Tide of Souls, page 21
The city had been under insurgent control from around the middle of the year, with the civilians caught in the crossfire. Rumours circulated; civilians with white flags fired on, ambulances fired on. We dismissed it as lefty propaganda. Civvies didn't understand war.
So the coalition forces were going in.
But I wasn't involved in any of the fighting. I heard the reports. But I can't say for sure what happened in there.
What I can say is this:
On the afternoon of November 7th, I was stationed on a small desert road leading out of the besieged city.
With me was a section of eight men. Among them Chas Nixon. My CO, Lieutenant Alderson, had given me my brief. No males 'of military age' were to be allowed to leave the city.
"Military age being, sir?"
"Under forty-five, Sergeant."
There was no lower age limit.
"These orders are specific, Sergeant. They're to be turned back. Not detained or held at the checkpoint. They could end up massing and pushing through the roadblocks."
Fuck. That'd been the plan forming in my head. Not letting them through, but not forcing them back into the killing ground either. Someone had thought of that. Someone wanted blood.
"We want to make a clean sweep of all insurgents, not let them scatter to regroup later."
The road was little more than a dirt track. Other units were tackling the main roads. We saw very little. The main attack force was staging to the north. From the city itself came sporadic gunfire - insurgents staging live-fire exercises.
Time ticked by, hot and slow beneath that burning sun.
Late afternoon.
"Heads up!" Chas Nixon shouted.
Men reached for their guns, stood ready. I held my SA80 at port-arms, ready to rock.
A group of people were coming down the desert road. Four women, two girls. Two men in their seventies. A man of about forty, holding the younger girl in his arms. A man in his twenties. Two boys in their teens.
I stepped forward, held up a hand. "Ads?"
Ads was our translator, a scared young local man. We called him Ads because it was all we could pronounce of his name.
The group stopped.
The man holding the child spoke. He looked tired. Blood on his hands and face.
"He says they want no trouble. They just want to leave the city before the attack starts."
"Ask him where the blood came from." It was a delaying tactic.
I had my orders.
Ads spoke with the man. "It's from his brother. He was hit by sniper fire."
"Insurgent?" asked Chas.
"Ours."
"No. I mean, was his brother one of them?"
"He says no. They were trying to get out, that's all."
It didn't matter. "The women and girls can go through."
Ads translated. The father looked from his family to us. He spoke again. His voice had risen. Chas stepped back, lifting his rifle. The older girl - about fifteen - screamed. The father shouted over her. Ads was still trying to talk to him. One of the women moaned. Another seemed to be praying.
Ads turned to me. "He says they're not insurgents."
"We've got our orders. Turn them back. The women can go through. Not the men. That's final. No negotiation, alright? You want to debate it, talk to whoever the fuck's in charge."
Chas glanced at me.
The strain was showing. Who the fuck was in charge? What the fuck were we doing there? None of us seemed to know anymore. But here we were.
Ads stared back at me. What did he want me to do?
Of course, I knew. He wanted me to act like a man with a mind of my own. With some measure of fucking humanity in me. He wanted me to say fuck my orders. He wanted me to say stand down, lads. He wanted me to say let them through.
But I didn't.
Big soldier-boy, with his big gun, and a fucking coward under it all. Not even the guts to stand up to something a blind man could see was wrong.
I was a coward; Ads and the civilians had exposed it. And I hated the whole fucking crew of them for doing it.
I shoved him back towards the roadblock. "Tell him."
Ads started talking. The father shouted over him. The little girl he was holding began to wail.
Finally, he thrust the child into one of the women's arms and turned back to us. Pointed at me. Shouted something.
The men had their rifles shouldered. I waved them back, but kept my own gun ready. "What's he saying?"
"He says..."
"What?"
Ads looked back at me. "He says you're sentencing them to death."
I moved closer to the barricade.
"He says if you're going to kill them, do it yourself. Get it over with. It'll be quicker."
The man was shouting the same phrase over and over. He had a beard, dark hair to his shoulders. Western dress - white shirt, jacket, trousers. No tie. The children were all fucking wailing now.
Later, Ads told me the man had been shouting Do it. Do it. Just do it.
The man reached out and shoved me.
"Tell him to fucking cut that out."
The man shoved me again.
"Ads!"
I jabbed the rifle towards the man.
He tried to knock the barrel aside.
I pulled the trigger.
A high velocity rifle bullet, fired at that range, let me tell you:
Going in, it makes a small, very neat hole.
The hole it makes going out is a different story.
Blood hit my face and hands, sprinkled my uniform. Blowback from the entry wound in the man's chest.
Blood sprayed out of his back, splashed the women, the children, as he fell and lay still.
One of the old men, behind him, screamed and fell too. The bullet had shattered his upper right arm. Must've hit the brachial artery; blood hosed out across the dusty road.
Screaming.
So much fucking screaming.
The teenage girl, the little boy - they fell on the body. The girl screaming, over and over: Baba, baba.
Daddy. Daddy.
Rifles were up and pointed, a hairsbreadth from cutting loose.
One of the older women - the man's wife, I was guessing, the man's widow - she was screaming at us. Ads didn't need to translate. I could guess.
Bastards. Cowards. Murderers.
Nothing I wasn't already calling myself.
The old man went into convulsions. I shouted to the section medic who ran to him, fending off blows from the women and the younger men.
Some tiny piece of mercy.
Too little, too late.
The old man died too. Shock and blood loss.
Desert spread out each side of the road. Scrub trying to hold the sand together. A crosswind blew plumes of sand across the road. It clung to the blood, soaked and blotted it. Crumbs of it clung to the dead faces of the men I'd killed. And to the blood on my face and hands.
The report said suspected insurgents. The report cleared me.
But I'd know. I'd always know.
How long listening to the women scream at me? How long wanting to shoot them, or myself?
But it ended.
They picked up their dead and walked back towards the city. All of them. A Muslim has to be buried within twenty-four hours.
They walked away down the road. None of them looked back. The sand plumes blew back and forth, obscuring them.
I was screaming after them, screaming at Ads that the women could go through.
Ads did as he was told. He shouted after them. But if they heard, they gave no sign.
One turned back and looked. Just once.
It was the older girl. Her face was blanched and streaked with tears. Hatred I could have borne. But all I saw was grief, and mute incomprehension.
She turned away and followed her family.
When she was older, she would have been beautiful.
If she'd lived.
The rumours of civilian massacres came out later, of course. And I saw with my own eyes the white phosphorous dropped on the town.
Estimated civilian casualties: 6,000.
Piss-pathetic by the standards of the flood and what's come after, I'm sure. But I'm guessing the population's much smaller by now. So it'll probably sound as bad as it deserves to.
I can't be sure they died. I only went into the city once, after the attack. I saw the shattered houses. The bodies piled up in the streets. The burned ones, bodies half-turned to ash, skin hanging off - the skin of the hands hanging down like gloves.
I couldn't speak of what I'd done. Not even to my wife. Especially not Jeannie. I couldn't bear to take comfort from her. I could not.
I had no right to it, not anymore.
She tried to stay the course. The drinking. The depression. The outbursts of violence and rage.
But one day I came home and found her gone.
No more than I deserved.
So now you know.
Pretty much done now
Dawn is breaking. I'm inside the farmhouse at the foot of Pendle Hill, finishing off. Just a matter of time now befo
"Sarge! Sarge!"
Fuck, I think, and put down the pen. Parkes, bursting into the room. "What is it?"
"We've raised Windhoven on the radio, Sarge."
"Fucking brilliant." I'm on my feet, energised. "Where?"
"Chinook, Sarge."
"Let's go."
On board - Hendry, hunched over the comms.
A woman's voice crackling out of the speaker. "Windhoven to Osprey. Osprey, this is Windhoven."
Hendry leans forward. "Osprey here."
"Who am I speaking to?"
"Flying Officer Hendry, ma'am. Also Sergeant McTarn - he's the ground commander here -"
"I know who McTarn is." Christ, my reputation travelled.
"- and Private Parkes." Which sounded too much like a bad joke.
"This is Captain Bowman. Where's Squadron Leader Tidyman?"
Hendry looks at me. "Killed in action, ma'am."
"Christ. What's your status?"
"Still on the ground at Pendle, with the surviving ground force and about a hundred civilians. Been trying to contact you for a while now."
"I was wondering where you'd got to."
"The Squadron Leader hadn't briefed us on your location. The paperwork was lost with him. Captain, can you give us your co-ordinates? We're under siege and need an evac."
"Not much point, I'm afraid."
A cold finger up my arse. "Ma'am?"
"Started showing up about a fortnight ago. Didn't do anything at first. Just wandering around. We shot a few. But then more turned up. We've got virtually the entire former population of the Thames Valley here right now."
"What's your status, ma'am?"
"Not good, Hendry, not good at all. Attack began in earnest day before yesterday. They've managed to breach the underground base, overrun the aircraft bays so we can't get out. We've been holding them off, but..."
She doesn't say more; just lets the hiss of static do that for her. Through it, I can hear distant gunfire.
"Can you get to the surface, Captain? We could fly in, hit them on the ground. At least give some of you the chance to -"
"Negative. We can't hold them. We're running low on ammunition, and they just keep coming. Soon, we'll be fighting them hand to hand. We'd be long gone by the time you got here. Besides, sounds like you have problems of your own."
"You know what they say, Captain; it's grim up north."
Bowman laughs. There's an ugly, jagged edge to it. "Any luck raising your regional control centre?"
"None, ma'am."
"Us neither. My guess is they've either gone under already or are in the same boat as us. I'm afraid you're on your own, Hendry. Take what action you see fit."
"Copy, ma'am."
A pause; muffled voices in the background. "I'm afraid that'll have to be it. They're breaking through. Must dash."
"God be with you, ma'am." I never pegged Hendry as religious. Then again, I never asked.
"You too, Hendry. Windhoven out."
The line goes dead.
"Sarge? They're moving."
This is it. This is it. The fuck do I do now? Chas?
I've got your back, Robbie. You need help, you got me. Alright?
I need help, Chas. Need it fucking now. Where are you? Where?
"Sarge?"
"Move..." Focus, Robbie, focus. "Move 'em out, Parkes."
"Yes, Sarge."
So, then. It's here. At last.
Outside, other survivors huddle under tarps. Those we've the space for - the women, the children - they're crammed into the farmhouse, or Stiles' caravan. The rest are out there, under whatever shelter we can improvise.
We won't need it much longer anyway.
The P226 at my hip. The SA80 at my side. Chambering a round as I go. The pages folded in a plastic bag, tucked under my arm.
Katja in the field, huddled under tarps with the rest. She gave up her billet for someone she thought needed it more.
You should have been in charge. Not me.
I walk to her. She stands. I give her the papers. We don't speak. There is nothing to say.
Stiles appears at the caravan door. He's pale. He half-raises a hand to me, in some kind of salute. But I'm already running.
On the side facing Barley, we found a couple of farmhouses - one a working farm, the other converted into a residence - made into an open space by a dirt road crossing them.
They stand just below a ridge of high ground with the footpath cutting down it. On the left side of it is a field ringed with a solid drystone wall, where we've taken up positions. We've got Gimpys, Minimis, rifles, Molotovs, a few grenades. On the right is a small, pointed plateau, where we've set up a Gimpy and a couple of riflemen.
The fields, meadows and other open ground below us are all as heavily mined as we were able to manage, enough that any of them advancing over the open terrain will be blown to fuck. Parkes is down there with Neil and Steve. The fougasses have to be detonated manually. That's their job. Their orders are to wait till the nightmares are in range, blow the charges and run.
If we can use the fougasses to force the nightmares onto the footpaths - like the one leading up to the farmhouses and the space between them - they'll pour out into what we'll be able to turn into a perfect killing zone.
In the farmhouses, there's Levene and a few of the better local rifle shots, to whittle the odds down as they come up the path.
It'll work as long as the fougasses keep them to the paths. Or until they realise there'll be no further explosions once the mines are blown; when that happens, they'll start using the open ground again, and our last advantage will be gone. All we can do then is hold position as long as we can.
I crouch behind the drystone wall. I can feel my hands shaking. Fuck.
Chas, pal, I need you here now.
Mleczko's good. But it just isn't the same.
He isn't Chas.
Even if we can get the Chinook up again, what then? A stay of execution? In the long run, the result's the same. We all die. Nothing lasts. No-one gets away. One by one, we all fall down.
The nightmares move so slowly - except when they come at you in those short, deadly, bursts - it's easy to believe you can outwit them, outrun them. But they're untiring, relentless. And sooner or later, you have to stop.
For nearly a minute, I just crouch there, terrified someone'll ask me for an order. Hopelessness is a huge fucking weight, crushing me so flat I can hardly breathe.
Come off it, Jock. You've got a job to do. Deal with each problem as it comes. Worry about this attack, then worry about the next one. Worry about getting the chopper off the ground again, then worry about where you're gonna go. And for fuck sake, Jock, stop fucking snivelling.
"Sergeant Jock to you, grotbag."
"Sarge?" Mleczko, blinking.
"Noth -"
And that's when the fougasses go off like a fucking cannonade.
Yelps, a couple of whoops. I peer over the wall. Plumes of smoke rising. Flames crackling further down the slope.
Levene's voice, crackling out of the communicator. "It's hitting the bastards, Sarge. Got to have taken out hundreds of them."
"Good. And the rest?"
"Hang on..." A tinge of excitement in the voice. For Levene, that's saying a lot. "Yes. They're taking the footpath. I can see them at it, Sarge. They're heading our way."
"OK." I raise my voice. "Everybody, weapons ready. Company's coming. Levene?"
"Sarge?"
"Hold fire. Let 'em get in close."
"How close do you want 'em?"
"Wait till they start entering the killing zone. Then hit the ones who're still coming in. Hit them too early, they might pull back. I want this to fucking count."
"Copy, Sarge. Just keep them out of here, OK?"
"We'll cover you, Levene. Just make sure you do the same for us."
"Copy that, Sarge."
We can hear them coming now. The tramping squish of feet in mud. The distant hissing sounds. I flex my hands on the SA80.
And the smell. The thick ripe stench of the dead. Like a finger touching the back of my throat. I gag, spit out bile. More coughing and retching further down the line.
"Our guests have arrived, Sarge."
No shit. "Everyone stand ready, but hold fire until my command. I'll fucking feed you to the bastards myself if you fire early. Clear?"
"Sarge," comes the echo down the line, even from the civvies. There isn't really that much of a line between us and them now. We're all in the same boat. And it's sinking.
"Wait for it... wait for it..."
Sighting over the wall. The green-stained bodies shuffling forward. Yawning faces, blackened teeth. Eyes glowing with green torment, as they close in with outstretched, grasping hands...
Closer... closer...
"Fire!"
I shout orders, point. But everything seems too slow, not quite in step. It's not them. It's me. I'm out of sync. Not fast enough.
Not now. Stay together. Focus. Focus!
They go down quickly. They don't fall back. They keep coming. Till they're all cut down.
