Free The Ironclad Prophecy by Pat Kelleher Page A

the tank, ain’tcha? I ain’t never seen one up real close. Don’t they look funny, like a huge great iron slug? What kind of engine has she got? I bet she’s a beaut. Can I see it?”
    He could tell from her accent she wasn’t a northerner, but Lord Almighty, she never stopped talking, and he let her talk, because she spoke of gears and pistons and carburettors and, quite frankly, he’d never met a girl like her. He’d come all this way from one world to another and there she was, large as life and twice as brassy. Nellie bleedin’ Abbott. And he’d shook his head in wonder. She’d spent time in the FANYs driving ambulances and knew how to strip an engine. Had to. No bugger else to do it for her, half the time. She’d ridden a motorcycle once or twice. They talked of the country rides they might take together if they got back, but she wouldn’t have it, not in a sidecar at any rate. Oh no. Not her. She wanted a motorcycle of her own. That was when he fell in love with her. Right there. Alfie’s face split into an involuntary grin at the memory.
    The rest of the crew were wary of her. They were used to their secrets, their own company. They didn’t welcome outsiders. They wouldn’t let her in the tank. Crew only, they said. But he’d snuck her in anyway. Once he’d had to shove her out of one sponson door as Jack squeezed in the other.
    The crew had been despondent at the time. It looked like their fuel would run out, and without petrol, the tank was just so much scrap. Without the tank they would be transferred into the battalion to be Poor Bloody Infantry again.
    But then one of the Tommies had brewed some evil alcoholic concoction that killed a couple of men daft enough to drink it. Unfit for human consumption, they said. But it gave them a new fuel. It ran a little better than the petrol they were used to, but then that was nearly all ‘flogged’ inferior stuff anyway. This new stuff had been distilled from what they now called petrol fruit. They were back in the game.
    That was when everything changed.
    They had been breathing the fumes for a week or so before they noticed. At first they felt keener, their senses seemed more acute. Colours were brighter, crisper. Sounds were clearer and smells sharper and more distinct.
    “It’s the clean air here,” Reggie informed them. “Clears out the tubes!” he said, thumping his chest. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Even Lieutenant Mathers seemed to relax now. Before, he had been a bundle of nerves in the tank, always on the verge of funking it, but now he seemed to relish driving it. Then again, they all did. Mind you, it helped when you were not being constantly shelled by Fritz artillery or hammered with machine gun fire. It was quite like the old days driving round Elveden as if it were a fairground ride. The days when they weren’t in it were fraught with tension and short tempers. Even the engine, after some initial troubles, seemed to run smoother.
    It was the fuel itself. They’d heard stories of how the Tommies that had drunk it saw things, hallucinated. That’s why it was declared unfit for human consumption. But they weren’t drinking it. They didn’t have to. Fumes from the engine filled the small confined space. Ordinary petrol fumes would give them carbon monoxide poisoning. They’d end up with vicious headaches, convulsions and, in extreme cases, delirium or psychosis. They’d stagger from the tank and vomit. The petrol vapour would sting their skin and give them itching rashes and impetigo.
    This new fuel had different side effects. Once they discovered the effects of petrol fruit fumes, they vowed amongst themselves to keep it quiet. It gave them a sense of euphoria, changed their vision. Under its influence they began to see the bright little whirls and eddies of indigo as the vapour swirled lazily about the cabin. The white painted iron plate surrounding them throbbed green with the vibration of the engine. Alfie soon found he