“That’s why you fired the shells?” Tess asked.
“It was a case of use ’em or lose ’em,” Hawker said. “Because if the zoms get across that river, we’ll lose this position. They follow each other, don’t they? The gunfire will lure them in, but the clock’s ticking on how long before we have to retreat.”
“We’re far further from Inhambane than the New Zealand commander implied,” Tess said. “I think this is the wrong bridge. We’re not where the New Zealanders think the front is, and it’s less well defended than it should be. But you saw them off.” A louder than usual bang came from dozer-blades, followed by a sharp rifle crack. “I mean you’ve stopped the advance. No, that’s wrong too.”
“We destroyed that wave,” Hawker said. “But they’re approaching from the southeast and southwest. Southwest isn’t an immediate problem. They’ll follow the lowland and the river basin until it becomes the estuary. It’s the southeast we’ve got to watch. If they knew what they were doing, they could ford that river, and get behind us. That they don’t know what they’re doing, that they can’t think, that’s what’ll allow us to hold this position for a few more hours.”
Sergeant Oakes bounded across the bridge-way and leaped up the ladder. “Did I hit the wicket, sir?” he asked.
“Close enough,” Hawker said. “Help the major snipe any targets within range. Commissioner, we need to get word to town that we’re under-equipped, and overextended. We need people and material to create a secondary barricade. Build a defensive line ten metres back that way, fuel up these dozers and drive them forward to crush the zoms. That’ll preserve a good portion of ammunition, and kill enough of the enemy to reduce the threat to the city up north.”
“We’ve already used about a third of the bullets we brought with us,” Tess said.
“Only a third?” Hawker said. “That’s good. Send Toppley back to Inhambane with Zendaya.” He pointed to the guide who’d met them at the end of the bridge. “Send Zach with them, and any of the injured nurses who can’t run.”
“Ah,” she said, understanding. “What about the scientists?”
“They’re competent shots, and calm in a crisis,” Hawker said. “They can stay. We’ll send the nurses to the rear to rest. Take on the next wave ourselves. The third wave is when things will get tight.” He pointed to the dozer on the extreme right. “That machine moved five centimetres in the last attack. It’ll move more in the next.”
Tess turned to look, but was distracted by a shout.
“Inbound!” Clyde called.
Tess turned towards the far end of the bridge. Three zoms had made it around the furthest barricade. But Clyde was pointing north.
A helicopter, approaching at a height of fifty metres, was following the road. The copter banked east, crossing the river.
“Must be the Kiwis,” Tess said.
“That’s a U.S. Coastguard Seahawk,” Hawker said, just before a machine gun opened fire. “An up-gunned Seahawk,” he added. “Sounds like a fifty-cal.”
Mounted in the open cabin door, the machine gun unleashed a hail of lead into the ranks of the undead massed beyond the bridge. Added to the burr of the rotors, the sound tore up the sky while the bullets tore through the dead souls tramping through the long grass, around the trees, and over one another in their attempt to reach this new and noisy foe.
Just as Tess thought another five minutes and the zoms will all be dead, the machine gun ceased fire, the helicopter turned, and buzzed back along the bridge.
“They’re landing!” Hawker yelled, raising his voice over the rotor’s sawing burr.
“Hostiles inbound!” Oakes called.
At the far end of the bridge, a pair of zombies walked abreast, another behind, and more behind it.
“We’ve got this, Tess,” Hawker said. “Speak to the Kiwis. Arrange reinforcements.”
Tess climbed back down, and jogged towards the landing helicopter. As she approached the bus, she slowed long enough to hear an odd mix of Australian, Arabic, and Portuguese topped with laughter. She might not understand the words, and the bantering tone was forced and fearful, yet it was proof to her, and to each other, that they were still alive. So far.
A co-pilot remained behind the stick while two figures had disembarked from the copter. One had a wrench with which she was attacking the machine-gun mount, while the other was Commander Tusitala who beckoned Tess a little way from the spinning blades.
“Where’s the tank crew and radio-team?” Tusitala asked.
“We found twenty nurses here, armed with rifles,” Tess said. “Everyone else had fled. What’s wrong with your helicopter?”
Tusitala turned to look. “Impromptu machine-gun mount. Hurry it up, Sullivan!” she said, addressing the sailor-mechanic. “Almost lost the weapon. Our Seasprite was downed by—” She shook her head. “Another time. How long can you hold this bridge?”
“Until the ammo runs out,” Tess said. “But we’ve already burned through a third. It all depends on how many more zoms come, and how soon. Those dozers could be used to crush the undead. We’ll need more personnel for that.”
“We must hold the bridges,” Tusitala said. “They’re our land-link to the continent, and our escape route from the city.”
“If we lose the airport, there’ll be no airlift,” Tess said.
The commander shook her head. “There’ll never be enough planes for everyone,” she said. “Medical supplies have run out. Drinking water will last three days. Ammunition will last four, and food will be gone in five. It would take a week to airlift everyone from here, but your pilot is planning to return with commercial aircraft, landing on an improperly extended runway. A crash is all but inevitable. Your people are Special Forces, aren’t they?”
“Three are,” Tess said. “Two are scientists. The rest are civilian-support. What are you planning?”
“Captain Adams wants to seize control of a ship used for the Madagascan evacuation.”
“Do you mean a drifting ship full of zombies?” Tess asked.
“One vessel, possibly two, should suffice as a temporary sea-bastion until a rescue fleet can arrive. We’ll repair the engines and make for safer waters. Unless you can come up with an alternative, we’ll take the first ship at dawn. Your pilot should return two hours afterwards, at which point, we’ll assess casualties, and better assess the possibilities. Agreed?”
The carbine fire was increasing in volume.
“We’ll need fuel and drivers for the dozers,” Tess said. “And ammunition. A lot.”
“I’ll arrange a relief,” the commander said. “When they arrive, you’re to return to Inhambane.” With a final nod, she jogged back to the helicopter. Tess didn’t wait to watch it take off, but returned to the dozer.
The second wave, already shredded by the helicopter-mounted heavy machine gun, was smaller than the first. After ten minutes, Hawker yelled “Cease fire! Cease fire! Only the snipers.”
Tess lowered her carbine, taking in the battered, body-littered bridge. The undead kept coming. Kept walking into death. Neither fear nor failure had any meaning to this foe. Objectively, she’d known it for weeks, but it was still hard to accept this counter-intuitive reality.
She jumped down from the dozer. In the bus, the bandaged nurse, Saleema, was repeating words in Arabic, which Zach was slowly repeating.
“You’re learning the alphabet?”
“Waltzing Matilda,” Zach said. “You’ll never guess what the Arabic for jumbuck is.”
Avalon had stopped loading, and had drawn a small revolver. Though it wasn’t pointing directly at Laila, her attention was. The nurse had her eyes closed, her head leaning back against the bus’s metal roof strut.
“Laila, how are feeling?” Tess asked.
“Tired,” the nurse said. “My sisters, at the rear, could you see how they are?”
“No worries,” Tess said. Outside, she saw Toppley walking back to the bus with a webbing bag full of spent magazines. “Fancy a
stroll, Teegan?”
“I always do before lunch,” Toppley said, dropping the bag by the steps of the bus. “It’s about that time, isn’t it?”
“Give or take an hour,” Tess said, as the two women began walking towards the far end of the bridge. “How’s the bus?”
“They are an impressive group, those nurses,” Toppley said. “We’re running short of ammunition. Half is gone already. What news did the helicopter bring?”
“There should have been a radio team here. Soldiers, too. Relief is on its way. Should be here in twenty minutes or so, depending on how fast they drive. I’d never been to war before. I stood on the walls in Canberra, and fought in the outback. This is something different. You?”
“Not like this, no. I have been witness to violence, to murder, and, sadly, to massacres, but never have I seen so many come willingly to the slaughter.”
“Massacres?” Tess asked.
“I did my best to stay on the right side of history,” Toppley said. “In the middle of events, it is difficult to know which side is which, but why should revolutions be won by those who’ve won the favour of a super-power? But I digress, and so do you. What did the pilot say?”
“They don’t come willingly,” Tess said. “The zoms. There’s no will involved. That’s why this is different to war.”
“You’re still digressing.”
Tess stepped around a long-dead corpse whose chest had more holes than a putting green, but which had finally been stopped by the machete still embedded in its skull.
“I’m not,” Tess said. “I’ve read a lot about war. The Korean War, particularly. I was trying to make sense of the world my mum grew up in. I read about the atrocities, and the barbarity of the north. She’d never talk about it.”
“Ah. She was a defector, yes?” Toppley said. “How she escaped is a story I’d truly like to hear, though not until after I know what the helicopter pilot said. I take it that it’s not good news.”
“What I learned about the frenetic chaos of war is that unit commanders often don’t have a complete picture,” Tess said. “It feels like we’re winning, when the war has already been lost. Inhambane is a few days away from running out of food, water, and ammo. After Mick took off, Commander Tusitala must have returned to the ship, and spoken with the captain. The captain has assessed the situation, and determined that the last chance for a successful airlift was today, and our arrival confirms it won’t happen in time. Tomorrow, at dawn, they’re going to attempt to seize control of one of those floating freighters full of zombies, and turn that into an offshore refuge. Failing that, they want to keep this bridge open as a means of escape.”
“Ah. Then things are bad. The Kiwis don’t believe an airlift will happen. Do you?”
“Mick’ll try,” Tess said. “He’s a legend in the outback, where he really was the difference between life and death. But after we landed, things happened too quickly for me to properly process it all. An airlift requires extending that runway, and flying to a semi-flooded runway in Diego Garcia. If we weren’t under attack, or short of supplies, I’d say it was fifty-fifty we’d pull it off. But the ship has been here longer. The captain knows the odds of success, and thinks going cabin-to-cabin on a zombie-infested boat gives us a greater chance of survival.”
“I hate to agree, seeing as what that means for our future,” Toppley said, “but the truth can’t be avoided. That river below is more of an obstacle than a barrier.”
“We could hold off another two similar-sized attacks,” Tess said. “So it comes down to how many zoms are out there, and how many are heading this way. But if we’d arrived an hour later, this bridge would already have fallen. No, this isn’t a defence, it’s a fighting retreat.”
Atop the crane-platform at the eastern edge of the bridge, they found the teacher, Luis Magaia, clutching an M4-carbine with the safety still on.
“I was watching them,” he said. “In case they turned.”
“She’s dead,” Toppley said, closing the eyes of a now deceased nurse.
“But she’s not,” Tess said, checking the pulse of the other nurse, a woman with bandages on her face, and more on a stumpy wrist. “We’ll transfer her to the bus. The other nurses can watch her until we can get her back to town. We’ll need to create a hoist, lower her at shoulders, waist, and ankles. We need four people, Teegan, and the bus.”
“Of course, Commissioner,” Teegan said, wincing as she straightened, pressing her hand into the small of her back. “Ah, there are some moments I miss my prison cell. Not many, but with a frequency which increases with each of these grinding reminders of my advancing years.”
“I thought you were still in your forties,” Tess said.
“Ha! Look at me and see your future, young lady,” Toppley said, as she bent to climb back down. She paused. “Tess, vehicles.”
“It’s the relief column,” Tess said. “Get the bus, and get everyone aboard. We’re heading back to the city.”
“Relief indeed,” Toppley said, continuing down to the ground.
Eight vehicles approached. Three up-armoured Landcruisers, two factory-armoured cars, and three battered open-topped trucks. They were full of people and supplies. The vehicles stopped in a cloud of tyre-thrown dust a hundred metres from the bridge. The lead Landcruiser continued alone.
Luis Magaia climbed down the ladder, but Tess stayed atop the crane-platform, looking, watching, and assessing these new arrivals. She turned to the unconscious woman. “Hold on just a bit longer, ma’am. We’ll get you out of here.” Finally, she climbed down the ladder.
A shot came from the centre of the bridge, then a second. The gunfire had become an ignorable background patter, but as her brain switched modes from proto-general back into suspicious-cop, she became aware of the shooting again. She counted the time between shots as she walked over to the Landcruiser where Luis was frantically addressing the soldiers who’d disembarked.
Three soldiers: a driver and a passenger, both armed with some variety of Kalashnikov, as was the third, standing in the back, weapon resting on a semi-circular steel shield.
“G’day,” Tess said. “Glad to see you. Worst seems to be over. Police Commissioner Tess Qwong, out of Australia but here with the U.N.”
“Captain De Silva,” the driver said. “You will need secure transport to take the injured women to the city. We will give you one of our trucks.”
“Our bus will do the job,” Tess said, looking back at the remains of the convoy. They were full of people and supplies. But some of the people were children. Few of the supplies looked to be defensive. Yes, there were water containers, but there were also spare tyres, fuel cans, ropes, chains, shovels and picks. The suitcases were as likely to contain clothes as ammo, while she couldn’t think of a single strategic purpose to the three chickens in the cage atop the rearmost Landcruiser.
Tess turned back to the bridge where the nurses were boarding the bus. A shot came from the dozer. The newly arrived captain made no move to reinforce the bulldozer-barricade. Tess looked up at the crane. Even if she immobilised the dozers, they could easily be hauled out of the way.
“Did you bring the radio?” Tess asked, turning back to the captain.
“There is a radio in the Landcruiser,” he said, waving to one of vehicles behind, less heavily loaded than the others. “It is a good car. Better than your bus.”
“I’m sure it is,” Tess said, stalling for time. “Do you have anyone who knows how to drive a bulldozer?”
“Yes, but they need too much fuel,” De Silva said. “So does a bus like yours. Take our Landcruiser. You need to get back to the city quickly, yes?”
“Not so quickly we’d leave our people behind,” Tess said. Behind her, the engine purred, and the bus sped towards them. “You best get your people in position. Our ammo and rifles are up on the dozers.”
“Ah. You left the guns? Then you will have room for these injured women,” De Silva said. “You won’t need our Landcruiser?”
“No worries, you’re all right. Good luck.” Tess gave a half smile, and turned to the bus, waving it down. “There’s an injured woman on the roof. Double quick, get her inside.”
“With me, Sergeant,” Hawker said, throwing himself up the ladder.
With her and Clyde below, they had the nurse off the roof and into the back.
“Drive now, drive fast,” Tess said, holding onto the doorway, even as Laila tended to the unconscious woman.
“Only speed I know,” Zach said, from behind the wheel.
When they were beyond the parked convoy she began to relax.
“Don’t slow,” Tess said. “But don’t race. I don’t want to crash, but I don’t want them to try to catch us.”
“You mean the zoms?” Zach asked.
“No, those soldiers,” Tess said. “Maybe I read the situation wrong, but they brought their kids. The commander sent them, but they brought their kids to the bridge. They must have come to Inhambane looking for an evacuation. An airlift was promised, but only one plane arrived. Now, they’re looking to escape. They wanted our bus for the ammo and carbines.”
“Oh. Were we supposed to leave them behind?” Zach asked.
“Nope,” Tess said. “We’ll need them to protect the city.”
“We have to protect the bridges,” Laila said.
“If we stayed, we’d have fought over the guns,” Tess said.
“We’d have won,” Oakes said.
“We’d have made those kids orphans, and we’d still be defending the bridge, but with even less ammo. We’d have had to retreat anyway. No, we can’t start killing each other. Not now. The commander said she was sending reinforcements to hold that bridge. When we get to the city, we can ask her to send the helicopter to check they’re still there. But those were the best people she could find, and I’m pretty certain they plan to run, not fight. Maybe they will hold the bridge for a while, but when they leave, it won’t be to return to Inhambane.”
Chapter 9 - Almost Paradise
Tofo Beach, Mozambique
Life Goes On | Book 4 | If Not Us [Surviving The Evacuation] Page 11