The only problem with that kind of warfare was that to keep his dozen or so fighting vehicles in the game, he would need a support network of at least three times that number keeping them supplied and running, and there simply weren’t enough of them left.
He found himself feeling, as painful as it was to admit, a little surplus to requirements.
Astrid Larsen, with her undeniable Nordic features and stereotypically white-blonde hair, also stumped him. She was tight-lipped about her unit, revealing only that she was FSK, which as far as he knew didn’t exist. However, when Bufford had muttered in his ear that she had now lost her entire team inside of a day, he stopped asking. On one of their short breaks he had asked the SBS man, in his opinion the most likely man to know, who and what she was.
“Norwegian commandos, trained to the same level as us and the Hereford boys, seeing as they are mostly free-fallers,” he explained quietly, “Infiltration, erosion of infrastructure, collapsing transport and communication networks, that sort of thing. The plan was that if Ivan went for it, then the Norwegians would be in under cover of darkness and shut most of their western capabilities down inside of a few days. That’s why people don’t know about them.”
“Chances are,” said their quiet sniper to change the subject, “that we’ve missed them already.” Faces turned to regard him, as often people did when he spoke, because he had the uncanny knack of appearing invisible in company.
“Possible,” Hampton said, “but I think they’d either wait for us or at least send out the other helicopter to look for us.”
“Unlikely,” Johnson said in a solemn tone, “If it was me at the camp waiting for the final evac, I’d assume that they hadn’t made it off the island, so what would be the point in wasting fuel and
risking a resource to check a negative?”
That silenced the others.
“Probably right,” Bufford agreed, “under normal circumstances with full support we’d never just give up on anyone, but now? With no support and too many priorities all at once? I think they’d just look to consolidate.”
“So, we find somewhere to hold up here then? Rest?” Hampton asked, unable to keep the hope out of his voice.
Heads turned to look at one another, faces showing agreement as they all submitted to the idea of sleep soon to be found. As one, with the exception of the unconscious Kimberley, all of them emitted a yelp of fright and alarm as something landed inside their discussion. The mess of dirty-looking fur emitted a chirping, meowing sound and looked up expectantly, only to flatten its ears and shoot away close to the ground, eyes wide in fright at their response.
“Fuck was that?” Hampton exclaimed in a voice far higher pitched than the others had heard come from him before, having only responded to the reactions of everyone else, as his eyes had been momentarily closed.
“Bloody cat!” Johnson said, looking around for any sign of the creature which had disappeared as suddenly as it had emerged. All around him chuckles sounded amid gasps of breath being caught.
“Let’s find somewhere before we get ambushed again,” he told them, dragging himself to his exhausted feet and feeling every part of his body ache savagely, “and before I completely seize up,” he added.
“Bill? You stay here with her? Enfield too,” he said and received nods from them, “Shall we?” he added to the others, seeing them rise up wordlessly. Bufford nodded them forward, intending to cross the brook and approach the secluded rear of a large house.
“Amber!” Peter hissed desperately, as his face showed a terrible fake smile, “get your shoes on, we need to go. Now.” She looked at him with wide eyes, panic evident but good sense and obedience taking over in a second. She ran, flying up the stairs and grabbing her precious things before coming back down with the lidless pot of toy soldiers and her threadbare lamb. Peter stuffed his own feet into his shoes, the oversized socks bunching uncomfortably at his toes, and grabbed the handle of the trolley by the front door.
This, he realised, had been his best idea yet. If they had to leave in a hurry, which it turned out that they now did, then he didn’t want them to have to worry about supplies or going on the run with just what they could carry, so he’d loaded a small amount of food and water, which would sustain them for at least a few days. Grabbing up his pitchfork from where it rested by the front door, he dragged out the trolley and beckoned her to come with him, before reaching back and closing the door gently, so as not to announce their presence by slamming it. In an empty village, devoid of all signs of life and without any background traffic noise, a slamming door would sound like a shotgun.
As that thought hit him, so too did the handle of the shotgun as he shoved his backpack further up on his shoulders. He ignored the heavy clunk on the back of his skull, and instead surveyed the three nearest buildings that he could get to quickly.
Two of those he had cleared, but one still contained the body of the big monster who had so very nearly taken Amber, and the other was the church. His only knowledge of church was that the one his school made them go to was cold and draughty, and he reckoned very unlikely to hold food, water or beds, so he steered them straight to the house that he knew held no zombies, no bodies, but also no food or supplies, other than what they carried.
Decision made, he turned back to Amber and smiled falsely, whispering for her to follow him.
“Someone definitely used this as a base,” Johnson said, lowering the weapon after every room had been thoroughly checked, “couple of unmade beds upstairs, all the curtains closed tight, stacked supplies…”
“So where are they?” Bufford asked. Johnson looked at him and shrugged as though that question was irrelevant right then, looking down at his boot which had caught something small and green on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Bending down to retrieve it, he held the little plastic soldier up before his eyes, twirling it slowly to take in the posing figure as it drew back one hand ready to lob a German stick grenade high in the air. Giving a small chuckle of amusement, he slipped it into a pouch without knowing why.
They went back and retrieved the others, getting wet in the process of crossing the brook and passing Kimberley over, hand to hand, once more.
Why didn’t we try to fashion a stretcher? Johnson asked himself, blaming the lack of logic on having just barely survived a helicopter crash which had killed over two thirds of the occupants. As far as excuses went, he decided that was a pretty good one.
They laid the unconscious woman on the large corner sofa and all gulped down bottles of water from the plastic-wrapped pallets. Tins were opened, and food consumed, driven by the desperate need to refuel exhausted bodies, and then they began to relax ever so slightly.
When they found themselves inside a clean environment they noticed something unpleasant. After two or three days spent constantly on the move in high-stress situations, every one of them smelt terrible, with the exception of Kimberley, who had only really joined the fight properly the night before.
Astrid made the first move, turning on the kitchen tap and watching the water fall into the wide, square sink. She let it run for a while, making a curious noise of mixed shock and pleasure.
“We have hot water,” she said in awe, turning to look at the others with a smile.
“Two at a time,” Johnson said, taking charge as was his natural way, “wash equipment, bodies, clothes. In that order,” he added unnecessarily, knowing that the two special forces personnel and the two royal marines were unlikely to prioritise anything over their weapons and equipment.
“Looks like it’ll be a hot day,” Bufford added, “and that back yard isn’t overlooked, so we can probably dry stuff on the patio soon.”
And that was what they did, taking it in turns to step into the shower upstairs and rinse off all of their equipment, letting the water run red to brown to pale pink as they stripped down and squeezed out the garments one at a time. It took all day for the five of them to get clean and dry off, putting back on their stiff
clothing to dry it the rest of the way as they sat in the sunlight streaming in through the wide kitchen windows, and they cleaned their weapons.
They ate, answered the corresponding calls of nature and found the bucket system in the downstairs toilet, which they ignored for the time being, and sometime in the afternoon, Kimberley groaned, opened one eye, and let out a cry of panic.
NINETEEN
Second Lieutenant Palmer climbed into the cab of the truck at the head of the convoy behind the only two remaining tracked vehicles. He knew his brother was there, running the whole operation and leading the shattered remnants of everyone to a new place. The helicopter took off, its belly stocked with a mixture of people and supplies, as the naval aircrew had suggested not putting all of their eggs in one basket, so to speak. As it thundered off, destined to reach their new position far more quickly than the land convoy, Palmer glanced off to his right, where the collection of a dozen men were gearing up, ready to raid the rest of the massive base, under sergeant Sinclair’s leadership.
He had asked to lead the raid himself, pleading with his older brother for permission to take command, but he had resolutely denied him.
“Sergeant Sinclair’s command will be wholly sufficient, I’m sure,” he said coolly.
Now, devoid of all responsibility and only given a privileged seating position in the truck due to the vague respect the men had for his officer status, he nestled his gun in his lap and waited to be awarded a scrap of gainful employment. The hope, from what he had gathered from the end of the briefing he had heard but wasn’t invited to, was that those dozen men would secure more fighting vehicles and ammunition to secure their new site, which he had heard was a country estate. Having experienced his fair share of such grand residences, even having grown up in one, Palmer knew what he was expecting, and that was old brick wall perimeters, ornate gates set inside them and a magnificent house in the centre. He imagined outbuildings, servants’ quarters and maybe stables. Large, enclosed gardens and acres of land which would have been tended over generations, and likely a decent swathe of woodland to boot. The men, he imagined, and for that matter probably all of the civilians, would not have experienced such accommodation before and he anticipated that they would be embarrassingly impressed with the place. His disdain for the commoners returned with sudden and renewed acidity, because he had had a taste of leading men in combat and was now once again forced back into the wings to wait and try not to get killed.
He sat back and ignored his driver’s attempts to engage him in conversation, like the sullen child they all imagined him to be.
“Keep it simple, boys,” Rod Sinclair said as he checked the action of his weapon for the twentieth time and betrayed his nerves, “in and out, nothing heroic, we just grab enough and get gone.”
Men shuffled their feet nervously, nodded their cautious agreement and generally worried over what was to come. Much discussion was had about the other side of the base, the place they had spent the first days of the shit-storm that had enveloped their world. The difference now, however, was that the word had spread about the so-called Doomsday protocol. The nuclear strikes on Europe and the Soviet Union would have untold consequences, and every man who thought about that ran his mind through the thick mud of stressful what-ifs. The consensus that they had been effectively cut off as a nation, that they had been quarantined and abandoned, led to many having dark thoughts, and without the leadership of men they believed in, they felt growing pains of hopelessness.
They set off in a loose line as they kept their footfalls soft and their eyes alert, moving through each enclosed section of the base as though it were cellular and they molecules passing through the barriers. Their progress was halting, as some sections were locked, and it forced them to take an indirect route. The helicopter crew on their flight out had passed over the area they were heading for, and had reported no signs of life, which was a bizarrely ambiguous use of words, but they did report that a section of perimeter fence appeared to be down, which was what had them all on edge. No doubt about it, they were going into contact and they had to be on their toes.
At the rear of their formation, not immediately at the back where he would be instrumental should there be any rear-guard fighting required, and far enough back from the front that any contact there would be unlikely to affect him, lurked the only man in the patrol not there voluntarily. Trooper Nevin wore a face like thunder and muttered curses to himself constantly about Sinclair, about the Captain who had been forced to intervene with a threat of shooting him for dereliction of duty, and about Johnson who had accused him of stealing supplies. Sinclair, he decided, would get them all killed. He thought he was a timid man and probably not cut out for leadership, and Nevin couldn’t understand why the men followed him so eagerly. He couldn’t see past his own sullen self-centred nature to fully comprehend that the men followed Sinclair because he was humble, honest and hard working. He earned men’s trust instead of demanding it, which is why he did not struggle for eleven volunteers to join him. Nevin also failed to grasp why that bull of a man, Johnson, had thought it was so bad that he was using his initiative and searching the crates for anything useful. To accuse him of stealing, no matter how accurate the charge, just added to Nevin’s hatred of the man who had humiliated him back on the island with a single, short punch, which, if he still thought about it, hurt him even now. He never understood why the corporals and the sergeants hated him so much, even when the officers tended to leave him alone, probably out of fear.
Not that bloody captain, though, he sneered to himself in thought, he’s a right bloody Rupert with his silver spoon up his arse. His little brother is a weasel, sure enough, but this one thinks he’s a soldier.
In truth, the reason the NCOs despised Nevin was mainly because the man was capable, very capable in fact, but at his very core he was lazy. That laziness took more concerted effort than simply performing the tasks he was given most of the time, but in their previous lives as reservists, he had never usually been under such scrutiny for so long. The only exception to this was when the squadron conducted a tour of Northern Ireland, and Nevin was focused to the point where some even considered him for promotion. Of course, as soon as they were out of real danger his attitude returned to that of the same shirking, malevolent bastard they had seen before, and any hopes of promotion were dashed. He still resented that, thinking himself better than most, but what nagged at him now was that the only time he had been expected to perform, he had panicked and a man had died.
Nevin rationalised this again, telling himself that the death of Trooper Harris was the man’s own fault for not keeping watch and not taking the warning he had given him seriously.
Wasn’t my fault, Nevin had reassured himself, stupid bastard should’ve listened.
Of course, that bravado he had now convinced himself to show in his own head wasn’t present when that bastard Johnson had ripped him a new one, again, and promised him punishment for it. That, he reckoned, was why he had to go on every mission there was, so that people like Johnson could force more work on his shoulders.
Well, not any more, Nevin promised himself, first opportunity I get, I’m fucking out of here.
And he meant it. He would look for greener grass. He would find somewhere that appreciated him. He would find another group of survivors, which he reasoned there absolutely had to be all over the place, and he would get away from the army and its bloody rules. He would live like a king, he told himself, and all he had to do was get away. His hand went inside his smock, closing around the grip of the ungainly revolver he had found, prior to being half choked by the SSM. He had all six chambers filled with the little thirty-eight bullets and another dozen loose in his trouser pocket. Despite holding his Sterling and four spare magazines for the sub machine gun, having the unexpected second world war-issued pistol made him feel safer, more prepared somehow for the mischief he intended.
Trooper Nevin, as much as he would never understand it himself, had see
n death and it had made him quite insane.
“Over there,” Sinclair said in a loud whisper before holding out his flat hand to the rest of them and miming a chopping motion in the rough centre of their number, effectively halving them. He wiggled the hand backwards and forwards as though he were actually trying to physically separate them and when the two men at the divide had shuffled sufficiently apart, he gave his orders.
“You men,” he said to the rear group, which included Nevin, “go straight for the hangar doors and wind them open. You men,” he said switching his gaze to the front of the group, “take up defensive positions at and around the entrance. You and you,” he said, picking two troopers seemingly at random, “watch the flanks of the hangar. We get the easiest available vehicles, fuel them up and drive out to the armoury. I need at least one Bedford, too,” he added for the tenth time as he recited their objectives, “for the small arms ammunition stores. Let’s go, then.”
The men nodded back at his anxious face, and he led them out.
Almost a month before Sinclair’s small detachment tiptoed
their way back into the base from the far side of its multitude of fences and walls, and shortly after they had first fled in the night, the large building they had used to house the civilians in a hurry, had been one of the last places to be evacuated. In that haste to get out, the building had not been checked, not that a sweep of that building would probably have prevented the sequence of events that had followed. One woman, in an attempt to sleep in relative peace, was tucked away in a small cupboard with a green army sleeping bag when the call to evacuate had so unexpectedly come.
As much as the army loved lists, the woman had been missed off their rota when they had ended up on the island, as there were simply too many things to do and too few people to organise them.
Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 55
