Eddie crouched motionless by the back door. Having dragged a kitchen chair over in front of him, he was now using the back to support his gun hand as he pointed the revolver straight down the empty hallway, his left hand still clamped hard on the girl’s shoulder and forcing her to crouch right beside him. They both heard the sound of glass breaking in one of the front rooms but it was impossible to tell which room the noise had come from and he wasn’t in a position to investigate with his attention split between Briony and this new intruder.
“Fuck…!” He hissed softly, adjusting his position slightly. “Fuck…!”
“Mrs Morris…?” A voice called out from somewhere up at the front of the house. “Mrs Morris…? Briony…? Are you all right? It’s okay… I’m an air force officer… my name’s Max Thorne…”
Max Thorne…! At the mention of that name, one Briony had already heard once before, she was finally galvanised into action. She stared up at Leonski for a long time but he paid her no heed, his attention now solely focussed on the interloper at the other end of the house. With growing confidence that he was likely to stay that way for some time, she cast her eyes about her surroundings for anything she might use as a weapon, her gaze finally coming to rest upon the mass of shattered crockery spread all around them. Picking out a particularly large piece with a deep, jagged point and a reasonable amount of outer edge to afford a safe grasp, she carefully reached down with one hand as slowly and as innocently as she was able.
Inside the empty bedroom, Thorne backed up against the closed door and reached up to carefully turn the knob, at the same time placing just enough weight against the woodwork to ensure the mechanism wasn’t under pressure as he did so. It opened with a soft click and he cracked the door just enough to aim the muzzle of the USP through the opening, pointing it directly at the open bedroom doorway across the hall. The laser darted this way and that but found no target: the room beyond was empty.
Both Eddie and Briony could both see the ethereal flicker of the eerie green beam as it cut across the far end of the hallway, a combination of floating dust and general darkness making it faintly visible as it moved this way and that. Neither had any idea what the strange light could possibly be but Eddie was fairly certain it meant no good and he eared back the hammer of his revolver in preparation.
“I’m going to come out now, whoever’s there…” Thorne called out once more, swallowing hard as tension started to get to him. “If anyone is there, I want you to stay calm and stand where you are… no one’s going to hurt you…”
Briony watched Eddie’s arms tense and his finger curl around the trigger, ready to fire the moment Thorne showed himself. With a scream of anger and exertion, she drew back her right hand and smashed it up into the left side of Leonski’s face with every ounce of strength she could muster, the ragged piece of broken china clasped tightly in her fingers. The point ripped across his cheek, flaying it to the bone in a spray of blood as she fell back in the opposite direction, already rising to her feet and turning toward the back door.
Leonski roared like a wounded lion, his free hand instantly reaching out and grabbing a handful of her dress at the shoulder as he too rose quickly to his feet. Blood was gushing from the terrible wound in his cheek, but there was no way he was about to allow Briony to escape as he dragged her back into him.
Reacting to both cries, Thorne threw the bedroom door wide and burst around the corner, landing on one knee with his weapon outstretched only to find his ‘target’ was mostly obscured by a young woman in white he could only assume was Briony Morris. He was unable to fire quickly without endangering the girl, a problem that in no way applied to Leonski as he raised his own gun and aimed straight over the struggling teen’s shoulder.
She lurched against him once more, throwing his aim off as the revolver discharged deafeningly and sent a .44-calibre slug slamming into the doorframe close to Thorne’s head. Wood chips and splinters sprayed painfully against Thorne’s face, and unable to safely fire back, he was forced instead to dive back through the open doorway into the bedroom from which he’d come.
“Mayday… mayday…!” He howled into the microphone at his collar. “Contact at Morris household, directly behind burned hotel… shots fired… I need you both here, now…!”
Briony struck again, the point of her makeshift weapon this time slicing a ragged slash across Eddie’s bare forearm as he raised it to fend her off. At the same time, she drew back her foot and kicked him right under the kneecap, the blow not really strong enough to do much real damage but no less agonising for that. With a cry, Eddie dropped to his other knee and rolled over onto the floor in pain, fingers outstretched as she tore from his grasp and reached for the back door.
Throwing it open, she burst out into the bright sunshine and straight into the arms of Constable Gambon, who’d come through the back gate and ran up to the door as fast as he could upon hearing the sound of that gunshot. With one hand around her waist more out of accident that any intent, the police officer wasn’t able to hold his weapon at the ready as he looked in through the doorway and found Eddie Leonski staring straight back at him. Eddie fired again, his aim true this time as a slug punched a neat, red hole in the middle of Gambon’s forehead.
The entire back of the man’s head exploded in a spray of blood and gore, coating one side of Briony’s face and neck as she screamed in horror and the lifeless corpse crashed to the ground. Firing another two rounds back down the hallway for good measure, Leonski stormed out into the back yard, scooping up Gambon’s fallen carbine and slinging it over his shoulder before taking a huge handful of Briony’s long hair between his fingers and forcibly dragging her away toward the open back gate. He smashed the butt of the revolver against her knuckles, fracturing two of her fingers and forcing her to drop the bloody piece of crockery as she screamed in pain.
With her behind him, whoever it was still inside the house would never get a clear shot and he intended to keep it that way. He turned south as they left the property, still dragging a screaming Briony behind him but picking up the pace in spite of her protests. A wave of nausea flowed through him but he shrugged it off, fighting against the agony of the openly bleeding wound in his cheek. There’d be a reckoning for that later when the time was right, but right now all Eddie had to do was get himself to some kind of safety. The river lay just a few hundred metres away to the south and from there he might cross the rail bridge and make off into the thicker bushland on the Victorian side. There was no time to lose.
It took an agonizingly long time for Thorne to make his way through the house, uncertain of exactly who might still be in any of the other rooms and forced to clear each one in turn. He grimaced as he reached the kitchen and stared for a moment at Maude’s lifeless body before finally taking a look through the rear door and realising who else lay motionless on the porch outside.
“Oh, no…no…no…no…no….!” Thorne wailed in tired despair, falling to his knees beside the body of Constable Gambon. “Not you too…! Fuck…!”
With a howl of frustrated rage, he launched to his feet again and charged to the back gate, not caring if anyone was lying in wait as he burst out into the open, pistol held high. Leonski was already two hundred metres away or more, still dragging Briony behind him, and there was no way Thorne could risk a shot even with a rifle at that range let alone with a handgun.
The tactician within him kicked in finally as he weighed up his options, his eyes moving back and forth between the house and the running pair ahead. Making a clear decision, he ran quickly back through the house, throwing open the front door and heading straight for the rear of the parked Land Rover.
Having heard the shots from the house, the driver – an RAAF leading aircraftman – was standing ready for anything, halfway between the car and the fence with a Browning 9mm in one hand.
“Get in…!” Thorne ordered as he charged across the veranda and out into the street. “We’re heading for the river. The prick’s armed and he’ll d
rop you as soon as look at you: keep your gun handy and your head down if it goes to shit.”
“Yes, sir…!” The NCO acknowledged, climbing back into the 4WD and turning the engine over.
Flinging open the back door, Thorne dragged the lid from the crate inside and grabbed the first weapon he could find, an M1A3 marksman’s rifle.
Originally introduced in 1936, the M1 Garand had been replaced in American service five years later by the M2 assault rifle leaving hundreds of thousands of perfectly serviceable battle rifles in surplus. With its powerful, full-sized rifle cartridge and long range hitting power, the decision was made to upgrade all remaining weapons in service into the redesigned M1A3 Marksman variant which included the fitting of the standard M84 telescopic sight, conversion to take the standard 20-round magazine of the Browning Automatic Rifle and a cursory ‘accurizing’ of the action.
Slipping a set of combat webbing over his shoulders, Thorne stuffed three loaded magazines into the front pouches along with several thin, cylindrical grenades from the bottom of the box before clipping it tightly about his waist.
“Evan, he’s killed Gambon and he’s heading for the river,” he wheezed breathlessly into the mike at his shoulder. “He’s got at least a handgun and a carbine with multiple reloads. I want you two to join the railway line at the hotel and head south from there to cover him if he tries to head west… I’m gonna proceed down Bridge to the river and cover the other side. You copy…?”
“Acknowledged…” Lloyd replied simply. “We’re on our way – ETA five minutes…”
“One more thing…” Thorne added. “He’s dragging the girl with him… you’ll need to watch your fire…”
“Understood… Lloyd out…”
Sliding into the passenger seat beside the driver, Thorne slammed the door and opened his passenger side window, keeping the Garand’s muzzle poking out through the opening as he slotted one of the magazines into the action, snapped back the bolt handle and flicked on the safety.
“Let’s go…!” He snapped curtly, the driver needing no further urging as the Land Rover surged forward, U-turning straight out of the kerb and roaring away southward on Bridge Street in a cloud of diesel fumes.
Eddie crossed Browne Street, still dragging a crying Briony with one hand and carrying Gambon’s carbine in the other, having stuffed the revolver back into the waistband of his pants. There were fewer houses now interspersed amongst thickening clumps of tall trees as they drew ever nearer to the river. He stopped for a moment on the opposite side of Browne, taking a breath or two with his chest heaving from exhaustion as he propped the rifle against one leg and reloaded his revolver.
Briony too was out of breath, the situation not helped in the slightest by the fact that she’d been crying through the entirety of their journey along the train line. The fractured fingers on her right hand were red and swollen and ached badly, and she was still badly traumatised by the experience of having Constable Gambon’s brains blown out all over her.
Right around town, there’d been no mistaking the sound of gunfire. Many residents had quite rightly had the good sense to keep themselves locked in their homes, willing to allow the authorities to deal with whatever the situation might be, but there were a few of the more daring individuals ready to come out and see what was going on.
A widower in his sixties and veteran of the Boer War, Barry Wiltshire was one of them. His property stood on the northern side of Browne Street adjacent to the railway line and he stepped out onto his porch as Leonski crossed the road in front of his house. Carrying an old but beautifully-maintained Lee-Metford rifle identical to the one he’d carried while serving in the Transvaal, Wiltshire recognised Briony Morris immediately as she and Eddie came to a halt on the opposite side of the street.
That he might’ve been one of the many in town who in the past had shunned the Morris family for their mixed marriage was completely irrelevant in his mind at that point. Right now there was a stranger – an American – trying to kidnap one of the town’s children – one of their own – and he wasn’t about to allow that to happen.
“Hey… hey you, Yank…!” He yelled loudly, striding across his yard to the front gate with his old rifle held at the ready. “You bloody leave that girl be…!”
Half his body shielded by Briony, Leonski stuffed the pistol into his pocket and lifted the rifle again by the barrel, pushing her sideways as he did so. It was only as Eddie turned fully in his direction that Barry clearly saw the weapon in the man’s hands, and his instincts as a soldier took over immediately. He desperately worked the bolt on the old Lee-Metford, slamming a .303 cartridge into the breech even as Leonski released Briony and raised the carbine in both hands.
The rifle reached Barry’s shoulder but went no further as Eddie fired four quick shots at a range of just thirty metres. Three struck the old man in the chest and stomach, staining his work overalls crimson as he fell backward onto his front lawn, the rifle in his hands discharging once into the sky before dropping from his dying hands and clattering onto the concrete path to the front door. Briony screamed again, her voice hoarse and shallow from pain, exertion and lack of breath.
“Come on…!” Leonski snarled angrily, adrenalin coursing through his system as he took her by the wrist once more and pulled her toward him. She fought against him momentarily, that small show of dissent enough for him to release her arm and slap her angrily across the face.
“Now…!” He bellowed, dragging her onward again, this time without resistance.
The last hundred metres or so to the river were completed in relative speed and silence, with Briony’s soft sobs and the heavy breathing of exertion of both completely drowned out now by the incessant buzzing of insects all around. It was the thicker bushland on the Victorian side that Eddie was heading for and as they reached the Murray crossing, he shoved Briony ahead of him and out onto the bridge, causing her to stumble on the layer of gravel ballast that lay between the train tracks and fall heavily to her knees, scraping her legs and forearms.
The bridge itself, built at the end of the last century, was a combined single-lane road-and-rail bridge with the main road joining the train tracks a few metres back from either side to share the journey across. The central span was fitted with a lifting section that could be raised as required to allow the passage of river traffic. In previous years there’d been numerous paddle steamers plying their trade up and down the Murray, carting bales of wool and charcoal along with a variety of other goods, although the frequency had reduced almost to the point of non-existence now since the 1930s. Save for the occasional supply shipment to or from the RAAF base further upstream, there was little need for the bridge to be raised nowadays.
The sound of the Land Rover reached their ears at that point as it rounded the bend at the bottom of Bridge Street and roared up toward the bridge along the Benalla-Tocumwal Road. With nowhere for Briony to go behind him, Eddie was able to give the approaching vehicle his full attention and using the iron side railings of the bridge for support, he aimed the carbine carefully and fired five more rounds straight into the front of the 4WD.
Thorne’s driver was caught in the middle of gearing down, and as two slugs struck him in the face, killing him instantly, his feet came completely off the clutch at the same moment. The Land Rover lurched to a sudden, screeching halt as the engine stalled, the rear end slewing around to the right and threatening to roll over as Thorne made a desperate grab for the wheel in at attempt to maintain some semblance of control.
It was a small stoke of good fortune indeed that the vehicle had skidded sideways, and it now presented mostly its right side to Leonski as he continued to fire into it, emptying the carbine’s magazine. The bodywork and the driver’s lifeless body protected Thorne in that moment, most of the slugs halted by the Land Rover’s bodywork or the body of the dead driver.
Throwing the passenger side door open, he dove out onto the road and took shelter behind the Land Rover’s bonnet, his own rif
le at the ready as he threw a quick glance around the front bumper. He could see Eddie kneeling on the bridge, perhaps fifty metres away and taking cover behind the structure’s rust-brown ironwork while the young woman he’d presumed to be Briony Morris lay on the tracks perhaps five metres or so beyond, crawling slowly away across the bridge toward the Victorian side. He also noted that Leonski was in the middle of reloading and took the opportunity to rise for a moment and fire two shots of his own in return, the Garand bucking hard against his shoulder.
Eddie swore and ducked instinctively as high-powered .30-06 slugs whined off the bridge’s framework not too far from his head. He could see the shooter was carrying a scoped rifle and it would be no great feat from that range to put a bullet straight through Eddie’s head if he was allowed a clear shot. Looking up, he also now noted the approach of a second Land Rover, this one further away but heading straight for him at high speed down the track running parallel to the railway line behind the houses.
Leonski quickly realised he was in a dangerous situation now but he wasn’t even close to giving up just yet. He did know however that he wasn’t going to last another five minutes unless he made sure he maintained some ‘leverage’ against these dangerous newcomers. He turned and ran at full speed along the tracks, heading straight for Briony as Thorne took the opportunity to fire three more shots in his direction.
Eddie ducked as he ran, the supersonic crack of passing slugs forcing his head down until he drew close enough to Briony to prevent Thorne from risking another shot. In one fluid movement he slung the M1 Carbine across his back, drew the revolver from his waistband and scooped her up by the waist, holding his arm about her as he turned to face his pursuers.
Thorne took that opportunity to break cover and bolt across the intervening few dozen metres to the bridge, coming to a sliding halt on the dusty edge of the main road and taking cover behind one of the waist-high stone pillars that signified the end of the bridge on either side of the river, not far from where Eddie had fired his first shots into the Land Rover.
Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2) Page 109
