Death Tide

by Devon C. Ford

  Those tank crews singled themselves out, refusing to mix with the reservists and billeting themselves separately, despite the efficient Sergeant Croft, who ran the administrative troop, providing them with barracks space in a building closer to their posts. Rumour was rife among the Yeomanry that they’d even been heard referring to them as toy soldiers, although the Squadron Sergeant Major had yet to hear that himself. They ignored overtures from the reservists who approached them, flatly refused to allow them inside their big Chieftain tanks, and generally behaved in such a way that a wall had been erected between men with everything in common but for the one thing that a few of them thought important.

  That tension snapped inside of two weeks, when a soldier from a Sabre troop who drove one of the Fox wagons, threw a punch at the gunner of Horton’s tank. The punch barely connected, but it served to erupt into a ten-man brawl which required the intervention of the Squadron Sergeant Major to halt the proceedings.

  “What in the name of Christ is going on here?” SSM Dean Johnson’s voice boomed out inside the pub and silenced the building, along with the surrounding streets. Men froze, bloodied knuckles on taught fists stopping in mid-air. Johnson’s eye glowered as he scanned the rom, fixing each man with a direct look until he found the two who would not meet his gaze.

  “Nevin,” he said in an acidic growl, “and you,” he added as he pointed at the gunner on Horton’s crew, “outside. The rest of you wastes of good oxygen, clean this place up. I want it gleaming.”

  With that, he turned and walked out of the heavy wood and glass doors without even a backward glance to see if the two men he had singled out were following. He knew they would, or else whatever punishment they hoped to avoid would triple in intensity, if the SSM had more time to dream up something elaborate. Turning, he saw the two battered men marching towards him and both stamped to attention in unison, as though crisp drill would lessen the consequences of their actions. The two men, Nevin and a short-legged bull of a Lance Corporal named Millward, both wore blank expressions, but Johnson knew that both would be wondering how he knew that they were responsible for starting the fight.

  In truth, the SSM had been fetched from the nearby hall that had been adopted as the temporary head of operations for the island’s forces, and that man had quietly whispered the names of the guilty parties.

  But then again, a Sergeant Major would not reveal that he did not have the power to read the minds of his subordinates.

  “You pair of stupid,” he began slowly in a low voice, “dim-witted, bloody imbeciles,” he paused to look at them in turn before continuing in a voice that grew in both volume and intensity, “you fucking moronic, useless flaps of gristle can both consider yourselves on a charge.” He turned to Millward, not fully confident that ripping a man a new arsehole under a Captain’s command and not his own would be viewed kindly.

  “Confine yourselves to barracks when you are not under orders and I will deal with you another time,” he ordered him. The man half-turned to his right, stamped his boot loudly and marched away, demonstrating parade-ground drill precision. Johnson turned back to his own man, who shrank slightly.

  “Trooper Nevin,” Johnson said in a voice scarce above a whisper, “I can only assume, having never met the man, that your father wished you had been a wank. You, trooper Nevin, are a five-foot-six walking advert for condoms!”

  Nevin said nothing, but swallowed nervously. The insults had been designed to prompt a laugh from him, daring him to smirk when lined up in the SSM’s sights, but the man clearly had some love for life left in him, so he kept very quiet.

  “Stand at ease,” he told him, seeing the man relax, “you are also confined to barracks until such time as I decide exactly how angry I am with you; because at the moment it would be inhumane to do half of what I’m thinking.” He stepped back and drew himself up formally.

  “Detail,” he snapped, prompting the ingrained habit of any soldier to tense in anticipation of the next order, “atteeeeenSHUN!” Johnson ordered. Just as Nevin’s right leg rose to a ninety-degree angle and stopped to stamp back down to the street, Johnson’s large right fist shot out and upwards, burying itself deep in Nevin’s diaphragm and doubling him over to leave him gasping on the ground to draw in enough breath to vomit the single pint of bitter he had been permitted.

  “Dismissed,” Johnson said casually as he walked back towards the command post.

  From the shadows a short distance away, two marines with an intrinsic understanding of one another smiled as they watched the trooper writhing about in pain. They were a pair, a duo, inseparable since they had joined on the same intake to undergo one of the hardest military selection processes imaginable, and their bond of friendship had grown even more unbreakable when they had attended the marksman training course where the shooter and his spotter were hardened into a devilishly sharp weapon to be used against the enemies of Her Majesty.

  “Permission to engage the Lima?” asked Leigh into the radio, then waited as he listened to the response, before slowly moving the strong binoculars back up to his eyes.

  “All yours,” he said quietly to his shooter, who lay just ahead of him and to his left, “fire when rea…”

  A booming report erupted from just ahead of him, making him reacquire the Lima in his binoculars in time to see it lie flat on its back. It was all but headless. Taking his eyes away, he saw the slow and controlled movements of Enfield as his right hand carefully lifted and drew back the bolt of the rifle to eject the spent brass and collect it smoothly with his index and middle fingers. Racking the bolt quickly would eject the casing to spin it out away from the breech to twinkle in the light, and that might reveal their position to an enemy sniper or, more appropriately in their current setting, attract the attention of a hungry walking corpse. The sniper’s natural inclination towards silence and invisibility was a skill that couldn’t be taught, but it could be honed.

  “Lima rendered safe,” Leigh reported emotionlessly over the radio.

  Enfield slipped the empty casing into a pouch on his webbing, flicked the safety catch on his big rifle and offered his opinion on what they should do next.

  “Time to move,” he said, “before any of the fuckers decide to investigate where that came from.”

  TWO

  In the few weeks since the bizarre battle of the bridge, where the tanks had advanced into the boiling mass of bodies to crush a wide swathe flat and render them safe, an air of something resembling business as usual had descended over the island. ‘Rendering them safe’ had become the adopted terminology, as it was technically inaccurate to report that they had killed them, or killed them again, and it helped them come to terms with what they had to do on an almost daily basis.

  As inhuman and inhumane as the Screechers were, they had still been innocent people once. Looking down the barrel of a gun at one revealed the close-up secrets that a person chose not to see when fear gripped them, and those details showed their clothes and gave hints of their former lives. The shorter ones especially had to be de-humanised in the minds of the living, as to acknowledge what they were would be to accept the killing of a child. An innocent child. That was one of the reasons the terminology was first coined and why people had taken to it so easily. Nobody wanted to report that they had killed a child but reporting that they had rendered them safe sounded like the mercy it truly was.

  The battle of the bridge had seen the unexpected arrival of the helicopters and the jaw-dropping display they had treated everyone to. This was coupled with the most bizarre antics of the crew chief of one of the aircraft, who had rigged a massive speaker from their mess to work as a noise lure, as if the spinning blades and screaming whine of the engines wouldn’t be enough. The amazing appearance of the helicopters that day had become a daily reminder that the people and forces of Britain were scattered and forced to come together in unprecedented ways.

  The story of the navy crewman’s solo air guitar concert had spread fast, gaining extra kudos an
d growing in audacity with each telling, and his mass ‘rendering safe’ was already legendary in a war that was only a few weeks old. Rumour spread that the crewman, Chief Petty Officer Gary Brinklow, was leading the scoreboard by a clear mile.

  When that rumour reached the SSM, he made it well known that his personal opinion on the theory of troops keeping a score of how many Screechers they had killed was a very poor one, and that if such behaviour were to be taking place, he would happily discuss it with any man in private. When that rumour went around the island, faster than the story of the air-guitarist, mentions of scoreboards vanished instantly.

  The island itself was already inhabited, albeit at less than half the population of its usual full capacity, because many people had simply upped and driven away as soon as the news of London’s fall had gone public. The occupants, both original and refugee, now faced that difficult transitional period when civilian areas found themselves occupied by troops on active service.

  The problems facing any garrisoned troops had only slightly varied since the invention of troops themselves. When you take a trained man full of vigour and tell him that he has to sit still and wait to go to war, then the energy stored in that man leaks out like a compressed gas. Add to this already toxic mix the presence of alcohol and females, and it was like looking down a barrel to see if a gun was loaded. For that reason, Sergeant Swift of the Royal Military Police and his men had been asked to take up one of their original roles and patrol the island in order to ensure no offence was offered to the residents. Johnson, with the approval of Captain Palmer, the necessity of reporting to whom was becoming familiar, had issued the standing order that no man was to consume more than a single pint, lest anyone find themselves unable to defend the population from the enemy through drink. A single pint wouldn’t touch the sides of most of the men, but it assured that even the lightest of lightweights wouldn’t find themselves incapable of performing their designated role. Each troop sergeant had responsibility for ensuring that he knew where his men were at all times, which made their already difficult lives less enjoyable. The majority of the men had got word to their families when they were first activated, and in addition to the now roughly one hundred and sixty fighting men they now had, they had more than that number in civilians who had either made their way to the camp or had been rescued. The camp, as well-stocked and equipped as it was, was protected only by a tall chain-link fence that Johnson feared could too easily be overrun. That was why he’d ordered the entire squadron and their civilian guests to move for the protected spit of land, and he never second-guessed that decision as the swarm that had come for them would have poured over those fences like water.

  Dealing with the internal issues was more complicated than the external. The men with the most engineering knowledge, coupled with a few men living on the island, had been tasked to clean up the hatchet job they had done on the bridge parapet, using the only tool they had at their immediate disposal; the 30mm cannons on their Fox scout vehicles.

  Now, using more appropriate tools for the task, the parapets were removed from the first three-quarters of the bridge and work was well underway to build a sloping choke point that could be blocked with the slab-sided back end of one of their Chieftain tanks. One of those tanks, commanded by Captain Palmer, was equipped with the heavy plow blade on the front edge, which was there in anticipation of having to move obstacles to the advance of vehicles, such as crashed cars as well as deliberate barricades. That plow was set to work in a very different way now, scraping the flattened and ruined bodies of so many dead off the roadway. With no way to safely dispose of them, and not wanting to risk burning those bodies for fear of attracting more Screechers, they were pushed into whatever hollow dips of ground could be seen, until earth-moving equipment was brought from nearby. A tired looking JCB, ancient but still as mechanically effective as the day it rolled off the production line with bright yellow paint, made short work of the task, but still, when the wind blew occasionally from the inland direction instead of from the sea, it brought with it a very unwelcome smell of death and decay.

  The tank blocking the causeway entrance to the island could be driven forwards and the road opened for vehicles to roll out, but it meant that at least one tank had to remain in situ at all times.

  “Can’t see that as a problem,” Captain Palmer said to Johnson cheerfully, “not much call for heavy armour and the big cannons at the moment, eh?”

  “No, Sir,” Johnson said woodenly, fearing that he would lose direct control of the next mission, as the Captain would insist on leading from the front if not confined to the slower tank.

  “I’m well aware that you are capable of leading the men, SSM,” Palmer said more kindly, as he intuited the reason for Johnson’s bland response, “but the higher powers will probably insist that I take the lead whenever we conduct a mission.”

  Johnson knew he was right, he knew that the joint forces command operating out of a vast warship wouldn’t allow a reservist warrant officer to bear the burden of command now that the army had regained a semblance of control over the resources they had managed to cobble together, but it still stung him to have to go back to administrative duties when he had been at the tip of the spear. He had expected to have been pushed even further down the food chain and thought that more helicopters would come to deposit officers to run things, and more regular troops to take control of his squadron.

  That didn’t happen, and after two days of waiting for orders they were told to wait some more, and grudgingly passed off with the standing order to ‘consolidate and resupply at your discretion’.

  Captain Palmer, along with Squadron Sergeant Major Johnson, decided that this meant they were to conduct daily patrols, retrieve supplies and ammunition at every opportunity, as well as actively search for survivors.

  Which was precisely the reason why they were planning, with the Royal Navy pilots and the Marine Lieutenant and his sergeant, the best way to get troops back to the base they had abandoned and bring back a few Saxon personnel carriers for the Marines to have road transport that was bite-proof.

  “Air insertion,” said one of the pilots, a man junior to the main ‘stick’, Lieutenant Commander Barrett, “it’s the quickest way.”

  “It may be the quickest, Lieutenant,” said Lieutenant of Marines Chris Lloyd, “but the risk to my marines from the noise that would make is unacceptable.”

  The two men glared at each other, which Johnson saw, and he sighed internally. If anything, he expected the confrontations to be between his troopers and the Royal Marines. However, apart from the small fracas between two soldiers who should have known better, the main rub was between the three out of four arms of the British military present.

  It was the pecking order, as confusing as it was, that was causing the problem.

  Marine Lieutenant Lloyd was junior to the Royal Navy Lieutenant James Morris, who in equivalent Marines or Army rank would be a Captain. Captain Palmer found himself technically senior to both co-pilots and all army and marine personnel. However, he was also technically junior to both primary pilots, with their Lieutenant-Commander ranks making them the equivalents of Majors.

  Had that rub extended into the non-commissioned ranks, the senior Navy airman would be junior to Johnson, equivalent to his Quartermaster Sergeant Andy Rochefort, but senior to all the troop sergeants and the marines NCO.

  When trying to explain, it really messed a person’s head up. The simplest way was to assemble the senior officers of all factions and hash out a plan that everyone agreed on. That agreement was proving difficult to find, as the balance of risk was always against the men actually on the ground.

  “If I may, gentlemen?” Captain Palmer interjected gently in his velvety voice that seemed to be either a family birthright or a hard-earned skill. His brother had yet to master that skill, as his own attempt sounded infinitely more nasal.

  “I agree entirely that any risk to the men on the ground is unacceptable,” he paused to smile
almost apologetically at his peer, Lieutenant Morris, “so I would suggest a quieter approach. Our aim is to bring men to the camp, secure a few vehicles and return here unmolested.” He scanned the room, silently offering anyone a chance to add anything of relevance. “And we agree that large numbers of fighting vehicles attract just as much attention as the aircraft at our disposal. The problem with using the armoured vehicles is that there is insufficient passenger capacity to transport your fellows,” he said with an almost regal gesture towards Lieutenant Lloyd, “so I propose that we send a pair of the Bedford trucks loaded with personnel to bring back the things we need. With the Bedfords, we can also take full advantage of being on-site to acquire additional ammunition.”

  He smiled in a self-effacing manner designed to indicate humility and allow the confidence of his suggestion to be taken without any sense of domineering arrogance. It worked.

  “And this additional ammunition?” asked Lieutenant-Commander Murray, “Will two trucks be sufficient to carry everything back? If your chaps are already clear of the area, we can drop in to take another five tonnes if needed.”

  The implied fact that taking just some of the ammunition would be foolish meant that if they were raiding the ammunition dumps, they would remove the lot. Palmer, appearing for all the world to have not considered what his esteemed colleagues from the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm could offer in addition to his plan, beamed at him.

  “Outstanding!” he said as he turned to the SSM and addressed him prestigiously in front of the other officers, as his rank allowed, “Mister Johnson, do you foresee any issues with that?”

  “Not at all, Sir,” he said as he dropped into the rehearsed routine easily and pretended not to have planned for this with Palmer before the meeting, “it would mean a couple of our lot staying on the ground to organise the loading, say four men and two tonnes each? We could get that loaded and be out of there in no time, and there would be no risk to the marines as they’d be safely away by then.”