He said nothing, instead ripping open the packet to lay it flat and allow the dog to inspect the residue in its own time. Reaching out a hand to stroke the dog’s head, he recoiled instantly as it snapped its hard mouth at his fingers in disgust at his attempt to show affection. She made it clear that she had no interest in his attentions.
Moving on to another bag to select a chocolate bar, he settled on a Spira and peeled open the wrapper to remove one of the twisted tubes of chocolate, and enjoyed them both, one after the other. His stomach, unused to the richness of the high-sugar snacks, turned on him quickly and made him feel sick. He slowly closed up the bag and rose to reluctantly return to the farm, just as a noise rolled over the gently undulating countryside to fight through to his senses.
The cattle were bellowing again, all of them in pain with full udders which they could only associate with their twice-daily milking sessions that came with easily obtained food. Peter was powerless to help even one of them, let alone the whole herd. Somehow the noise made him fearful, made him feel an urgent need to seek the dubious safety of his house and bedroom. Starting off at a fast walk back towards the cluster of buildings, he heard another sound.
It was distant, but very distinctive. It was, unmistakably, his mother screaming in fear and pain.
Just as Peter had predicted, she had drunk at a fast rate, along with her incessant smoking. Within an hour of returning home from the stressful journey of necessity, her hands had stopped shaking and the sharp, stabbing pains in her head had abated. With the disappearance of those physical symptoms, so did other indicating factors of her severe alcoholism dissipate. Her watery peripheral vision had come back into focus, and the ability to concentrate had hazily returned to her, only to be lost once again as the steady intake of more alcohol robbed her of various faculties.
She had drunk so much in such a short space of time that the effects caught up with her rapidly, and when the last cigarette of her second packet burned down to scorch her fingers, she swore out loud. As she swore, she dropped the cigarette, and her inevitable flinch at doing so knocked over the bottle to spill the contents and make her swear even more loudly and savagely. The resulting coughing fit made her lose bladder control momentarily, and that was when she made her way, awkwardly and desperately, to the downstairs toilet where, on her return journey, in eagerness to return to her rum and cigarettes, she saw the three people trying to get through her front gate.
Setting her face and trying to raise herself to a more dominant height, which was difficult for her at a shade under five feet two, she snatched open the front door and let rip with a string of aggressive demands, wanting to know just who the bloody hell they were and what the bloody hell they wanted.
The three bumbling, uncoordinated bodies stopped and turned towards her. Six milky, near-sightless eyes fixed on the blurry shape that had made the noises, and they locked in their other senses. As one, the three of them took long, exaggerated breaths in through their noses, then seemed to stare straight through her and let out three hissing moans of pure, lustful hatred.
Abandoning her designs on any confrontation, she stepped smartly back inside and shut the flimsy glass and wood door to create a barrier between her and the monstrosities clawing at her front garden fence. Now that her mind was a little more focused, and now that the sobering effect of fear had made her senses that little bit more accurate, she noticed that there were things about these people that were not quite right.
The one at the front, not that she would recognise him as the man who had personally sold her thousands of cigarettes from the shop which she had so recently looted, had a badly broken arm and his right shoulder slumped at an unnatural angle. She couldn’t make out any clear details on the other two, but she guessed that they too must have the same spotted and mottled skin that reminded her of the pallor she had seen on the very old.
And the recently deceased.
The one at the front, thrashing now in what seemed like an increasingly angry and agitated state, was frothing at the mouth and she heard the sickening snap, snap, snap of his teeth as the lower jaw cracked up on the top row noisily. Deciding very quickly that she wanted none of that nonsense, she stepped backwards again to regain the house proper, and closed the front door to the porch to obscure the intruders, now with the added protection of the wavy glass. Perhaps distortion and protection were interchangeable in her drunken, fearful state. For added measure, she pulled the curtain across and went back into the lounge to do the same and to retrieve her most important possessions. As she lit a cigarette and reached for the glass containing a precious gulp, a splintering, crashing noise rippled outside, making her snatch back the curtain to see that the fence had not held against the combined weight of the three people.
Suddenly worried, as though her brain had finally caught up with the wave of reality washing over their home, she remembered that she was supposed to be responsible for more than just one person.
“Peter,” she gasped to herself, then turned her face up towards the ceiling and bawled his name. When no answer came from inside, and she heard only the rise in intensity of the hissing and moaning as the first of six hands banged onto the single pane glass of the lounge window, her face contorted in rage. She stomped off to climb the stairs, only to find her son, her only remaining child, the last person in her family to have still been with her, was gone.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to punish him herself, or whether she actually had any sense of parental care for her own offspring, but either way, she burst from the back door in a fearful rage, and she propelled herself forcefully across the rear lawn towards the gap in the trees where she knew he always slipped through. Stopping in her tracks, she remembered too late the shotgun that her husband had left behind when he had insisted on his fool’s errand, and she turned on her heel to fetch it. No sooner had she reached the rear patio than the hissing sound reached her ears again and pulled her gaze sideways to unveil the three people rolling inexorably around the building line and making straight towards her.
As drunk and as useless as she was, there was no escaping that part of her brain that had evolved beyond her cognitive control. She assessed the threat, turned and fled before she had drawn a breath or even begun to compute what was happening. Her right hand shot out as she ran and clasped the wooden handle of the nearest thing she could use as a weapon, before she jumped up a small flight of three stone steps and rounded on the leader, yelling triumphantly before thrusting the four tines of the pitchfork into his chest as far as they could go.
The savage, animalistic look of dominance and exultation melted from her face as she finally understood that her fatal blow had not been fatal at all. In desperate panic, she withdrew the weapon and buried it into his chest once again, this time feeling the scraping resistance of bone and sinew but skewering him just as effectively. Still, he did not react, did not fall down or cry out and, most worryingly, he did not die.
That last realisation gave her another burst of adrenaline, almost as much as her sedentary body could handle, and she pushed hard onto the tool to force the three bodies backwards down the steps in a pile of reaching, mottled-skin limbs. The smaller one at the back, a woman whose dirty neck and face Peter’s mother noted surreally, fell awkwardly, and the sharp corner of a stone ornament crushed the base of her skull just above her filthy neck. The other two, however, as ungainly as they were, struggled to their feet to further induce horror in the woman who now stared up at them in wide-eyed terror.
As one, the two remaining men fell on her, just as she skipped smartly backwards and raised the pitchfork again. The momentum of her attackers, mixed with a healthy dose of good luck, forced the pitchfork upwards where one of the tines found less resistance in the right eye socket of the fatter one who had regained his feet first. As a result, his now inanimate body slumped backwards to pin the man with the broken arm and keep it trapped through a simple weight advantage.
Just as she fell to her knees and e
rupted in fits of hysterical sobbing, the broken arm shot out and dragged her forwards by her clothing. Feeling her uncontrolled fall towards the feverishly gnashing teeth and wild, dead eyes locked onto her, she screamed fit to wake the dead.
ELEVEN
Johnson’s Yeomanry squadron rolled out their first troop, assault troop, inside of thirty minutes from when his orders were given. They were the only troop not to have been given logistics duties and were left fully manned with their four Spartan tracked combat reconnaissance vehicles brimming with men and weapons. They were basically a small, light and lightly armoured tank designed to move the troopers into harm’s way in relative safety.
They reported back within two hours that they had arrived at the base unhindered, and they were currently convincing the Royal Military Police guard left in situ that they were under orders to occupy the camp.
“They’re asking to speak to our squadron OC,” Sergeant Maxwell reported via radio, an air of expectant hope in the statement. Luckily for Johnson, Second Lieutenant Palmer was within earshot of this exchange and cleared his throat.
“I’m sure you have more important things to be doing, SSM,” he drawled, “perhaps you’d like me to smooth this one out?”
The way his aristocratic boarding school had taught elocution made his pronunciation of the last work crinkle up and down Johnson’s spine like an electrical current, but he nodded his gracious assent for the young officer to try.
Do something useful for a change, he thought to himself harshly, or at least try.
Turning away, he heard the accent dialled even higher up the line of ascension to the throne as Palmer demanded the name and rank of the RMP in charge of the tiny garrison troops. Johnson left the room and the berating voice behind as he stepped back out into the large drill hall to see an impossible scene of mass organised chaos.
“Sergeant Croft!” he snapped loudly, looking to locate the man now wearing two hats, as so many of them were, because he was now nominally in charge of both the headquarters troop and the administration troop. A lot of the admin troop had been sequestered by the second highest ranking NCO in the squadron, Rochefort, who was affectionately known amongst the men as The Frog. The distinction being ‘known as’ and not ‘called’.
Similarly, much of the HQ troop business was now being run by Croft’s senior Corporal, a man who was naturally being developed to take Croft’s place if, and when he left the troop.
Rochefort and Croft were standing only a few feet away from him, and both stepped to his side.
“Where are we with the Bedfords?” he asked the men.
“We have ten fully fuelled and being loaded,” Rochefort answered, “there’s less ammo here than at the camp, as you’d expect, but I think we’ll have it all loaded within the hour.”
“Drivers?” Johnson enquired, switching his gaze to Croft.
“All sorted,” he said as he glanced down at the clipboard in his hand, which seemed to bear no information relevant to either the question or the answer. “Most of the trucks will have an additional man on board for protection too.”
“Does that leave the Foxes short?” Johnson asked.
“Well, yes, but if we are just going…” Croft’s answer trailed away under Johnson’s implacable gaze.
“Perhaps we should put those men allocated to defensive duties back into the armoured cars,” Johnson said amiably. “Who knows? Perhaps if we do need to defend, then maybe having a gunner on a 30mm cannon would be more effective than a single trooper with a rifle. What do you think?”
The tone of voice, although conversational, told Croft precisely what he needed to do and quickly.
“Right,” Johnson said changing the subject, “have all the troops made a phone call yet?”
“They’ve been instructed to, as ordered,” Croft answered, a slight look of disapproval flashing across his face, which was rapidly brought under control. Johnson saw it, but also saw the man’s eyes dart to Rochefort’s and saw the slightest shake of the quartermaster’s head.
“Carry on, then,” he told them as he strode away, only to have Lieutenant Palmer fall in beside him. Stifling his repulsion of the boy, he forced himself to be cordial.
“Everything straightened out at the base now, Sir?”
“All ship-shape now, Mister Johnson,” he replied with a shovelful of upper-class glee, as though berating the lower ranks had restored his faith in the propriety of the world. “Their senior man is a Sergeant, but that’s not what I need to talk to you about…” his lowered tone and lack of gusto grabbed Johnson’s attention, and he stopped to look at the officer.
“They sent out a force of thirty,” he said in a conspiratorial voice, “last night. They intended to recce the routes to the main roads, look to establish observation posts and the like, but none of them returned. Got the chaps left behind feeling a little jumpy, I think.”
Johnson’s eyes went slightly wider, then narrowed.
“And they didn’t make radio contact? Didn’t go after them?” he asked pointedly.
“It seems not,” Palmer told him, glancing left and right to ensure his words weren’t overheard by a passing trooper, “there’s barely enough of them to man the gate and conduct perimeter patrols.”
Johnson nodded his thanks once and strode away, back to the room he had come from shortly before.
“Corporal Daniels,” he snapped as he walked in, seeing that Mander was already engaged in conversation with an earphone clasped to the left side of his head, “get me assault troop if you will.”
Seconds later, following the brief hail and response ritual, assault troop’s temporary commander, Sergeant Maxwell, spoke to him.
“Foxtrot-Fiver-Zero-Alpha here, go ahead,” Maxwell said,
“It’s Foxtrot-Three-Three-Alpha,” Johnson said, giving the callsign that identified himself. “I need you to debrief the senior RMP on site and send two Spartans back out to follow the route they give you for the rest of their unit. Report back to me directly when you have something.” With that, he stepped away from the controls and walked out, shouting aggressive encouragement for the men to move their arses if they wanted to see their next birthdays.
The rest of the squadron assembled in convoy a little under an hour later under the watchful eye of Squadron Sergeant Major Johnson. The SSM was now adorned with full battle gear and wearing webbing stocked with full magazines for the Sterling submachine gun he hefted, its folding stock locked in the forward position to reduce the size and bulk of the weapon. He looked pointedly at his watch to convey that they were all running the risk of personally disappointing him.
Allowing One Troop to take the lead, he followed in the first of the two Sultan command vehicles behind them which acted as their mobile headquarters. In turn, behind them snaked nine fully-loaded green Bedford trucks which, combined with the light armour ahead of them and the remaining two troops of Fox APCs behind, made a cacophonous noise of loud diesel engines.
Nodding towards Daniels, who was operating the vehicle in his APC, the radio operator spoke the words of command which set them off on their loud, slow journey towards an area they were to defend and consolidate.
Home soil or not, they were going to war.
“Hello, Foxtrot-Three-Three-Alpha, this is Foxtrot-Five-Zero,” came Maxwell’s voice from the radio again.
Making eye contact with Daniels, Johnson nodded and pressed the button to answer on his headset with attached boom microphone.
“We’ve located what we believe was the RMP unit, or at least their transport. Over.”
“Go on. Over,” Johnson said, fearing that the next update might become even less comfortable.
“Sir, we can see signs of a contact; spent casings and some blood, and their Land Rovers are in the ditch. Over,” Maxwell said in a flat tone.
Johnson knew Maxwell to be a trustworthy man who had never failed to control his nerves. He led from the front, and this fostered the respect from his men to follow him, as much as
it eliminated any need for them to fear him. Now, however, he was clearly unhappy.
“Extend a search pattern for two hundred metres, then report back to base. Out,” Johnson told him.
Have a look around, then fuck off out of there, he thought to himself before crinkling his brow in confusion. Crashed Land Rovers? Spent casings? How had they driven their vehicles off the road and exchanged fire, evidently taking casualties in the process, and not made it back or called for assistance?
Shaking those thoughts off, Johnson kept his eyes on the limited view forward as his tracked vehicle screeched and ground its way forward in convoy. Twenty minutes later, Maxwell called him up again to report that no casualties or survivors could be found within the radius given, and that ammunition and supplies had been abandoned. Thinking for a second and deciding that the Land Rovers were less useful, given that there were many more available, and that he had far better equipped armoured vehicles on site, he ordered half of his assault troop to retrieve the arms and equipment and return to base for their arrival.
That arrival happened after another hour, as the long, snaking convoy rolled through the gates where Maxwell had arrayed his four Spartan APCs. These were lighter, faster tracked vehicles than his own ride, or the far more heavily equipped Fox cars which comprised the majority of their fighting force. Maxwell had his APCs in formation facing the main gate where their belt-fed 7.62 General Purpose Machine Guns, GPMGs or Gympies, could be brought to bear in overlapping arcs of fire. Johnson had the driver of his Sultan pull in just behind his assault troop, and climbed out and down as he watched the remainder of the convoy roll in. He trusted that Rochefort and Croft would organise that side of things efficiently, allocating the men barracks and finding appropriate space for stores, at the same time as setting up a command post and organising the four troops to rotate on sentry duty.
As much as it pained him to leave the details of his squadron to other people, he forced himself to act as the commander and trust the other NCOs to do what needed to be done. Walking towards the RMP sergeant, he saw the man snap to attention.
Death Tide Page 8
