by Chris Harris
The only time the mood became sombre was just before midnight, when Prince Harry stood up and called for silence. He asked for a minute of reflection or prayer before the clock struck twelve. Families gathered together, held hands or hugged, and it wasn’t long before tears were streaming down everyone’s faces, as lost loved ones were remembered.
For the first time since the BBC had first broadcast it, in 1923, the New Year wasn’t marked by the chiming of Big Ben. Instead, Prince Harry, in his ceremonial uniform, fired his pistol into the air. The gunshot snapped us out of our sombre mood, and determined to find joy out of the sorrow we were feeling, we all launched into several choruses of “Auld Lang Syne”, which became louder and more raucous every time we sang it.
Nobody seemed to want the party to end, perhaps because we’d be back to reality in the morning, so it was very late by the time most people went to bed.
After my drinking session on Christmas Day, I’d volunteered for the late night guard shift to give other people the chance to enjoy themselves. (I was also feeling guilty about the evenings I’d spent at the base enjoying myself in the pub). Making sure that Stanley and Daisy, who by now were both exhausted, were tucked up in bed, I joined Paul, who had also volunteered for the late shift on the barricades.
Having not slept for over twenty-four hours, it took a lot of coffee to keep me awake.
We sat in the sentry box, listening to the revelry behind us and sheltering from the biting wind and the snow that had begun to fall steadily. Paul told me that until the soldiers who were due to be relieved had returned to base with the return convoy, he planned to take advantage of the extra manpower he had available and attack the farmhouse where we knew the people who had ambushed us were based.
The plan hadn’t changed from the one I’d been told about previously. The following night Paul would surround the farmhouse with a strong force of men and vehicles. Just before daybreak, a UAV would launch a few missiles to destroy the building. If necessary, he would follow these up with a volley of AT4 anti-bunker shoulder-launched missiles, before sending in the troops to clear up.
It was a simple plan, and with the technology and weaponry we had at our disposal, it should pose the least risk to his soldiers.
After finishing my guard duty I collapsed, exhausted, into bed and didn’t wake up until around midday.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
The following day started late for most of the community, as hangovers were being nursed. About six inches of snow lay on the ground and it was still falling steadily. The tracks left by the other groups, as they slowly made their way home after a hearty breakfast, soon disappeared.
Most of the soldiers were busy preparing for the attack on the farmhouse, and Pete, realising that some members of the community were suffering from a general lack of enthusiasm, gave up and declared a day of rest. The adults mostly sat around the fires at home and chatted, while the children made snowmen and engaged in snowball fights.
During the afternoon, I sought out Paul and asked if he would need any help from the community in the upcoming attack. He said he didn’t need any help with the actual mission, but if we could take over some of the sentry duties, it would free up more soldiers to take part in the attack.
I spoke to Pete, and he willingly set about re-working the rotas and rounding up more volunteer sentries.
Paul was happy that it was snowing, because it would help to muffle any sounds they made on their approach. The UAV would still be able to fly and release its missiles, so he considered the weather to be an advantage. I hadn’t been present when the soldiers were preparing for the Gumin attack, and was impressed by the care taken to check and re-check every single piece of equipment they were taking.
Allan had inspected the weapons we’d been given and had spent the day in the front room of Pete’s house, learning how to strip and clean both the SA80 and the Light Machine Gun, disassembling them and putting them back together. Michelle had teased him about having a new love in his life.
He kept insisting that it was necessary, so that he could familiarise himself with the weapons, and only stopped when Pete and I joked that we wouldn’t be surprised to see him running up and down the road, holding one of the guns and making pretend machine gun noises, just as Stanley did whenever he found a gun-shaped stick in the garden.
The civilian visitors were generally settling in well. Most of them had mixed with the rest of us from the outset, and had clearly enjoyed themselves at the previous night’s celebration. Like the rest of us, they were making the most of the day of rest. Some of them were using the time to visit and introduce themselves to the people on the road they had yet to meet. I did notice that three of them weren’t quite as sociable as the others. They were friendly enough, but so far, they’d kept to themselves and spent most of their time huddled together in the kitchen area, talking.
I didn’t give it much thought. They were our guests, but they weren’t really our responsibility. We were happy enough to show them what we’d done in order to survive. Hopefully, they would learn from this and pass on their knowledge when the time came for them to help existing communities or form new ones.
We didn’t need to make friends with them. It was helpful if they were friendly, and in the short time that they were with us, made the effort to get along with the community, as they would probably get more out of their experience by doing so. If they chose not to be, that was their choice.
I reasoned to myself that I was probably being a bit unfair. They’d only arrived the day before and had been thrown straight into work and then the New Year’s Eve party. They probably just needed some time to settle in. I decided I’d make the effort to chat to them later, as I understood that Pete had included all the new arrivals in the revised guard duty rota to help cover for the soldiers Paul was taking on the raid.
The snow continued to fall steadily, and by the time it was dark, there was at least twelve inches on the ground. Paul informed us that they were ready to depart, and that once the soldiers had eaten a hot meal and taken a short rest, they would make their way to the farm and get into their positions before daybreak. He was confident that the mission would be a complete success and that the occupants of the farmhouse were unlikely to survive the initial missile strike. If they did, they were unlikely to be in any fit state to offer resistance when the ground troops went in. He had some reservations about leaving us with only a few soldiers, but he was sure that we were more than capable of defending ourselves. In the meantime, he would be up against an unknown enemy with modern weapons. He needed plenty of men on the ground, as well as technological superiority, to guarantee their success.
We all urged him not to worry. He was, after all, going to deal with what we believed to be our closest threat.
Harry was staying behind with a small contingent of soldiers and he was cheerfully organising them to fit in with Pete’s revised sentry rota. I hadn’t witnessed it the previous night, as I’d been on guard duty, but apparently Harry and Kim, the young girl who had been rescued from St Agnes Road, had been getting along very well and had spent a good deal of the time chatting quietly in a corner. Perhaps it was the lack of television or other distractions, but the community had lost no time in speculating about “the romance of the century” and a possible future royal wedding. Harry seemed amused, but didn’t deny anything, so perhaps the gossips were onto something. I visualised the future press interviews:
“So Kim, what first attracted you to the multi-millionaire prince of the realm?”
The road looked beautiful covered in its blanket of snow. The soft glow of the lights was diffused and reflected back, and any noise was quickly deadened by the softness of the surroundings.
Pete had issued more coal to each household in an effort to ward of the cold, and the smell of burning coal further enhanced the sense of tranquillity and security.
The peace was shattered briefly by the sound of engines revving and vehicles starting up. The soldiers boa
rded the fleet of vehicles and left to begin their mission. The falling snow quickly muffled the sound of the engines and silence fell again. The sentries huddled into their jackets and counted off the minutes until they could come off duty.
Becky was down for guard duty from ten until midnight and I gave her a hug as she left. I told her she looked very sexy, wrapped up in her thickest coat, with a scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and wearing her ski hat with her skiing goggles perched on her head. The look was finished off with a shotgun slung over her shoulder.
“You’re every man’s dream,” I teased. “Warm and dangerous!” She pulled a face at me and set off through the snow.
Once the children were asleep and I’d spent some time with Jane and Michael, I climbed into bed to get some sleep before my next guard shift.
The sound of shotguns and an automatic weapon firing woke me up with a jolt. Shaking off the sleep, I reached out for Becky. She wasn’t there. Grabbing the torch that was kept by the bed, I switched it on. Her side of the bed hadn’t been slept in, and the clock on the bedside table showed that it was 11:45. She was still on guard duty and we were under attack!
Grabbing what clothes I could find and throwing them on, I hurried down the stairs, shoved my feet into a pair of boots, snatched up my MP5 and ran out of the door. More shots could be heard from the top of the road.
“Oh Christ, that’s where Becky is!” I thought, as I pushed my way through the snow. I could see other people running out of doors, weapons in hand. We’d practised this over and over and I had to trust that the others would follow the procedures we’d established.
In the event of an attack, at any time, anyone not involved in defence had to make their way to my house and lock it down. I’d left my children in bed, possibly still asleep, but I had to make sure that Becky was OK. All the children had been well trained and drilled in the routine as well, so they knew what to expect and what to do.
Just in front of the barricade was a body lying in the snow. It was face down and the snow beneath it was dark with blood. It was wrapped in a large coat and it wasn’t possible to tell who it was.
“Becky!” I screamed.
Throwing myself down next to the body, I turned it over. It wasn’t Becky. Relief washed over me, swiftly followed by horror. It was Dave. From the gash on his neck, it looked as if his throat had been cut.
Dave and his wife Jo were enthusiastic and helpful members of our community from the beginning. Their children, Billy and Katie, were about the same age as Stanley and Daisy and were good friends.
But he was on the safe side of the barricade. Who had done this?
My thoughts were racing. Where was Becky? Holding my gun ready, I jumped up on to the barricade. A soldier was sprawled across it, face up. He’d been shot numerous times in the chest. More residents were arriving and everyone was demanding to know what had happened.
At some point in the night it had stopped snowing and the clouds had lifted. The light of the moon reflected off the snow and the entire scene was bathed in an eerie half-light. Further up the road I could see movement. More shots rang out. Without thinking, I jumped over the barricade and ran through the open gates, towards where the army vehicles were parked, ploughing through the knee deep snow as fast as I could.
I could see a soldier, holding a rifle out in front of him, dragging another soldier by his webbing. He was trying to make for cover as bullets hit the snow around him.
Taking a chance that he must be one of our men as he was being shot at, I slid to a stop behind the wall he was trying to reach. I got his attention by shouting at him, and grabbing him by his coat, I pulled him backwards and helped him get his friend behind cover. The injured soldier had been shot in the leg, and was conscious but in a lot of pain.
“What happened?” I shouted at him.
“I don’t know. We’d just finished our guard shift and we were getting my kit bag out from one of the lorries. As we were walking back we heard shots from the barricade. We ran forward to investigate, came under fire and Jimmy got hit. There were three blokes, and they all had guns.”
“Why didn’t you shoot back?” I asked, exasperated.
My heart stopped when he said, “They had three women with them. I couldn’t get a clear shot. They were struggling, but they were dragging them along.”
“Which women?” I demanded, frantically.
“I don’t know. I only got here yesterday. One was that woman Prince Harry was chatting up last night, I think the other one was the girlfriend of that copper. The last one I do know, I talked to her last night. Her name’s Becky. When we walked up to get my kit bag, I noticed all three of them were sitting in the shelter on the barricade, talking.”
“Who were the three men?” I asked. His answer shocked me.
“They came from the base. They were always hanging out together back then. They never mixed much with the rest of us.”
I looked over the wall I was sheltering behind. About fifty metres away I spotted two of the men pushing Becky into the back of the only armoured vehicle still parked there. The rest of the vehicles, apart from a few lorries, had all gone on the mission.
She was fighting them as hard as she could. I couldn’t see Michelle or Kim. They must already have been in the vehicle. One of the men punched Becky in the face to stop her attacking him.
She collapsed in the snow, he picked her up and threw her into the back of the vehicle.
Seeing this, cold fury overtook me. I leapt over the wall and started to make my way towards them. I was going to rip their heads off with my bare hands. As one of the men stepped into the open I raised my weapon and opened fire, trying to hit him as I struggled through the knee-deep snow.
My gun clicked empty and I saw him raise his weapon.
The world slowed down.
He was aiming straight at me, there was a flash from his muzzle, followed by searing pain and then darkness …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Harris was born in South Birmingham in 1971. Apart from a few years in his early twenties, he has spent his whole life in the city, he is truly a born and bred “Brummie”, and rightly proud of this fact.
He settled on Moseley as his postcode of choice about fifteen years ago, and has become absorbed and entwined into the strong community found there.
He is a loyal and active member of Chantry Tennis Club, where he demonstrates his talents on (and off) the court.
He is also a loyal supporter of the several local music festivals and a number of local charities. He champions supporting the local independent economy, and so is a regular at the many local independent pubs and restaurants Moseley is rightly famous for.
His early career centered around the building trade, moving onto property development. Now Chris is a family man with a wife and three children, all of whom are very important to him and keep him very busy. His many interests include: tennis, skiing, racquet ball, darts, shooting and he has always been an avid reader.
He came late to writing, but it has really ignited something long buried within him. It has given him an outlet for his imagination, and never one to be short of an opinion or the last word, has enjoyed “putting it down on paper” in his books.
He reports that the UK Dark series “will be at least a trilogy, but you never know what’s going to happen until you start writing” and is also trying his hand at a Zombie book.
Follow him on Facebook at Chris Harris Author
AUTHORS NOTE
Who would have thought that a year ago I would be writing a note at the end of my second book?
Not me for a start.
The writing started as more of a whim. An, “I wonder if I can do that” thought. Then one day I decided to have a go at.
It would not have been possible to even get half way through the first book, let alone even consider a second one, without the help and support of my wonderful wife Nicky. She made it happen by letting me off jobs that needed doing around the house, listeni
ng and putting up with my endless talking about my progress, and when I proudly showed her my first effort that I thought was brilliant, she gently reminded me that commas and paragraphs were possibly a good idea to include in the next draft. Thank you.
Billy and Katie, aka Stanley and Daisy. You are as brilliant as the characters in the book are. Don’t stop being you!
Thanks to my many friends, old and new ones I have made through writing these books. Your support and putting up with me boring you to death constantly is really appreciated. (I have started to recognise the signs of eyes glazing over now.)
If you are mentioned in the book, you know who you are and remember, you chose your character.
Thanks to my volunteer beta readers. Shawn Graveling, Chris Garland of Forest Skills Ltd, Simon Wood, Janet Forshaw and Paul “Petal” Berry (recognise any names?). Your efforts and honest feedback have an incalculable value. Don’t panic if your character has not appeared yet, there is still time!
Thank you for taking the time to read it. If you like it, please leave a review. If you didn’t enjoy it, then you have my apologies for getting as far as these few words, and please feel free to contact me via Facebook on how it could have been better.
Please follow me on Facebook for news and updates.
Thank you for reading.
Chris Harris