"I was sick a lot of the time. No booze. Made me bad for weeks." He offered. "I let myself down. In my day I could've taken that Bronson character."
Dan doubted him slightly on that.
"So." He said “How can I help?"
Marine Corporal Richard straightened in his seat, becoming more formal.
"Sir. I'd like to offer my service to you" he said.
"It's Dan" he said patiently "and I've got some concerns"
"I'm off the drink, that's the only good thing to come from that" he said forcefully. "I let myself down and I need to make up for it"
There was fire left in the man. Dan saw that and he wanted it, but not at the risk of others.
"Maybe so, but there are other issues you will need to address. Namely the PTSD; what if I gave you a gun and the first time you heard a bang it set you off?" He asked rhetorically before continuing "We have a counsellor, and you will see her twice a week until she gives me the clearance to give you active duty"
Richard nodded.
"You will also undergo physical training until you are fit - and I warn you she" he said pointing at Leah "will outrun and outgun you now. She's thirteen" Leah smiled as her pretence of being busy cracked. "Her mile and a half is down to nine minutes and her range scores are almost as high as mine."
"After that" Dan said "you will work from here manning the CB and cleaning weapons. You will be our quartermaster until we are both independently satisfied of your return to active duty status. So, tell me Marine; are you still interested?"
Without hesitation, Richard replied "Yes Sir'
"It's Dan, Boss to my lot at best" he repeated patiently.
"I'm in, Boss" he said, looking him directly in the eyes.
Dan offered his hand again "I'll let you know where to be then, Rich"
ANY EXCUSE
Like an excited boy, Dan went to find Marie. He felt a bit pathetic and exposed when he spoke to her, but this was a perfect excuse for some alone time.
He found her room door ajar, and knocked.
"Hello?' Came the voice from inside.
'It’s Dan, are you busy?" he said, trying to sound casual.
"No, come in"
He walked in to find her sat on her bed reading a book. She pulled her glasses down her nose and regarded him warmly. They had seen more of each other since she joined the council, and he liked that.
"How can I help?" She asked. "You haven't shot someone again have you?"
"Funny” he said "No. I've just had a rather damaged Royal Marine ask to join and I need your help"
Marie put down her book and patted the bed next to him. He hesitated and she said "Do I smell?"
Dan blushed, and mumbled that she didn't. "Have you brought your wolf?" She asked mockingly. Ash seemed to betray him utterly with her and played the puppy when she called him.
"No. Just me" he said quietly.
"Well come in then"
He sat with her, and explained the meeting he had just had with Rich. He realised halfway through that she must know some of this already, and in better detail, but he carried on with his story to cover the fact that he was sat in bed with a woman he found irresistible but aloof.
"So, can you work with him twice a week for the PTSD and the alcohol issues?" He asked.
"Yes, but I want you to promise he won't have a gun until I say he's not likely to kill himself with it" she said.
"Agreed" replied Dan.
"Good. Now, where were you based?" She questioned him lightly, surprising him with a subject change.
He rose from the bed, concerned that he was being analysed. "Thanks for your help. I'll send Rich to you soon" he said from the doorway as he turned to escape.
“Hey!” she snapped “Come here and sit down”
With no idea why, he did as he was told.
“Now. I know you were in the job, so tell me the rest” she said as she closed her book and took off her glasses.
He told her some and she extracted the rest expertly. He didn’t tell her everything though, he wasn’t ready for that.
WHAT NEXT?
A week later Dan and Marie took a walk around the grounds of the house.
"It's not so much the PTSD" Marie explained "It's more survivor's guilt but hugely intensified"
"We've all got some of both, to a degree" he reasoned.
"True" she answered "but what most of us don't have is massive underlying trauma like Rich does. Think about it; he's maimed, he sees two friends die in front of him, his career is over. All of this after years of active service. That's just the beginning, he then goes into self-destruct and spirals into a completely different person"
"Hence the wife jumping ship, as they do" Dan interjected bitterly. Marie raised an eyebrow but let it slide, for now.
"Yes. He's alone and the only thing he has to do is replay the bad things over and over. I'm amazed he's still alive" she finished.
"So the question remains; will he get better?" Dan asked.
She thought for a few seconds, not about the answer but about the explanation.
"Yes. In actual fact, our situation may bring about an almost complete absence of symptoms given the right stimulus" she said. Rich was a unique story to start with, even before it happened. She firmly believed that he was a natural survivor; he'd been shot at, blown up, burned, crippled, abandoned, abused and beaten. Still he refused to give in and die.
She explained all this to him, and suggested that a gradual increase in responsibility for him alongside careful progress of talking therapy would give him a purpose.
"With duties, responsibilities and a reason to get up in the morning and be useful, he will get better quickly. As to the long term effectiveness of him as a soldier, I simply can't say yet"
Dan thought on what she had said. "So you agree that he should follow a daily routine of physical training and rehabilitation, then be given more responsibility in Ops without being armed and sent out?"
"Exactly" she said "I'd like to see him every other day. If all else fails, then repeating 'it's not your fault' at him will at least do some good"
"Ok then" said Dan, and walked along in silence next to her. He liked spending time near her, and selfishly used official reasons to capitalise on it.
Ash loped from the trees to his left, effortlessly sliding towards them. He nuzzled his huge head into Marie's crotch, making her squeal and tell him off for being a dirty bastard.
Dan smiled, keeping his thoughts private.
"So where do we go from here?" She asked wistfully, stopping to light another cigarette.
He did the same.
"We let Chris and the others do what they do; within a couple of years we should be almost self-sufficient. Andrew is happy enough with the stores, pending the arrival of another twenty-three people to feed. All in all, we're doing ok but we still need to stockpile as much as we can to survive half a dozen winters. I know it seems a bit childish, but I want to stockpile more weapons too; bullets won't last forever, so we either learn to make them - which is dangerous and difficult - or we have alternatives for the future."
He finished his small speech, and stood there in silence.
"That's cute" she said "but I meant us as in you and me, not us as in the whole group"
Heart thumping and colour rising in his cheeks, he didn't know what to say. She filled the silence for him, and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"One condition" she said seriously, drawing away "that beard's got to go!"
MAIN SEASON
Spring was in full flow, and the farms and gardens were full of activity from breakfast until evening.
Lambs were born, which meant that Chris and Ana lived in a caravan they had towed up to the farm so that they were on hand to help the ewes give birth.
The gardens team under Cedric and Maggie had adopted a routine of planting new crops weekly, to try and ensure a steady supply of fresh food without wastage.
Scouting missions went out, with Dan a
nd Steve taking Leah on a few to keep her boredom levels down. There was very little training left for her to do, and Steve suggested testing her E&E skills soon by seeing if she can make it home whilst they hunted her. He thought that was a good idea, but needed fine tuning as he didn't really want her to kill him by accident.
The pigs raised a difficult question, and Kerry's biology and genetics knowledge paid off. They marked their herd according to the family tree she had created. To ensure they didn't have inbred livestock, the piglets from last year were separated to keep a couple of boars ready for the breeding program, mixing the different breeds of pigs to create their own hybrid. Three generations were deemed enough to prevent any unwanted side effects, and the plan was checked over twice; they had enough variety to breed and sustain a herd for the future.
Luckily the bull was young and had plenty of years left in him. The future of the cows was dependent on finding another one at some point. Some joked that he had the best job of everyone there.
The egg collections had been stopped, and the chickens had become broody. Soon a multitude of fuzzy yellow chicks were running around making peeping noises. Ewan had reinforced the fences with extra layers of tight mesh then requested the help of the Rangers. Dan and Steve spent the night awake on the farm using their suppressed carbines with ambient light optics.
The following morning they proudly displayed the ranks of six dead foxes for the Welshman.
He was happy, and the carcasses were swiftly skinned and fed to the pigs before anyone more squeamish saw them.
Dan's freshly shaved face was noticed, but not commented on. He realised how lazy he had become having spent months just using a set of clippers to trim his whole head every few weeks.
He finally moved his room upstairs, after stubbing his toe for the last time on the boxes of ammunition stored in his draughty quarters. He gave up and moved into what was the Governor's office. The big desk was moved to a corner and the filing cabinets went into medical; there were still plenty of spare rooms as the offices had been cleared out. He moved his double bed in, and soon found that someone else was adding some more feminine touches occasionally.
He had given up his old room to be a proper armoury, using the cupboard in Ops as the store for the farming and hunting weapons. Rich had got himself into a routine, going for a run before breakfast. He had asked for a wetsuit and was taken on a scavenging run. He added a swim of the lake to his fitness regime which others had taken to copying. Within a few weeks he seemed much better, both physically and mentally. Dan decided to officially declare him recruited on a restricted basis. He spent his days sorting the armoury out as there were still bags of weaponry taken from various places that had not been sorted. Leah took him to their clothing stores and pointed him towards the black section.
Dan had asked him to show Leah all the weaponry and check her skills at cleaning and maintaining them. This served not only to keep her busy with a new skill, but on Dan's request he spoke freely when he could of the horrors he had seen during his service. He still wouldn't talk of the incident that took two people he knew like brothers and left him crippled, but his descriptions of dead Taliban were detailed enough to remove the romantic thoughts in her head about what she was training to be.
He watched them from the doorway one morning, sat at a bench with a rack of guns in front of them.
Rich pointed at one, and Leah recited the statistics.
"Heckler and Koch 416 carbine, police model which isn't automatic. Fires NATO five-five-six from a thirty round mag. Mags are interchangeable with the M4’s."
Chris moved on to other weapons, receiving similar reports. When she hefted the full length Remington shotgun with a pistol grip, she looked ridiculous. Rich heard his small laugh and perked up.
"Boss. Didn't see you there" he said.
"I was just looking at Nikita here carrying an artillery piece" Dan replied, smiling at the girl.
She had been given the book, but he doubted she had read it yet. In reply she stuck her tongue out at him.
Rich stood, bringing a new weapon from a shelf across the room. "I thought you might be interested in this" he said handing it to Leah and nodding at her.
"Walther P99. Nine mil parabelum, semi auto, fourteen round mag" she parroted.
"In itself, nothing that special" said Rich with an echo of the professional soldier he once was "but it's the only weapon which fits these" he finished, twisting on a short suppressor to the end of the gun. He showed Dan an empty chamber and handed it over. It felt a little top heavy as he was used to the weight of the short Sig, but the suppressor was a very useful addition.
He turned it around, weighed it in his hands and checked the action. The gun felt good in his hands. Solid and chunky. "Any spare mags?" He asked
"Thought you might like it" Rich said smiling, and produced two spares
Dan loaded the weapon, keeping it pointed at the floor. It felt good. He put his Sig on the table and tried the Walther in the holster. It was a universal one, and needed a slight adjustment, but the nearly silent weapon fit ok.
"Nice." He said. "I'll take it!"
“You might want to take a look at these too then” said Rich as he gently tipped out a box of attachments and sorting through them before he found the stubby torch attachment to fit the gun. He offered Dan an extended magazine, but with the suppressor on the end and the mag sticking out the bottom be may as well be carrying the shotgun. He also took a holster designed to slip inside a belt which was custom made to fit the weapon.
Something casual for the weekends.
He left his Sig for cleaning and stowing, and took the new toy with him.
"Keep up the good work" he said as he left them "and grab Neil when you see him to ask about reinforcing these windows now I'm not sleeping down here"
“Oh, and Leah?” he said from outside the doorway.
“Yeah” she answered slowly, fearing that he was setting her up for a joke at her expense.
“Driving assessment tomorrow” he said before walking off to find Lou and trade for more needlework. She tweaked the holster perfectly to draw more from under his left arm than across his chest. He preferred that, and it left extra room for two more pouches; one to take a small notebook and pencil and the other the perfect size for a box of twenty and a lighter.
The world turned, the sun rose and fell, and progress was made.
BURN THE ‘L’ PLATES
A driving lesson from Dan was not a relaxing experience. He rattled on and on about gear changes and how to assess a bend and what to look out for and what certain things meant. He seemed to forget himself sometimes and told stories of car chases and spectacular crashes, but when she asked him more he clammed up. She guessed he used to have an exciting job before it happened, but he wouldn’t tell her any more about it.
He made her talk him through checking the vehicle over first, explaining everything she should look for and the reasons why. Dan always drummed into her that she shouldn’t just be able to perform a skill; she should understand why she was doing it.
“If you only know one way to do something then you’re already out of options” she mimicked back to him during the time he had spent training her.
She gave a good run down of the vehicle; a Defender 90, in a deep metallic red colour with chunky tyres and a big bull-bar on the front. It wasn’t modified like some of the others, but she had heavy tow ropes looped on both bumpers. She didn’t know it was hers, and Steve had thought he was funny by sticking learner plates in the rear window.
She got in and depressed the clutch before starting the engine, going through all the checks she was taught. The first part of her assessment was done on the roads around the house and farm before she drove on to the gardens. Dan made her drive into the narrow sections between the greenhouses and polytunnels to practice her manoeuvring in cramped areas and she performed well.
He took her out onto faster roads and made her push the speed up. Her reactions and obs
ervations were good, but Dan still offered pointers for improvement. He forced himself to be quiet and objective. She saw obstructions and assessed them well, especially when Dan made her drag a car out of the way as though it was blocking the road. She connected the tow rope securely and reversed her Land Rover away under control.
He took her over rough terrain and watched her technique critically. He couldn’t really fault her, but then she was just replicating what he had shown her.
She drove him back to the house after over an hour and Dan gave her the final test.
“Ok. Imagine you’ve got a flat tyre. Change the wheel” he said, pointing at the passenger side at the front.
Leah hesitated. She got the tyre wrench from inside the back door and tried to loosen the nuts on the spare wheel mounted high on the back door.
She struggled, eventually removing them but she couldn’t lift the wheel down without risking damage to the wheel or herself.
It finally dawned on her that she wasn’t physically capable of doing it, and she sagged with the failure.
Dan rested a hand on her shoulder kindly.
“Don’t worry about it for now. We’ll have to figure something out” he said.
Leah cuffed a tear away from her cheek and nodded. She went inside and Dan put the spare wheel back on, feeling bad for disappointing her. If she couldn’t do the most basic repair then it wasn’t safe for her to go out alone yet.
THE LEAH SHOW
Dan felt bad for her. She had learnt so much and trained so hard only to be denied her independence because she was too small to change a wheel.
He couldn't, in good conscience, let her go out alone. What he could do is take her on a run and be her backup.
A food run was planned. They had to go much further afield now as they'd picked clean the supermarkets within a short radius of home. With the distance being longer the danger increased. Other than that it would be business as usual; two scavenging trucks and a Ranger escort.
After It Happened (Book 2): Humanity Page 16
