“I’m aware of the process, Maxwell,” Palmer interrupted him, unsure how he even knew, given that his family home was graced with a cook and staff, “I was more concerned with where you found it.”
“Farmhouse, Sir, tucked away in a shed,” he replied, falling back on the senior NCO style of giving loud, crisp and punctilious answers when dealing with officers. Palmer knew and recognised the routine immediately, abandoning any further line of questioning as pointless.
“Well, my compliments to Mrs Maxwell,” he said formally, “and I’ll expect a nice, fresh crust with the evening meal.”
“Very good, Sir,” Maxwell answered, resuming his burdened march towards the kitchen. Palmer watched him go, thoughts bouncing around his head until his gurgling stomach changed the subject for him. Clasping an involuntary hand to his thinning midsection, he lost his train of thought for a moment and returned to the office where the planning had happened.
“Village bakeries,” he announced gleefully to the room, earning uncomprehending stares from four sets of eyes.
“Sir?” Cooper asked, his face asking the question far more than the inflection did.
“Tactically, it’s wiser to avoid the more built-up areas, correct?” he asked rhetorically, but seeing that Cooper opened his mouth to respond, he continued quickly, “but the smaller villages are all but abandoned, or at least the Screechers there are contained,” he paused, waiting to see if any of them had cottoned on to his idea yet. They hadn’t.
“We go into the small bakers’ and grocers’” he went on enthusiastically, “and take their flour and yeast and salt… they will have all the ingredients to bake bread, surely, so we bring that back and add fresh bread to the menu. I can’t believe…”
His stomach growled audibly again, silencing his enthusiastic speech and raising the eyebrows of the other men in the room.
“Here you go, Sir,” Daniels said in an almost embarrassed tone, reaching into a pouch and coming out with the remnant of a shiny green wrapper, “have a dead fly biscuit before you drop.”
Palmer smiled, gratefully accepting the gesture and the hard biscuit laced with dried fruit, as he knew the men well enough to not feel embarrassed by breaking down the divide between officer and troopers a level. As he chewed, his stomach protested again as it eagerly accepted the food, but Daniels wasn’t finished.
“Oi, Coops, give the Captain one of them Rolos you’re hiding.”
Cooper looked shocked, maybe even a little hurt, and his mouth hung open to begin a feeble protest before the corporal cut him off.
“Don’t pretend you ain’t got any,” Daniels said with a rueful smile, “we’ve all seen you. Peel a bloody orange in his pocket, that bugger would, Sir.”
Cooper deflated before he spoke.
“It’s my last one though,” he admitted feebly, sparking laughter among the others.
“Aw, Coops,” Daniels chuckled, “don’t you love the Captain enough to give him your last Rolo?”
Amidst the laughter at his expense, Cooper reached into his clothing and brought out a tangle of paper and foil wrapping which contained a solitary, lonely, chocolate-covered treat.
“It’s quite alright, Sergeant,” Palmer said, playing along, “I wouldn’t want you to display such affection in front of your peers and cause unnecessary embarrassment.” He let the laughter die down, chewing the hard biscuit and feeling better for it, before reiterating his orders.
“All of the local bakeries, if you would?” he said, his slightly full mouth betraying how much his hunger overrode his breeding, “and I’ll speak to Lieutenant Lloyd to request a detachment of his men to get straight on it. The other task still stands.”
He kicked himself for not thinking of this before, only forming the idea when he saw Maxwell carrying the sack of flour. He had so many demands on his time and energies that he was missing the answers directly in front of his face, and those demands seemed to grow every day. That list of problems requiring solutions and action grew, boiled over, and almost caused a fire in an instant, with the outbreak of pure pandemonium from down the hallway outside his office.
Chapter 4
“Jesus, it’s cold,” Nevin complained as he blew on his hands and rubbed them, before holding them over the fire he was crouching in front of.
“It’s winter,” Michaels answered with an undisguised lack of interest, “it happens.”
Nevin ignored the sarcastic retort as he stared into the flames, his face contorting into a rictus of distaste for the man he had been forced to bow and scrape to over the weeks since he had joined the group on the Hilltop. At first the grass had been very green, with stockpiles of looted beer and spirits and good cigarettes, which were a luxury to him. Once that initial hangover had passed, made worse by that bastard Johnson limiting them to a single pint a day for his own amusement, he had realised that the utopia he had imagined wasn’t a reality.
It could be, he told himself in quiet moments, but not with Michaels at the helm.
The surprise of finding their squadron’s missing troop sergeant had stayed with him for over a week, until he realised that the man he had known before wasn’t the man he spoke with now. Sergeant Michaels had been a quiet man, fastidious in some respects, and hard on his men, but ultimately committed to them and rewarding when the appropriate time came. The man sitting in the ornate chair behind him in the grand parlour was still quiet, but there seemed to be an element to him now that was either lacking something he had possessed before, or else there was an edge he had gained since. Nevin mused that it could be both; that the loss of family and the addition of lawlessness had changed the man, much as it had changed him.
On balance, he much preferred the Hilltop way of life, in that he was never roused from an uncomfortable sleep to sit and keep watch with the promise of punishment if he didn’t perform his duties under the malevolent watch of senior men. Senior in their eyes, at least, but not in Nevin’s. He had shed the uniform as soon as he’d arrived, and bundled the dirty clothing stained with sweat, blood and the acrid stench of dried urine, handing them to a cowed woman to be washed and ironed. He had wanted to burn the uniform, but Michaels had insisted that he keep it ready. The rationale for that insistence, as much as Nevin didn’t understand it at first, became evident when they had visited a group of nearby settlers who had found themselves in a similarly protected position as the Hilltop.
The rolling higher ground near the seaside cliffs formed a natural barrier against the legions of undead who roamed across the countryside in the late summer, making those on the lower ground inland vulnerable. The unmistakable sounds of battle in the previous months had tugged at Michaels’ thoughts until Nevin had been thoroughly questioned about the two actions to defend the island, and those facts had further solidified his gut feelings about the lower ground.
That geography, nature’s defences, had protected dozens of small pockets of humanity along the coast, and the arrival of Nevin provided Michaels with the additional tool he required to make further acquisitions.
Dressed in his uniform, Nevin was inspected by the former sergeant who wore nothing to indicate the life he had abandoned, other than the webbing and weapons taken from the camp. Michaels instructed Nevin very precisely in what to say and do, and after sunrise he rolled out at the head of a small convoy in the Ferret car he had taken from the camp before he had abandoned the rest of his squadron to die by flame, explosion or the teeth and nails of the dead. The other vehicles, a collection of civilian cars and vans driven by the cruel followers of Michaels and his litter of lawlessness, dropped back to wait out of sight of the big farm, as Nevin powered up the chalk stone track to the fenced enclave, where he was met by three men holding shotguns unthreateningly.
“Good morning,” he exclaimed from the hatch, in an accent designed to mimic any number of officers he had soldiered under, “we’re conducting reconnaissance of the area,” he explained without introduction, “and are collecting numbers and dispositions of
survivors.”
His arrogance served him well, as Michaels had explained that people would long for someone in authority to arrive and give them instructions. That assumed authority, which he had to admit to himself that he enjoyed, instantly put the men at ease and prompted the emergence of women and a few children from the front door of the farmhouse. Nevin asked them questions, receiving freely given answers in the naïve belief that the man represented the armed forces instead of a band of pirates. He had climbed out of the scout car, shaking hands with the men and giving broad smiles to the others, who relaxed the more he spoke.
When he had gleaned as much information as his orders had dictated, hearing about how proud they were to still be producing their own milk and meat and vegetables, and still smiling as he did it, he produced the revolver and shot the oldest man holding a gun through the fleshy part of his lower leg.
He felt nothing as he did it. His smile didn’t falter or fade as he showed no remorse for his actions and the taking of a life. He’d become numb to death and pain and suffering, seeing it as a natural course of action as much as breathing was, because this was now the way of the world for him.
The other armed men reacted amidst the screams and shouts of their friends, until a brief, deafening rip of thirty-calibre bullets tore the air and silenced them all. Despite himself and the knowledge of what would happen, Nevin still flinched instinctively from the noise, until he straightened once more in the renewed silence, to smile at the terrified huddle of men, women and children.
The turret on the scout car rotated audibly, swinging down to aim at the group in unspoken threat.
“Now listen to me,” Nevin snarled over the sobs, “you lot will give up food for us to take away, and we expect the same every month. That,” he said, pointing the barrel of his revolver at the old man who was bleeding and crying onto the frosted stones of the courtyard amidst the desperate attention of the women, “is your one and only warning about what will happen if you don’t do as you are told.”
He stayed silent, staring them down and knowing that Michaels would be watching and listening from his position behind the controls of the heavy machine gun. The sounds of multiple engines behind him ,as the rest of their convoy approached up the track, filled him with yet more confidence in his power over people.
“We don’t want to kill all of you, and we don’t want to drive you off. All we want is a bit of what you have, and we’ll keep you safe in return. Now,” he said as he indicated the shot man again, “strap that up and keep it clean. It’ll heal in time.”
And that was effectively their game. They ran a criminal protection racket. Their process and tactics had evolved with the arrival of Nevin and the heavy gun he’d brought with him, and Michaels was grateful for the addition of another trained man to provide some spine to the collection of men and women who followed him, because a life spent taking when contrasted to a life spent providing was the easier route to take. He could easily have roamed the landscape in the Warrior he’d taken, but his preference was to retain that for defence of a permanent position, because that made him feel more secure. He hid his insecurities well, as outwardly he was every inch the cold, hard man he projected.
They loaded the cars with milk, meat, vegetables and eggs, taking much more than the remaining survivors could afford to give and still live as comfortably as they had done, and they took it all back to the Hilltop, where the approach road was overlooked by the half-buried hulk of the Warrior light tank that Michaels had emplaced when he had arrived there. Nevin abandoned the uniform, dropping it on the floor, knowing that the lesser people would pick it up and fold it ready for their next rouse. Then he dressed in a leather coat over jeans and boots to go back out and not waste the daylight.
Michaels’ reason for subduing the farm had been to prevent them from seeing his people passing by on the road below them, as there were resources in the next town that needed more firepower to take. He rode with Nevin, the controls of the machine gun feeling good in his hands as they rolled ahead of the soft-skinned and vulnerable vehicles behind.
“We couldn’t take this place before,” he said into the headset he wore that linked him to Nevin and allowed them to communicate over the din of the engine, “not without the risk of losing too many people anyway. There was some kind of community aid station set up in the town, and there are probably a hundred of the things in between us and what we want.”
“And what do we want?” Nevin asked out of curiosity but lacking the interest to know the minutia of a plan.
“Food,” Michaels said, “there’s a Bejam’s there which still has lights on, so the freezers should still be working too.”
“You mean Iceland?” Nevin asked, knowing that the shop had been bought out and rebranded, and choosing to allow his natural tendency of nit picking to emerge.
“Whatever,” Michaels said, uninterested, “there’s a gun shop and a tool place there as well. I want those.”
Nevin didn’t answer. He didn’t overly care, as he was just happy to be served and fed and to force others to bend to his will. They retraced their route and rolled into the outskirts of the town, passing by the unmarked entrance leading up to the farm, where doubtless the people there would be tending to their loved one and reeling from the after effects of Nevin’s actions.
“Stop by that junction,” Michaels instructed, steadying himself as Nevin slowed sharply, “that building there, red double-doors.”
“Yeah?”
“Get out and open them,” Michaels instructed him blankly. Nevin’s face set in a look of anger and disgust, deciding against upsetting the man who would be aiming a destructive gun at his back, and he popped open the hatch to climb out. He ran towards the building, eyes scanning wildly left and right as he went, reaching the doors and steadying himself with a few breaths before spinning the handles and wrenching them both open with a grunt and preparing for an onslaught of dead rushing him.
None came, surprising him until the stench hit him in the face with as much recalled force as Johnson’s large fist. Regaining his senses, he ran hard back for the safety of the Ferret and scrambled inside to pull down the hatch, just as the gun opened up over his head in short, controlled bursts which spoke of a calmness and discipline few possessed.
Chapter 5
Not wanting to waste the day, given that it was just cold and not raining or hailing or snowing, as it had been intermittently throughout the week, Johnson removed his right boot and applied a bandage with difficulty to the aggravated joint. As he was struggling to do it, Astrid walked in and tutted loudly.
“This is why men cannot wrap the gifts,” she announced cryptically, snapping her fingers and reaching out for the bandage. Johnson abandoned the task, leaning back on the sofa with a huff as he handed it over.
“You made a twist of it? How?” she asked him as she knelt on the expensive rug at his feet and rolled the bandage back up to begin again.
“Slipped on the ice,” he admitted, leaving out the relevant information that the simple accident would almost certainly have spelled disaster, had it not been for the ten-year-old boy saving his life.
“You should be more careful,” Astrid admonished him gently, her tone indicating that she might have already known or guessed the facts that he hadn’t stated, “especially at your age.”
“My age?” Johnson asked, carefully enunciating the words with an edge of warning.
“Yes,” she said, unperturbed by his tone, “I simply mean that you do not heal as quickly as you would have done when you were younger. A sprain of the ankle could make the differences of life and death, but luckily this is not swollen.”
“Thanks,” Johnson said, feeling the practised hands of the woman wrapping the bandage far more effectively around his sore joint, but further discussion was cut off by Buffs walking into the room and shrugging into his equipment.
“You good to go?” he asked, eyeing the treatment happening in their living room.
“
I am,” Johnson answered with finality.
“Good. Me, you, Astrid and Craig,” he said, detailing their team to go out. It made sense, as Hampton was still struggling to put his full weight on the knee he had dislocated in the helicopter crash. Kimberley was healed and mobile, but being unfamiliar with firearms, she wasn’t the obvious choice to take, plus any more bodies on their foray would reduce the quantity of supplies they could return with, and increase the risk of discovery.
“Can I come?” asked a small voice from the open-plan kitchen behind them, forcing Johnson to twist to see Peter’s hopeful expression. He took in the look on his face, turning back to Buffs in the hope that he would dash the boy’s hopes.
“I don’t take up much room,” he added, melting the hearts of the hard men just a little.
“I know, lad,” Buffs said softly, “but with Bill still slow as a snail, who is here to keep the village safe? Who’s going to protect Kimberley and Amber?”
Peter, his hopes of joining the elite dashed in such a way as to elevate his mood, gave a resolved smile and nodded, accepting the refusal with grace and purpose, as he accepted the promotion solemnly.
“You look after this place,” Johnson added, “and we’ll see if we can bring you something good back, shall we?”
“Like what?” Peter asked, half in hope and half in suspicion, as he was woefully unaccustomed to adults showing him any kindness.
“What would you like? Some video cassettes? Books?” Astrid asked, fixing the bandage with a strip of black electrical tape taken from one of her pouches, and standing to allow Johnson the room to put his boot back on and lace it tightly.
Peter opened his mouth to speak but stopped as a small hand tugged at his sleeve. He bent down to Amber, knowing that she wouldn’t speak out loud in front of everyone, and listened as she whispered in his ear insistently.
He smiled, straightened, and answered.
Toy Soldiers 4: Adversity Page 4