Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6

by Ford, Devon C.

  “When do we go?” he asked the squadron sergeant major with no squadron.

  “We?”

  Peter smirked playfully. “You grown-ups wouldn’t last five minutes without me and Amber to look after you.” Johnson laughed in spite of his own dark mood and the early hour.

  “Oh, if I’d had a squadron of Peters… we’ll go soon,” he said as he extended a finger towards the partially hidden light armour, “and we’re taking that to be on the safe side.”

  It was Peter’s turn to smile. Despite the collapse of their world, despite the fact that they had been cut off and abandoned, he was still a ten year old boy, and what ten year old boy didn’t want to ride in a tank?

  Pauline, the apparent leader of the Hilltop survivors, wasn’t surprised when Johnson had told her they would be leaving soon. She didn’t expect such rough soldiery types to sit back and settle, not when there was a war to fight, and the news that they would be setting off to link up with their own people and search for Amber’s mother and Peter’s sister was expected.

  In some bizarre parody of loved ones setting off for a day’s work, she brought them all sandwiches made with thick, fresh bread to sustain them on their search, along with a few insulated flasks of strong, sugary tea. The flasks, arrayed inside the Warrior side by side, their tartan decorations looking like some new type of ammunition for the 30mm main gun, provided Johnson with a curious amusement as he maneuvered the big, tracked vehicle out of the widened ditch it had occupied to hide the hull from any approaching enemy.

  Michaels, one of his former troop sergeants turned Hilltop dictator by all accounts, had still retained enough sanity to ensure the Warrior had a full tank of diesel and was loaded with both blue and yellow-tipped ammunition for the autocannon. Johnson sneered suspiciously at the controls for the chain gun which was widely rumoured to be a poor upgrade for their tried and tested general purpose machine guns firing the same ammunition.

  Still, he told himself, beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers, especially when he felt the grunt of the engine through the controls and it bucked free of the ditch which would’ve stranded even the most capable off-road truck for an eternity.

  Being the only man among them accustomed to operating and living inside an armoured fighting vehicle, he was forced from his rightful place in the turret and took up residence in the forward hull to drive. Peter, much to his absolute delight, was offered a spot inside the turret alongside Bufford, who Johnson had trained in the basic use of the chain gun.

  “What about the big bastard?” Buffs asked him as they sat in intimately close proximity as the commander and gunner would. Johnson patted the breech of the 30mm and shook his head sadly at the sergeant of the Special Boat Service.

  “You expect me to be able to teach a frogman how to hand-crank an HE round into this and follow up with a clip so as not to get a stoppage and have to start over?” Bufford gave him a withering look, secretly pleased that the comfortable inter-services rivalry had begun to reassert itself. “Just stick to the chain gun,” he told him. “You still probably fuck it up, so pay attention. And no coffee breaks,” he grumbled as he fought to maintain a straight face, “I don’t want to have to retrain you when you forget it all.”

  Astrid Larsen and Kimberley Perkins stepped inside the dark confines of the troop-carrying section comprising the rear of the Warrior, their arms loaded with bags of supplies and weapons. Amber followed, her own backpack stuffed with her favourite things, along with water and food should she need it. The top of that bag sprouted a threadbare and tired-looking stuffed lamb which had previously been Peter’s sister’s and had been one of his only comforts from the place where he used to live—not that he called it home even in his head. It had become Amber’s prized possession not long after he had found her alone and frightened and she had carried it with her ever since. She also carried Peter’s creation, his ‘sticker’ as he called it, fashioned originally from a pitchfork and modified for small hands to wield against the shambling corpses still wandering the landscape.

  “Zero-Bravo, Zero-Bravo,” Johnson said into the radio after they’d said their farewells to the civilians who had shown them kindness, “this is Foxtrot-Three-Three-Alpha.”

  He waited a beat before the excited voice of corporal Charlie Daniels came back to him, his usual calm radio demeanour chipped away to release the emotion he felt.

  “Three-Three-Alpha, Zero-Bravo,” he replied in quick words, using the out of date rotated callsigns which were the last they had been issued.

  Johnson pressed the button to transmit but took his finger away again.

  “Fuck it,” he said aloud to himself, unheard by the other two members of their little band inside the tank over the noise of the engine. He pressed to transmit again, this time abandoning the protocols he had spent a lifetime drilling others to adhere to.

  “Charlie, we’re on our way to you now. Get the kettle on, lad. Out.”

  TWO

  “What the bally hell do you mean?” Second Lieutenant Oliver Simpkins-Palmer shrieked obnoxiously at the uniformed but hatless man standing safely on the bow of a ferry twenty paces from land. “I order you to dock that boat, immediately, and allow my men and these civilians to board.” The soldier, wearing no obvious badge of rank or indication of his unit, could be heard laughing by everyone on the empty concrete of the Mallaig ferry port.

  “Who’s actually in charge?” he yelled back.

  “Now you look here,” Palmer erupted, his face turning crimson and spittle launching from his mouth on a trajectory like heavy artillery. His finger was extended, wagging furiously as though the mere threat of the digit would enforce his weak words. “I’ll have you court-martialled an—”

  “What seems to be the problem?” a voice asked from behind him, cutting him off and making him suddenly aware of his self-inflicted embarrassment, not only at being denied after a life of entitled ease, but by the shame of losing control of himself.

  “Major,” Palmer said, composing himself and greeting the man with the genteel nod of an aristocratic bow. He stepped aside for the tall, bearded Special Air Service officer to lay eyes on his enemy, “this…” he waved a frustrated hand in the general direction of the small car ferry, “man, is refusing my orders to dock and allow us to board. I must insist that y—”

  “That you, Tip?” Major Downes called out.

  “It is,” replied the man testily in a broad Newcastle accent. “I’ll leave you to have a word, Boss.” He turned away, stepping down from whatever he had stood on to call out his instructions to the officer.

  “Lieutenant,” Downes said, “perhaps you need to take a minute?”

  The order was made in a polite, suggestive way which Palmer’s education and breeding should have picked up on instantly, but the exhaustion and stress of their long journey by road had robbed him of his decorum.

  “Major, I really must insis—”

  “Oliver,” Downes interrupted him angrily, “you really must stop insisting. In fact, bugger off out of my sight while I talk to a real soldier.” Palmer looked ashen, as if he’d been struck in the face with a dead fish. In truth, he was not the only one to be so exhausted by days of travel under constant threat, and Downes’ uncharacteristic outburst served to underline just how strung out they all were. He watched as the young officer moved off, uncertainly at first, but building up to a stomping march, no doubt to find his older brother and make the man’s life harder. Downes sighed, wondering how one family could produce two so incredibly different sons. He turned back to the man on the bow of the ferry sitting low in the water.

  “How’ve you been, Tip?” he asked corporal Stanley Tipuric of ‘B’ squadron, SAS.

  “Not too bad an’all, considerin’,” he responded dolorously. “Good to see you made it.”

  “Tell me about it,” Downes agreed. “And you too.”

  “Still got your boys?”

  “I do,” Downes called back, “it’ll take more than this shit to
kill off Mac,” he added, knowing that a jibe at the hard Scotsman’s expense would serve to break whatever ice there was between them.

  “I’ll need yous all to follow the instructions to the letter,” Tip said in a more professional tone now that the brief pleasantries were out of the way.

  “Containment and quarantine?”

  “Aye,” Tip shouted back, waving an arm behind him to some unseen person controlling the boat. “The Colonel’ll fill you in later.”

  “Colonel?” Downes asked. “I thought Major Kelly was in charge here.”

  “Aye, only it’s Colonel Kelly now.”

  “Honestly, the man laughed when I gave him an order! Laughed! And the Major added insult to injury by banishing me so he could speak to—”

  “Olly,” Captain Palmer interrupted tiredly as he rubbed both hands over his stubbled cheeks, “did it occur to you who the man might be if the Major knew him on sight?” His younger brother recoiled as he always did when he had missed the obvious, his chin retracting so much that it all but disappeared until he regained his composure.

  “I don’t give a good God damn who he is,” the younger brother blurted out, albeit with less gusto than his original complaint. He further betrayed his anxiety when he glanced surreptitiously over both shoulders before continuing his rant in a softer tone. “I don’t care if the man sprouted wings and was anointed by Her Majesty the bloody Queen; he’s a rank and file man and he failed to observe the ru—”

  He stopped talking, mouth hanging open in confusion as his older brother simply walked away with an exasperated shake of his head.

  Palmer senior arrived at the edge of the docks just as his German counterpart did. Hauptman Wolff, as characteristically pleased to be alive as he was every day, looked just as tired as Palmer felt, although he somehow made his tiredness seem far more precise, as he did with everything. The two officers fell in step as they approached the SAS Major.

  “I rather fear we’ll find ourselves interned in some kind of concentration ca…” Palmer began, his words trailing off as he realised too late the insensitivity of them.

  “I suspect,” Wolff replied without any trace of anger or upset, “that you are correct.” A smirk began at one corner of his mouth before it spread uncontrollably. “And you should not fear saying such things to a German, Captain. We are just as appalled as you are about the history of our armies, as I think that you are of your own histories, no?”

  Palmer was saved from having to respond and defend the proud honour of the British Empire, as the major heard their approach and turned to fill them in on developments.

  “Small contingent of police, civilian and military, but mostly it’s our boys,” he informed the two captains. “Pretty much all of B squadron were home when it kicked off; on standby for the terrorism thing and all that.”

  “Am I to presume that they will want us quarantined?” Palmer asked him.

  “Yes,” Downes said, “civvies first. They want three loads so we don’t inundate them.”

  “Inundate?” Wolff enquired politely but uncertainly.

  “The boys on the island don’t want too many of us at once,” Palmer explained. “Rather than be overwhelmed in quarantine, they prefer that we stay here until they can process us in a more controlled manner, I presume.”

  Downes nodded, taking charge for the first time in the months he and Palmer had known one another.

  “Captain Wolff,” he said, earning a click of the man’s boot heels to indicate his undivided attention. “Can you maintain watch on the road and come over on the last boat with my boys and me?” The German tank commander’s head nodded in a short, sharp bow.

  “Of course, but I do not see how these,” he held his left arm out, ramrod straight and palm held vertically flat, to point at the small civilian car ferries, “will possibly transport the weight of our tanks.”

  “And you’d be absolutely right,” Downes responded, which is why we’re all dismounting and going over on foot. Vehicles stay on this side of the water. Infection risk.”

  Palmer swore that he could have detected the slightest gasp of shock and loss from their ally, and he knew only too keenly how the loss of a man’s mount affected him, as he had been forced to leave his own Chieftain behind many months before.

  “I must protest this,” Wolff said, unknowingly repeating the words of the younger Palmer which had so recently earned him a humiliating retort. “What infection can a machine have? It cannot catch a virus! Why must we leave our tanks…” He trailed off as his eyes followed the outstretched hand of Downes and took in the sight of a matted, crushed slab of blackened meat on the front of the nearest vehicle. White bone jutted out of the mess of gore and rags as an unidentifiable chunk slid slowly away from the metal to hit the ground and make them all grimace at the soft slapping sound it made.

  “I understand, Major,” Wolff said quietly.

  “They’ll still be here,” Downes reassured the man. “No Screecher I’ve seen yet can figure out the controls on a Leopard…”

  “But,” Wolff answered softly, “I do not like the thought of leaving Edda alone here among the enemy.”

  Palmer and Downes exchanged a look, both men fighting down the urge to laugh. Palmer’s tank had been called Annabelle, and as much as he’d enjoyed the bond with the machine, he hadn’t felt the same heartbreak that their friend was evidently feeling.

  “Edda?” Downes asked quietly, unable to resist.

  “Ja,” Wolff shot back with a look of challenge in his eyes, “this is the name of my grandmother. It means maiden of battle, like the Valkyries of the Norse.” His impassioned defence of the name of a tank left both British officers silent for a moment until Palmer placed a gentle hand on Wolff’s shoulder.

  “Edda will be here when we need her again,” he reassured him. They were saved any further awkwardness as the ferry bumped into the dock gently, emitting a clanging sound loud enough to remind all of them that they weren’t exactly safe until they got off the mainland.

  “Julian,” Downes said as he turned to Palmer, “if you could organise the civilians? Send as many of your chaps with them as you can and the rest are to take the second boat.”

  Palmer nodded. “What about Mister Lloyd?” Downes glanced up, taking in their theatre and scanning the assembled mix of people for the marine officer. Spotting him adjusting a defensive position of a pair of surviving marines, he satisfied himself that the job of their defence was adequately taken care of.

  “If you could inform the Royal Marines that they will be taking the second transport. The Hauptmann and I will fill the last one.” He turned away but snapped his fingers as a thought struck him.

  “Actually,” he said carefully, “if you wouldn’t mind being on the first one? Perhaps your, err, perhaps the Second Lieutenant can accompany the remainder of the men?” Palmer swallowed and gave a weak smile of understanding. The shame of his brother’s poor attitude and ineptitude at all things soldiering was a blemish on his reputation, but blood was blood and privately he couldn’t stand to hear his brother maligned by so many people.

  “I’ll let him know, Major,” he said tonelessly.

  “All aboard,” came a soft and distinctively Geordie shout from the sloping dock into the icy water. “One at a time, if you don’t mind,” Tipuric said to the nervous civilians as they stretched cramped limbs and stiff backs on the short walk towards the boat. “This way to safety, folks.”

  THREE

  “What the bleedin’ell is she doing?” Sergeant Bill Hampton asked as he looked out of the window. Marine Enfield, a man who had been unnervingly quiet and still, even before the world burned down and he lost his best friend in a helicopter crash, appeared beside his sergeant soundlessly. Hampton flinched in fright before covering his shock with a string of expletives.

  “Shouldn’t be out there by herself,” Hampton complained, “not even wearing a proper coat…”

  Enfield stared out of the window of the room they shared, th
e only sound he made a low whistle of breath through his nose. He watched the girl for a few moments longer, before shrugging and turning away. Neither of them had spoken to the only other people to have arrived separately, apart from themselves that was, and neither knew how they were so intrinsically linked to one another through their associations.

  Hampton continued to watch the girl, seeing her breath mist and linger in the heavy, cold air, like miniature clouds which hung to mark her progress towards the frosted-over hull of the tracked vehicle. Seeing her bang on the side of it and step back, he allowed himself a private smile as the squadron’s surviving radio man popped out of the hatch to lean way over to accept whatever hot beverage she’d brought him.

  Charlie Daniels, shivering inside the empty interior of his Sultan command vehicle as the heater powered by the small external generator struggled to fight off the cold, jumped when he heard two bangs on the hull directly behind his head. Too often he’d experienced and subsequently relived the sounds of so many undead hands clawing at the armour like a frustrated cat attacking a sealed tin of tuna, knowing that something tasty hid inside.

  Taking a few breaths to relax and compose himself, he stood and spun the handle to open the hatch before poking his head and shoulders out.

  “Down here,” said a small voice. Daniels leaned over to take in the smiling face of the teenage girl cupping a tin mug in both hands. The contents steamed tantalisingly, which told Charlie all he needed to know. Reaching out with a broad smile, he took the drink and thanked her, bringing it to his face to inhale the sweet steam. He wrapped his hands around the mug, his gloves protecting him from the heat of it; at least, protecting all but two of his fingers, since he’d cut those two from his glove so he could still manipulate the radio dials.