C.R.O.W. (The Union Series)

by Richards, Phillip

  The Chinese defence was becoming less and less like that of a determined foe and more like the final desperate stand of a broken enemy. Reports from the surface told of total orbital top cover, denying the enemy an escape route to the surface, and one by one the hangars that held precious vehicles and equipment were being cut off and captured.

  Toward the end of the battle we heard from the platoon commander that Westy had been concussed and evacuated out of the area to the regimental aid post closer to the surface. He didn’t know anything about the others. So once again me and Brown were the survivors of a section that had been near enough destroyed, but this time we didn’t even have a commander, or have a clue what to do with ourselves but make ourselves useful to anyone who needed us.

  Combat below ground ended when the Chinese battalion we had been fighting surrendered. It would have been lunacy for them to have carried on, since we had captured or destroyed much of their critical supplies and life support equipment. Besides that, the vast majority of the vehicles and equipment that the warrens were meant to protect were already in our hands, giving them little purpose but to die for the sake of it, if not by us then by thirst or lack of air fit for their respirators. There was no cheer when the surrender was announced to the platoon, though, just a deathly silence from a sea of weary faces. There was so little to cheer about.

  17: Return to the Surface

  Me and Brown sat with the survivors of the company in an underground warehouse stacked several storeys high with ammunition crates. We had placed out as many light sticks as we could so that we could see without help from our visors. Figures squatted in small groups, talking quietly and resting for whatever would come next.

  In total I could only count fourteen of us in my platoon, of which only three appeared to be NCOs. Corporal Jones, or Jonesy as his men called him, was the only full corporal to have survived along with two lancejacks from the sections that had been attached to us after the landings. Such a heavy loss of manpower had caused the organisation of the sections to dissolve so that it was hard to work out who belonged to which. Of the original platoon there were barely a handful of us left, including the platoon signaller and Mitch in headquarters. Our spirits were lifted by news that most of our casualties had not died, and even Sam had somehow been saved by the medics. Apparently he had been riddled with holes and had got through litres of blood in the Regimental Aid Post, but he had survived. Unfortunately Ray had not been so lucky, and Stevo’s body was nowhere to be found.

  Sergeant Evans ordered us all to eat at least one horror bag through our feeding straws after it became apparent that many of us were still carrying almost all of our rations from the drop. Fighting the Chinese had caused us to forget to look after ourselves, but it was Sergeant Evans’ job to make sure that we did.

  I always had to suck so hard to get anything out of a horror bag that eventually the muscles in my cheeks became sore from the effort. The effort became annoying, and I wasn’t hungry anyway, but nevertheless I forced myself to eat. I didn’t know when I would next get a chance.

  ‘Apparently the pinkies have a tube that sticks food right in them, so they never have to eat,’ Brown said. He had barely got halfway through his bag.

  I tossed my rubbish over my shoulder, ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Should have checked to see,’ I said, remembering the dead Chinaman whose respirator we removed. His childlike face still haunted me, along with the faces of my dead friends.

  Brown said nothing for a few minutes, ‘We shouldn’t have left that bloke.’

  I looked across at him. He had stopped eating, and was staring at the half empty packet.

  ‘Which one?’ I asked finally.

  ‘The one we fragged with the grenade. The one on the floor.’

  I cast my mind back, vaguely remembering the company leaving a man who had survived the blast of a grenade.

  ‘He was trying to call for his mum,’ Brown said, ‘I heard him. We all just left him, though.’

  I hesitated, and then awkwardly patted the back of my enemy, ‘He’s Chinese. How do you know what mum sounds like in Chinese? He was reaching for a weapon, end of story. Somebody at the back would have dealt with him.’

  Brown shook his head, and took a slow drag on the straw that connected to his horror bag, ‘It sounded like he was calling for his mum. We just left that bloke to die calling for his mum, like it was the most normal thing in the world,’ he sighed, ‘I dunno. All I know is that this place is really hurting me.’

  My respirator hid my surprise. I think that was probably the first time Brown had ever mentioned anything of his own feelings.

  ‘I’m sorry about Climo,’ Brown said, and I saw that he was sincere.

  I paused, and finally nodded, ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘How’s your arm?’

  I patted the fresh bandage I had applied to my wound, the other had been soaked with blood and pus, ‘It’s sore, and a bit nasty looking, but it’s okay.’

  Brown nodded.

  ‘I can’t stop seeing Chase’s eyes,’ I said suddenly.

  Another pause, ‘Me neither. But now it’s not just him I see when I close my eyes. It’s everyone else, too.’

  We sat in silence.

  #

  I couldn’t believe it when we were re-united with Westy. Both me and Brown jumped to our feet as the burley Welshman appeared.

  ‘God am I glad to see someone I recognise,’ he said, grinning from ear to ear in the dim light of the hangar.

  I thought about going in for a hug but thought it too much, instead shaking his hand furiously.

  ‘So what happened?’ I asked, gesturing toward Westy’s sleeveless, bandaged arm, ‘I thought you were at the Aid Post?’

  Westy shrugged, ‘I don’t remember much after the engineer walked up the tunnel with his charge. The medic reckoned I was knocked out by the blast, then I must have been hit by a ricochet when I was lying on the deck. I was just lucky.’

  ‘You heard about the other lads, right?’ Jonesy asked, and our smiles faded.

  Westy nodded sombrely, ‘Yeah. The company second-in-command told me when I managed to get back.’

  I thought to change the subject, ‘So, what, did you wake up at the Regimental Aid Post?’

  ‘Yeah, I came to with this medic wrapping my arm up. It’s just a flesh wound, nothing serious. It looks worse than it is coz my automatic tourniquet activated and the medic had to cut the sleeve off my armour to save my arm from dropping off! He tried to get me to stay at the RAP but I refused and done a runner after you lot. Still got pins and needles even now.’ He shook his arm.

  ‘You went running off into the tunnels?’ Jonesy smiled.

  ‘Yeah, I thought it was just me left, so I just followed the noise and attached myself to a random section.’

  ‘Mate, you are mental,’ Jonesy said, and we laughed. We shared stories of our exploits, the good parts and the bad. Westy told of his madness, volunteering himself to go in the lead pair for everything until one of the platoon commanders realised he was a corporal from another platoon and ordered him to stop.

  I had noticed instantly from the second he had entered the hangar that something had changed in the way that Westy spoke to us. He had warmed to me and Brown, as if the barrier that separated the section commander from his junior privates had dissolved. At first I thought that he had finally decided that we had earned his respect in the battle for the tunnels, but then I remembered what Brown had said to me when we had argued and realised the truth. We were all he had left.

  Brown took a deep breath and asked, ‘So, what now, then?’

  ‘The warrens are clear, most of the remaining Chinese have surrendered. Apparently B Company have found enough kit to start a whole new war down here, fortunately for us the enemy never had the chance to get it above ground. The pinkies must have worked out they weren’t going to manage to get it all back to the surface anyway though, most of it was trashed, controls ripped
out and all sorts. No point giving us their own weapons.’

  ‘So no more fighting down here, then?’ I asked. So many troopers had died down in the tunnels, it had been like fighting in the bowels of hell itself. I felt my heartbeat slow and muscles relax at the very thought of an end to it all. Could I really have survived this brutal stage of my war on New Earth, I wondered, and would I really live to see the end to the whole thing?

  Westy shook his head, ‘Doesn’t look like it. But I wouldn’t get too excited, it’s still busy up on the surface. Apparently 2nd battalion took a number of key positions around Jersey City, but the pinkies gave them a hard time. It looks like the Chinese won’t surrender the city, so we’re going to have to go in.’

  Ears had pricked up from amongst the platoon and everybody, whether they knew Westy or not stopped to listen. Our war was far from over. It was generally believed that the Chinese would surrender or retreat from the city if they lost the warrens, but we had been overly optimistic. After all, retreat was a dirty word.

  It wasn’t long before the CSM closed the company into the centre of the warehouse for the OC, with a freshly bandaged leg, to announce our move back up to the surface. He told us that reports of success on every continent had circumnavigated the globe, and that the Chinese navy had all but given up hope of ever regaining top cover in orbit. We were winning, and I felt a sudden surge of hope wash across the company, like a static charge that almost stood my hair on end. But the elation we felt was short-lived, as he told us that we were moving in order to be reassembled into a fighting force to take Jersey City. Whispered curses hissed across the weary body of men as the OC described in simple and brutally honest terms how he saw the next few hours panning out.

  ‘In the next fifteen minutes we will move back up to the surface as a company using a northern transit tunnel,’ the OC told us, ‘The warrens will be concurrently taken over by the conscripts.’

  ‘Cheers, easy,’ somebody uttered.

  The company commander and sergeant major heard the trooper, I think, but chose to ignore him. I doubted they or anybody else disagreed with the sentiment. We had fought hard to gain control of hill bravo and the warrens beneath it, and now above us shuttles were disgorging hundreds of conscripts who would reap the rewards of our struggle. When we were out of the warren its breathable atmosphere would be restored, as would power and defence grids. The conscripted soldiers would settle down and wait until the invasion was over without even firing a shot. Bastards.

  ‘On the surface the company will be re-organized and bolstered with battlefield replacements provided by the other battalions. I will then issue orders for an attack onto Jersey City. They will more than likely be a very quick set of orders, as we are pressed for time. The rest of the division is pushing north to clear remaining enemy off of Jersey Island in a few hours, and we are a crucial element of that move. We could be on our way back into battle in a matter of hours, and you need to be prepared for that now because it’s not over yet. Any questions?’

  ‘What about us, Sir, are we staying with you now?’ the boss asked.

  My heart skipped a beat. It had not crossed my mind that we might in fact be sent back to our own battalion and not used in the attack on Jersey City at all. The last thing I heard of my battalion was that they were holding the peak of Hill Bravo, having been rendered almost combat ineffective by the high casualties sustained on the landing. We were only within the 4th battalion’s ranks to give them a quick booster of manpower for the tunnels, and what with battlefield replacements coming in were we not better off in our own unit? I would much rather take my chances with Woody on the summit of Hill Bravo than with the Chinese in Jersey City. I felt shame in my cowardly thoughts, and shook them off.

  It didn’t matter anyway.

  ‘Almost certainly, yes, Larry,’ the OC answered, using Mr Barkley’s first name, ‘From what I gather now your battalion are firm on Hill bravo and will probably remain so. To be frank, I need you and your platoon here. You’re battle-hardened and experienced and I’m not letting you go if I can help it. I’m sorry,’ his apology was genuine.

  ‘Not at all, Sir,’ the platoon commander waved the apology away, ‘We’re good to crack on.’ I wasn’t sure everybody else would agree.

  The OC nodded respectfully toward our platoon commander. He had served the OC well, and so had the platoon. We had to respect the boss for the battle in the tunnels; he had led the platoon throughout the assault into the warrens and had never faltered, unlike some of his peers. I had heard tales of officers being relieved by their platoon sergeants and even section commanders as the fighting turned fierce. Perhaps he had made a mistake on the fateful day of our landing, but who was I to judge? Even Sergeant Evans seemed happy enough to stand next to the boss, and I earlier spotted them sat together in the warehouse deep in conversation. Maybe, I wondered, if he had it in him to forgive the boss, he could forgive me and Brown too. But then how could he if I couldn’t even forgive myself?

  ‘Any other questions?’ The OC asked, and the warehouse fell silent, ‘You’ll get a much more detailed brief on the surface. Sergeant Major?’

  The company sergeant major stepped forward, dwarfing the OC. He made Westy look like a midget. He was massive, and with his kit all on he looked bigger still, his shoulders were so wide and he stood so tall I wondered how he had even fitted down the smaller warren tunnels. I remembered seeing him stalking the platoons as we advanced, barking orders at the work parties as they carried out the injured and passed up the ammo, and working the waiting assault pairs into a frenzy in his deep northern accent.

  ‘You kill them!’ I had heard him scream, ‘You kill ‘em all! No mercy, lads!’

  That was probably the most intelligent sentence ever to come out of CSM Robson’s mouth, known as ‘the bull’ by the company because he was big, not too bright, but horrifically violent and foul tempered. Some people would say that those were the principle requirements of a sergeant major, as long as nobody was about to hear it.

  ‘Right then, lads,’ the huge man began, ‘Every man here had some food, yeah?’

  Some from the other platoons didn’t nod in response, and he shot an angry glance to the platoon sergeants who stood off to a flank. They would get a severe de-briefing for not administrating their men, I suspected, apart from Sergeant Evans who had thought to make us eat.

  ‘If you haven’t, I suggest you do, because you may not get a chance for a while. Okay, fellas, on the way up there will be a rolling replenishment of water, rations and respirator canisters. Make sure you all replenish your water! If your pack is full - and I doubt it is - then drink half of it and then fill it back up. Every man jack will take a further twenty-four hours-worth of space food. I don’t care if it tastes like shit and you’ve been eating the flesh off a Chinaman’s arse, you take the rations. That means if you’ve got rations in your daysacks left over from today I suggest you eat them or you’ll end up carrying double. Platoon sergeants ensure this happens.’

  The enormous sergeant major took a break from his rant to lift his respirator and spit, ‘Also, respirator canisters will all be exchanged, including your spare. They have all been exposed to a shit load of dust, which can clog the filters. If you don’t exchange your canister and you go man-down, I’ll kick the sense out of you before you die. Happy on that?’

  We nodded.

  ‘Lads remember these tunnels aren’t completely safe, and we will be moving fast. Stick close together as we patrol to the surface and don’t lose eyes on the man in front. If you find yourself separated go firm and activate your distress beacon. Any questions? No? Good. Ev?’

  ‘Sir,’ our platoon sergeant responded.

  ‘Mate, let’s have a chat. We have found something that belongs to you.’

  The three platoon sergeants exchanged puzzled glances and then Sergeant Evans followed the CSM away into the gloom beyond the light sticks scattered about the warehouse.

  The OC summarized his orders and as
ked for the platoon commanders to close in to him for a brief. The boss turned to the remainder of our NCOs, ‘Commanders, let’s get the blokes squared away, I’ll be back with you in five. Be ready to move five minutes after that.’

  The platoon busied itself packing away kit and preparing for the replenishment, blokes chugged at their water packs and force fed themselves their horror bags under the watchful eye of the remaining NCOs.

  When Sergeant Evans returned to us, his face gave no indication of what he had been told.

  ‘What’s the score, Ev?’ Westy asked.

  ‘Stevo,’ the platoon sergeant said flatly, ‘They’ve found him on the surface.’

  ‘Christ,’ I exclaimed, forgetting myself, ‘how did he get up there?’

  Sergeant Evans looked irritated at the interruption and I blushed beneath my respirator, ‘I don’t know. But I want to find out.’

  The company marched out of the tunnels at a rapid pace. There was no longer the need to keep quiet or minimise chatter, and no need not to bunch up as we moved. We kept close together so not to lose each other in the maze of smaller tunnels and made our way back to the surface.

  We were replenished along a main access tunnel that had been used to evacuate casualties. I could tell it had been used for the injured because it was scattered with medical waste, blood soaked bandages and packaging. Clearly a lot of casualties had been through there, I assumed an aid post was probably close to the surface.

  Our daysacks were opened for us by a line of conscripts and water poured straight into our water reservoirs using stacks of plastic bottles. Ration packs were unceremoniously chucked into our hands and our respirator canisters ripped out and replaced with new ones. Cool air breezing down from the surface kissed at our necks as we marched onward, up the tunnel toward the surface and away from the wretched warrens that had cost so many of our comrade’s lives.

  Me and Brown didn’t see it coming, let alone Stevo, but Westy saw him where he stood, waiting at the entrance to the warren with the company sergeant major beside him. It was dark outside and I wouldn’t have known it was him if it wasn’t for my visor display identifying him for me.