Beaston pranced around his makeshift command centre, high on the titillation of control and the excitement of anticipation. He had been in this position many times before, he knew the rebels didn’t stand a chance, and he needed to show his troops that winning was easy. He couldn't understand why the rebels hadn't carried on the rout when they had the opportunity.
“We’ll be having a brandy with lunch today,” he said to his team as the data from the drones filtered in showing a line of heat images running across the foot of the ridge and another concentrated around the police station.
“Make sure your gun bunnies over compensate on their AORs,” Beaston commented quietly but firmly to his artillery commander. “I want them legless and mentally ruined.”
* * * * *
As they sat under the stars, the grunt and groan of heavy vehicles and massive activity rumbled down the hill to the rebels in Hexham. John felt his heart sink, betrayed by his brother's caution. Phalin looked at Jesse. “I don't think we can attack, we need to dig in and hold the town. We can't send these people up that hill - all that is waiting for us at the top,” he nodded up the hill towards the mechanical din of an army preparing for war.
“Aye, agreed, we won't match them now and they have the higher ground. We’ll hide ourselves in the town and fight in the streets.”
“I think we make small sniping attacks on their lines, suck them back into town and take on smaller groups street to street.”
“That’s the way I see it,” accepted Jesse. Both men realised the opportunity they missed in pushing on up the hill when the chance was there. But this was no time for reflection or accountability. Now with the new sun came the dawning realisation that war was a constant. The enemy didn't just run away, they would always return, a little more knowledgeable, a little harder and a little more desperate. There was no control over events now; Jesse and Phalin had started something they could not have imagined before. They had led their peers into war, its very nature one of suffering and tragedy. When they looked briefly into each other’s eyes, they could see that flickering melancholy and doubt. Whether they won or lost this day, there would be no excitement or glamour in the tales of battle. Only sadness and a hollow in the souls of those who experienced it for all those whose lives were obliterated by the madness.
* * * * *
Nat and Stuart could hear the reinforcements. Both men knew that the next battle was going to be worse than the first. As the clangs, the engines and the yelling of orders echoed through the trees and houses, the chill of impending doom ran up Nat’s spine like icy water.
“We need to do this now,” he said to Stuart, who nodded and pointed to their right.
The two men, bent low, crept towards the red brick community hall which stood alongside the police station. It had a drive running along its flank wall leading to a car park at the rear. The drive was bordered by a low wall which the two men used as cover. The wall stood approximately one metre on Nat and Stuart’s side but two and a half on the police station side, dropping into the car park which remained full of cars. If they could get over the wall without being seen, the rest was relatively straight forward.
They were on all fours behind the wall. Nat looked at Stuart as if to say ‘what now?’
Stuart gave a slight laugh, “We gotta do something because my back and legs are gonna cramp up.”
Nat raised his head slightly above the wall and a single shot rang out from the police station. Before he had registered the noise, Nat fell back as dust and concrete chippings stung his skin. Lying on his back he looked at Stuart, eyebrows raised, stunned.
Then Stuart’s face clouded; he took his weapon off his back and checked the magazine. He looked solemnly at Nat and without a word shrugged his shoulders and leant on the wall, unleashing the contents of his magazine on the building. Shots were returned, hitting the wall and fizzing over their heads; but no sooner had Stuart began shooting than the whole rebel contingent seemed to follow suit. The building was shrouded in dust as the bullets rained down upon it.
Stuart took his chance and leapt over the wall. Nat followed suit and they found themselves sheltering behind a red car as the shots flew above their heads. They ran crouching under the deadly storm, moving across the car park and up hard against the window-less single storey wall.
Here they waited for the rebels’ firing to wane, then Stuart leapt onto the roof of the car next to him and then up onto the roof of the single storey extension. Lying on his belly on the flat roof, he hung his hand down and pulled Nat up behind him.
In the middle of the extension was a square lightwell or yard where prisoners could be brought in or taken out of the cell block. The walls had been built up higher than the roof, like a turret, which now obscured Nat and Stuart from the view of the regime troops within the building.
The roof had been chewed up by rebel rounds and they could see through the gnarled fibreglass to rafters and ceiling board below. They were in business; but the plan would only work if Claire was this side of the yard. They looked at one another, nodded and each shifted to the nearest hole where they began chipping through the exposed plasterboard of the ceiling below. They worked systematically across the roof creating small holes, calling out quietly, hearing nothing and moving on.
It was the fourth opening that Nat broke through, making short work of the fibreglass: he looked through the small hole as tracer rounds flew over his head momentarily lighting up the sky and saw a whisper of ivory skin in the darkness below. It was just a flash, but it was enough; as his size elevens smashed chunks of fibreglass and plasterboard away, he caught Stuart’s attention. Without a word, he dropped through the hole he had made and Stuart dived onto the gap and peered blindly into the blackness below.
Nat landed hard on the concrete floor. Although the ceiling was fairly low, the darkness had extended the drop and he couldn't prepare his landing. He rolled on the floor in a heap, a deep throbbing pain rising through his feet and shins. As his palms touched the cool, smooth floor his fingertips brushed another object alien to the flat surface. He reached for it and felt a thick woollen sock covering a bony little foot. Attached to the foot was a jean covered leg and a soft woollen covered body which smelled of Patchouli.
Nat knew Claire was hurt; she was limp and dazed in her seat, hardly reacting to his sudden presence in the darkness. He felt the pulse in her neck which was strong enough, so he began to tap her cheek but stopped immediately when he touched her swollen face, not least because she recoiled in agony. He moved quickly around to the back of the chair which she sat on. He cut the plastic ties which bound her hands and he whispered in her ear, as softly as his vocal chords, gnarled by the changing seasons of passing years, would allow,
“Hold on now, lass. I'm gonna pass you up to Stu, ok?”
Her arms wrapped themselves tightly around his neck and he crossed his forearms under her buttocks and lifted her smoothly and easily up out of the chair. He then used his foot to guide the seat under the flashing hole in the roof. Once in position, he stepped carefully onto the metal and plastic chair, it gave a little but took their combined weight. He moved his hands as gently as he could under her bum and pressed her, dead weight over his head. Claire guided herself through the jagged hole in the roof and then two meaty hands took her wrists and the woman levitated up through the roof, into Stuart’s arms.
Stuart's head came back through the hole, “She says there's someone else down there, a Rory?”
“Ok," Nat whispered, and he called out quietly in the darkness, “Rory, where are you man?”
A murmur came from his right and he found the curled up frame of a man against the cold concrete wall. Nat pulled him to his feet.
“You injured?” he asked. “You gotta pull yourself together - dig deep - because I can't lift you out of here.”
The broken man stumbled to the chair and, with Nat’s help and Stuart’s brawn, he too rose up off the chair and through the hole in the roof.
M
oments later a hand came back through the roof and Nat could see Stuart's head silhouetted against the flashing dawn sky.
“Come on, Nat, let’s move,” he called down. Nat clapped Stuart’s palm with his own and called back, “I'll see you back at the farm.”
“Don't be fucking stupid, Nat. I'm not leaving you in there!” snarled Stuart, exasperated.
“You will, Stu,” he replied calmly. “You'll go now, get them and Amber safe on the farm. I have business here with the South African and the other one. Then it’s over. I'll be back before the sun's out.”
Stuart looked around at the rising sun and flashed a look back at Nat in ridicule of his promise. “There's plenty of time...not now...”
“Go, Stu, get Amber. Go!”
Stuart growled in frustration as he looked at Claire, shivering with fear, her back against the wall that separated them from the NSO guns. Then his silhouette disappeared from the hole in the roof and Nat was left in the relative silence of the cold cell.
He stood for a short while in the darkness, he could taste the concrete. His heart pumped blood through his body like the fire in an engine, his muscles twitched and his mind was as clear as crystal, lucid and focussed on his imminent future: the hunt. Right now, he didn't notice the ringing in his ears, his burning shoulder from the bullet wound or the open wound in his neck - an oozing mess created by a golf ball sized piece of brick which struck him during the fighting. The horrors of recent days weren't haunting him now; he was entirely absorbed in this moment and nothing else entered his mind.
He walked across the empty room until he hit the wall. From there he moved left, hands flat on the smooth painted concrete, slightly tacky to the touch from condensation from the high gloss paint which covered it. It was only a few feet before his hands fell away into a gap and hit the frigid, iron cell door. He felt around the frame of the door and found hinges on the near side; the door would open out from the side he was on, leaving whoever was coming in further away from him. So, he moved to the other side of the door, and with his back to the wall he readied himself.
He strapped his assault rifle tight across his back, took out his handgun and changed the magazine to a full one. Then he slipped his twelve-inch hunting knife from its sheath; the blade managed to attract whatever light was rebounding around the darkened room, glinting slightly.
He took deep breaths as he thought about the best way of getting someone to open the cell door. He had time so he went for a lure rather than an alarm. He turned his gun around, holding the barrel he began to hit it against the concrete of the door frame. No more than firm taps, the sound was not loud, but it resonated through the steel door. He hoped that someone would be passing and at best think Claire was trying to escape, at worst become inquisitive as to what the sound was.
The minutes passed and Nat was becoming impatient when suddenly the viewing slot in the metal door slid open aggressively. Torchlight beamed into the darkness and waved around the empty space, settling for a moment on the empty chair in the middle of the room and then slowly ascending to the hole in the roof. Nat held tight against the wall to the side of the door, his scalp rested on the cold wall and his breathing was slow and steady. He heard a voice: “She's only fucking gone through the roof.”
“Open the door, let me see...” said another voice.
Nat stood calm as he heard the clink of keys, the metallic grind of the correct key in the lock, the clunk of the solid lock unlocking and the wash of light as the door cracked open. His grip tightened on his hunting knife as the two men entered the cell, their attention fixed on the chair and the roof.
“She must have been helped - Truter almost killed her earlier,” said one as the two men stood a few yards in front of the shadowy hunter set to pounce behind them. They looked vacantly up the shaft of torchlight pointing at the hole in the roof when Nat made his move. He took one step forward and swung his right foot with all his power. His boot came into contact with the man on the left-hand side: a full unadulterated boot in the groin from behind. It hit with such force that the guard was lifted off his feet and thrown forward, landing painfully on the chair, sending it flying and the torch skidding across the floor, plunging the room once more into darkness.
Before the light or the man had come to rest, Nat had spun the distance between the two regime troops. He plunged his knife into the second man's side. Shock took the man before death closed in; he staggered in the darkness and slumped against the side wall of the cell, his life draining away in the blood which flooded the floor.
Nat moved back to the first man who was wailing from his belly in uncontrollable bass groans, fighting for breath over the seismic waves of gut rot pain. Nat knelt beside the sorry heap and sunk his blade deep between his ribs, silencing his din. As two lives in the cell extinguished, the third stood tall, breathed the fresh air laden with the smells of war: hot copper, wood smoke and dust. He was at the height of alive now, his every sense burning for the next confrontation and his focus firmly on hunting down the South African.
At the open cell door he darted his head into the corridor back and forth in either direction, there was no one there. He thought about where he was in the building and imagined that left would lead him to the central courtyard and on into the depths of the building. He turned left and moved quickly, his back to the wall.
He reached a closed door and opened it slowly. As it cracked a voice came from the other side, “Has she tunnelled under the wall?”
Nat turned his slow motion into fast forward - he threw the door open - and the flashing sky above illuminated three figures sheltering against the walls in the small open courtyard. Nat's handgun flashed with a metallic thump three times in quick succession and the three men remained where they lay. He searched the bodies, taking three grenades and a set of keys.
As he turned, he heard the sound of a heavy metal ball rolling on concrete. His brain immediately registered the dark rat-sized lump coming through the open door on the far side of the courtyard as a grenade. Reacting, he scragged the man who lay at his feet by the scruff of the neck. He heaved him up off the ground like he had done to a thousand bales of hay in the past; he turned and threw the dead weight across the yard with all his might. The limp body landed belly first on top of the shell. The farmer had seconds but managed to throw himself against the wall while pulling another body over his, he lay as flat as he could when the courtyard turned into an instant pressure cooker.
First, Nat was blinded by light, then thin air crushed his body in a wave of pressure, and finally he felt his skin burn in an instant. His ears felt as though they were plugged and a high pitch ringing was the only thing that came through. His eyes registered a white light speckled black. But there was no time to waste on acclimatising; if someone had thrown a grenade through the door, they would follow the explosion.
Without moving the mangled corpse that had taken the brunt of the explosion, Nat loosened the strap of his assault rifle and pulled it around to face forward across the courtyard to where the door was. Although his eyes were settling once again, the room was cloaked in a thick soup. As he saw dark blotches appear in the smoke, he opened fire, some of his bullets hitting their targets as the shadows fell to the floor. But the thumping bloody corpse which lay on him took rounds on his behalf also.
He needed to move, so as the shadows fell, he threw the body to one side and jumped to his feet, skirting the side of the courtyard and around to the side of the open door. He saw three new bodies lying in the doorway as the smoke began to clear. There were more grenades. Wasting no time he took two, pulled their rings and threw them in either direction down the hall outside the door. He waited, counting the seconds; reaching seven, he heard the two ear-splitting bangs in quick succession.
He followed the explosions directly, looking blindly left and right, choosing right this time he hugged the wall in the smoky darkness. He tripped over a body as he approached another door. 'Another door!' he thought, all unknowns dangerous fo
r him, he knew he could only ride his luck for so long.
He pulled another grenade from his pocket as he looked through the small square window in the door. It was reinforced with wire, little squares which disappeared as he focussed on the corridor behind. The lights were on and it was empty, it turned to the left after ten or fifteen yards. Nat wasn't going to chance it. He repeated the action of clearing the passage with a grenade. As he rounded the corridor, the walls were covered in gore. There were three people: two dead, the furthest dying. Nat put him out of his misery and moved to the next door which gave access to the main central hall in the station.
The farmer slipped through the double doors and into the dark space. At first, the dimly lit area seemed empty, the tough lino floor squeaked slightly under his feet. Notices spanned the walls and a large varnished wooden desk ran to his right, behind which there were various metal filing cabinets. The large room still smelled clean and clinical.
Nat immediately calculated the risks: the door behind was not going to produce any surprises, the door at the far end of the hall led to the foyer then the street. There were two doors behind the desk. Nat edged towards the counter in silence, a large clock ticked on the wall above the doors. The noise outside the station seemed to have stopped; he couldn't make out whether it was because he was deep in the guts of the building or whether the fighting had slowed outside.
As he stepped slowly through the quiet, his weapon shouldered, eyes straight through the sights, index finger resting gently on the trigger. His breath was calm, in-out, in-out. Deep, controlled breaths, his mind calculating, concentrating and beginning to react to an instinctive feeling that something was about to occur. His mind concluded that whatever was about to happen in this situation was most likely to be at his expense. So he side- stepped twice, quickly turned and slumped down against the desk so that it stood solid between him and the doors.
The Border Reiver Page 21