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Kagemusha Monogaturi

Croft personally picked the black oval of the Attila off the map. His lips were a line of triumph.Advertisement

'Gentlemen,' he announced, 'Dracula is dead. His head will be sent here.'

Beauregard remembered this had happened before. When Vlad Tepes was killed, his head was supposedly cut off and sent to the Sultan. Yet he had survived.

Events moved too swiftly for Croft's news to have much impact. Haig and Pershing were in dispute, competing for the honour of jamming breaches with their own dead. The telephone connected to the Prime Minister hung abandoned, twittering like a pathetic bird.

With Mireau gone, the French were rallying sensibly. American troops arrayed themselves against the German advance: raw recruits against combat-hardened veterans, or fresh spirited men against battle-weary remainders. And the British were dug in.

A shell burst on the roof of HQ. A patch of plaster fell from the ceiling, dusting Croft and Churchill like pantomime ghosts. Only their livery lips and fiery eyes were red in white faces. Subalterns with buckets were sent off to douse the fire.

'It is evident the Diogenes Club should have ceded responsibility for the secret war earlier,' gloated the phantom Croft. 'Great losses might have been prevented.'

The German advance came like a wave, spreading and breaking as it came up against the bulwarks of well-prepared positions.

Churchill did mental calculations.

They cannot keep this up,' he said. 'With the Attila down, they will lose perspective. Confusion must set in.'

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Comte Hubert de Sinestre, a sardonic general, reported a sighting of Dracula.

Croft paid attention. The Attila?'

'No,' said de Sinestre. 'Dracula leads his cavalry in full armour, mounted on a black horse, laying about him with a silver sword. Here, on the left flank. Where the gallant Mireau made his stand.'

The officer indicated a German charge.

Croft was perturbed. 'We have definite word the Graf was in his airship. He was killed by ground troops.'

The French vampire shrugged. 'English intelligence is notoriously suspect. I have the word of Colonel Dax, a most reliable officer.'

'He was in the air. It is his character.'

'The Graf proves remarkably mobile,' said Churchill. 'I've been handed a despatch from Captain George Sherston of the Royal Flintshire Fusiliers which tells me Dragulya has personally led a bayonet charge on the right flank and been peppered with silver bullets. Another cause for celebration, Mr Croft?'

Croft crushed the Attila oval in his hand.

'We have a plague of doppelg?ngers,' Beauregard offered. 'Next the Graf will be spotted strolling down Piccadilly with a straw hat on.'

'A mediaeval trick,' Churchill said, making a chubby fist. 'Impersonators to rally the troops, to draw fire.'

'The real Dracula was in his Zeppelin. I have affirmed it.'

Croft was green under his grey. His hands reached out involuntarily.

The cavalry Dracula is down,' said de Sinestre. 'Cut in two y a machine-gun. His charge is broken. Mireau is avenged.'

It will not do,' said Churchill. 'We must kill all of him.'

'He is dead. Truly dead,' insisted Croft.

'He'll be somewhere safe,' concluded Beauregard. 'In Berlin, probably. This has all been a distraction.'

'No,' said Croft, firmly. His fingers closed on Beauregard's throat. 'I am right and you are wrong.'

The face, rotten under the tight skin, came close, ghastly green powdered with plaster dust. Beauregard gripped the vampire's wrists, trying to break the choke-hold.

Officers tried to free him from Croft.

'I say,' snapped Haig, 'stop that, you two. I'll have no fighting in here. There's a war on, you know.'

Croft pushed him away, letting go. Beauregard coughed, breathing again, pulling his collar away from his bruised throat. The grey man calmed, deflated. Beauregard assumed the vampire's career was about to suffer a reversal.

Haig and Pershing came to an agreement and began piling American and British blocks on the road to Amiens. Black blocks, reinforced by cross-marked paper scraps, edged nearer.

Bombardment was constant and close. Blocks jumped on the table with each impact. Telephone lines were cut and re-established.

Everyone looked at the table. The blocks were hopelessly mixed up.

Conceiving of the losses, Beauregard's heart ached.

'Oh the humanity, the humanity ...' pqdm.com