Read Online The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page B

myself steady, and then I turned back to
Father Anton and said, ‘I’ve broken a hole through, father. It smells really
disgusting in there.’
    Father Anton crossed himself. ‘It is the odour of Baal,’ he said, his face grey in the afternoon cold. Then he raised the
crucifix higher and said: ‘I conjure bind and charge thee by Lucifer,
Beelzebub, Sathanas , Jauconill and by their power, and by the homage thou owest unto
them, that you do torment and punish this disobedient demon until you make him
come corporally to my sight and obey my will and commandments in whatsoever I
shall charge or command thee to do. Fiat, fiat, fiat.
    Amen.’
    Madeleine whispered: ‘Dan – we could seal it up again.
There’s still time.’
    I looked at the tiny hole, out of which the polluted air
still sang. ‘And then how long before it gets out of here, and comes after us?
This thing killed your mother, Madeleine. If you really believe that, we have
to get rid of it for good.’
    ‘Do you believe it?’ she asked me, her eyes wide.
    ‘I don’t know. I just want to find out what’s inside here. I
want to find out what it is that can make a man puke maggots.’
    I licked my lips, and raised the hammer once again. Then I
struck the turret again and again until the hole grew from a dime to a quarter,
and eventually the armour plating began to break off
in leaves of black rust. Within twenty minutes, I’d broken all the metal away
around the hinges of the hatch, and the hole was the size of a large
frying-pan.
    Father Anton, still waiting patiently in the snow, said:
‘Can you see anything, monsieur ?’
    I peered into the blackness of the tank’s interior. ‘Nothing so far.’
    Taking a crowbar from the canvas bag, I climbed up on top of
the Sherman’s turret, and inserted one end of the crowbar into the hole. Then I
leaned back, and slowly began to raise the hatch itself, like opening a
stubborn can of tomatoes with a skewer. Eventually, the welding broke, and the
hatch came free. I stood there breathless and hot, even in the sub-zero
temperature of that gloomy afternoon, but at least the job was done. I said to
Madeleine: ‘Hand me the flashlight.’
    Her face pale, she passed it over. I switched it on, and
pointed the beam downwards into the Sherman’s innards. I could see the tank
commander’s jumpseat , the breech of the cannon, and
the gunlayer’s seat. I flicked the beam sideways, and
then I saw it. A black sack, dusty and mildewed, and sewn up
like a mailbag, or a shroud. It wasn’t very large – maybe the size of a
child, or a bag of fertiliser . It was lying next to
the side of the tank as if it had fallen there.
    Madeleine touched my shoulder. ‘What is it?’ she whispered
in a frightened voice.
    ‘What can you see?’
    I stood straight. ‘I don’t know. It’s a kind of black bag. I
think I’ll have to go down there and lift it out.’
    Father Anton called: ‘Monsieur’. Don’t go in there!’
    I took another look at the bag. ‘It’s the only way. We’ll
never get it out of there otherwise.’
    The last thing in the whole world I wanted to do was get
down inside that tank and touch that bag, but I knew that if we tried to hook
it out with the crowbar we’d probably tear the fabric. It looked pretty old and
rotten – more than thirty years old, maybe more than a hundred. One rip and
whatever was inside it was going to come spilling out.
    While Madeleine held back the jagged hatch for me, I
carefully climbed up on to the turret and lowered my legs inside. Even though
my feet were freezing cold, I had a strange tingling feeling, as if something
inside the tank was going to bite them. I said hoarsely, ‘I always wanted to
see what a tank looked, like inside,’ and then I lowered myself into the
chilled, musty interior.
    Tanks are claustrophobic enough when they’re heated and
lighted and they’re not possessed by demonic sacks. But when I clambered down
into that cramped and awkward space, with