by Luke Duffy
They all gathered around the body of Ian, wrapped in the canvas sheet.
Marcus took the shovel off Hussein that they had brought from the boat and began to dig. He did not want to ponder his actions or even really consider what he was doing. He just moved automatically, wanting to get the job over and done with.
They took turns in digging, and within thirty minutes Ian's final resting place was ready.
Jim stabbed the digging tool into the sand and shingle, wiping his brow with the back of his sleeve. He looked up at Marcus. "You ready, brother?" he asked in a solemn voice.
Marcus nodded. "Yeah, let's get it done."
Moving off to one side towards the body of Ian, Marcus drew his pistol. He removed the canvas sheet from the body and gazed down at the pale face of his tough and reliable friend. He sensed the others close up around him. Ian was a friend to them all and they all saw it as their duty to help Marcus in what needed to be done; as much for Ian as for Marcus.
Stu placed his hand on Marcus' shoulder. "You were a great soldier and an even greater friend, Ian. You'll be missed, buddy."
"Sleep well, Ian," Jim added.
Hussein bowed his head, "Rahmat Allah Alayk."
Everyone said his or her farewells. Once Sini had said goodbye, Marcus cleared his throat and began.
"Ian, never once did you let anyone down, either as a friend or as a soldier. You were always there in whatever way we needed you. With a gun, or with a bottle, you were always ready to do your bit; sometimes you had both in your hands." There was a hushed laugh from the group, acknowledging the truth in the comment, and then Marcus continued. "I’ve always said, 'I have many mates, but only a few friends.' I count you amongst the greatest of friends. Even with all that is going on, the world is a lesser place without you, Ian. I'll miss you, old friend." Marcus leaned forward and patted the cold skin of Ian's cheek. "I'll see you again, mate."
He placed the barrel of the pistol against the side of Ian's head and slowly squeezed the trigger. The crack of the gun echoed around them as the report bounced off the cliffs and then out to sea. Marcus felt the weapon jerk in his hand as the recoil kicked the top slide of the pistol backward. Quickly, he replaced the canvas and the group stood silent for a moment, heads bowed and in their own thoughts.
Without anyone needing to speak, they acted as one and gently lifted Ian between them and carried him the short distance to the grave. Once carefully placed inside, they began to push the sand and pebbles in on top of him. Jim quickly scratched Ian's details, name, age and the letters 'R.I.P', into the blade of the shovel and placed it at the head of the grave, sticking out from the sand as a makeshift gravestone. After a brief moment, they turned and walked away, back toward the cliff face.
They climbed the old worn out wooden steps, partially built into the rock face. At the top, a cool summer breeze that swept toward them from the grasslands and open countryside seemed to regenerate them, as though the journey from Iraq had happened in another lifetime. They walked onto a track and turned west, headed in the direction that Marcus knew the barracks and the castle to be. Soon, they could see the top turrets of Dover Castle nestled in the distance amongst a clump of trees and hills.
Marcus called a halt and the team watched from a distance for any sign of movement up in the battlements of the castle. A road ran from the track they were on to the low ground, alongside the ancient building. If they had approached any closer, they might have been spotted and overlooked from the battlements, a perfect position to spring an ambush.
"I've not seen a soul, Marcus," Stu said as he sat beside him, staring through the binoculars. "What do you think?"
"We've been here for an hour. If anybody was up there, we would've seen some sign by now," Sini suggested.
"Yeah, true," Marcus agreed. "What do you reckon, Jim-Bob?"
Jim shrugged his shoulders and huffed. "I told you, I've always wanted to see Europe, and Britain is famous for its castles. All we have in the States that's even close to it is the Alamo, and that's not much more than a wall now."
Stu turned on him and winked. "Jim, I don't think the fucking gift shop is going to be open today, so you may as well get the idea of sightseeing and souvenirs out of your head."
Jim spat on the ground and then turned to Stu. "I was actually thinking more along the lines of swashbuckling my way like Errol Flynn along the battlements."
"I don't understand what any of you are talking about. Who is Errol Flynn and what is, 'wash-butting' did you say?" Sini looked confused, his eyebrows knitted together.
"Swashbuckling, Sini, you thick communist bastard. It means fighting with swords, or something like that. And Errol Flynn had a mighty sword, or so rumour had it," Stu offered by way of explanation.
"Ah, you mean he was hung like an Arabian Stallion, like you used to say about Nicky back in Baghdad?"
"Apparently so,"
"You British make conversations so difficult at times."
Marcus was grateful that the men of his team could still find a release in their humour and banter after all they had been through; now was a time when a sense of humour would be most in need. The old world was gone and if people were to survive the new one, they would need to have a light heart on occasion.
"So what do you think, Stu, is it a go or no-go for the recce?"
Stu eyed the castle. "Where are the barracks then?"
Marcus pointed to the right of the old medieval building, "Just past it, beyond those trees and on the opposite side of the road. You can't miss it."
"Roger that. I'll take Jim and Hussein with me."
They gave a radio check to one another, and Marcus was happy to hear the sound of Stu's voice through his earpiece. The batteries were low, but they hoped to find new radios soon.
Stu, Jim and Hussein moved off down the hill and along the track until the trees that lined the road obscured them from the view of Marcus and the others. Marcus felt a shiver run the length of his spine and he prayed to the Gods that he had not just sent three more of his men into a trap.
The time dragged on the hilltop as they waited for Stu's return. Marcus knew that they were out of communication's range with their personal radios. On flat open ground, at best, they had a basic planning range of a maximum of one and a half kilometres.
Anticipation grew in their stomachs as they expected to hear the sounds of guns firing and men screaming, but they heard nothing. Two hours later, Marcus heard his radio crackle in his ear.
"Marcus, are you getting me? That's us on our way back to you."
"Roger that, mate."
A while later, Stu stumbled up the hill and crouched at the side of Marcus, panting from the exertion.
"Looks clear to me, mate. We didn't see or hear anything, either from the castle or the barracks. I think they're deserted but we couldn't get as close as we would've liked without exposing ourselves. From what we could tell though, it looks like there's been a fight at some point. A lot of the buildings look dinged up from where we stood. I still think we need to be careful."
Marcus nodded, looking out in the direction of the barracks and forming a picture in his mind of what Stu was telling him. "What about the dead? The walking type that is."
"Yeah, we saw a few knocking about. We dispatched a few stragglers along the way but we didn't see any large crowds of them. But like I said, we couldn't see all that much of the barracks so we can't be sure."
"Okay. We'll just have to be on our toes then."
They huddled around a crude model that Marcus and Stu made in the sand and gave the lay of the land and roads to the others. Marcus worked from memory and Stu confirmed that the model was accurate. After ten minutes, they were ready to move. The plan was to head straight to the main gate, get eyes on the guardhouse and gain an idea of the situation within the compound.
Thirty minutes later, they were crouching amongst the trees at the roadside, and watching the gate. The windows to the guardhouse were broken, doors hung from their
hinges and the telltale black marks left from fire discoloured the walls around the window frames. The gate itself, though it had obviously been reinforced and barricaded at some point, now lay across the entrance having been smashed inward.
"Looks like some sort of raid. I don't think it was those walking bags of that did this," Jim thought aloud.
"Hmm, maybe it was a smash and grab? Maybe they took what they needed then left. Otherwise, if they intended on staying, they wouldn't have left the gate wide open, would they?" Stu offered.
Marcus weighed up the sight before them, "Looks that way. We should still have a look all the same. Sini, Jim," he nodded to the pair, "clear the guardroom. We'll use that as our jumping off point."
"What about me, Marcus?" Sandra watched him expectantly, trepidation in her eyes.
"You and Hussein stay with me. You'll cover the rear. Stu, you'll take point once Sini and Jim give the thumbs up."
Sini and Jim approached the guardroom and Marcus watched as they disappeared inside with their weapons at the ready.
"Marcus," Jim's voice came over the radio, "that's the building clear. It's pretty trashed, but secure. No sign of anything to the rear, but we've found something you're going to want to see with your own eyes."
Stu looked up and raised an eyebrow. Marcus motioned for him to lead off, following the same route that Sini and Jim had taken, Sandra and Hussein close behind.
The guardroom was a mess. Furniture was upturned everywhere. Fire damage and the smell of smoke was apparent throughout and the sound of broken glass crunching under foot echoed around the room as Marcus and the rest of his team moved in.
As they passed through the command room, Marcus saw Sini stood by the large heavy door, which he knew led to the holding cells at the rear of the building. Every army barracks has a jail; mainly used to detain drunken soldiers when the police brought them back from the local town. Marcus had personally experienced a night in the guardroom cells on more than a few occasions.
Sini followed on behind as Marcus passed him. Sandra and Hussein remained in the main room to watch for trouble. As soon as they passed into the corridor that housed the cells, the foul smell of decay hit their senses and the hum of the swarming flies could be heard all the way from the doorway.
"Fuck me!" Stu exclaimed as he covered his nose.
At the far end of the corridor, Marcus could see Jim standing at the door to a cell. He looked up at the sound of Stu's voice and shook his head in disgust. He stepped aside, allowing Marcus to see into the room through the hatch in the door.
The smell from within the room assaulted their eyes as much as the horrific vision did. The air was thick with bloated flies, thousands of them. Along the rear wall was the remains of three men. All of them had their hands bound to their feet, rendering them immobile. In the centre of the room, one hand chained to the bed that was bolted to the wall and unable to reach the door, stood two snarling reanimated bodies. They grasped at the air between them and Marcus and wrenched at their restraints. Bile and blood oozed from their gaping mouths as they gnashed their teeth at the meal they could not reach.
"Sweet fucking Jesus," Stu spoke slowly, pronouncing each syllable.
Two of the bodies at the wall were dead. Most of the flesh stripped from their bodies. Streaks of dried blood splattered the wall and created sticky, putrid pools below them. Discarded bones and scraps of clothing lay broken and shredded around them, as they had been torn apart. The third body, unable to move properly because of its bonds, twitched and grunted in its own filth. The contents of its stomach lay strewn out before it, bloated and blue from decay. Its face was little more than a snapping skull, as it too joined in with the wailing chorus of the two standing corpses in its vain attempt to get at the living forms of Marcus and Stu beyond the heavy steel door.
"They're officers," Marcus stated as he struggled to tear his eyes away.
Jim peered into the room again. "How do you know?"
"Their uniforms, that's the Commanding Officer," Marcus pointed to one of the standing reanimated dead. "He has the rank of a Colonel on his shoulder and I'm guessing the others must be his staff. Obviously, whoever did this didn't like officers all that much."
"Me neither, but still, I'd just shoot them and be done with it. Not this."
Stu looked across at Marcus. "What do you think happened?"
Marcus shrugged. "It's obvious. This lot were thrown in here. The three by the wall were tied up and the boss," he nodded to the standing body that wore the Colonel insignia, "and his second in command were shot and left to reanimate, and once they were up again there was nothing the others could do to defend themselves. Yup, I think it's safe to say that they weren't all that popular."
"We can't leave them like this." Stu pulled away from the door and Marcus grunted his agreement.
"What do you suggest? I'm not going in there," Jim retorted.
"I don’t know, but we aren't leaving them like that. I'm no big fan of officers either, but they're British soldiers and they don't deserve this." Stu swept his hand toward the door as he spoke through gritted teeth.
"Hey, I hear you, brother," Jim raised his hands in front of him and took a step back. "I'm in agreement with you. I'm just not going in there is all I'm saying."
"We'll take care of it from out here," Sini said from behind.
Marcus nodded. "Yeah, but not until we've checked the rest of the place out and know we're secure. It would be nice to get some weapons and ammunition first."
They moved back towards the command room in silence. Jim sealed the door behind them. The heavy clunk of the lock being slid into place gave a dull echo around the room. Marcus felt a shudder. He remembered that sound all too well.
"It was bad enough seeing what that sick bastard 'Vlad the Impaler' did back in Serbia. Now we see it here, at home," Stu spoke with clear disgust in his voice.
"Hey, Stu, it's the end of the world, buddy. You'll be surprised what people will do to one another when they know there are no consequences. We've seen plenty of that already." Jim's words of wisdom echoed in the silence of the destroyed guardroom.
"Keys..." Marcus stood jingling a bunch in his hand that he had removed from the key press on the wall. "These are marked as the 'Armoury'. Normally, there would be a lockbox full with loaded magazines and a rack of weapons in the guardroom, but I've seen nothing of either."
"Do you think there will still be weapons there?" Sandra asked.
"Well, there's more than one set of keys to an armoury, but the easiest to find would be in the guardroom and they're still here. Anyway, the people who attacked this place must have been heavily armed already in order to be able to take on a barracks filled with soldiers. Maybe they weren't interested in weapons?"
"From the looks of the spent casings all around us, I think they could've been British soldiers also, Marcus. They're all the same calibre, NATO standard. You think it could've been a rogue unit?" Stu was studying a brass bullet case in his fingers and glancing up at the numerous holes in the walls as he spoke.
"Maybe," Marcus agreed, "or it could've also been internal. The lower ranks could've turned on the head shed and then bugged out. Doesn't matter anyway, we'll check the armoury and then the ammunition store and see what's left."
The guardroom lay at the bottom of a hill and a central road ran up through the barracks with the accommodation blocks on the right and the numerous stores and offices on the left. The six of them walked slowly towards the top end of the barracks, constantly glancing left and right as they did so, ready for an attack.
Some buildings had been burned to the ground and the remains of dozens of corpses were strewn along the roadside, festering and slowly rotting in the English summer. The skeletons of destroyed and burnt out vehicles littered the road system within the barracks and piles of used rounds lay scattered on every patch of tarmac. Whatever had happened, there had been a fearsome fight.
At the armoury, they discovered the door was already
open. It was actually missing from its hinges, having been blown inward.
"Looks like they wanted weapons after all," Jim pointed out as they approached.
Inside, the room was dark but enough light filtered from the doorway to allow Marcus to identify the caged sections of the armoury that were allocated to each company's compliment of weapons. He drew his torch and began to move deeper into the gloom with his pistol raised in front of him. Stu was close behind him and holding his weapon at the ready. Nothing stirred in the darkness.
"You think there's anything left?" Stu hissed from behind in a whisper.
Marcus did not answer but continued to follow his torch beam as he scanned the cage doors of each part of the armoury. All of them seemed to have been ransacked and he began to lose heart.
The darkness seemed to envelop them. The further into the building they went, the more they had to rely on the torchlight to illuminate their immediate surroundings. The light beam was narrow and Marcus felt the icy hand of fear grasp at the hairs on the back of his neck as his mind imagined all kinds of horrors that lurked just on the peripherals of the torch beam, ready to charge at them at any moment.
A scrape, then a thud from a cage up ahead stopped them in their tracks. The torch beam seemed to become narrower still and the two of them strained their eyes and ears to identify the source of the sound. The noise came again and Marcus had to fight the urge to turn and run from the building, screaming, as he had done as a child.
Stu closed up to him and stepped to his right, his weapon raised and aiming in the direction of the unidentified noise. Together, they stepped forward, carefully placing each boot, avoiding the possibility of losing their footing and crashing to the floor.
They reached the steel gate that they suspected was the entrance to where the noise had come from.
In a low whisper, Marcus counted, "One, two, three..."