by Luke Duffy
Ian rolled his eyes and grumbled, “You thick communist bastard. It means, tea, with milk and two fucking sugars.”
Sini smiled at Ian. “Ah right, you mean a homosexual drink. Why don’t you drink real coffee?”
“Because the first and only time I drank that Serbian stuff was when I was in Kosovo. It caused my teeth to grow a fur coat and I didn't sleep for a month. On top of that, it was fucking disgusting.”
They were in high spirits. Morale was good and it was mainly due to the fact that the final leg was in sight. They were all fully aware of the possible danger and they had seen the scenes of battle and torture, but their confidence was soaring. Not because they dismissed the threat as something trivial, but because they knew what they would be fighting for; to get home.
Marcus looked over his men as he stood beside Stu, watching them laugh and insult each other.
Sini and Yan, as always, sat close to each other. They had been pretty much inseparable since their days in the Serb army together and now Sandra, the husky, raven-haired, Eastern European beauty, made up the trio. She didn't speak much English, but she could read people and anticipate what needed to be done most of the time. She had taken good care of Jim during his recovery, and as a result, a friendship had developed between them.
Ian, the human bulldog, as usual took every chance to make fun of people. Especially Jim, who was seated to his right.
Jim still wasn't completely healed from his torture by the rebels in Serbia, but he was making a steady recovery. Marcus could see him wince now and then when he moved his upper body suddenly, causing the healing ribs to shoot a bolt of pain through him, reminding him of the damage they had sustained. He dismissed the broken bones of his face as “all adding character to my Hollywood-style looks”. Hussein and Ahmed had continued to grow with the group. They were always quick to smile and tried their best to join in with the jokes. Though sometimes, it did take a lot of explaining of the punchlines and by then, the moment was gone. When Zaid was executed, Marcus feared that they would become withdrawn but the opposite happened. Having been through the same torture and anguish as the team, they grew closer.
It took the team nineteen days to reach the coastal area of Northern France after leaving Serbia. They had crossed into Hungary and on to Austria the next day. The journey hadn't been too difficult, and with the isolation and seclusion of much of the Austrian and Southern German countryside, it was easy for them to avoid the larger cities.
Most of the small, picturesque towns and villages such as Salzburg, Augsburg, and Ulm were, to a degree, secure and still intact.
Army units had abandoned their posts within the large urban areas like Stuttgart and Munich and fled, taking their equipment and tanks with them to the mountainous regions of the Austrian Alps and the heavily forested areas of Bavaria, in Southern Germany, and set up defensive rings around villages and towns.
Marcus noted to himself at the time, Typical of the Germans, they always get themselves organised. The rest of the world falls apart, and they do the logical thing and turn back to their roots.
A few times, Marcus and his team were stopped by German patrols who wanted to take a closer look at them. At first, Marcus had considered opening fire on the men of the checkpoints, but decided against it when he saw that they were lightly armed and of no serious threat.
In conversations of broken English and German, they were able to retrieve snippets of information and advice on their journey and routes. The German soldiers and villagers always insisted that Marcus and his men should stay and rest, but they always politely declined, explaining that they needed to push on for the coast.
The team was warned of places to avoid, and always left with the well wishes of the soldiers and civilians, who understood how far they had travelled and what they had been through. Where possible, the German soldiers would radio ahead to other units, informing them that they were to offer what assistance they could to the group of ‘ragtag mercenaries’ headed West.
They passed close to Stuttgart before they crossed the border into France. The once vibrant city was nothing more than a smouldering ruin and from a distance, through the binoculars and on elevated ground, the team watched the swarms of dead that moved around the outskirts and along the main roads leading in and out. Even from afar they could hear the noise the dead made. It was a continuous murmur, like an electric buzz, as hundreds of thousands of black distant figures massed together, staggering within the city and singing their haunting chorus as one.
The sound sent chills down Marcus’ spine, and he knew in his own mind that there was not a living soul left in the city.
From far off to the North, two tiny black dots appeared over the horizon. Soon, Marcus and his men could hear the distant roar of jet engines as the fighters drew closer to the city. They watched as the two planes dropped their ordinance over the buildings and saw the fountains of smoke and debris as they exploded. A moment later, they heard the report of the detonations as the sound travelled the distance to the team while they looked on. They circled and closed in for another pass. They began to fire their rockets and incendiary bombs into the crowds that stood and stared at the spectacle above them before being obliterated in the blasts.
The fire began to spread and grip the city, sending dark plumes high into the sky as the orange flames licked at the buildings. The two fighter jets veered off and with a roar of thrusters, turned back North and flew from view.
Now, the team faced possible trouble ahead as they thrust for the coast.
They had begun to see signs of battle and ambush along their route as they travelled through Northern France, and Marcus ordered a turn around, hoping to pick up another route to the South. As they backtracked, they saw clouds of dust in the distance and heard the rumble of heavy vehicles headed toward them from the East and further to the South.
They were trapped.
Marcus decided that they needed to quicken their pace and continue to push West. They passed through small villages and saw the bodies of the infected lying in the open, sprawled over vehicles, crushed under crumbled buildings. The houses were peppered with bullet holes and Marcus judged that some of the weapons used were of a high calibre, maybe 20mm and 40mm.
Bodies were strung up, hanging from road signs and street lamps, swaying in the wind, having been executed by whomever it was that was roaming the area. In some places, rows of heads lined the road, placed on spikes and left to rot as warnings.
The team had no choice but to push on, trying to keep the distance between themselves and the suspected militia that was following.
The next morning, as they readied themselves to move out after spending the night in a wood, they heard the unmistakable loud rumbling of approaching tank tracks. The noise seemed to come from all around and they struggled to pinpoint the direction of the possible threat.
Stu jumped down into position beside Marcus, hefting an RPG.
“Sounds like there's a few of them. Not seeing any on the road yet though,” he said as he prepared the launcher for firing.
Marcus whispered into his radio, “Everyone, hold your fire. Hopefully they'll just pass us by.” He glanced back at Jim and Ian, who covered the rear, facing into the wooded area with Ahmed. Yan and Sini were positioned on their left flank, covering the road leading up to their position, with Sandra tucked in close behind them.
Marcus nodded to them and they nodded back.
Soon, they began to hear voices along with the grinding and rattling of the tanks. The tanks came to a halt and a voice, speaking English and with a strong French accent, rang out around them.
“Hello, you come out now. If you come, we will not hurt you.”
Stu glanced at him, eyes wide. Looking back to Ian and Jim, Marcus signalled, pointing both his fingers to his eyes and then shrugging his shoulders. Ian shook his head; he couldn't see any of them at the rear, but they all knew that they were surrounded.
Stu squinted, peering out to the road. “I c
an’t see fuck all, Marcus. What do you think?”
Marcus bit his lip and looked down at his weapon in his hands. “I think we’re fucked, Stu.” He looked at his friend and a wry smile spread across his face. “I'm not walking out to be executed like a dickhead.”
Stu looked about him, glancing at the rest of the men. “Me neither.”
Marcus keyed his radio again. “Lads, I don’t think we’ll get to the vehicles in time if we just run for it. We will have to go at them and try and create confusion, then pull back and see if we can bug out in the trucks. Jim, see if you can get eyes on with the nearest tank. If we can hit that, it could make them panic and give us a chance.”
“Will do, Marcus,” Jim replied and he began to edge his way forward, further into the wood line.
A minute later, Marcus heard Jim’s voice through his earpiece. “I've got eyes on. There's one about fifty metres to our half right, just outside the trees. I can see dismounted infantry ahead, moving through the wood toward us.”
“Roger that.” He turned to Stu and nodded.
Stu raised himself into a crouch and nodded in return, knowing what he needed to do. “Right, don’t go anywhere, I’ll be back in a jiffy”.
Marcus spoke again over the net. “Okay, Stu is gonna push forward with a launcher. Once he hits the tank, throw whatever smoke grenades you have. Then empty a magazine into the direction of the approaching troops. Once you hear the horn of my vehicle, fall back and mount up. Sini and Ian, get straight behind the guns in the turrets and begin hammering the bastards as we bug out. We’re gonna head straight for the road and toward the West.”
Marcus could feel the tension in the air. That moment between making the decision to fight, and the actual initiation was always the worst. Sweat leaked down into his eyes and he felt the hollow of his stomach and the knot that was steadily growing within.
His body was taught and ready to pounce, but the ‘fight or flight’ instincts were making his legs tremble and shivers run the length of his spine. His mouth was dry and it was hard to swallow as he sat, waiting for the moment to come.
He watched Stu stalk forward with the RPG cradled in his right arm. He stopped and dropped to a kneeling position and turned back to look at Marcus. He held up a thumb then pointed it to the ground and then pointed in the direction to his half right. Stu had visual on the tank.
“Standby, standby,”
Everyone tightened their grips on their weapons. All safety catches were off and Sini and Ian held smoke grenades at the ready.
A blast to the front and a whoosh, followed by another loud bang, initiated the start of the fight. Immediately, a crescendo of fire erupted from every weapon within the team. A cloud of smoke hung in the air around where Stu had been kneeling. Marcus watched as he bounded through the mist and back toward him. At the same time, the smoke grenades were thrown. As soon as the RPG struck the tank, they poured a massive weight of fire into the approaching troops. The cracks of the rounds hitting the trees and the screams of men as they were hit echoed through the woods. The rapid automatic fire was constant and never let up, denying the enemy the chance to recover from the shock and ferocity of the wall of fire that was unleashed on them.
Marcus darted back and climbed behind the wheel of his vehicle and began to pound on the horn. “Move, move!” he screamed for the men to pull back.
One by one, they emerged from the fog of battle and piled into their vehicles. The engines roared to life and the machineguns in the turrets began to blaze away into the wood line. No enemy were visible yet, but as far as Marcus was concerned, that was a good thing because it meant they were too busy taking cover and not advancing or returning fire.
The drivers slammed their feet to the floor as the gunners continued to pour their deadly fire into the trees, and the vehicles bounced along the track and toward the road. Marcus turned left and glimpsed something on the road to his right. It was another tank.
“Tank! We've got a tank to our rear!” he heard Sini screaming from above him.
The other vehicles crashed onto the main road from the track and followed Marcus. The flatbed truck was in the middle and Ian and Stu with Ahmed brought up the rear in their SUV, an easy target for the tank whose turret had turned and was aimed at the convoy. Marcus increased the speed, the guns in the turrets still firing at a rapid rate in the hope of keeping the enemy suppressed and busy, taking cover.
Marcus’ ears popped and his vision blurred momentarily as a fountain of dirt erupted close to his right. The tank had missed just by a couple of metres. The blast wave rocked the vehicle and threw Marcus about in his driver’s seat. Hussein sat beside him, holding his hands to his ears and opening and closing his mouth as his face screwed into a canvas of pain and disorientation.
The doors buckled, the windows cracked, and spider webs formed across them from the shockwave of the blast. Marcus struggled with the heavy vehicle, trying hard to keep them on the road as the chassis twisted and groaned beneath them.
Sini collapsed into the vehicle from the turret. “Shit. That was close. Get us out of here, Marcus. I can’t see a fucking thing!” he screamed as he scrambled back to the gun and continued to fire.
Before the tank was able to reload, the convoy had turned a bend and was out of sight as they ploughed along the narrow road ahead of them, trying to put as much distance between them and the follow-up that would inevitably come.
The gunners changed their ammunition for fresh belts and checked their arcs, making sure they weren’t in the sights of other enemy units about to ambush them. Sini could see over the hedges that lined the roads and he continually swivelled his gun turret to cover their front, while Ian covered the rear.
They thundered for the coast, never slowing. They had seen no other enemy units and they hoped they had put enough distance from their attackers. With the speed they were travelling, Marcus judged that they would have a bit of breathing space between them and the tanks due to their reduced speed. He hoped that the infantry wasn't stupid enough to follow up without their armoured support.
They were close to the sea. They could smell it.
A fireball erupted from the rear. A deafening bang and shockwave followed it that rocked the entire convoy. Machinegun fire rattled from the right. Tracer rounds zipped over and around them and more rounds thumped into the sides of their vehicles creating a deafening crescendo of noise on the inside as the rounds cracked and pinged into the armour.
The flatbed began to slow and swerve to the side. It lost control and collided with a low wall on its left and the front wheels landed in a ditch. The windows were shattered and the body of the truck was full of holes and tears as the rounds had pumped through and out the other side.
Sini was firing continuously into the positions he could see to the right. He screamed as he worked the gun; the belt feeding through from his left and the empty cases flying out from the ejection opening to the right while the used link piled at his feet, creating a little mountain of black steel.
Marcus spun in his seat, trying to see what had happened behind. He saw the crashed and perforated truck behind and glimpsed the rear SUV. It was static and on fire.
He slammed on the brakes. “Sini, vehicles two and three are down. Have you got eyes on with them?” he screamed up into the turret.
Sini was still firing and hollering, the vibrations of the gun shaking him as he leaned into it to stabilize his aim and unable to hear a word that Marcus had shouted at him. Marcus quickly decided that it was best to leave Sini behind the gun, and he grabbed Hussein and bailed out. They headed to the rear to see if there were any survivors. He still hadn't seen any of the enemy, but he placed his faith in Sini to suppress them while he extracted who he could from the other vehicles.
The air was alive with screams and the cracks of the rounds as they slammed into the vehicles or passed over their heads. In front of him, as he moved toward the flatbed, a stream of red tracer rounds shot across his path, snapping at the air l
ike a hundred whips. Hussein ducked behind him, then raised himself and fired a burst through the bushes and into the general direction of where the enemy fire had come from.
Smoke and shrapnel were thick in the air as the enemy fire continued to disintegrate the vehicles. Clods of mud and debris flew up as the sustained fire slammed into the embankments at the sides of the road. It was hard to see or hear and Marcus wasn't sure if there was anyone left alive from the rear two vehicles.
Then, through the smoke and fire, he saw movement. It was Stu and he was dragging someone. Jim was close behind him and Yan and Sandra staggered out from behind the flatbed.
Jim was firing into the bushes and screaming for the people in front to speed up. Marcus began to do the same and Hussein followed suit, screaming for them to hurry.
As Stu approached, Marcus saw that he was dragging Ian. He was still conscious but clutching at a bloody wound to his abdomen. He was groaning with the pain and unable to walk unaided.
“Where's Ahmed?” Hussein shouted over the noise as they passed.
Jim shook his head gravely. “He didn't make it. We need to move.” He pushed Hussein ahead of him and the survivors continued toward the lead vehicle, firing into the bushes and beyond, crouching and ducking as enemy fire came close.
Marcus motioned for Sini to dismount the gun and follow. With the amount of rounds the vehicles were taking, he knew that they were on foot from there on. The enemy fire eased off and Marcus wasn't sure whether they had been killed by Sini, or they were moving for a new position.
At a junction up ahead, he got his answer. An embankment spread out across their front with open fields beyond. Marcus headed for the far side of the road toward the cover of the embankment, hoping to steal a moment to consider their next move.
More rounds zipped toward them, cracking as they passed. Marcus sprinted forward and ducked into cover on the opposite side of the road and pressed himself close in against the earth mound of the embankment. He couldn't tell where the fire was coming from. It seemed to be all around and the air was alive with the white hot steel hornets as they thrashed around them. He could hear the steady barking of machineguns to his far right and he suspected they were to his front as well.
