ARISEN_Book Thirteen_The Siege

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  But he knew there could be no retreat.

  In any case, between the imminence of being overrun and the horrendously precarious terrain they were all operating on, Jameson just wanted the Tunnelers out of the way. The Royal Marines and soldiers were going to die in place, performing a heroic last stand, to buy a little more time.

  There was little point in the civilians dying with them.

  But as Jameson looked back over his shoulder to make sure they were complying and climbing down, his eye was drawn to their truck down on the ground, farther back by the gate. And out on that ground, he saw… Amarie. He’d recognize her anywhere, even from this distance. She was walking toward a small knot of stumbling Zulus, firing a handgun, its popping inaudible over the roar of the raging battle up top. Looking around him, he could see the first reservists panicking and running for it. He looked back down at the lone woman, fighting her tiny battle alone.

  And something tore at Jameson’s conscience.

  He could just about accept the loss of One Troop. Each of his men had signed up for this, had always known this moment might come – right from the day they put their hands up for Royal Marine selection at the Commando Training Centre (CTC). But something in him couldn’t bear to see that young woman die. He’d shepherded her too far, and she had come somehow to be the embodiment of everything Jameson was fighting for, everything he’d been trying to save, or at least protect a while longer. And he simply couldn’t sacrifice her – not to hold the dead off for another few minutes.

  He changed his mind.

  Hitting his radio, he said, “One Troop, off the line. Get to the rear. Croucher, herd ’em down.”

  “Roger that, Major. And then?”

  Jameson had absolutely no idea.

  * * *

  Elliot’s back was to the wall. He stood in a ring of his fallen brothers. He had done everything he could to keep them alive, to save even a few – but still they all went down.

  For some reason he had been spared.

  First, early on, lost out in the mists of overrun Kent, he had been the lone survivor of a doomed patrol sent out to find their missing ammo drop. And because of that, he hadn’t been with his company when the skies opened and rained artillery shells down upon them, wiping out his platoon-mates to the last man. He’d survived going back to try to save the wounded – failing totally, but somehow getting out alive himself. Later, up here, he’d survived the frantic run through the rubble field, Craddock and Beevor staying behind to die in his place.

  And, all throughout, he had tried to believe he was being kept alive for some greater purpose. For a long time, he’d believed that purpose was to protect his brothers.

  But now he knew better.

  And the lesson was inescapable.

  He couldn’t keep anyone alive. Nothing he did worked. Once again he was the last man standing. Everyone was gone but him. He would be the last to fall.

  And nothing could save him now.

  And then, bizarrely, as he fired and reloaded, left to right and left again, his eye was caught by motion out in the distance. It was a lone figure, dusty and unsteady, climbing to his feet atop one of the big rock piles that had survived the Apache squadron’s aerial bombardment.

  Someone else was alive.

  * * *

  Charlotte saw him too, from her God’s-eye view of the battle.

  She wheeled around and came in close for a better look – but not too close. The man didn’t look any too steady on his feet, and she didn’t want her rotor wash to blow him back and down into the sea of dead again.

  Could she pluck him off the top of that rock? He was pretty elevated. And there was a precedent, from Jugroom Fort, of pulling out a wounded man on the stub wing of an Apache. But before she could even assess how insane an idea this was, she could see the man struggling to raise something up onto his shoulder. It was a rocket tube, and he swayed under its weight as he tried to take aim on the front edge of the sea of dead lapping at the gap, out ahead of him.

  Charlotte’s hand tightened on her collective, thinking she’d better get clear. But before she could bug out, and before the man could fire, a loping Foxtrot hurtled up the rock behind him, slammed into his back, and took him over onto his face.

  The rocket fired.

  And instead of launching flat and low out into the undead mosh pit below, it exploded directly in front of him, in a section of rock pile, the explosion and smoke disappearing both bodies – and in the same instant peppering Charlotte’s airframe with jagged chunks of flying rock shrapnel, their angry impacts clanking all across the cockpit, side panels – and up in the main rotors overhead, which proceeded to sling the stone out again in all directions.

  As she hastily pushed power and pulled away, she could see her cockpit glass was cracked and spider-webbed in front of her face. And, much worse, there was a sickening wobble in her rotors that she just did not like at all.

  It was definitely time for her to go.

  * * *

  Simmonds leapt off the last section of ladder onto the scaffolding below, happy and confident that it would hold. He was slightly surprised One Troop was withdrawing – but then again not all that surprised.

  They were the last ones off the Wall.

  Strangely, despite the unwinnable fight, the infinite opponents, and now the call to withdraw, Simmonds was feeling pretty good. In part it was that, after what they’d fought through and survived in Moscow, nothing could really scare him now – or so he thought. Moreover, he trusted their senior leadership, Jameson and Croucher, to take care of them.

  He believed in them completely.

  As he ran down and across the scaffolding, over and down, leading the way – as usual Croucher wanted the junior men out in front where he could keep an eye on them – he thought about the real source of his happiness. It was that he had been given the chance to redeem himself, to earn his commander’s trust back. Jameson had picked him to go to Moscow, even after the debacle at the exploding CentCom aircraft hangar, for which Simmonds had been responsible. And he performed well there, helping to complete the mission, to get the Kazakh scientist and his pathogen out.

  That redemption, being someone his team could depend on, was everything to him. Now he was just happy to be allowed to do his job, alongside all his mates, and be a valued member of this team once again. And he was very happy to do whatever the major and colour sergeant told him to. The last thing Jameson had said over the radio was:

  “Look after the civilian group – the Tunnelers.”

  As Simmonds hit the ground, he turned to clock the rest of the team behind him, as they leapt down at high speed.

  He didn’t see Jameson.

  Looking forward again, out toward the gate as well as a truck parked nearby, his eyes narrowed and his mouth opened, as he saw what was happening between it and the gate. He remembered what the major had told him

  And he put his head down and ran.

  * * *

  Jesus Christ, Jameson muttered in his head, as he saw the top of the rock pile explode, and seemingly send Charlotte’s Apache twisting and careening away from the force of the explosion. But after a second he could see she was flying under her own power, and still under control. And while the motion of her aircraft had gone shaky, she stayed in the air, and was finally zooming out of the area, away from the fight.

  Which was the right idea, as far as he was concerned.

  It was also all the time Jameson had to look after her – never mind radio her, or do anything else.

  Because he was now last man standing on the Wall.

  And it wasn’t just that he was going to be the last of his Marines to withdraw from the position. He was actually performing a one-man holding action. Because he would be damned if he’d have the dead, now cresting the gap in large numbers, dropping down on the heads of his men as they tried to climb down the goddamned ladders to the rear.

  Two runners scrambled up over the lip ahead of him, and he blasted th
em right back over the edge, then two more who leapt around them. But then he went empty, and there were two more, and zero time to reload, so he reversed his rifle, ran forward, and swung it like a club, ejecting this pair just as effectively. From his new position, though, he could see a fallen reservist with a Minimi, a light machine gun, still attached to him by its sling. He drew his boot knife in a flash, slashed the sling, and took up the weapon. From the weight, the 200-round cloth ammo pouch below was full or nearly full.

  He used it to best effect, going cyclic, methodically hosing down the gap all the way out to either side, cleaning house and clearing the area. This only worked because he brought it up to his shoulder and fired carefully and flawlessly at head height. When he’d finished this, he stood there alone. But his solitude was only going to last seconds.

  He figured: That’s it, then.

  There was no one else alive up top. His men were all nearly down onto the ground. And this was the breathing room he needed to get himself safely out.

  But then he hesitated, not totally sure why.

  Maybe it was the tactician in him – or even that half-assed strategic commander he had briefly been – but he just wanted to know what the situation on the ground was before he went. He leaned out, stuck his head over the edge, and looked down. And he could hardly believe what he saw.

  There was a single Para – still alive and on his feet.

  Not only that, but Jameson actually recognized him. It was that same one, tragically young and yet inexplicably old, who he’d locked eyes with before. He could still feel the intensity of his gaze, and the sadness of his presence.

  And he was still down there fighting.

  Completely alone.

  * * *

  Click.

  The slide on Amarie’s pistol locked back, but she couldn’t even see it from behind, and didn’t attach any significance to it. She just knew the trigger wasn’t working, and it had stopped shooting. It didn’t matter. She kept walking forward into death and oblivion. She was vaguely aware the others were back, down off the Wall, and Hackworth and Colley themselves struggling to close the small gate the distraught builder had opened.

  But there were already dead walking or running all around them, having come through the open door, or else just fallen from the top of the gap nearby. Numb, insensible, she barely bothered to turn her head at fast incoming motion from her right. But then running bodies tumbled into the dirt at her feet, and she heard gunshots – and snaps in the air over and around her head. And from behind the falling bodies, another one.

  A soldier, a young one – she blinked on recognizing it was one of the Marines who had got them out of Canterbury. Simmonds wrapped his arms around her, tackling her to the ground, and covered up her body with his own.

  She lay in the dirt beneath him, and quietly began to cry.

  * * *

  Jameson could see the young Para survivor out on the ground was actually standing in a ring of his dead compatriots, trying to fire in all directions at once. And he was seconds, if that, from being drowned in the angry sea of dead that surged at him from all sides.

  Jameson blinked and thought fast and looked down at his two weapons, both empty. He honestly didn’t think there was any way he’d have time to do anything – but he had to try. Turning and sliding into the rock on his knees, he scrabbled and pulled out another 200-round ammo pouch off the fallen reservist. And he started the fastest MG reload of his life, flipping up the cover and feed mechanism, switching out the pouches, then jamming in the end of the new belt, and slamming the cover down again. When he finished and leaned back over the edge, the Para was standing like David and stabbing heads with the bayonet on the end of his rifle, occasionally pausing to push and shove at undead who latched onto it.

  Now Jameson had to shoot perfectly. But it hardly mattered. The kid was going to die either way, certainly if he didn’t try. He pulled the extensible stock tight into his shoulder, put one eye to the sight, kept the other open – and he started machine-gunning a cardboard cut-out around the soldier.

  If this lad moves a foot, he’s dead, Jameson thought.

  But the lad didn’t. Even in the depths of his concentration and focus, Jameson got the strange sensation the young man was insensible – as if he were dead already, dead on his feet. As the walking corpses nearly on top of him fell down or fell apart, Jameson walked his fire out from there, clearing the area around him, until the Minimi went empty again, all 200 rounds expended.

  As he dropped the weapon, he realized his planning hadn’t extended any farther than this. But his eye went to the pulley arm he’d gotten in place nearby to lower ammo crates down. A rope was still looped through it, both ends coiled on the ground, one of them ending in a heavy steel hook. But then Jameson tried to imagine hauling a fully loaded trooper up thirty feet with his kitten-weak arms, flooded as they were with adrenaline and battle fatigue, and knew it was simply never going to happen.

  He looked around quickly and saw a second length of rope, the one the hapless builder had tripped over – and it was still tied around four sides of that big building stone. He ran over, drew his knife in a flash, cut both ropes, tied the ends together, then put his shoulder down – and pushed on the stone, thankfully only having to shove it about a foot before it teetered on the inside edge of the Wall. He darted back to the outside edge, gathered up the end with the hook – and dropped it practically on the Para’s head. It hit the ground at his feet. He couldn’t miss it.

  The young man looked up, his stare still a thousand yards long. But he didn’t react – he didn’t reach for the rope or the hook. Jameson squinted in confusion, looking down into his eyes. Was this guy mental? There seemed to be some strange kind of light or kindness, or even a glow, in his eyes – or was that just shell-shock, battle fatigue, instant-onset PTSD?

  Okay, maybe he’s in shock, Jameson thought.

  He cupped his hands, leaned out, and bellowed, “Grab the fucking rope!” The kid nodded. He had clearly both heard and understood him. But then he turned away, calmly reloaded, and resumed firing.

  And now Jameson got it.

  He intends to die down there with his friends.

  Jameson didn’t like it, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. It’s your neck, he thought, finally turning to just get himself the hell out of there, while he still could.

  But as he pivoted, the scrabbly edge of the gap gave way and slid out from under his boots. Jameson kicked and grabbed, but couldn’t latch on to anything. He slid down the uneven front of the outside of the Wall, grabbing at the hanging rope in front of him to try to slow his descent. It worked, a little, the ground below slamming into his side two seconds later, knocking the air out of his lungs, but not killing or badly injuring him. He tried to focus his vision, and pull himself up to his feet – because he knew if he stayed down on the ground, he was dead.

  With a sickening lurch of comprehension, he realized he was outside of the Wall. He was out of London.

  He was out in the undead sea.

  He could see the Para standing over him, firing, keeping them both alive a few seconds longer. He knew he had to get up, and had to get his weapon reloaded. But then, when he heard a voice in his ear, he wondered if it was God calling him home. It wasn’t. It was the next closest thing.

  It was Colour Sergeant Croucher.

  “Oi. Grab the sodding rope.”

  Jameson looked straight up – and saw Croucher’s big, mean, beautiful face staring down over the edge of the gap. He’d come back. He’d come back for him. This time he didn’t bother with the radio, but only shouted. “Because we haven’t got all fucking day!”

  Jameson grabbed the rope.

  The Para didn’t. Oh, you stubborn sonofabitch…

  Jameson looped the steel hook through the kid’s belt, shouted a single syllable – “NOW!” – grabbed the rope with both hands, and hung on for dear life. The line went taut and the pair of them rocketed up into the air, d
ead hands pawing at their boots, rotten faces hissing their malice and frustration. Their collision with the pulley up top nearly knocked both of them cold – and nearly knocked them back over again; but Croucher was there to pull them both in to safety.

  Dazed, wobbly, with no time or stamina to negotiate the ladders and scaffolding, which were all going over anyway, the three just slid down the rope that had been pulled taut by the big stone falling to the ground behind, where living and dead were now fighting, wrestling, running in all directions – and the Tunnelers’ truck even then skidding up to a halt, driven by the youngest-looking soldier Jameson had ever seen. The Tunnelers started clambering into the back before it had even stopped.

  Jameson could already see the truck wasn’t going to hold all of them plus One Troop – but at the sound of a roaring engine, he turned and saw, from the other direction, another vehicle, one of the reservists’ ammo trucks. This one was being driven by Yap, one of the Marines who had survived Moscow. It skidded up and the Marines started piling into it.

  But as Jameson got his weapon reloaded and back up facing their broken lines, to defend his team while they loaded up the vehicle, he heard high-pitched crying and screaming behind him. When he looked around, he could see Hackworth and another Tunneler physically struggling with Amarie. She seemed hysterical, and obviously didn’t want to get in the damned truck.

  Then he heard a wet sound of splattering meat, and looked up to see flailing bodies waterfalling off the top of the gap, two, then ten, then twenty, and many more behind. This was it. The Wall was breached. The flood was pouring inside. He dashed over and grabbed Amarie’s elbow, shouting, “Get in the truck!”

  She pulled away from him. “Just leave me,” she sobbed. “It doesn’t matter!”

  Jameson couldn’t believe it. Some kind of goddamned Thanatos suicidal death urge just seemed to be gripping everyone around here today. And they definitely didn’t have time for this crap. He shook her upper body and shouted: “Josie’s alive! I’ll get you back to her!” Amarie stopped sobbing and her eyes focused. Jameson picked her up anyway and tossed her in back. When he turned around again, the Marines had loaded up the second truck and it was spinning its tires, pulling out fast. Croucher grinned and curled his fingers at him out the back as it started to pick up speed.