The Long Road Home (A Learning Experience Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Wallets, cash, watches and jewelry were already on the floor.

  You secessionist bastards are nothing but common thugs, Croft thought with a sudden surge of hatred.

  That surge was enough to overrule everything. He lined the sights of his .45 up on the man’s back and fired. Twice.

  The man doubled over and collapsed on his face.

  Croft ran, bent double himself, down the carriage. Ready for more of these bastards, should they come through the other door. He was a couple of paces past the dead secessionist when he thought of the man’s gun.

  I don’t know how to use it.

  Gonzalez probably does. I’ll take his M-16.

  The secessionist, a tanned man in a white wife-beater, jeans, boots and a bush hat, had collapsed on top of his weapon. Gingerly but quickly – I don’t have time, and more could appear through either door at any moment – Croft rolled the corpse over.

  Only to find that the man wasn’t – quite – dead. Blinking green eyes stared up from a bushy-bearded face.

  “Gimme your gun,” Croft said to the secessionist. He took the weapon out of the man’s hand. Several banana-clip magazines were in his belt; he gathered those up too. Considered a coup de grace with his pistol. Shook his head a moment later – he couldn’t kill a guy in cold blood.

  He stuck the magazines into his own belt and ran.

  * * *

  An alarm rang in the alert lounge of the Army air base at Godfrey’s Landing. It was a plain room with tables and a dartboard. The ready crew, sixteen men – the pilots and gunners of eight DH-22 attack helicopters – sat around reading newspapers and books. One of them was listening to a portable digital music player; three were engaged in a desultory quarter-ante poker game. Now, the men jerked to their feet, whirled instinctively towards the door.

  “There is a USFL unit under attack,” came over the loudspeakers in the room. “Repeat, a USFL unit is under secessionist attack on the Godfrey-Roanoke railway line. Co-ordinates…”

  “Legion?” demanded the lieutenant-colonel in charge, sitting down again. He raised a white mug with the squadron’s logo on it.

  “Fuck the Legion,” he said. “They can go to hell. I’m finishing my coffee first.”

  * * *

  Mullins snapped off another shot at a running figure. Missed. The figure hurled something onto the roof of the carriage; it landed with a kathump and a whoosh.

  Another man, barely visible and then only for a moment, hurled a similar object through the window of the carriage.

  It exploded. Flames went everywhere. Men screamed. One man clasped at his eyes and tumbled back.

  Oh shit, Mullins thought. Legion counterinsurgency training had involved these things. He’d seen Molotov cocktails before.

  Another Molotov came through a window towards the front of the carriage, on the other side to Mullins. Exploded.

  The seats began to burn. Fire crept up the sides of the carriage, which was becoming an inferno.

  Johnny Montague tumbled back, weaponless. His flat hands were beating his face; the front of his shirt and trousers were on fire.

  Oh God, oh shit, we’re all going to die.

  No. He had to stay the hell calm.

  First, he had to help Johnny. His bag was still on the seat – he’d been lying on it, using it as a rest. He picked it up and pressed it to Montague’s chest, pushing him back against the nearest seat. Rolled it over and over on his shirt, then down the legs of his pants. Smothering the flames.

  Another window shattered. Screaming and shouting.

  “Hold tight, damn it!” Janja yelled. “Fucking hold and shoot the fuckers when they pop their heads up! Mullins, good idea with the bag. Get started on the other flames – use other bags.”

  The hell with that, Mullins thought. I want to shoot back.

  No. The blazing Molotovs would kill everyone if nobody did anything about the fire.

  Montague lay on his back, breathing hard. His shirt and trousers had been burned through. Underneath were ugly crimson burns. His hands were still pressed to his face.

  Mullins got up, threw his duffel bag at the edge of the nearest flames, began rolling it over and over. Hopefully too fast for any part of the solid, heavy bag to catch on fire. The flames began to dissipate, slightly.

  More bullets came in. Somebody who’d been kneeling, doubled back and collapsed. There was a messy grey spatter on the wall behind him.

  Oh, God, thought Mullins, and tried to focus on keeping his head down and dealing with the flames.

  * * *

  Gonzalez gratefully took the short-barreled AK-type gun.

  “You call for help, sir?”

  “Yes. From the engine.”

  “Future reference, sir, no need. Automatic distress signal from the GPS when the train stops for more than thirty seconds in an unexpected place. Other hand, can’t hurt.”

  Croft gave a curt nod.

  “And you killed one of the fuckers. Good job, sir.”

  “When d’you think help’s gonna arrive, Sergeant?”

  Gonzalez shook his head.

  “Air support? Don’t hold your breath, sir. Army doesn’t give a shit about us.”

  “Oh, shit,” Croft murmured. A thought struck him. He hadn’t discussed that extra boxcar with Gonzalez – in fact, he’d been very careful not to, because there were things he simply did not want to know.

  It occurred to him now.

  “Sergeant, do you realize how bad an idea it would be if Sergeant Alonzo’s goodies got into the hands of these guys?”

  Gonzalez smiled.

  “I wouldn’t worry, sir.”

  “What the hell do you mean you wouldn’t worry, Sergeant? This train is loaded with four million dollars’ worth of stolen black-market illicit Army stuff and you’re not worried? I say we do something. We’ve got to protect that boxcar and keep that stuff out of secessionist hands!”

  “Sir, I really wouldn’t worry about that,” Gonzalez repeated.

  Are you some kind of goddamned traitor or something?

  “Sergeant, you hold on. I’m going to take a party down the length of the train. We’re securing those goddamned boxcars and that’s an order! Which one is it, d’you know?”

  Gonzalez took Croft by the shoulders.

  “Sir. I would not worry, sir. It’s the third boxcar, but we don’t care.”

  Something’s going on, thought Croft, that I don’t understand.

  Was some of the stolen gear sabotaged or something? Grenades rigged to explode the moment the pin was removed, that kind of thing?

  Another layer of gunfire suddenly began. Sharp cracks. M-16s.

  From outside the train. Both sides.

  What the hell is going on?

  Suddenly, the incoming fire started to slacken. Within twenty seconds, it had completely stopped – there was nothing but sporadic outgoing shots and occasional bursts.

  * * *

  What the fuck is going on? Mullins thought. The outgoing fire couldn’t have been enough to drive the bad guys away.

  That was only partially his concern. What was more his concern was that the fires were getting out of control. Duffel bags could only do so much, and they burned easily enough themselves. He’d lost half a dozen and put only a negligible dent into the fire. The carriage was becoming an inferno as the fires spread. Soon they’d join with each other.

  “Get the hell out of the train!” Janja shouted.

  “They’ll murder us without cover!” Reuter shouted back.

  “They’re gone! I don’t know why, but they’ve bugged out!”

  “And we’re gonna die if we stick around in this thing for long,” Gartlan yelled. He placed his foot on a window ledge, ducked out and dropped out of sight.

  Others followed.

  Shit, thought Mullins, looking at Montague. There were a bunch of corpses, but there were also a few wounded guys. They’d burn alive.

  He bodily picked Montague up. Thank God that after eight
een weeks of Legion training, he was still a little scrawny guy. More muscular than he had been, but he couldn’t weigh more than a hundred forty.

  “Hey, Gartlan! Belzer!”

  Those two, who were crouching just below, looked up.

  “Wounded man. There’s more.”

  He dropped Montague into the waiting arms.

  “Good idea,” said Pratap with an approving nod. He picked up another wounded guy.

  There were perhaps twenty wounded men who showed signs of life. Mullins, Dashratha, Pratap, Janja and three guys who he didn’t know so well waded through the increasing flames, taking them and passing them through the windows.

  Then he jumped out himself.

  “You’re burning, man,” said someone. A moment later, that guy crash-tackled Mullins into the gravel and started beating at his shirt and trousers. Two others joined him.

  What happened to the incoming fire? Why aren’t they taking advantage of it?

  “Hey, you boys!” came a voice from above.

  Four hard-looking men in camouflage shades of green and yellow were on the top of the cutting. They wore helmets and carried M-16s.

  Those aren’t bad guys, Mullins thought.

  It didn’t matter if they were. He’d left his rifle in the carriage, which was now – alongside the other two that had held Legion men – thoroughly ablaze.

  “Yeah?” asked Janja. Realizing. “Medic! Get us your nearest medics!”

  * * *

  “Sir,” said Croft, saluting the lieutenant-colonel. The man wore combat dress like his men, and was followed by three staffers. Two held M-16s; the other wore a backpack radio.

  “Damn, sir, am I glad to see you.”

  The lieutenant-colonel grinned.

  “Figured you would be, Lieutenant. Joe, how many’d we bag?”

  “Twenty-eight and counting,” said the man with the radio.

  “Short one train,” said a man with an M-16 and sergeant-major’s insignia.

  “Sir, Colonel Rodriguez says he’s on the way in. Landing up ahead.”

  “Let’s go meet the man,” the lieutenant-colonel said to Croft.

  * * *

  Colonel Rodriguez was a surprisingly small man with shoulder-length black hair in two long braids. Instead of a helmet, he wore a black cavalry hat with gold crossed-rifles on the crown. He was accompanied by a radio man, a command sergeant-major – three stripes, three rockers and a crossed-rifles insignia between them – and a pair of bodyguards.

  Behind him, a light helicopter was taking off. Its blades and the engines drowned out speech for a little while.

  Croft drew himself up and saluted his brigade commander.

  “Are you asking to get us both sniped, Lieutenant?” Colonel Rodriguez snapped.

  The lieutenant-colonel’s radio man spoke into his headset.

  “Got four prisoners, sir,” he reported to his boss.

  Rodriguez snapped something to his radio man. The guy took out his headset and spoke into it.

  “It was an ambush, sir,” said Croft. Realizing.

  “Yes, Lieutenant. They got you good and hard, and I’m sorry about your casualties.”

  “No, sir. I mean, you knew they were going to attack. You knew they knew about the goodies, and you were ready for them to do something.”

  Rodriguez raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes. As it happened we were tipped off that this train was almost certain to be attacked. What goodies are you talking about?”

  The colonel paused for a moment, then went on.

  “Come to think of it, I do think I might have heard something about some Army property disappearing from the Godfrey port area. Care to show me what you might be talking about?”

  Oh, shit.

  “I think it’s in one of the boxcars, sir,” said Croft. A bit nervously.

  I might be court-martialled anyway. A full colonel and his staff now officially know we’ve stolen military goods.

  “Well, show me which,” Rodriguez said. “Let’s see it.”

  He started walking towards the train. His staff, the lieutenant-colonel and the lieutenant-colonel’s staff followed.

  Under the direction of a Legion platoon, the civilian passengers had gathered in front of the engine. The tracks, Croft saw, had been torn away. That was obviously why the train had stopped – the moment the engineer had seen it, he’d hit the brakes. With just enough time to avoid a derailment.

  Battalion and brigade medics were working on the wounded F Company men as they passed. Other F Company men leaned against the side of the cutting, breathing hard or just drinking from canteens. Croft thought he saw a bottle of something stronger being passed around – but if the senior officers weren’t going to notice that, he wouldn’t.

  The burning passenger cars had mostly burned themselves out. They were skeletal, charred wrecks. A few flames flickered here and there.

  Sergeant Gonzalez came walking up. Saluted.

  “Lieutenant Croft, a moment, sir?”

  “Sergeant Gonzalez. Just the man I wanted to see. Two questions, Sergeant. Did you take a roll call?”

  “Yessir. Of one hundred and ninety-one men, we have eleven dead, forty-one wounded, and four missing presumed dead.”

  Shit, thought Croft.

  Eleven of his men had been killed. In his first combat.

  Oh, fuck.

  He slumped. Oh, God. Eleven guys, who I was responsible for, are dead.

  No. Not eleven. Fifteen.

  “Jesus,” he exhaled.

  Fifteen men dead. Fifteen individuals. I didn’t know them and I wasn’t formally in command of them, but I was responsible for them.

  Why the hell did I take up this career?

  Someone clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Lieutenant. We don’t have all the information yet, but you seem to have done a good job,” said Colonel Rodriguez. “These men had limited ammunition, no chain of command, no communications. You were taken by complete surprise and you still managed to bag at least a dozen of the sons of bitches.”

  “I lost more than that, sir,” Croft groaned.

  “And you’ll lose still more before your career’s up,” said Rodriguez. “It’s always hard the first time.”

  “Sir, you had a second question?” asked Gonzalez.

  “Yes,” said Croft. “Which boxcar was the one Sergeant Alonzo organized?”

  “Second one after the passenger cars, sir. Bastards opened it, for what little good it did them.”

  “Take us to it, Sergeant. Sergeant-Major Jackson, stay with Lieutenant Croft for a moment. You know what to do.”

  Jackson was a big blond man. When the command party had gone, walking slowly down the line, he took out a small silver flask.

  “Here, sir. This’ll help.”

  Croft numbly took the flask and raised it. Brandy, and good brandy.

  “Take at least three swigs, sir. You need it.”

  “Fifteen of my men,” Croft muttered.

  “Not your men, sir. Men you just happened to be traveling with. Like the colonel said, sir, they weren’t organized, armed properly, equipped for combat. You didn’t fuck up – those asshole CGs did. They’re the ones who’re supposed to secure this fucking railway line, sir, if you’ll excuse my German.”

  That was two veterans who said he hadn’t fucked up. That and the brandy – he took a third swig – made him feel a bit better.

  “How d’you mean, Sergeant-Major?”

  “Sir, procedure on this stretch of line is that they should have had half a company, an advance group and an armored car, anytime they’re taking a train of importance. Worthless fucking bastards probably black-marketed the gas, the ammo, and the spare parts they need to run their damn cars.”

  “I haven’t been impressed with the CGs so far,” Croft admitted. “One of their colonels pretty damn blatantly asked me for a bribe.”

  “How much you give him?”

  “Five hundred.”

  Jackso
n let out a low whistle.

  “Damn, sir, you really are a fish, aren’t you? You could have bargained him down to three hundred, easy. What’d the son of a bitch want?”