by Chris Harris
I was desperate to ask more questions about the “secret base” and had to keep telling myself to be patient, something I wasn’t very good at.
At the kitchen area, the army chefs and our cooks were deep in conversation, intermingled with the odd burst of laughter. I spotted Becky and the children happily chatting with others, and wandered over to check that everything was going to plan and to find out if there was anything I could do to help.
They were all in good spirits and I realised why, when I noticed a bottle or two being handed around and glasses being filled. Joining them, I was soon handed a glass filled with whisky, which I tried to decline as I was due on guard duty later in the afternoon and we’d all agreed to limit our alcohol intake until after our shifts.
Those of us who either didn’t drink at all, or were happy to abstain, had kindly agreed to take the later guard shifts to allow those of us who enjoyed a tipple the chance to let our hair down. Community spirit in action!
I was quickly filled in on the plans. With what our cooks had prepared and what the army chefs were planning as a surprise, there was more than enough food to go around.
They’d brought one of their mobile kitchen units with them and asked if they could set it up in our kitchen area. The cooking capacity needed to be increased and it made more sense to do all the cooking and preparation in one area, so it could be managed better. I told them I would arrange for a path to be cleared.
Once the kitchen unit was standing next to the Beast, I was very much reminded of Beauty and the Beast, and I hoped that Russ wouldn’t be too upset. The army’s new and shiny mobile cooking trailer, with its fold-out work tables and gas operated ovens and hobs, looked seriously impressive next to Russ’s cobbled together contraption. When I mentioned this all the cooks quickly jumped to the Beast’s defence, saying that no matter how nice and shiny the new unit was, there would always be a place in their hearts, and their kitchen, for the Beast.
It was announced that Christmas Dinner would be served at approximately half past three, but if anyone needed a snack before then, the kitchen, thanks mainly to the army chefs, would be offering a continual stream of pasties and sandwiches.
The main gossip was that Anna, the self-styled boss of our kitchen, and the head army chef, a sergeant who looked as if he’d done a lot of boxing in his time, had had a little turf war over control of the kitchen. Anna had won outright and the sergeant was now treating her with so much respect and admiration, it was comical to watch.
The sound of a gunshot stunned us all for a single moment.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Allan shouting, “Everybody into position now!” got everybody moving. As the soldiers grabbed their weapons and looked round for orders, our community moved quickly and decisively. Children were grabbed or pushed in the direction of my house. The men and women whose emergency positions were at the defences, quickly ran to fetch their weapons and moved to their pre-determined positions.
Within two minutes everyone was in position and Pete’s radio received the call that everyone was accounted for in the safe house (mine) and that it was locked down.
The soldiers were all still on their radios asking for reports and looked as if they weren’t receiving any. Allan ran up shouting, “Lower barricade!” He indicated for me and a few others to join him and we raced down to the wall at the bottom of the road. I saw Prince Harry give a signal and then follow us with a group of soldiers.
At the wall of tonne sacks, there was already a line of our people and one soldier crouching down low and looking over the wall. Those with weapons were pointing those outwards, towards whatever threat was out there.
Allan looked confused about who should be in charge, as he was standing next to Prince Harry. Realising this, Harry quickly said, “You’re Head of Security. This is your wall. I’m following your orders.”
Allan nodded, “What happened, Dave?” he asked the man who was on duty at the wall.
“Not sure, Allan,” he replied, “I was just standing here with Gary,” he gestured towards the soldier next to him, “and the next thing, we both saw some movement further down the road, just past the line of cars. I was looking through my binoculars when BANG! a bullet smacks into the shelter, just missing my head!” He pointed to the splintered hole in the side of the wooden shelter next to him. “Since then, nothing!”
Harry spoke up, “I’ve Just received confirmation that the UAV isn’t overhead. It’s developed a fault and returned to base, and they haven’t got the next one ready for launch. Colonel Moore’ll rip somebody’s head off for this. We need coverage.”
“Well, we’ve got by without it so far!” said Allan. “Let’s do this the old fashioned way.”
Still crouching behind the barricade, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Why did you fire on us? We’ve done nothing to hurt you.”
“We followed your soldier buddies here,” said a voice. “We’re not going to allow some false government to take control of our area. Surrender now and you’ll be allowed to join us.”
We all looked at each other in amazement. “What are they on?” I whispered. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was happening, it would have been funny. “I haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about. What area? Who do they think they are?”
Harry replied quietly, “We’ve been picking up rumours about some idiots setting themselves up as warlords in a few places. Food is power, so if they have control over a warehouse or distribution centre, they can control the locals, using food as leverage. As he said, they must have followed us here.”
“Then why haven’t you done anything about them yet?” asked Allan.
Harry shrugged. “We haven’t confirmed they actually exist yet,” he replied with a wry smile. “We’ve discussed various scenarios, but the problem is, there’ll obviously be a lot of innocent civilians involved, who are only there because of the desperate situation they’re in. We haven’t come up with an alternative, other than if we come up against one, we’ll have to go in ‘all guns blazing’.”
“Shall we call this confirmation then?” replied Allan, “What on earth do they expect to be able to achieve against us? Especially now that you’re here!”
“It’s difficult to say. Maybe they just want to test us. See if we’ll give them something to go away. Or they may actually think they’re military geniuses who are capable of outsmarting us, and leading a successful attack against a heavily fortified and well trained force who are expecting them. Stranger things have happened. Let me try and speak to them.”
He shouted over the barricade, “This is Captain Smith. What do you want?”
I looked at him, “Captain Smith?”
He shrugged, “It’s better that saying, ‘Hello, Prince Harry here!’ I don’t think that would help the situation. Do you?”
Colonel Moore arrived at this point with a few other officers and a couple of soldiers who were obviously his security detail. “Damned annoying, this. How rude of these fellows to come and ruin our fun, what!”
He was clearly trying to calm our nerves by playing the stereotypical British Army Officer, stiff upper lip and all that.
Harry joined in, adding, “Couldn’t agree more, Sir. Permission to leave and return to the rear, where I was just finishing my tea and chatting to some rather lovely ladies.”
“Permission denied, Captain Wales. For the sake of the harmony of the group, I’ve already received a number of requests to keep you away from all civilian wives and girlfriends. Your harem’s already full!”
The bantering served its purpose. Everyone visibly relaxed and there were a few audible chuckles. Job done. Back to business.
Harry looked at Allan, who nodded to him to proceed. He quickly filled Colonel Moore in on what had been happening and the details of our brief conversation.
“Okay. Rules of engagement. They opened fire without warning, therefore I consider them extremely hostile. No negotiation. We’ll eliminate the threat.”
>
Looking at Allan and me, he asked, “I know this is your patch, so to speak, but I think it would be better if we took it from here. It’s what we’re trained for after all.”
We both nodded in agreement.
The same voice shouted back, “We’ll let you stay here for now, but you’ll have to pay a tax in food and weapons. We need as much food as we can carry and twenty of the soldiers’ guns.”
Colonel Moore snorted. “These have got to be the dumbest, most moronic idiots that ever roamed the Earth. Captain Wales, play along like a good chap and ask them how many there are so that we can ‘sort out the food’. And ask how much ammunition they’d like. Remind them that it’s heavy duty stuff.”
Harry shouted his reply.
While we waited for an answer, someone commented that they were probably busy removing their shoes to help them count if they ran out of fingers.
Colonel Moore turned and introduced Allan and me to another of his soldiers. He’d been at the briefing earlier but had been silent throughout. “Chaps, this is Captain Berry. He’s ….er our ……,” he thought for a moment.
“Oh, bugger it, no time for cloak and dagger stuff. He leads our special forces detachment, so I’m sure you know what regiment he belongs to.”
We both shook his hand. He was a normal looking bloke, not the muscle-bound superhero type we’d have expected but he had an air of supreme confidence, and after exchanging a few words, we could tell that he would be a good person to have on your side and was certainly not someone you’d want to cross!
The enemy’s response had finally come back, “We need food in twenty five rucksacks and another five rucksacks full of ammunition. You have thirty minutes to get it ready. Don’t try any funny business or you’ll regret it!”
By now most of us were sniggering. “Okay, Einstein out there has now reliably informed us that there are most likely thirty of them,” said Colonel Moore briskly.
“That probably means only ten of them are armed, and they’re running out of food, because they’ve prioritised that over ammunition. If you hadn’t already worked that out, that is.” he added.
A few more soldiers had arrived and they were keeping out of sight behind the barricades. One was carrying a heavy looking machine gun and another a few boxes of ammunition. After a quick conversation Colonel Moore turned to us and said, “To put your minds at ease, we’ve dispersed our machine gun squads to reinforce most of your positions. All our soldiers are on full alert and one of our armoured vehicles is ready to move out if necessary. Don’t worry, nothing will get through us.”
I had no doubt about that.
Captain Berry walked up to Allan and me, asked for a moment of our time and we followed him back to the kitchen area. To my astonishment the army chefs, now decked out in body armour and helmets and with their weapons slung on their backs, were still busy cooking.
Captain Berry saw our expressions and said in a voice loud enough for them to hear, “Oh, we don’t want dinner ruined. They’ll have to carry on. And they’re all such lousy shots anyway, they’d have more chance of killing them with food poisoning than with their weapons.”
The cooks flung a few good natured comments back at him, along with a few rude gestures, and cheerfully carried on with their work.
Getting a tablet computer out, he asked us to look over his shoulder. The screen was showing an aerial shot of the road. The clarity of the shot was amazing, with every detail picked out. When he zoomed in, I could even see an overhead shot of myself on it.
“I remember wearing that sweater a few days ago.” I said. ‘We didn’t even know it was up there! The picture quality’s unbelievable.”
Captain Berry, or Paul (as he’d asked us to call him) grinned and replied, “Well it wouldn’t be much good as a spy camera if you knew it was there, would it?”
He rotated the map.
“It’s like Google maps on steroids,” I said. He changed the angle to give us a full 3-D view of the road.
“Where do you think the technology came from?” he said. “What you can do with overhead shots on your home computer is nothing to what can be done with military technology. It’s just that we don’t want everybody to be able to do it. Now, could you show me where you think the shot came from?”
I pointed to the line of cars further down the road and he quickly changed the view on the screen. “With your knowledge, what’s the best way to get there unseen?” he asked. He was back in professional mode and the mood was more serious. I suggested a route to him which would involve going over or through a few back garden hedges or fences. He plotted the route into the computer and the view changed to a simulated walk through the proposed route.
The technology was impressive, but not infallible. I pointed out a few places where the computer had interpreted what it was seeing wrongly, and with a few strokes and swipes the necessary changes were made. Technology like this was clearly a huge advantage on this kind of planning mission. From a series of overhead photos, a complete walkthrough of the mission could be simulated.
He thanked us and immediately called his men, who were gathered close by. He ran through the mission with them and showed them the planned route. At Paul’s request, Allan and I stayed, in case any questions arose that he might not be able to answer.
A couple of minutes later he stood up and announced his intention of clearing the mission with Colonel Moore before proceeding.
He was back a minute later. “It’s all go,” he said. Then pointing at me he carried on, “Tom, you’ll need to come with us. Time is of the essence and if we encounter a problem, your knowledge of the area could save lives. There’s no time to discuss this. We’ll need to be in position well before the thirty minutes are up. If you could go with my sergeant here, he’ll kit you out.”
Five minutes later I was wearing a full black tactical vest festooned with magazines, grenades, radios, the lot. The radio was set so that it was on continuously. All you had to do was speak into the mic and everyone could hear you. I was told not to touch any of the grenades. I was just carrying them in case the others needed more.
My position in the line was second from the rear and I was told in no uncertain terms that if anything happened, even though I was carrying my MP5, I was not to do anything unless my life was in danger. They were the experts.
I was so excited I forgot to be scared. I was living every boy’s dream (large or small!). I was taking part in an SAS mission. I hadn’t even had time to talk to Becky. She was still in our house, together with the rest of the community that weren’t involved in defence.
On the signal, Harry, who was still at the barricade, started shouting questions to the attackers, ludicrous questions about food preferences or whether they would prefer tins or packets.
It was truly ridiculous, but listening over the radio, we could tell that it was having an effect. The enemy were quarrelling among themselves about what they wanted.
Shaking his head, Captain Berry summed it up, “Honestly, if they’re that thick, they deserve to die. We’ll be doing the gene pool a favour!”
Our trip through the gardens was uneventful and in no time at all we were in position. We were now a few houses further down the road from where the line of cars had been constructed as our first line of defence.
One of the soldiers was sent ahead to investigate and we watched as he crawled forward, using every available scrap of cover to hide his approach. He reported that the head count was twenty eight and it was clear to approach, as the enemy were all crouching behind the cars, facing towards our barricade.
I was told to remain and watch the rear, so I faced the other way with my gun at the ready, as the others crawled forward. Soon, over the radio, I heard all the members of the team reporting that they were in position and ready.
Next came the order, “Leave the one with the red cap on. Neutralise the rest in 3-2-1 now.”
I heard the sound of suppressed gun fire in repeated bursts. I could only image
the carnage caused by eight superbly trained men opening fire at close range on thirty or so unsuspecting victims.
One by one the reports came through over the radio, “No more targets, area clear.”
I was trying to be a good soldier and resist the urge to turn and watch, when a sudden noise to my right made me swing round. Two men were emerging from the doorway of a house between me and the soldiers. One of them was carrying a shotgun and was in the process of aiming it at the soldiers, who hadn’t heard or noticed them. I didn’t know what they’d been doing, but they had to be members of the gang, and one of them was about to shoot at the exposed backs of Captain Berry’s men.
Without thinking, I raised my weapon, pointed it at them and pulled the trigger. At some point I must have switched my weapon to full auto, because when I pulled the trigger it spewed bullets in the direction of the two men. In a matter of seconds the gun clicked empty and the two men lay in a heap in the bullet-splintered and pockmarked doorway of the house.
I stood there, slightly shocked, but pumped full of adrenaline.
The sound of a soldier’s voice beside me made me jump, “Cheers, mate, good one! Now if you’ll keep watching our rear, I’ll go and check those two and see if there are any more surprises.” As he and another soldier ran off, he turned and added, “Might be a good idea to reload as well.”
Feeling like the rookie I was, I ejected the magazine and loaded a new one, while I watched the two men check the bodies and make sure that there weren’t any more of them that we didn’t know about.
Watching the rear, I jumped again a few minutes later when Paul tapped me on the shoulder. “All clear. Great job. You saved us there. It was my fault, we knew there should be thirty of them and when Private Anderson counted twenty eight of them, I didn’t make the connection. Bit embarrassing really.”
I spluttered a bit as I tried to think of something to say. Looking around, the bodies of our would-be attackers lay where they had been shot.