Pageturners: No Human's Land
The story begins at night in the trenches of the Western Front. “Sir, there’s been another murder in Whitechapel … Just like the one in the Old Kent Road, sir.” Sentry: “It was the monsters, sir!”
In Charley’s War, I spent some time drawing a complex map of the trenches with names straight from a Monopoly board, like Old Kent Road and Mayfair. And the trenches were, in fact, often named in this way with dug-outs called The Ritz, The Dorchester or Harrods. The peculiar zig-zag shape of the trenches—only fully visible from the air—have never been shown to full advantage in movies. The strange, heavily-cratered, troglodyte No Man’s Land that goes with them, makes it a unique and visually post-apocalyptic world all of its own, especially when it was brilliantly drawn by Joe Colquhoun. It’s easily a rival to any sci-fi dystopia.
The story is based on a real life event that I learnt about when I was writing Charley’s War. It was an obvious subject for a Doctor Who story and I intended to write it up after Star Beast but never got around to it.
I haven’t included the role of the Doctor in my outline below, although it’s easy to see how he, or indeed another protagonist, would fit in.
The British army had developed a giant mining machine which they thought would end the war in the trenches. It was going to dig its way to victory. Manufactured at vast expense, it was shipped over from Britain with great secrecy and delivered to the Western Front in 1916. There had already been secret tunnel wars between the British and the Germans and now there were great expectations of this incredible steampunk invention. The war-winning secret weapon, costing millions of pounds, was turned on, revved up its massive engines, and, roaring, wheezing and bellowing, trundled triumphantly forward to begin drilling deep into the soil of North France and … was promptly stuck in the mud!
It’s still buried under the trenches to this day. There are photos of later versions of it, designed for an equally abortive project to dig a channel tunnel.
In my story, this mechanical mole is called His Majesty’s Subterrene GOLIATH. It has a crew of ten, carries a ton of cargo, including explosives, and has a massive drill. It’s commanded by royal engineer Lieutenant Colonel ‘Hellfire Jack’ Norton, based loosely on his real-life counterpart in a British tunnelling company on the Western Front. He believes Goliath will win the war and is as fanatical about completing the task as the Alec Guinness commanding officer in Bridge Over The River Kwai.
The story begins at night in the trenches of the Western Front. A sentry is killed by strange, shadowy figures. Another sentry witnesses the murder. His sergeant takes the terrified man to Hellfire Jack: “Sir, there’s been another murder in Whitechapel … Just like the one in the Old Kent Road, sir …” Sentry: “It was the monsters, sir!”
Jack dismisses the mysterious deaths as the work of German night raiders and the sightings of monsters as “superstitious poppycock”. Their hideous appearance, Hellfire Jack believes, is actually because the Germans are wearing sinister new gas masks.
An RAMC doctor examines the bodies of the victims. “This man has been surgically dissected. And his innards removed. Why would the Boche do that?”
Hellfire Jack replies the Boche are capable of anything. “They hung nuns upside down and used them as bell clappers! They’re the only monsters on the Somme.”
But then Jack receives a telephone call from the commander of HMS Goliath: The subterrene has struck rock! But the Somme is heavy clay.
Jack: Rock? It’s a geological impossibility!
Jack—with an investigating team—descends and then head along the tunnel, deep below No Man’s Land, to the Goliath.
One of the investigators examines the vast rock face. It’s too smooth to be natural. He speculates it must be the outer stone ramparts of an underground city.
Colonel: But no one could live down here!
Suddenly a powerful earthquake hits the Goliath. The subterrene crew members don their protective, medieval-style, chain mail, shrapnel veils.
Jack: This region must be geologically unstable! But that’s …
Investigator: … a geological impossibility, Colonel?
Jack: Or the Boche have dug deep and set off an explosion.
Despite grave warnings from the investigators, Hellfire Jack insists on the subterrene drilling below the rock foundations of the city. So it avoids the German miners’ search tunnels that may also be probing the depths.
To ensure victory, the Germans must be taken by surprise. And time is running out. The tunnel must be completed for the next Big Push.
In order that the Germans can’t hear its thunderous engines, Goliath will dig deeper than any machine has ever dug before.
Below No Human’s Land.
On board the subterrene, there are soldiers with earphones, listening for sounds of German miners digging search tunnels.
Hellfire Jack stops all engines while they check.
They hear an alien sound … like the croak of some weird bird. It’s coming from inside No Human’s Land.
“Birds or bats,” says Hell Fire Jack dismissively. “Roosting in some underground cave.”
But it’s like no creature anyone has ever heard.
And it’s growing louder…
I have to stop there, otherwise I shall get completely carried away into another Land That Might-Have-Been.
Thanks, Paul. If time permits, I might submit it at some stage. After all, I've been thinking about No Human's Land since Charley's War. Mi7 Assassin looks like it will keep me busy for a while. Maybe it's a story the central character (who is a writer) dreams up. There were a surprising number of 'steam punk' stories around at the time. Once again, World War One never ceases to fascinate and horrify me
Reads like a great start to a Who serial! Even a Quatermass style WW1 scientist?