by Dc Alden
As he took his seat alongside the men and women who made us the Parish Council, the villagers finally found their voice, and a storm of noise erupted from the floor. Seated next to Khan, Andy Metcalfe, a gruff, no-nonsense scrap dealer in his late fifties, held his hands up for silence. When the hall finally settled down, he spoke in a deep, West Country twang.
‘You all know me. I’ll say what needs to be said and by the sounds of it we’re in serious trouble. Our main concern has to be what’s best for the village. We’re going to have to pull together, that’s the truth of it. ‘The hall was silent as Metcalfe spoke. It was obvious to Khan that the man had the respect of his community, but there was something else there too – the slight bark to his voice, the challenging jut of his scarred chin, the cautious support of the other council members. How did Rob describe him? A ‘character’, he’d said, a dealer in farm scrap who’d never served on the council or any other official body. Maybe Rob was jealous, or maybe he was just being diplomatic. Either way, it was in times of crisis that the most unlikely candidates emerged to show leadership, and Metcalfe certainly seemed to fit the bill.
‘There are other considerations too,’ Metcalfe continued, ‘crop harvests, fuel rationing, that sort of stuff. It’s my view that the Parish Council takes the lead on this and they’ve kindly asked me to join them while this business goes on. We haven’t got time to hold elections, am I right?’ There were a few polite chuckles around the room, Khan noted, but not many. ‘Now, has anyone got any other suggestions for the short term? Make ’em useful or keep ’em to yourselves.’
All eyes swivelled towards Khan as he stood up once more. ‘There’s one other thing you can do. As I mentioned, many lives were lost last night. The first hours of a conflict are always the most dangerous. No clear battle lines, lots of confusion–’ The windows suddenly rattled with the sound of distant thunder. The tremors lasted for several long moments then faded away. Khan traded a worried look with Alex, standing down by the side of the stage.
‘Summer storm,’ Metcalfe announced, although no-one believed it. He looked up at Khan. ‘You were saying?’
‘Yes. Sorry.’ Khan turned to face his audience. ‘You need to hide the village.’ The suggestion was met with a deafening silence. Even Metcalfe looked baffled.
‘Sorry, my old mate, you’ve lost us there,’ the big man snorted, his thick arms folded across his chest. Mild laughter rippled around the hall.
‘Like I said, lives have been lost, possibly tens of thousands. Men, women... children too.’ The laughter around the hall died away. ‘Many would’ve been killed during the initial attacks, caught in the chaos on the streets, or victims of the sudden lawlessness. I believe you need to isolate yourselves from those dangers, and the longer you avoid contact with the outside world, the better your chances of surviving this critical period of the invasion.’
‘So what do we do?’ asked Metcalfe.
Khan wheeled a chalkboard to the front of the stage and spun it around. On it was a rough diagram of the village and the surrounding roads. ‘You all know the area. There are only two roads that lead into this village, the one from the south and this one here, that runs northeast towards Lockeridge itself. Now, what I suggest will require fast work, some earth-moving machinery and an eye for camouflage. Has anyone got a digger, something with a bucket scoop?’ Several hands in the crowd were raised. ‘Good,’ continued Khan. ‘One thing I’ve noticed around here is that all the country lanes have high-sided banks, correct?’ Almost everyone in the hall nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. My idea is this: take the diggers and block both roads to the village with earth walls. Make them the same height as the existing banks and camouflage them with the same growth and vegetation as the real ones. Even plant a couple of trees, bushes, stuff like that. Then make sure any white lines or junction markers on the road are covered or painted over and, most importantly, remove any road signs that mention this village.’
Khan paused for a moment, but when he realised there were no objections, he carried on. ‘I suggest a group of you go farther afield, tell the other villages, remove any road signs you find. The more confusion you create, the better. Of course, the Arabians will have maps and aircraft, but I suspect rural communities are not their priority. The exercise here is to keep out of the way for as long as possible while events run their course. You’ve heard what a mess London is in, and Swindon too. If people can, they’ll try and leave the cities and spread out into the countryside. They’ll be scared, hungry, thirsty – and possibly armed. That’s why I think sealing off this village is important.’
Khan registered the suddenly frightened faces around the hall. He shrugged and attempted a reassuring smile. ‘It probably won’t come to that, but it’s best to err on the side of caution. Just in case.’
‘How do we get in and out if the roads are blocked?’ asked Metcalfe.
Khan tapped the chalkboard with a finger. ‘Use the bridle path through this wood here, just south of the village. It’s wide enough to drive a vehicle through and it’ll bring you out onto the main road here, outside the blockade. My advice is to stay put though, unless absolutely necessary.’
The hall remained silent. It was a lot for a community like this to take in, Khan knew, but it might protect them in the long run. And the possibility of marauding gangs had struck a particularly unnerving note. When the Arabians finally discovered the village, Khan doubted they’d be too upset about the camouflage tactics. Self-preservation, that would be the agreed cover story. After that, well, the future for the villagers was anyone’s guess, but he doubted their way of life would be affected too much. People still needed to eat and farms were the lifeblood of any nation.
Metcalfe lumbered to his feet. ‘Sounds like a good idea. We don’t want no outsiders coming here, trying to take the food out of our mouths, right? Unless they’re family.’ A murmur of agreement rippled around the hall. ‘Let’s vote on it then. All those in favour, raise your hand.’
Almost every hand in the room shot into the air. ‘Unanimous,’ acknowledged Khan. ‘That’s it, then. But you must work fast. The Arabians could arrive any day now.’ He paused a moment, then nodded. ‘Good luck.’
The hall erupted in a cacophony of voices and scraping chairs. Metcalfe’s was the loudest of all, as he began barking orders and corralling villagers into work groups. Khan stepped down off the stage where Alex was waiting.
‘It’s good advice, Dan. When are you leaving?’
‘After dark. I need to get back to Rob’s place, get organised.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You hear those rumbles earlier?’
Alex nodded. ‘Planes, maybe. Or artillery. Sounded like a long way away.’
‘Not far enough,’ replied Khan, shaking his head. ‘Damn, I should’ve mentioned lookouts. You’ll need them.’
‘I’ll take care of it,’ Alex assured him.
Khan watched the hustle and bustle around him for a moment. A large group of women had converged at the back of the hall while up on the stage Metcalfe had gathered the more able-bodied men around the chalkboard. Through the window the small road that circled the village green was now aglow with brake lights as a dozen vehicles navigated the narrow lanes away from the centre of the village.
Khan’s eye caught the Parish Council members, huddled together at the side of the stage. They were mostly elderly, a mixture of men and women, nervously gathered around the local vicar who was mouthing his own words of comfort. Occasionally, one or two of them would glance in Metcalfe’s direction as he held strident court nearby. South Lockeridge had undergone its own power shift, Khan realised.
‘You know this guy Metcalfe?’
Alex shrugged. ‘Not really. Bit of a loudmouth in the village pub by all accounts. I hear he sails a bit close to the wind, business-wise. Scrap metal and all that.’
‘Well, he’s certainly risen to the challenge,’ Khan observed. ‘Just be careful he doesn’t dominate the decision-making process. These people will look
to you too, you being a police officer.’
‘He’s alright,’ Alex replied. ‘We’ll sort it out, don’t worry.’
Outside, the village green was now deserted, the shadows deepening as night crept towards them. Alex climbed into the Range Rover and Khan fired up the engine, watching the needle climb just above the full mark. The villagers had come through with the fuel, as Rob had promised him. Just as well, he thought; since the briefing, people around here might be a little less inclined to share, especially with a stranger. He slipped the vehicle in gear, hit the lights, then slowly circumnavigated the green.
‘Seal this place tight,’ Khan warned. ‘The Arabians will find you sooner or later. When they do, don’t resist. Make sure everybody knows that.’
‘Sure,’ Alex muttered. ‘We’ll be alright. I doubt they’ll stay long.’
Khan heard the uncertainty in Alex’s voice, saw the tense smile that barely creased his face. Khan felt the tension too. They’d enjoyed a brief interlude from the chaos of the invasion, the peace of the countryside seducing them both, but the Arabian war machine waited over the rumbling horizon, moving ever closer. He contemplated pressing Alex again, to try and persuade him to head for the coast, then decided against it. He’d made his choice, the only one he could make given the circumstances. So he said nothing, instead easing the Range Rover through the narrow lanes and back towards the farm.
Forty-eight kilometres to the south, General Mousa ducked beneath the thunderous roar of the helicopter rotor blades and strapped himself into his seat. He placed a headset over his ears as the pilot indicated imminent lift-off. Beside him, Major Karroubi did the same and the aircraft leapt into the air, banking to the north as it cleared the treetops of Grovely Wood.
‘Over ninety-four per cent of enemy anti-aircraft units confirmed destroyed,’ Karroubi yelled above the noise as Mousa watched the ground through the open door. ‘Ground forces and helicopter assault teams are on the move.’
Mousa turned away from the fields below, from the back gardens and streets where tiny, pale figures stared up at them in the gathering dusk. It all depended on speed now. All he had to do was punch a corridor through to the Mendips, then get out, quick and clean, before the Cleric became aware of the operation. Beecham, paraded before him in chains, would soothe the ire of the Holy One.
‘Send in the bombers,’ he barked.
Far to the east, eight fighter-bombers of the Arabian air force turned into their new heading and went to full afterburner, rocketing low across the English countryside. Their wings were heavy with ordinance as their infrared and thermal imaging equipment scanned the ground ahead for military targets. In each plane, the two-man crews flipped down their anti-glare visors as they thundered into the setting sun.
The Advance West
It was a gamble, one that could cost them their lives, but it might just work. There were two vehicles, mobile SAM launchers of the Royal Artillery, and both had their systems shut down. They gave off no signature at all, neither electronic emissions nor returns from their armoured hulls. Even their engines were switched off. Everything that could be shut down, was.
The vehicles were parked behind two huge metal grain silos on a farm a few miles north of Andover, the giant containers masking their presence both visually and electronically from anyone watching from the east. They had received the order to evacuate over twenty minutes ago, but the section commander had consulted his crews and decided to wait just a little longer. He felt sure an opportunity would present itself for both vehicles to expend their remaining anti-aircraft missiles. To abandon them just seemed like a terrible waste and they were determined not to leave without a fight. A few minutes earlier, Arabian armour had passed them to the south. They were now officially behind enemy lines, but they would worry about that later. All that mattered now was launching the missiles.
The rumble in the distance grew louder. The lookout on top of one of the silos lowered his binoculars and reached for his radio. Enemy aircraft, coming in from the east, fast movers.
The commander ordered the weapons systems to be powered up. They’d only get one shot at this before they were detected. The distant rumble quickly increased to a roar and then the aircraft were there, passing low to the north in tight formation. There was no time for finesse. Each missile was programmed to auto-seek, switching randomly between heat-seeking and infrared, allowing the weapons to choose their own targets. The order was given and the missile tubes swivelled around to face the northwest. Both vehicles rocked on their tracks as the missiles were loaded and launched at two-second intervals. When the last missile had roared from its tube, both crews grabbed their gear and weapons and ran for the relative safety of a nearby wood.
The British commander had done well. Blinded by the low sun and confident in the collapse of the Infidel forces, the Arabian pilots were focused solely on releasing their own ordinance as they scanned the horizon for targets. When their threat receivers screamed in their ears they were momentarily confused, then reacted instinctively as their instruments registered the incoming missiles.
Two fighter-bombers banked left and right simultaneously, veering into each other and obliterating both planes from the sky. In seconds, the missiles had eaten up the distance between the other planes and detonated one after the other, the explosions rippling across the summer sky, filling the air with thousands of deadly metal shards. Another three aircraft exploded, the burning debris spiralling to the fields below.
Now there were just three left. One was badly damaged and limped for home, black smoke trailing from one of its engines. Of the remaining two, one banked hard around and headed for the probable launch site. In the distance, the pilot saw a cloud of white smoke hanging low on the ground and his instrumentation told him that there were two military-spec vehicles parked there. He flipped his weapons control and selected cluster munitions. Less than one minute after the British crews had vacated their vehicles, the whole area erupted in a succession of detonations as the farm buildings, grain silos and everything else in a two hundred metre radius was engulfed in a series of fireballs. Leaking fuel from a punctured wing, that fighter too headed back to its temporary base at Heathrow.
The lead plane continued onwards unscathed, its pilot furious at the loss of his flight and desperate to exact revenge. On-board systems reported several possible targets and the fighter-bomber engaged them with extreme prejudice, wiping out six British tanks in a series of low-level sorties.
The pilot checked his instruments. They were still good for fuel and the sun had finally dipped below the horizon. Now he could see. His weapons/ navigation officer seated behind him gave him the last known position of the enemy convoy that had been detected by the LARVE. General Mousa himself had expressed interest in its whereabouts and composition. It would make a nice, fat target, thought the pilot.
He tilted his head and looked below him. He was flying parallel to a main road, which was being utilised by a large Arabian armoured column heading westward. The pilot saw a few arms waving and he dipped his wings in reply. It always made the tankies happier when they had overhead cover. He checked the terrain ahead. There was an industrial estate on a rise a couple of kilometres in front of them and some residential housing behind that. His instrumentation told him there were no immediate threats. The armoured column was safe enough.
The pilot banked the aircraft to the south. The coast wasn’t that far away, roughly fifty kilometres. He decided to take a closer look down there.
Jim Newman was starting to get worried, and not because an Arabian fighter-bomber had just screamed overhead; it was the growing mob on the other side of the fence that was making him nervous. The plane had excited them. They’d begun to shake the chain-link violently, the ripple effect causing the metal ties near the ground to come loose from their fastenings. The adults leaned against the fence, pushing the bottom outwards and some of the smaller kids crawled under. They, in turn, held up their side and now the rest of the mob spille
d out onto the industrial estate. Some of the kids wandered off to explore the deserted site, but the older ones held their ground, their eyes fixed on Newman and his Land Rover. There was going to be trouble. Fixed to his chest rig, the radio crackled.
‘Jimbo, come in.’
Newman keyed the mike. ‘Send.’
‘We’re open for business. Stand by, chum.’
That meant the Arabian forces had been sighted and were heading towards them. Newman’s heart pounded in his chest. Any moment now the firing would start – and their escape route was blocked.
Newman turned the jeep’s engine over and it roared into life. The mob numbered well over a hundred now, strung out across the road. Slowly they began to advance towards him. Newman grabbed his weapon and slid out of the vehicle, leaving the engine running.
‘Stay where you are!’ he bawled in his most authoritative voice. ‘This is a national emergency situation! Go back to your homes!’
Some of the younger kids stopped short at the sight of the gun. The older ones didn’t. They kept moving slowly towards Newman. Emboldened by their peers, the younger ones now began to fan out around the jeep. In another minute or so Newman would be surrounded. He didn’t want to shoot any civilians, particularly kids, but he might not have a choice here. He’d seen what mobs could do to people caught at the sharp end of their rage. There was no way Jim Newman was going out like that.
He brought his weapon up into his shoulder and looked down the optical sight, taking aim dead centre on the upper torso of a shirtless, muscular man covered in tattoos. He looked to be in his early forties, shaven-headed, wearing heavy gold jewellery around his thick neck. Maybe he was a leader. If Newman dropped him, the crowd might falter. Then again, they may go fucking ballistic. He closed one eye to steady his aim and prayed for the nearby tank to commence firing.
‘Target, tank! Twelve hundred yards!’
