“And where’s that?” Bufford asked.
“Bad news, it’s about twenty miles off course,” Johnson answered, “we’re at least twelve as the crow flies from the camp, and overland at night gives us no chance of making it today.”
“Comms?” Bufford asked.
In answer Johnson turned to look at the helicopter which now burned against the church to light the area. The three of them paused in silence for a moment, then as though some silent signal had been received in all of their brains at once, they adjusted their equipment and readied themselves for a long, tense walk. Bufford bent and picked up the woman to cradle her in his arms and the rest of the weapons were doled out, with the foreign female holding out one of the suppressed weapons to Johnson. He took it, but her grip on the weapon didn’t release.
“It belonged to my friend,” was all she said, then turned away to take her place in the slow-moving line of people.
Chapter 17
Daybreak saw Captain Palmer with red-rimmed eyes still looking up at the skies in the forlorn hope that a helicopter would magically appear and solve all of his worries.
The butcher’s bill he had asked for had resulted in a total of a little over forty men remaining and as many civilians. They had rescued marines and troopers alike, but as yet, none of the men with scarlet berets had been accounted for. Hearing the piecemeal accounts of the battle on the island made him realise that the fiercest fight would have been at the low ground where all of the Royal Military Police had been posted. The most interesting of those accounts came from the Royal Marine Lieutenant who had given his report in a flat monotone with distant eyes.
He had said how his collection of men had been losing the battle for the beachhead, and when he’d realised that there were infected running around in the rear, he’d abandoned the fight to make it uphill and collected people wherever they could. The way he described his loose formation made Palmer think of older battles where infantry found themselves caught in the open by cavalry, and they contracted to form a rally square and defend themselves against the men on horseback who could cut down a fleeing man with laughable ease. That loose formation, horribly clear in the captain’s mind, crab-crawled its way up the steep cobbles, until Lloyd joined the defence of the helicopter landing with the captain’s younger brother. Palmer wanted to ask how the Second-Lieutenant had performed, had wanted some reassurance that he shouldn’t be ashamed of how much the men disliked him, and that, when the chips were down, he had stepped up to the mark and become a leader.
He was too polite to ask outright, so waited for mention of him in Lloyd’s report. The marine had said how he had joined the defence, not assumed command of it, and that reassured him
somewhat that the family name wasn’t tainted with a useless soldier.
The stories of that defence came from different sources, all of which spoke of desperation and the relief that came with the arrival of the big Sergeant Major, who laid down a thunderous fire from the weapon he had been handed just before he took off. The scramble of the civilians to get away, the arrival of the ebullient, if not questionably senile Colonel Tim, who recreated the tales of how he had slain the enemy with his family’s claymore, utterly failing to understand that the enemy of which he spoke had been former friends and comrades of those he recited his heroic deeds to. As always, the two privates charged with his protection and general babysitting stood behind him, wearing blank expressions of apology for what they were hearing.
Sometime in the night, long after the runner he had released to his other duties had returned to say that, try as they might, the other helicopter crew simply was not responding to any of their hails. After that, Palmer had turned to more practical matters and focused on organising food, water and transport for the survivors and turned his mind towards the immediate matters.
“Sergeant Maxwell?” he called as he walked towards the huddle of men planning around a map.
“Sir,” the sergeant said as he stood.
“A word, if you please, Sergeant,” Palmer said, retreating a few steps back from the others.
“Mister Johnson hasn’t returned, as I’m sure you are aware,” he said in a soft voice.
“No, Sir,” Maxwell replied, in a voice laced with anger and regret.
“You will assume his duties for now as senior NCO,” Palmer told him, “I’ve discussed the matter with Lieutenant Lloyd and he is in agreement that we form the men differently. We don’t have the numbers to operate as an armoured unit, nor do we have the
machinery or firepower.”
“About that, Sir,” Maxwell said, his face showing no excitement or pride at his field promotion, as he genuinely felt no excitement or pride in having to replace a man he respected, “I think it’s possible to get through the camp to fetch more wagons and ammo for them.”
“Do tell,” Palmer prompted him.
“See, Sir,” Maxwell explained, “we’ve landed in the opposite side to where we started, before you joined us I mean, and we could cross the training grounds in the middle to get to the other entrance. We can pick up more wagons there, hopefully fuel them and come out to where the ammo dump is. We can meet up at the place the others have found then.”
Palmer paused to think about it for a moment, one finger tapping at his lips.
“Very well,” he finally agreed, “but not you. Sergeant Sinclair can take a dozen men, and make sure that chap who Mister Johnson had a dislike for is attached. Unless you think that’s unwise?”
“Nevin, Sir? I’ll make sure he’s on that, don’t you worry,” Maxwell assured him, taking to his senior NCO role naturally, “I’ll see to it. When do you want to move out?”
“As soon as possible, I’d say,” Palmer told him, “get these civilians somewhere that they can get some proper rest and something to eat. Speaking of that, the rations?”
“Plenty of rat-packs, Captain. Reckon we will probably need two trips to get people and supplies sorted,” he explained, cursing the unusual lack of large transport trucks found by the dozen in such camps, “but I dare say the helicopter can take a good few of the people or supplies.”
Palmer thought again, tapping his lip with the tip of his forefinger once more before he turned and called the marine Lieutenant over. Lloyd joined them at a jog, despite being only a
half-dozen paces away.
“All civilians, equipment and rations to be loaded on board the available transports and the helicopter. Discuss with Lieutenant Commander Barrett which he believes is best to go on board their aircraft; heavy rations or people,” he said to Lloyd before turning back to Maxwell. “Get Sinclair to pick his men, make sure Trooper Nevin is included, and discuss your plan with him before bringing it to me.”
Both men accepted their orders and went about it as Palmer walked away preparing to smooth their resident senior officer into condoning their plans. Finding the man with his feet up and a tin mug of something hot nestled in his hands, he switched on every drop of aristocratic charm and made his approach.
“Colonel,” he greeted the man warmly, “I trust you are well?”
“Captain…?” the colonel said as he made a silent gesture of snapping his fingers before his face.
“Palmer, Sir,” Palmer said with a hint of a bow in defence to the man. The gesture pleased the colonel, evidently, as he slapped his thigh.
“Palmer, yes, yes, of course. Sit down, man. You must be positively exhausted,” he finished, leaving Palmer unsure as to whether it was a question or a statement, so pitching his response at an equably ambiguous level.
“Quite,” he said with all the upper-class mannerism he could affect, “the thing is, Sir, I’ve rather got my hands full with the more mundane matters and we could do with you taking the lead on something, if I could be so bold as to impose?”
“Tell me, Captain,” the colonel said as he leaned forward in his chair and lowered one arthritic leg to the ground at a time, “supply raid? Attack on an enemy stronghold? Speak, man!”
“Nothing quite so strenuous, I’m afraid,” Palmer responded with a winning smile and a chuckle, “it’s more that I need someone to spearhead our move to the other location; somewhere
far better suited to our style, I might add,” he finished with a rueful look.
“I’m your man, Captain,” he said as he stood and rubbed his hands together, “and Captain?”
“Sir?”
“I appreciate we are in the field, but a shave and some appropriate headgear will make all the difference to the men,” the colonel said, reminding Palmer that the man was quite out of touch with reality.
“Yes, Sir,” he said, “I shall do my best.”
~
Amber awoke not long after the sunlight shone straight beams through the small gaps in the curtains. Peter was awake, having only napped on and off throughout the rest of the night after he had searched for what he suspected was a crashed helicopter. Leaving her before she woke, he went to the upper windows again and this time made out a thin pillar of oily smoke behind them over a low rise. Chewing his lip as the distance was much further than he’d imagined, he went back downstairs and poured himself more water before opening the window, ready for the cat to leave for the day, and then went back to their room to sit on his bed and think before Amber finally stirred and displaced the tight coil of dirty fur.
The cat woke, unfolding itself like a snake emerging from a pot, and stood on all four paws to arch its back upwards in an upside-down U as it tensed and held its tail out stiffly behind it. As lazily as it started, the stretch ended suddenly as the cat sat back with lightning speed and stuck out a hind leg to lick at the
outstretched limb.
“Hello,” said a small voice, making Peter’s heart skip, as Amber had spoken once more. He opened his mouth to respond but stopped himself from making any sound as he watched her reach out and fuss the cat, seeing it slink backwards and forwards past her hand to ensure that both sides of its face were adequately rubbed against her.
Again, with no indication, the cat stepped lightly off her bed and trotted from the room with its tail held high and curled over at the end.
“It’s like a question mark,” Peter said softly, turning to look at Amber who rubbed her sleepy eyes and asked him a question with her tilted head.
“His tail. He curls it over like a question mark at the end.”
She shrugged, as though the observation was pointless to her, but conveyed no annoyance at him speaking. She climbed out of bed, hair a mess, and tucked the stuffed lamb that Peter had given her back into bed. He couldn’t help but smile as she arranged the duvet nicely over it, ensuring it was smooth and that the lamb was comfortable.
She walked out of the room, wavering from side to side as she hadn’t fully regained her alertness, and he heard her shut the door to the bathroom. Peter had taken the precaution, as unpleasant as it was, of placing a small bucket inside the bowl so that the flush wouldn’t serve as a dinner bell and attract anyone or anything to their presence. He planned to take the bucket into the secluded back garden and pour the contents into the brook which ran past, the same one that would still hold traces of the bloated, rotting corpse he had killed. The theory of this worked fine, and he had been forced to do something similar in his past when he and his sister had been banned from using the taps or flushing the toilets.
He waited in the room, planning to let her go downstairs before he added his own waste to the bucket and took it straight
outside. The bucket would then go into the downstairs toilet off the kitchen for them to use throughout the day.
He had plans for them, and with it looking likely to be a hot day he was hoping to get started soon before the sun got higher in the sky. His thoughts of what to do, namely emptying, clearing out and marking the nearest houses before shutting them up tight to prevent anything getting inside them, were interrupted by a shout.
It was Amber, clearly, but the shout was more of an open-mouthed grunt. He flew from his bed and raced towards the bathroom, the spike he had fashioned already in his hand, but instead saw her standing in the doorway, beckoning him frantically towards her. He ran, his loose socks bunching up on his feet as they caught in the thick carpet of the landing as he covered the short distance to her. He didn’t know why, but his protective urges with her ran so deep that his body responded without his mind making a choice. Before he reached her, she skipped back inside and climbed up onto the side of the bath to lean on the sink and shoot a hand out straight ahead of her, extending a finger out of the window.
Peter’s gaze started at her shoulder, following down her small arm and stared past the pointing digit to the daylight outside. Neither of them moved, and neither of them breathed as they watched a line of shapes advancing slowly. Peter’s heart dropped, having never expected to face the dead coming from the unexpected side across the brook from the fields beyond.
As he looked, and as his brain began to register something wrong, or at least the absence of something wrong, it finally dawned on him that the line of people walking their way weren’t dead.
And that frightened him more.
Chapter 18
“Hold up,” Johnson said exhaustedly, as he nodded his head behind him at the stiff-legged sergeant Hampton, who offered no argument, “he needs to rest.”
The man he had called, the bearded SBS sergeant, said nothing but simply pointed to the hedge line ahead, indicating the nearest cover. Reaching it first and scanning left and right, he caught the eye of the blonde woman and pointed her to his left as he went off to the right.
Pushing out a perimeter, Johnson thought as his brain gave commentary on everything. He could barely think as he put his effort into carrying the dead weight of the woman he was trying not to look down at. Every time he did, he missed his footing and staggered off sideways instead of concentrating on making forward progress over the uneven ground. Three of them had taken turns at carrying Kimberley, the injured Hampton and the small-statured Astrid Larsen being excused the responsibility. They trudged and traipsed their way across country, twice struggling to find breaks in the dark and having to track sideways to find a style or a gate to get through the thick hedgerows. They had to pass over Kimberley hand to hand, seeing as the blow to her head kept her unconscious throughout. Then they climbed over themselves, their actions punctuated by some of the most colourfully bad language any of them had ever heard coming from the mouth of sergeant Hampton. Kimberley, being unconscious, escaped the experience and the sniper, Enfield, had heard it all before. But the others, even the experienced and irascible Johnson and the SBS man, turned an eyebrow up at it.
Astrid, despite her strong grip on the English language, misunderstood most of what he said and struggled to find any logical sense in the way he combined religion with farm poultry.
Resting Kimberley gently onto the ground and arranging her
into something resembling a recovery position, Johnson slumped
beside her and caught his breath for a few moments.
“Village ahead,” Enfield said, peering through the scope of his big rifle, “can only see the rear of these houses, but there are rooftops, behind which means more houses opposite. Another church, too,” he finished, stating the obvious as the short spire was the tallest feature ahead of them.
“Jesus tit-wanking fucking Christ,” Hampton blasphemed in a foul hiss of words as he lowered himself as close to the ground as possible before submitting to gravity and slumping down the rest of the way to land heavily and spark off the string of obscenities.
Bufford trotted back to them, stopping at speaking distance and dropping to one knee with his back to them, and scanning the open countryside with a relative air of relaxation. He knew that he’d have plenty of time to react should any of them discover their ragged group in the open. Seeing that the bearded man had returned, or contracted as her own word would have translated, she mirrored Bufford’s stance to overhear what was being said.
“Looks
like a small village,” Buffs told them over his shoulder, feeling confident enough to turn his head as he spoke, “we either bypass it or we rest up,” he offered them.
Johnson assessed those options, thinking that a day to sleep sounded like bliss, more so that it meant he wouldn’t have to take his turn carrying the unconscious woman, who, despite her slim body, still weighed too much to carry easily, because of her dead weight. Had she been able to put an arm around his neck and sit up, he would probably have been able to carry her for miles, but the pressure of keeping her head from dangling backwards dangerously made it infinitely harder to manage.
It wasn’t as though handing her over to Enfield or Bufford made it any easier, as he then had to raise the unfamiliar gun and take his place at the head of the slow-moving column of people,
which qualified to the now-indigenous population as a walking buffet. Twice the woman, Astrid Larsen as she had introduced herself, had offered to help the injured Hampton and twice he good-naturedly requested that she kindly left him to it.
“Keep your hands off me and on that bloody weapon, Missy,” he growled at her the last time she asked, “because if you’re half as good with it as I suspect you are, then we don’t want you cuddling me when it’s game time.”
“Resting up for the day means moving at night,” Johnson answered, “which I shan’t imagine is a problem for you three,” he said as he used his head to indicate Larsen, Enfield and Bufford, “but he’s in no fit state to creep about,” he jutted his chin at Hampton, who just glowered at him, “and neither am I if I’m carrying Miss Perkins.”
Travelling silently in the dark was the preferred method for Bufford, but he was accustomed to operating in teams of four, with all of them trained to the same level. Enfield, who already had the demeanour of a wraith with a resting heartrate of two beats per minute, was similarly capable, as would Hampton have been if he’d had the full use of two legs, but Johnson had to admit that he himself was far from the specialist infantryman. He had become a manager, and civilian life held no equivalent to his position, unless it was a powerful foreman in a large plant with lots of staff who would shirk off from their duties if given any opportunity. He had become something resembling a bureaucrat, even if he could still hold his own in a fight. The biggest problem was that his way of waging war allowed him all the time in the world to deal with a slow-moving army of unthinking infantry, as he would be behind metal of differing thickness, ranging from light reconnaissance vehicles to main battle tanks, he would have numerous other similar vehicles at his disposal and would be able to combine them to bring a devastating firepower to bear on the
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