‘If any of them try anything, kill them’ Sergeant Welsh snapped back. Little D walked the men out at gunpoint, as we continued to search the building. There were bits of half eaten food, and tin cans littering the area where they’d been sleeping. We cleaned out hundreds of buildings, through housing estates and shops, arresting any of Torriero’s fighters we found. We also discovered groups of civilians, hiding in properties, scared about what they’d witnessed. Some were too affected to even talk, cowering in the darkness, refusing to move. Back on the street, the first bit of resistance we encountered was gunfire from two apartments above a convenience store. There was a mounted gun placement, in the nearest building, in a street facing window. It opened up on the newly reformed Shrimps Company, as they approached the building, searching for enemy soldiers. It wounded two men, who lay prostrate on the ground, as more bullets hit the floor around them. We couldn’t get anyone near enough to the injured men, the gunner opening up on anyone who approached. Keane climbed up a building close by, to try and get a sniper position, but the gunner was too well dug in. Sergeant Hargreaves requested tank assistance, and Lieutenant Colonel Carter sent two vehicles from The Black Cats Tank Battalion to our position. One soldier was shot, and then blown to pieces by his own grenade, as he tried to throw it into the gunners nest. We put sustained fire on the position, but the gunner was too embedded, we couldn’t get close enough. He toyed with the injured men, shooting close to their heads, and coaxing our soldiers out of cover. The sound of the approaching tanks was a relief, following our route along High Cross Road, they pulled up fifty yards from the target. Sergeant Hargreaves climbed on top of the tank, as the hatch was thrown open, and a conversation had. The tanks then moved into position and fired a shell into the window, where the gunner was positioned. Plumes of black and grey smoke poured out of the apartment, as another shell was fired in, causing the front wall to collapse. As this was happening, the injured soldiers were pulled to safety, where the medics could treat them. Our company was sent in to clear the building, along with Clarets Company, who lined up behind us as we set off across the road, dancing between the debris. Another section of the wall crashed down to the ground, causing clouds of dust to fog our view. Inside the building was dark and dank, the walls shuddered like they could collapse at any moment, bits of plaster and wood fell to the floor. We held our rifles out in front, as we made our way into the property, through the dust and debris. There was a short gun fight with two enemy soldiers, in the stairwell climbing up to the apartment. They were softened up with a couple of grenades, and then finished off with ruthless efficiency. Up the stairs there were three rooms, and the landing. In the first room on the left we found the gun placement, with body parts covering the vicinity, too small to identify. One shell had travelled straight through the building, taking with it the internal wall and half the roof. Keane and Atkinson went into the room straight ahead as I searched the room on the right, with Little D. There was rubble covering the children’s beds, abandoned weapons and half empty ammo boxes sat on the carpet. We made our way back onto the landing, where we found Sergeant Welsh and Murphy heading towards the end room. They walked past Keane and Atkinson, who were leaving the room, with a look on their face that worried me. They shook their heads as we walked towards them, trying to stop us from entering the room.
‘Don’t go in’ said Keane. ‘You don’t need to see it.’
He tried to stop me but I forced my way past, as Atkinson sat on the floor with his head in his hands. Inside the room was a double bed, a wardrobe and a dressing table. There was a woman lying across the width of the bed, straddled with her feet on the floor, and her arms tied to the bed frame. The bottom half of her clothes had been ripped off, her skin bruised and battered. She had been dead a while, her throat slit when they’d got what they wanted from her. We untied her, and moved her to a more dignified position, covering her up with the bedding. Everyone was silent, unable to register what we’d been looking at, we left the building with a different mind set. But that was not the last horror we witnessed, as we moved into the area Torriero’s men had occupied for the last couple of days. Most of the residents of Poulton Le Fylde had been evacuated, but those who had decided to say, or who’d been missed, paid a heavy price. We reached a particular area of Hardhorn Road, where residents had been hung from lampposts by their necks. There were around four or five bodies per lamppost, men of all ages, some too young to contemplate, all dead a few days. Some had signs around their necks, one stated ‘This man refused to fight for Torriero’ and another read ‘This is what happens when you pick the wrong side.’ We also found a few more women, treated in a way I don’t wish to describe, but a precedent had been set. One old lady had been nailed to the double doors of a mill half way along Hardhorn Road, with a sign fixed to the drainpipe that ran down the wall by the side of the door. It read ‘This woman refused to fulfil her duty to our fighters.’ After our grim discoveries, it was hard not to blame all of Torriero’s men for these acts. But surely it was the action of a few, not many? I couldn’t help but look into the eyes of every fighter who surrendered, to ask if he looked evil enough to have committed these acts. They all claimed their innocence of course, claiming it was the behavior of a unit within Torriero’s army, who had been tasked with spreading this horror, everywhere they fought. The arrested men had a name for this unit, they called them, Bringer Mortis (Bringer of the Dead), not something I was familiar with. A few of our soldiers had to be dragged off Torriero’s men, after physically attacking them, blaming them for the acts of the few. The main battle seemed to be raging on the other side of a housing estate, the final area still to search. Hardhorn Road was blocked off ahead, where it meets Garstang Road, with a blockade of vehicles. The army had a unit around it, but they were pinned down, with gunfire coming from their left, and right. We heard reports it was The White Hart Company, from the Yorkshire Terriers Battalion, who had become isolated from their comrades after intense fighting. They had a new sergeant in charge, after Sergeant Peters had been decapitated by a mortar strike, in the battle for Hambleton. The men looked panicked, and were trying to get a response from their new sergeant, who appeared to have lost it. He was sat with his back to a burning vehicle, refusing to move, as the rumble of a tank could be heard over the sounds of war. Little D didn’t wait to consider the situation, he ran into the hailstorm of bullets, dancing around them as they peppered the ground by his feet, stopping only when he reached the company and dived into cover. After a short conversation, he got the men to organise a response, with half of them putting fire on the enemy as they evacuated the sergeant, and then the rest of the company. We helped, by firing at the approaching tank, and throwing smoke grenades to obstruct its view. Little D got every soldier out, and they joined our battalion, after another member took responsibly for the company. The noise of war was so loud, my lip reading skills were growing considerably. Around midday, with just one housing estate still to clear, Sergeant Welsh ordered Blue and White Company to complete the objective. He sent us off in pairs, Little D and myself, Atkinson and Keane and he paired with Murphy. The houses looked like they were built in the seventies, with wooden facias and red brick walls. Nice family homes, with a garage and drive, and a little garden at the front and back with a quiet through road. There were three houses for each group to search, in our first we found an elderly couple, hiding under their bed. They looked dehydrated and in need of food, Little D took them outside, and they were taken off to be treated. As we were entering the hallway of our second property, we heard a gun shot from the house across the street, followed by another three. We ran across the road, removing our rifles before we entered the property.
‘Soldier!’ I shouted, not entirely sure who was working through which house.
‘Sergeant Welsh, upstairs’ came the response. We climbed upstairs to find Murphy and Sergeant Welsh stood over the bodies of three men, in the bedroom overlooking the front garden.
‘What happened?�
�� Asked Little D, as we were joined by Atkinson and Keane. There was a moment of silence before Murphy remarked ‘I was downstairs’ before Sergeant Welsh interjected.
‘They made a move on me, so I shot them’ he snarled. ‘Goading about what they’d done, the dirty fuckers. Then they went for my gun.’
Murphy was silent, as Sergeant Welsh tried to move the situation along, ordering Atkinson to search the men’s bodies. He then declared he needed to make contact with Lieutenant Colonel Carter, and left the room, ushering Murphy with him. We were left looking at the pile of bodies, questioning Sergeant Welsh’s chain of events. Outside, the clean up was completed, and all the companies from The Lancashire Fusiliers Seventh Battalion regrouped. Sergeant Welsh and Hargreaves were in deep discussion with the other sergeants, as our next objectives were finalised. When Sergeant Welsh finally rejoined us, he told us we were moving out, on a tank mission. The Lancashire Fusiliers Ninth Battalion had lost a tank when its offensive hit Torriero’s defences on Garstang Road. Torriero still had two tanks, one was positioned seventy yards from the junction with Mossbourne Road, and needed destroying, so they could move their forces forward, and this was our objective. We were given the coordinates, and backtracked down Hardhorn Road following our tanks. We took a right onto Hodgson PI, and then followed it around to the right, into another housing estate. Following the intertwining streets, we ended up on Newton Avenue, as the sounds of battle drew closer and closer. The smell and taste of war was all around us, the smoke we breathed in, the gunpowder with its metallic taste that clung to the back of my throat, and deadened my senses. Newton Avenue ran parallel to Garstang Road, and we walked along it trying to find a good position to attack from, as the tanks remained forty yards further back, waiting for our signal. I found a house with a big enough drive to accommodate the tanks, giving them a route into the back gardens. Blue and White Company scouted ahead, through the gardens, trying to find a way to the enemy tank. There was an outer red brick wall, twelve foot high, that ran the entire length of the estate, keeping the gardens private from Garstang Road. It would also hide our tanks from the enemy, when we’d cleared a path through. I could hear its engine turning over, as we got closer, voices shouting, and gunfire. We removed children’s swings and trampolines from gardens, carefully lifted wooden fence panels out of their frames, clearing a route through. In one garden there was a clothes line still hung from the house, across the garden, with a families washing hung out, from the morning of the attack. The clothes had months worth of rain, ash, dirt and grim covering them. I removed each piece of clothing, and stacked them on the patio table like sheets of cardboard, before cutting the line down. The tanks engine was deafening, I could hear its turbine and the gunner as he moved position, and opened up. Sergeant Welsh indicated for Keane to enter the property opposite the tank, and get a better view from the back bedroom. Once positioned, he confirmed the tanks position, and Sergeant Welsh contacted Lieutenant Colonel Carter. He ordered in a mortar strike, close enough to the tank to seem authentic, but far enough away not to spook it into moving. This window would give us time to move our tanks into position, but we would have to be quick. We made our way back to Newton Avenue, and re joined the battalion, informing them of the situation. Lieutenant Colonel Carter confirmed the mortar strike would commence in ten minutes, so we waited. When we heard the distinctive whistle of the mortars, we set off in unison into the back gardens. As they started to explode across the front line, we quickly made our way towards the position. The tanks had a few obstacles to overcome, flower beds, hedgerows and wooden fences. But it all went to plan, and soon they were pulling up either side of Keane, opposite the tank. He positioned them by eye, so they were angled to shoot straight through the hole, we were about to make. Little D took instructions from Keane and placed two C4 charges on the wall, three metres apart, opposite the enemy tank. Then we all got into cover, rifles at the ready, and they blew the explosives. Before the explosion had time to settle, both our tanks sent shells through the hole in the wall, and into the side of the enemy tank. It rocked from the impact, as two more shells left our tanks, crashing into it. Smoke was pouring from its hatch as it made an unsuccessful attempt to move. We hit it again, and fire leapt out of the hatch, as the occupants tried to escape, but were cut down as they climbed out. Our tanks then took out the rest of the properties wall, and started to manoeuvre over the debris, and out onto Garstang Road. The Lancashire Fusiliers Seventh Battalion streamed out behind the tanks, staying behind cover as we were put under fire. On the street, Torriero’s fighters were caught with their pants down, some units just stood out in the opening, it was like shooting practice. I remember seeing one group, of up to twenty men, just mowed down before they even knew they were being shot at. They regrouped, and retreated along Garstang Road, using the abandoned vehicles for cover. Some of their snipers and gunners took up positions high up in buildings, but most fighters stayed on foot on the street. Soon The Lancashire Fusiliers Ninth Battalion joined us as we squeezed Torriero’s army back along Garstang Road towards the Hardhorn Road junction, and beyond that to where their other tank was positioned. Many of the enemy retreated, some surrendered. During the battle that followed, one of our tanks had its track blown off, and wheels damaged by a grenade. But with two operational tanks against one for Torriero, we decided to continue pushing on, as the momentum was swinging our way. Torriero’s final tank was positioned on a supermarket car park, just off Garstang Road, around a hundred yards past the junction for Hardhorn Road. Little D’s local knowledge helped with the afternoons offensive, as the army wanted to split the battalions up again, and attack Torriero’s men from two positions. Little D remarked if Hardhorn Road was followed north, it joins the A588, which in turn rotates back around on itself and rejoins Garstang Road, two hundred yards further on from Torriero’s remaining army. We moved towards the junction, clearing out the buildings on route, killing the few enemy who resisted, and taking others prisoner. Around The Hardhorn Road junction we met with strong resistance, and The Lancashire Fusiliers Ninth Battalion set up a stronghold from that position, so the seventh battalion could make its way around the battle, following the A588. As we reached the location to attack from, The Lancashire Fusiliers Ninth Battalion gave us a sitrep of Torriero’s positions, and we organised our battle plan. The tank was still located in the supermarket car park, with gunner nests in the building, and an estimation of a hundred soldiers left. A discussion was had on the range of the tank Torriero was using, but without confirmed identification, it was considered to risky to approximate, particularly as the tanks we’d already destroyed had varied in model. The main concern was taking out the tank as quickly as possible, while it was still operational, lives were at risk. We attacked the supermarket simultaneously, tanks out front with soldiers following behind. We were put under fire from the supermarket, as we drove within range, and set our sights on their tank, that had reversed over vehicles as it tried to find cover. It was hit by a shell as it fired one itself, that flashed past our tank, narrowly missing the heads of some soldiers behind. The tanks pushed on into the car park, each hitting the enemy tank, as it started to smoke, and then again as it exploded into a ball of fire. We followed behind, as enemy soldiers climbed out of the vehicle, screaming as the fire engulfed them. We shot any who didn’t shoot themselves, as our tanks turned their attention to the supermarket, firing shells at the gun placements. Soon the building was on fire, with smoke pouring out of the large glassless window frames, and people running for cover. Sergeant Hargreaves, noticing what looked like civilians fleeing from part of the building, ordered the tanks to stop shelling. The civilians ran towards us, and we tried to curb our gunfire to avoid hitting them. But Torriero’s men targeted them, shooting them in the back as they ran from the burning building. We tried to cover them, returning fire, but quite a few were killed and wounded. We sustained a few casualties ourselves, but not as many as the enemy, who were on the back foot, with an estimated sixty fig
hters remaining. They dug in, and wouldn’t surrender, fighting until they had no bullets left. They were low on supplies, food, drink and ammunition, with the looted supermarket offering them no solutions, their options were diminishing. As the smoke made its way through the building, so did what remained of the enemy, coughing as they tried to escape the fumes. But they continued to fight, fanatically, even when we were sent in to clean up the remaining soldiers, they wouldn’t surrender, even when clearly defeated. Clarets and Blue and White Company moved in, past broken glass and debris outside the huge glassless window frames that crunched under our boots. We moved in formation, through the entrance and into the reception, where there was no sign of any enemy. A newspaper stand was positioned ahead of us, still selling newspapers from the morning of the attack, beyond that we went through the security gates and into the shop. We could hear sounds in the building, footsteps running, things knocked over, but we saw nothing. We past the fruit and vegetable stalls, with everything edible gone, and into the main body of the supermarket. Sergeant Welsh ordered us to put our army issue gas masks on, as we entered the main body of the supermarket, that was hazy with smoke and fumes. There were row upon row of empty shelves, interspersed with fully stacked shelves like nothing had happened. The only areas of the shop free from looting were the non food and drink areas, the electrical department, hair and makeup, toiletries etc. We went down the centre aisle, with rows to our left and right, in formation, checking as we moved. There was a burst of gunfire to my right, and bottles of shampoo next to me exploded, sending them scattering to the floor. We spun around and opened fire at two soldiers, hiding at the end of the aisle, who ducked back into cover, as more plastic bottles were obliterated, sending their contents across the floor. More bullets were fired from behind us, hitting Atkinson in the back and arm, dropping him. Sergeant Hargreaves fired back, hitting one in the leg, although he crawled into cover. He followed him, taking his company with him, as we tracked the original shooters. Keane tended to Atkinson, who was losing blood, though it didn’t look too serious. I knelt down, looking under the shelving units, and could see the feet of three men on the next aisle. I shot at them, dropping two of them, as the rest of my company went to confront them. I heard more gunfire from the direction of Clarets Company, as I climbed back onto my feet. On the next aisle, both men I’d hit had been shot dead, after returning fire as Blue and White Company tried to arrest them. We cleared out the rest of the supermarket, killing every soldier, none of whom were prepared to surrender. The smell coming from the freezers was foul, and the floor was stained where the water and scum had leaked out. There were still bits of rotting food left in the chests, food even the desperate considered too much of a risk to eat. The only area left to search, were the employee’s offices and private rooms. We breached the door, and were presented with a long corridor, with steps at the end, and a room to the right. As I checked the stairs, Sergeant Welsh and Murphy breached the door, killing the three fighters inside, after a short gun fight. Upstairs I could hear voices, and movement, as Torriero’s men prepared themselves. The stairs stopped halfway and turned back on itself before continuing to the top. We were put under fire as soon as we reached the top, bullets from a hand gun, splitting the wooden banisters. I could see an abandoned rifle between us and a large wooden table, that had been overturned, and used as cover. Chairs were scattered around the room, as was other furniture and belongings. We returned fire, tearing chunks off the table, killing one and exposing another, he scampered back into cover as he fired blind at us, but his gun had no bullets. Little D climbed out of cover shouting at him ‘It’s over mate, you’ve no bullets left. Come out with your hands in the air.’
Aftermath: The Complete Collection (Books 1 & 2) Page 53
