniard’s machine’s little…problem.”

“Ah, yes,” Muggeridge stammered. “I had missed…that. Jolly good. And this here? I say, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but this long bit looks…in the way.”

“That’s the cannon.” Mrs. Wickes’ teeth gleamed.

“Cannon?” The Colonel’s eyes lit up, while his cluster of officers murmured in delight. “By Jove, it has a cannon?”

“Mounted on the front and loaded from inside,” Mr. Wickes pointed again. “This ‘Trench-Crawler,’ as we will call them, is now effectively a mobile fortification, capable of firing artillery from anywhere on the battlefield. It requires only a single driver, a cannon-loader, and still has room for four other soldiers to fire out of these rifle-slots, here.”

While the Wickes patiently waited for Colonel Muggeridge to finish his bemused performance, Edmund glanced at Major Schtillhart. He was standing behind the Colonel, ram-rod straight as always, his eyes perfectly still. After a moment, he caught Edmund’s eye. The steel softened in his gaze and in an instant they were two men, sharing the camaraderie that could only go unsaid around superior officers.

Breaking his gaze, Edmund leaned over the table and pointed at the front cannon. “Are there holes in the side, here?”

“What?” Mr. Wickes stared where Edmund was pointing. “No. No, of course not! Why should there be holes there?”

Because if these aren’t holes here, where will the artillery vent the gasses once the shells are fired? Without some apparatus, they’ll have to vent to the rear of the cannon, which happens to be the main chamber.

“What kind of powder does the cannon use?” Edmund asked.

“Well, aren’t you the curious one,” Mrs. Wickes muttered, barely audible over the sounds of the trenches.

“We are using smoke-less powder for the cannon-shells,” Mr. Wickes spoke over his wife. “Specially designed and manufactured at the Wickes’ Family Manufactory. You needn’t worry, Lieutenant. Our brave soldiers won’t choke while piloting this marvelous machine.”

“How accurate will the cannon be?” Edmund was unrelenting. If it’s smokeless powder, it will burn too slowly to let the gasses–

“I say,” Colonel Muggeridge spoke up. “Are you insinuating something, Lieutenant? You seem to be suggesting that this invention isn’t quite up to snuff for the British army, what, what?”

“I think you should listen to him, sir.”

Edmund closed his mouth as everyone shifted their gaze from him to Major Schtillhart. You do?

“Do you, Mister Schtillhart?” Mrs. Wickes snapped.

“Now, now,” Mr. Wickes gripped his cane in both hands. “We are simply humble inventors, with an invention designed to bring decisive and resolute victory to the Empire. Let it not be said we are always right. Indeed, the very foundation of invention is the idea that things can always be made better. Please, Lieutenant, do you have any suggestions?”

Any other officer would have fallen silent when the eyes of the collected officers landed on him, but Edmund was merely grateful for the opportunity. “There are no safety valves over the engine.”

Mr. Wickes cocked an eyebrow, obviously surprised that Edmund did, in fact, have suggestions. “There is no need for safety valves. We are using a diesel engine instead of a steam —”

“The fumes will still be heated,” Edmund pushed on, “and quite foul-smelling without some kind of filtration system.”

“We carefully designed this machine with exacting measurements,” Mr. Wickes waved his hand. “Adding filters now would add weight, and make the entire machine far less efficient, mobile, and effective.”

“By how much?” Muggeridge cocked an eyebrow.

“Very little,” Edmund said.

“But even a little might be the difference between victory and defeat,” Mr. Wickes wagged his finger. “Besides, the soldiers are a plain, common folk. They work in farms and factories…they are used to unpleasent smells. Fresh air in a machine might disquiet the poor fellows.”

The muttering of officers told Edmund that everyone believed this to be true.

“The wheels are pedrail wheels,” Edmund continued. “Like those on the T&J Pinebrunner.² The Spanish machine used a continuous track, which is a more —”

“The Pedrail Wheel will allow our trench-crawler to climb inclines, steps, indeed to accommodate itself to any obstacles that might impede a flat or rigid tread. And to do so at a perfectly brisk pace.”

Again, the pleasant murmuring of the nearby officers suggested to Edmund that they did not view the absence of steps or steep inclines in the Trenches to be a problem. Edmund pointed again; “The placement of the drive-wheel here is —”

“Ah!” Mr. Wickes snapped his fingers in sudden realization. “I have almost forgotten! Colonel Muggeridge, you have consistently asked us when our brilliant war-ending invention will be complete. I am delighted to inform you that the answer is: immanently! In fact, I have a list here —” which he produced with a flourish, “— of a great many supplies that we simply must acquire as soon as possible.”

“Oh?” The Colonel blinked. “Oh, yes…well, of course you may requisition —”

“I’m afraid a good number of these chemicals are quite rare, and currently only distributed via a direct request to headquarters. If you would kindly requisition them yourself, your prestigious and above all influential name will go a long way to giving us what we need.”

“What are you making?” Major Schtillhart broke his stoic silence again.

“Why, we are making nothing less than our final invention! A solution that will end the war once and for all, and assure victory for the British army! A weapon of such incredible strength that our foes will simply melt away in fear at its mere mention! A bullet can wound a soldier, a bomb can wound twenty, but we have created a method of incapacitating sixty, eighty, a full battalion of soldiers with a single use!”

“By Jove…How? What is it?”

“It’s in the preliminary stages,” Mr. Wickes shrugged. “We’ll tell you all about it when we know it can be done.”

“I see. Well, I must say, all these trench-crawlers and planes were all well and good, but I need something a bit more…well, I suppose I should say ‘concrete,’ what? I mean, military secrets are one thing, but it seems to me you’re not holding up your end of the bargain, are you?”

The air turned cold.

“That is to say,” Muggeridge scratched his mustache again. “I…I won’t requisition any of these chemicals until I get a full account of exactly what you’re making.”

“I think,” Mrs. Wickes spoke slowly, “you would be wise to reconsider.”

“Not at all,” the Colonel continued, oblivious to the undisguised loathing that was being leveled at him. “Besides, this,” he gestured at the blueprints, “will surely put a stop to those blighters well enough, what?”

“Of course it will,” Mr. Wickes spoke before Mrs. Wickes could hiss her displeasure. “At the moment, your strategic brilliance must be focused on the matter at hand; the T-1 ‘Chesterton’ trench-crawler! We have already begun construction, and we promise you that, before the month is out, the T-1 will roll out of our barn and onto the battlefield, and then, my dear Colonel, we shall see something!”

---

Fool Moulde!

The meeting was adjourned quickly after that, and the officers filed out muttering to themselves about the great new kind of war they were about to witness. A war of machines! It was only the beginning, after all. If the T-1 worked well, why, they could build bigger crawlers. They could house entire regiments. Entire legions, even. In fact, why bother with fortifications at all, when you could put an entire army on the backs of giant wheels that would carry unstoppable death to any enemy city in the world? The glorious era of castle and sieges could return, but mobile!

It was an interesting prospect, one that would have set Edmund ruminating on the possibilities, were he not berating himself for his indiscretion. Why had he been so vocal all of a sudden? Why had he not sat back and let the Wickes’ imperfections in the design of their trench-crawler go un-noted? Instead he had spoken up, risking improvement of the design in addition to the Wickes’ attention. How could he have been so foolish?

But for all his self-recrimination, a select portion of himself was shaking its head. Was keeping his head down really helping anything? The Wickes were no closer to scandal and their design’s failings in the end would only harm soldiers like Old Tom…and then the Colonel had gone and refused the Wickes their requisition.

Edmund had recognized the look in their eyes; he had seen it many times in the eyes of his relatives. The Colonel had made himself an obstacle.