“Did, err, did you see that?” Daniels asked, his weapon still held in the ready position but with the barrel pointing into the water.
“I did,” Johnson admitted quietly. “Fuckers are switching on…”
“It’s not that,” Peter said. He held out his hand, pointing to the rocky land whipping by before them.
“What?” Johnson asked.
“Wait,” Peter told him, keeping his finger pointed until he jerked it further to his right when reacquiring the subject of his interest. “There!”
“Another bald bugger,” Bufford said. “Giving orders like before.”
That settled it in Johnson’s mind. With everything he’d seen and everything he’d been told, he finally saw just what this latest monstrous mutation in their enemy meant to them. The Screechers, or more accurately the Limas now as they hadn’t seen a Screecher in weeks, now had platoon leaders able to assess a battleground, apply tactical thought to a far higher level than the animalistic hunting instincts of the faster kind.
That, he thought sourly, was just not fucking fair.
“Can we get a little more speed out of this thing?” he called out, earning a growled response not in English that he had to guess at the translation of. The first few options he imagined involved him getting out and pushing so he ignored it.
“Keep an eye on the bastards,” he said, earning an annoyed look from Jessica. He was about to ask what he’d done, but her eyes went to her younger brother and back to Johnson in silent admonishment of his bad language. Johnson’s eyes went to Peter too, then back to his sister as he tried to convey the fact that her little brother was pointing a gun at a mutated, infected, undead monster stalking them with an army of Limas under its command and that the odd swear word was hardly the issue.
She didn’t falter, and he rolled his eyes involuntarily at her stubbornness.
They outran their land-based pursuit when the coastline rose sharply over rocky crags that couldn’t be traversed anywhere near as fast as the boat could chug through the choppy waters.
At least until they tried to span the short gap between the nearest points of land between the island and the rest of the country it belonged to. There the boat struggled, slowing and jostling the passengers as the power of the engine fought a slow battle against the power of the current battling against it.
“What is happening?” Larsen yelled over the sound of the noisy revs and the rushing of wind and water.
“The current is strong here,” Jean Pierre yelled back, both hands fighting the controls to keep them steady as their speed slowed to half their previous advance.
“They’re back,” Daniels yelled, eyes trained on the shoreline way back in the direction they’d come from where movement flickered over the green and black of the rocky landscape.
They were powerless, at the mercy of the immense force of the water, crawling north as their pursuit closed the lead they’d stretched out.
Yard by yard, bumping over the waves caused by the fast movement of so much seawater surging through the narrow gap, they passed through the wide channel and turned inwards to hug the coast while staying out of reach of anything on land.
“JP,” Johnson warned as more movement showed inland closer to them than the pursuing Limas.
“They will not reach us here,” the sailor assured him. Johnson looked back between the incoming assault and the water, believing the assurance but still prepared for them to be wrong.
“Form on me,” he called out. Daniels, Enfield, Hampton, Larsen and Bufford moved to him instantly, responding to a command that triggered their military sense of immediate obedience, and Peter shuffled along to join them, their combined weaponry packed into one small section of the railings in anticipation of contact.
“Hold your fire,” Johnson cried out. “Let the water take the buggers.”
They held their nerve, watching as the attacking forces snarled and shrieked as they sprinted over the rough ground so recklessly that half of them fell hard to smash into the rocky ground only to get up and build their speed up again before falling down or else surging into the water in a desperate, wild attempt to reach the passing boat.
“Hold,” Johnson told them, speaking loudly.
“Hoooold,” he growled, louder this time and summoning all the authority within him to make it sound believable.
They held. The lead wave of Limas ploughed into the frigid sea, slowing instantly as the weight of the water far outweighed the strength in their bodies. When they met a depth sufficient to bring the inevitability of physics into play, their forward momentum combined with the resistance of the water acting together to pitch them face first into the current to be snatched away and whipped south faster than the boat was moving north.
Johnson relaxed, seeing both the pursuit and the cut-off group – if he was thinking tactically like an infantryman – fall behind again as the boat made better time in the wider channel.
“There should be a small port towards the north-eastern tip of the island,” Daniels said, revealing the fact that he’d studied more than one map of where the rest of his squadron had gone.
“Go there,” Johnson told Jean Pierre. “Hopefully it’s not overrun, and we can get some damned fuel.”
The small dock in the town of Portree, which was little more than a village by most standards, was devoid of all signs of life both current and former. The boat chugged quietly as the engine turned only enough to keep it steady in the water, letting them survey the docks for a long time.
“They’d have come by now if they were here,” Daniels said. “Or if they knew we were here, I mean.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Hampton answered, glowering over the rail with his hands resting on the cold metal of the heavy gun. “Bastards are getting smarter.”
“He is correct, I am thinking,” Larsen added in support of Hampton’s words. “They appear to have the use of tactics and communication, do you agree?”
“Take a look at the docks,” Enfield cut in, changing the subject from his perch up on top of the wheelhouse roof where he lay flat with his eye to the scope of the big hunting rifle. Beside him, in a half-size replica, Peter adopted an identical position.
“Where you looking, lad?” Johnson asked, lifting binoculars to his eyes.
“On the concrete before the jetty. Catches the sunlight occasionally.”
Johnson looked, peering closely at the described area for any glint of reflection. Just as he was about to give up and claim that the binoculars weren’t powerful enough as the man’s rifle scope was, he saw it.
A glint of something bright. Small and ever so brief but undeniably there. He saw it again and stifled the gasp he felt coming to his lips.
Spent brass.
The closer he looked now, the clearer it became. There, right there on the docks in front of them, a final stand was made with many men contracting into a small space and firing their guns. The lack of bodies made the outcome sadly obvious to Johnson, who lowered the glasses and sighed.
“Worth tapping the tank?” Bufford asked, eyes fixed on the massive fuel tank sitting on the docks where the small fishing and tourism vessels like their own would fill up with diesel.
“Chances of getting company are pretty high, I’d say,” Daniels added, eyes vacant and distant as he absorbed the fate of his friends and comrades.
“Chances of getting much further on the fuel we’ve got are slim to bugger all, lad,” Johnson added quietly to him. Turning to Jean Pierre, he asked him to back the boat up closer but be ready to open the throttle all the way if he heard the shout.
“Bill, you staying on that gun?” he asked, hearing a viciously gleeful affirmative from the marine sergeant.
“You got eyes-on up top, lads?” Johnson asked of Enfield and Peter. They both answered that they did, and Johnson locked eyes with both Larsen and Bufford, who returned his stare with such solidarity that he began to suspect the bunch of them together could achieve anything.
/> “With me, Corporal Daniels,” he ordered formally, some of the aplomb returning to his tone in some distant echo of a parade ground where it was so gloriously at home.
The rear of the boat bumped along the tyres lashed to the side of the dock, issuing an unavoidable squeaking noise.
“Loud enough to wake the dead,” Johnson muttered, instantly regretting his choice of words as wholly appropriate to their situation. Their escort slipped over the railing first, running to take up positions to defend the fuel runners who followed closely behind them and began fighting with the heavy hose slung by chain loops to a swinging arm that shrieked in protest as it was swung outwards.
Two minutes was all it took to locate the hose correctly and begin cranking the handle to pump gallon after gallon of fuel into the boat before a simply spoken warning chilled them into stillness.
“Contact,” Enfield called out, silencing everything including the birds. Only the sound of the lapping water and whistling wind remained until a chilling noise tore the air.
Three loud, sharp barks echoed down to them as a silhouette emerged over the high ground to their right. Johnson fought to disconnect the hose, splashing oily diesel over his boots in his haste to free them from the umbilical cord connecting them to the island.
“Time to go,” he said, tossing the heavy rubber tubing over the railing and helping Daniels climb back aboard so that he didn’t slip. Bufford and Larsen joined them, and Jean Pierre opened up the throttle to push the boat away from the docks and out into the safety of the deeper water.
“Hold on,” Enfield called out.
“JP,” Johnson said, slashing the fingers of his right hand across his throat to indicate he should cut the power. “What is it?” he called up to his sniper’s nest.
“Ours,” Enfield said with an obvious lump in his throat. “Quite a few of them.”
Johnson turned back to shore to look, squinting into the distance before remembering the binoculars and fumbling for them.
“Jesus,” he spat, recognising far too many faces of the gathering now filling up the docks, even with their pale faces gaunt and sallow around their cloudy eyes. He recognised the remnants of clothing, of uniform, more than he did the changed faces staring back at him.
“Can you handle that?” Johnson asked solemnly.
“I count ten of ours,” Enfield said. “On your word?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Johnson said quietly, “give them some peace.”
He closed his eyes, head turned down to face the deck as shots rang out above him, waiting until the gunfire subsided before calling out to resume their northerly journey.
TWENTY-THREE
“You’re feeling better, Julian?” Oliver Palmer asked, as he groaned his way down into a comfortable chair. His back was sore, his body exhausted and his grip on the cup of coffee was tenuous. He felt twenty years older than he was, which was due to him missing the opportunity to sleep in place of performing duties that he didn’t want to delegate.
“I am, thank you,” his older brother responded, betraying the attempt to lie with a few chesty coughs that got away from him, forcing him to put down his own drink until the bout passed.
“I am,” he tried again, giving a depreciative shrug, “but I suspect I’m not entirely recovered just yet.” He straightened himself in his chair in an attempt to appear more commanding, in spite of how much he was still clearly struggling with the effects of his illness. “I feel it pertinent to ensure the command structure is clear to all until I am declared fit to resume my full duties,” he began formally before his younger brother carefully interrupted him.
“Nonsense, Julian,” he said gently. “Every man here knows what’s required and receiving orders from you or me or Mister Lloyd makes no difference to them.”
“Still, I…” captain Palmer hesitated, unsure what he wanted to say or at least uncertain of how to say it without causing offence.
‘We’ve done our best to keep the wheel on for you,” his younger brother told him, minimising his own performance during the captain’s illness to one of a group effort. “And we shall continue to do so until you inform us otherwise.”
Julian Palmer smiled, fighting another cough that threatened as he knew it would open the floodgates for more to follow until he was left out of breath and weakened again.
“Very good, thank you. Now,” he went on before he was embarrassed by seeing gratitude and humility displayed by his brother, “I’ve had the official brief, but I’d rather like your personal take on matters…”
Oliver Palmer sat back in his chair, leaning surreptitiously left and right to check for others in earshot, before allowing a look of deep concern to shadow his features. He thought for a few moments more before speaking.
“I’m of the opinion that, quite undeniably, the infection reached these islands. I suspect it swept through quickly, given the lack of makeshift barricades and whatnot we’ve seen in other places that held out for longer, and with only a few stragglers shut up indoors as we’ve found, I think the majority of the people were elsewhere or out in the open.”
“That makes sense from what the two Regiment chaps found,” the captain said with a laboured breath. “Imagine being in a town meeting when people turned?”
“But that doesn’t fully explain why they all simply turned their noses toward the rising sun and wandered into the sea, does it?” the lieutenant asked.
“Perhaps their… err, herding instincts are strong enough to cross the gap between here and the mainland?”
“Perhaps, but regardless of whatever wild theories we can dream up, the fact remains that they did simply wander into the sea and they aren’t here any longer. That is the blessing we should consider to be our good fortune.”
Palmer senior nodded sagely; eyes distant as thoughts ran riot in his mind but stayed away from his calm expression.
“Bottom line, Olly,” he asked. “How long can we make it here, do you think?”
“Bottom line? Quite a while, I should say. Assuming no outbreaks or sudden assault by a rotten legion. But that hardly qualifies as a long-term strategy.”
“No, you’re quite right, but what other options do we have?”
Lieutenant Palmer silently pondered the question for a while before speaking as if thinking out loud.
“We’re assuming that a blockade of some kind will be in place preventing us from making our own way to a safe country,” he began.
“Assuming there are any still,” his brother chimed in.
“Assuming that the aircraft our men have seen are operating independently?” Oliver asked in quiet challenge to the pessimism his brother displayed. “It can only be the Americans, so we need to make contact with them and come to some form of arrangement regarding our evacuation.”
“They didn’t respond to our radio calls before, so why should they now?” Julian asked. His brother’s face darkened further, lines appearing on his otherwise blemish-free face.
“Perhaps you could work on that part,” he asked, “while we continue to clear the island and stockpile enough supplies to keep us going?”
The imagery of the docks was seared on Johnson’s mind in such fine detail that he could study the recollection as clearly as if it were a photograph.
Recognising the uniforms of some men forced him to recall the hideous details of their faces, sallow and pale, to try and marry up those images to other memories of his men from the past. He couldn’t, even after an hour spent in quiet solitude which he covered by taking a turn to operate the gun fixed to their rear rail, despite the fact that not even an Echo could work the controls of a boat to give chase over open water.
“That fuel you got won't take us far, I’m afraid,” Bufford said from behind him, making him jump in fright and issue a string of quiet curses.
“Jesus bleedin’ Christ, Buffs! You frightened the bloody life out of me,” Johnson gasped.
“Sorry,” Bufford answered with an involuntary smirk on his face
. “Didn’t realise you were miles away.” Johnson deflated, feeling his heart rate begin to lower from the startled tempo it had adopted.
“We’ll have to pull over then,” Johnson said, looking behind the SBS man to see Kimberley approaching.
“Next services?” she asked with a smile, tottering over the wet deck stand beside Johnson.
“Is it the one with the Happy Eater?” Bufford asked her, deadly serious.
“That’s the one. With the slide shaped like an elephant.”
Johnson smiled. Small moments of levity, or normality, seemed to make the world turn. Somehow, the final realisation that their country was lost, that their people and everything there was to be abandoned for good, hadn’t quite sunk in until seeing the twisted mutations of his men on Skye.
So bleak was his outlook that the very thought of attempting to cross what he estimated was well over five hundred miles of inhospitable North Atlantic Ocean in a fishing boat was so much of a stretch that he could feel his will being sapped from him.
He couldn’t fathom how stupid he’d been. How naïve he was to believe things would get better, that the whole mess would just blow over while he sat and enjoyed a nice, cold pint. He felt anger at himself for keeping so many people together like an enormous buffet spread, when he should have been doing everything within his power to get them off the island.
To hell with orders, he should’ve said at the very beginning. They should all have evacuated west at the first opportunity instead of waiting for hell to freeze over.
Well, hell had frozen over, then it had thawed and if they weren’t careful, they’d be staring down the barrel of that unfortunate cycle all over again.
He thought back on his quiet discussion with the American operators, feeling the guilt and shame from the man that he could do nothing to assist other than to give the glimmer of hope for their escape, along with all of the spare ammunition he and his men could afford.
Beside him, Kimberley said nothing, she simply looped her arm through his and leaned her body against him, which somehow slowed the feeling of his resolve and warmth leaking from him.
Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 118
