“Tom,” Becky retorted. “No! It shows that at some time in your lives, men have to grow up and stop wasting money on stupid hobbies. Shame that you missed the bit about growing up. And can I point out that I never stopped you from flying again? You just found a new hobby to waste your money on, that’s all, and forgot all about being Duck or whoever his sidekick was.”
At this point, all the men immediately spoke up to remind her that nobody wants to be Goose; he dies.
Shaking her head in disbelief, she looked at the women and said, “Case proved. At least we can fight, ladies, because if we had to rely on these boys to protect us, I do not know what we would do!”
Once the room had stopped laughing, the conversation continued.
“Can anyone else fly a plane?” Steve asked. When he looked at the room full of shaking heads and negative responses, he looked at Chris and me and stated, “Well you are now our air force. All we need to do is get you a plane.”
“Ah, come on,” I complained. “It’s been over ten years; I’ve forgotten it all by now. You can’t be serious.”
Steve held up his hands to stop any further comments from me. “I was being semi-serious, I suppose, but if you don’t think you can do it, then don’t worry about it.”
The conversation moved on and we all began discussing what jobs or tasks would be prioritised tomorrow. After today’s events, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for leaving the castle, so it was universally agreed that for the next few days at least, we would concentrate on making our new home safer and more comfortable. We had more than enough food, weapons and ammunition to last us for the foreseeable future. Our own foreseeable future, that was. But we knew we’d need to go on gathering stuff, because there was no limit to what supplies we needed to store. These supplies, whatever they might be, would after all be not only for us, but for any more survivors we came across.
When tiredness and the knowledge I was on guard rota in a few hours forced me to turn in, I still lay awake for a while. What Steve had said about an air force kept running through my mind. Could I still do it?
With Marc under constant care, fifty-two people and two dogs spent another night behind the walls of the castle.
Chapter Fifteen
Marc regained consciousness the next morning. The painkillers and sedatives he was being administered kept him in a semi-lucid state to try to give him the rest and time to recuperate which he desperately needed.
His emotional state though, was something that had us all worried. His opiate-filled mind raged from disbelief that he was alive, to anger that he was and that he’d lost most of an arm. His last conscious thought was that he was going to die and so be reunited with his wife and son and now he felt guilty that he had let them down and couldn’t even fulfil what he thought was his dying wish.
His carers kept a close eye on him and constantly tried to reassure him, but they knew that time was what he needed most; that, and helping him to understand and come to terms with what the future would hold for him.
Regular contact was maintained with the fleet, not only with the surgeon who was confident that the patient would make a full recovery, but with the admiral or one of his staff who kept them updated on the progress they were making.
The news was encouraging. A strong force had landed by helicopter and had secured one of the smaller, usually uninhabited islands of the Scilly Isles, where they’d killed the few zombies who, by some hand of fate, had found themselves marooned there. It wasn’t large enough and had no infrastructure to support a large population, but it was a start and the marines and engineers who had accompanied the initial force were busy building a Forward Operating Base that would function as a helicopter refuelling and rearming site and also a safe haven, if the mission hit problems when the main operation began. The five largest and inhabited islands were still populated by thousands of zombies, but now they had a safe foothold on the islands, they could begin the operation to clear them. Some of the hundreds of civilian boats that had gathered around the fleet were being drafted in to help with the plan. There was a shortage of landing craft and the smaller private boats, with their shallow draft would make suitable enough improvised vessels. The similarities to Dunkirk, where small boat owners answered the call and helped rescue the hundreds of thousands of British and Allied soldiers trapped on the beaches was obvious. It was of course mentioned with pride by both the Royal Navy personnel and us, comparing it to how the remnants of the country’s population were pulling together with one goal in mind: the survival and continuation of the human race.
All the owners whose boats were chosen had volunteered to command their craft, leaving more trained fighting people available for the mission. A frenetic few days of mission planning, personnel and equipment transfer would be needed until they were ready to depart.
Their strategists, though, were finding planning how to clear the islands problematic. None of them had any real idea of the capabilities required and difficulties involved with fighting the undead. We were the only ones who had real experience fighting the zombies and Steve was asked by the admiral to use our collective experience to come up with a battle plan to aid the men and women he was sending in to fight what to them would be an unknown enemy.
Calling an all-community meeting, Steve asked us to help him. We reviewed the tactics we’d developed as our experience and the number of people had increased, and also how it had changed our approach as we’d assimilated new weapons, skills and experience into our group. The knights had been a game changer for us, allowing us to go on the offensive against large numbers of them, without having to rely on expending large quantities of ammunition.
Information sent to us informed us that the population of the Scilly Isles was approximately two and a half thousand but, in the summer, that would increase by many more thousands as tourists flocked to the archipelago.
Now that one of the smaller islands had been secured, the initial plan they were working on was to use that as a base and to clear the islands one by one, using smaller, mainly civilian boats to ferry the sailors and marines about. It was how to do that with the least risk to everyone that they needed help on.
A few hours later, Steve had a long radio conversation with various Royal Navy personnel when he passed on the tactics and advice we had collectively drawn up.
When Steve had signed off, we continued with the plan to make the castle our home. The remaining supplies we’d gathered the day before were carried in from the courtyard, stored and catalogued. Furniture found in some of the myriad rooms the castle contained was moved to where it would be better utilised. Maud ‘volunteered’ people to help her in the many little tasks and jobs she was continually coming up with, each improvement making the castle more comfortable and homely. Willie began instructing some on how to manufacture bullets using the home-loading equipment we’d collected and soon had a small production line running, filling most of the empty ammunition cans we’d kept for that very purpose with a growing quantity of valuable ammunition. The knights, after seeking permission from Maud, searched the entire castle to sort through all the weapons and armour they deemed useful to us. They began to work on developing a training programme so everyone could practise using and gain experience with the weapon that suited them best. As our experience grew, they wanted us all to start drilling in groups to further develop the highly effective strategies they’d already formulated. Depending on the quantities of zombies facing us, it would give us the capability of fielding one larger group of armour-clad warriors or possibly smaller units who could work together to surround and destroy the threat.
As we practised with the unfamiliar weapons, our fitness, or lack of it, was plainly highlighted. Due to their comparative youth and the fact that they were more used to physical exertion, the original knights and the soldiers could cope with carrying the extra weight of armour and wielding a weapon better than the older ‘civilians’ amongst us. Simon, being a fitness instructor, was therefore tasked with im
proving the fitness and stamina of us all. Taking the role seriously, he conducted an individual survey of everyone in the group, assessing any medical or physical problems any of us had and was devising a tailored package for all of us which would include group fitness sessions.
While I wasn’t a fan of gyms, or for that matter any exercise more than a game of tennis with my friends, or the occasional family cycle ride, I did know it made sense. It didn’t stop me moaning and whinging about the proposed regime, though. I thought it was my duty to grumble, as any self-respecting slightly overweight, middle-aged man should, even though I knew there was not a lot I could do about it. Anyway, the way my legs and arms felt after only a few minutes of swinging the sword I’d chosen as my preferred weapon, it was obvious that my personal fitness needed improving.
A few zombies kept appearing at the second gate, so we searched for where they were getting in and repaired the fence, which had been damaged by a fallen tree.
Shawn and Jon began constructing shelters on the ramparts to protect the sentries from the elements. The sounds of sawing and of cordless power tools being used was a necessary evil, but we knew the shelters that were springing up around the ramparts would be a great improvement and make enduring sentry duty in inclement weather a more comfortable prospect.
In other words, everyone got on with the job of living there.
The next two days passed quickly as the bonds that already held us together were strengthened by working on one of the many tasks we came up with and completed together. We were becoming an extended family and not just a group of survivors.
Chapter Sixteen
Just off Hugh Town, St Mary’s, the Scilly Isles
Marine Captain Digby stared through his binoculars at the nearby town; the largest in the islands. Smoke still drifted lazily away on the breeze from a few burnt-out buildings, but they did not occupy his attention. The thousands of shambling, slow-moving figures that wandered everywhere did. They filled the once picturesque town, spilling out onto the harbour front and beaches that would normally, this time of year, be filled with tourists.
“These are the tourists,” he thought bitterly to himself as the magnified vision picked out individuals in the throngs of undead. Some were still wearing their pyjamas, while some were dressed in shorts and T-shirts or even just swimming costumes. Evidence was everywhere of the speed with which the virus and the ensuing waves of zombies had engulfed a totally unaware and unprepared population. A pang of sadness washed over him. His own sister and her family were unaccounted for. He knew that they should have been on holiday in Cornwall, somewhere in their caravan when the outbreak began. Following the reports on the conditions on the mainland, he did not hold out much hope of them having survived. He swallowed the emotions that welled up inside him at the thought of his sister Anne, his brother in law Trevor and his nephew Eddie.
How old is Eddie? he thought angrily at the unfairness of it all. It was years since he’d seen him due to the long tours and postings he’d been on, his knowledge of him only updated by the regular social media updates his sister posted. He now regretted the times he could have visited but had chosen instead to just call his sister when he remembered to do so.
Hugh Town was where they were going to begin their campaign. It was the largest population centre on the island and apart from the airport, home to the only port capable of accepting larger boats and ships and therefore the only way to get to the mainland. When the outbreak began it would have been the obvious place for the panicking, terrified population to head to as they desperately tried to escape. The wreckage of many small boats and yachts littered the foreshore, testament to the many failed attempts by people either too inexperienced or possibly too ill to pilot their own, or a stolen craft in a last-ditch attempt to escape by boat to safety.
In charge of the marine detachment chosen for the initial assault, he looked at the men gathered beside him on the rail of the type twenty-three frigate he was aboard. All were lost in their own thoughts as they mentally prepared themselves for the battle to come. The battle that would begin their goal to free the British Isles from the tides of death that covered its lands. And on a more personal note for all of them, to avenge their own lost loved ones.
The battle plan was as unusual as it was simple. Following advice from a team of survivors who had fought across the country and were now safely behind the walls of Warwick Castle, they had planned the mission.
The Frigate would approach the only place with a deep enough channel to allow a vessel of its size to near the shore; the harbour. Holding position just off from the jetty, they would sound the ship’s horn continuously. The noise, they were assured, would attract every undead on probably the whole island in their direction. All they should have to do next was simply to wait as they dumbly walked off the stone jetty and drown in the deep water. When no more appeared, then they would land and clear the island house by house, mopping up any last traces of them.
They all carried, in addition to their usual weapons, a melee weapon. The engineering sections on all the Navy’s ships had been working nonstop producing these short handled attacking weapons from whatever materials they had available or could scavenge from non-essential parts from all the ships. These were attached to their webbing by holders just as cobbled together. The designs varied as much as the materials used to make them, but they were all made from a template based around a hatchet or a mace.
When the men and women were first issued with them and they practised wielding them, getting used to the weight and feel of the one they had chosen brought reality home to them. Attacking with a bayonet attached to your rifle was something they were all trained to do. Very few times in recent history, though, had soldiers had to resort to using them. It all seemed a bit old fashioned to them, reminiscent of British redcoats fighting on the fields of Europe against Napoleon, using single shot, slow-to-load muskets, and not relevant in the modern world. But now they all carried a weapon that they would soon be smashing into the head of what was once a living person so they could destroy its brain.
Once the Island of St Mary’s was clear, they would then use the many small privately-owned boats that had accompanied them. More were still arriving, as they couldn’t keep up the pace set by the frigate over open water. They would use these small boats to ferry them to the other islands, and if the tactics worked, use them again.
The ship’s horn blaring made him jump. He looked around, embarrassed at being caught out by it, but smiled when he saw the expressions on those around him all showing a similar reaction.
“Okay, chaps,” he called, “double check your own kit and that of the one by your side. Make sure you can’t cram another bullet anywhere on you. We’ll be going in soon.”
The ship’s horn continued to echo around the harbour and beyond. Captain Digby watched with professional interest as the previously aimlessly shambling zombies turned as one to the deafening blasts of the ship’s horn and moved towards the ship.
The ones on the beach just turned and knowing the noise that had disturbed them came from the big grey object not far from them, took the most direct route and walked into the sea. Undeterred by the water that got deeper with every step, they continued wading until a wave knocked them over, leaving the watchers with what would have been in other circumstances a brief comedic scene of uncoordinated arms and legs flailing as they disappeared below the surface. Others just simply kept walking until they were completely submerged, small ripples on the surface following their progress for a short time until he presumed they’d drowned or were too deep to disturb the surface of the sea. He hoped for the former, but he still cast his eyes down to the sea, where in the clear water of the sheltered bay they were in, he could distinguish between the light and dark of either sand or seaweed beds on the ocean floor.
As he stared down, his mind could not help but conjure up the terrifying image of an army of the undead marching towards them along the seabed.
Others in the
town, prevented from falling off the harbour wall by its railings, continued along the sea front until channelled along the jetty that reached out towards the ship.
Once Captain Digby had overcome his initial revulsion and more than a little fear at seeing zombies close up for the first time, he studied them intently. They acted, he had been informed in the many briefings he had attended when planning the mission, not unlike the traditional slow-moving, shambling zombies portrayed on many television shows and movies, and fortunately not like the fast-moving super zombies others portrayed them as.
They dumbly followed one another, moving together as one seething mass. When the leading ones neared the ship, they stretched out their arms, their fingers searching for the meal their remaining senses told them was contained in the ship holding position three yards from the sheer stone walls of the harbour’s jetty. The gap between the jetty and the ship did not register in their simplified brains and without faltering, they just stepped off the edge and tumbled into the water below. Some sank immediately from sight into the dark shaded water, whereas others remained floating for a short time as air trapped in their clothes buoyed them up until slowly they, too, sank from sight.
The sailors and marines lining the rail alongside him initially cheered and whooped at the sight of so many comically tumbling into the water, scoring marks out of ten for a particularly skilful dive. Digby did consider ordering them to stop, but from the exaggerated cheers and cat calls coming from the servicemen and women, he soon realised that after many continual days of setbacks and bleak news, combined with personal worries about their own loved ones, they needed to let off steam. Also, seeing the zombies hopefully so easily led to their deaths would boost everyone’s morale at a time when everyone needed it.
Zombie Castle Series (Book 4): ZC Four Page 11