Murdoch slipped round to the line of trucks, carefully keeping an eye out for sentries. The trucks were chained down to the floor by chains tied through their axles. Using his knife Murdoch quickly broke the padlocks holding the chains together and jumped into the driver’s seat.
"Hey you! What do you think you're doing?" someone called out.
Murdoch didn't bother to look up to see who was shouting at him. The keys were in the ignition so he fired the engine up, released handbrake, put the truck into reverse and floored the accelerator.
The wheels span on the slick floor, rubber struggling to grip the metal surface. Burnt rubber fumes filled the air and the truck squealed backwards accelerating rapidly.
Murdoch heard the staccato sound of a machine gun firing and the windscreen cracked into a mass of spiders webs as bullets crackled through into the cabin. Murdoch ducked just in time as a bullet narrowly missed his head but caught part of his right ear reducing it to a bloody mess.
Ignoring the burning pain he jerked the steering wheel to the right and pulled on the handbrake. The truck creaked alarmingly in protest at the violent treatment but allowed Murdoch to complete the handbrake turn without breaking down.
Bullets were thudding into the truck with alarming regularity as Murdoch stamped on the accelerator and sped towards the cargo doors, slipping and sliding on the slick metal floor.
Time to pray, Murdoch thought. Shame I’ve no bloody time!
Spinning the steering wheel, Murdoch flipped off the pin on one of his grenades and threw the metal oblong out the broken passenger side window to land near the port side hinge of the huge cargo door. The truck skidded heavily, thudding into the huge door before roaring off to the starboard.
Eight, seven, six, five….
Murdoch threw his second grenade out towards the starboard hinge, skidding sideways as he manoeuvred the truck to face back down the hold. Bursts of machine gun fire showed him the location of the bastards who were firing on him. Couldn’t they just let him get away in peace?
...four, three…
The truck sped down the length of the dreadnaught as a huge explosion blossomed upwards annihilating the port hinge.
Bastard Americans. Their bloody grenades have six second fuses not eight. Nearly took me with them. Dashed bad show!
Seconds later the truck rocked wildly as a second explosion blasted its stationary target to smithereens. Murdoch had to fight desperately with the steering wheel to stop the truck careering out of control, wheels spinning, desperately seeking grip.
There were squeals and protesting cries of tortured metal scraping against itself and the great cargo hold door fell gracefully off the wounded dreadnaught, leaving in its place a gaping shining hole to the outside.
Producing another spectacular handbrake turn, Murdoch hurled the battered truck round again to face the jagged opening to what was hopefully freedom. Murdoch crossed his fingers and hoped the dreadnaught wasn’t two hundred feet in the air. He gave it another five seconds, ignoring the shouts of panic and rage, followed by the chatter of machine gun fire. Standard procedure was for a dreadnaught to land immediately when faced with a catastrophic disaster such as cargo bay doors flying open.
He gunned the engine, pressed the accelerator and the truck jerked forward, its back end sliding around as the wheels fought to bring it under control. A loud bang caused Murdoch to look into his side mirror and see that a rear tyre had blown out probably caused by one of the bullets fired wildly in his direction. The mirror shattered as a bullet ricocheted off it, throwing glass splinters into the cabin. By then it didn’t matter. Murdoch braced himself as the truck neared the hole to freedom. Nearer, nearer. Blood pounded in Murdoch’s head causing his ear to throb even more painfully. He could feel a sticky trickle of blood rolling down the side of his neck.
And then the truck was airborne, engine screaming, wheels clutching desperately at thin air.
The white ground rose to meet him. Murdoch had time to thank God before having every bone and organ in his body jarred and mashed against each other as the truck crashed heavily onto the white surface. Ahead was the hulking remains of the cargo hold door, rising high above the flat ground. The truck raced ahead with a clatter of broken components. Gulping in air, Murdoch managed to get his breath back while steering around the giant smashed door. Now he needed to escape from wherever he was. He glanced about hunting for landmarks. There were none. The landscape was totally flat and covered in a thin layer of snow. He was near the sea though as he could smell the salt in the brisk cold wind that worried its way into the truck through all the broken windows and cracks in the truck frame.
The area was crawling with enemy soldiers though. Anti aircraft cannon fringed the locale. Giant aircraft hangers lay to Murdoch’s left where he could see fire engines rushing towards the smoking, stricken giant he left behind him. It looked like a permanent base. Damn! He must be in the US somehow! No that couldn’t be right. They hadn’t been travelling for anything like the time needed to get anywhere near the Americas. Where the hell did the US have a permanent base this close to Greenland? Aircraft were prowling overhead. Murdoch thought they looked like Mustang ground attack planes. Time to move!
Where’re the bloody roads out of this place? The truck was running flat out straight for one of the anti aircraft cannon while Murdoch searched for signs of a road. There wasn’t even a fence anywhere which was unusual to say the least. Dashed unsporting if they didn’t even try to stop a chap from escaping. The crew on the AA gun ahead were jumping up and down waving their arms frantically in the air. Murdoch slammed the brakes on. Never ignore a man panicking as much as these chaps even if they’re the enemy. The truck wheels lost their grip on the icy surface and the truck swung round totally out of control smashing straight into the sandbags surrounding the AA gun before crashing to an ignominious halt, smoke pouring from the engine. Grabbing his Thompson machine gun, Murdoch jumped out awkwardly clutching his left side. Felt as if he’d cracked a couple of ribs. The three AA gunners were dead having been hit by the out of control truck.
Limping over to the skywards pointing AA gun Murdoch realised he could hear the crashing of breakers on rocks from below. Those American chaps had just stopped him from driving over a cliff! Murdoch briefly saluted the shattered bodies of his saviours. Time to survive! Murdoch’s favoured way to survive was to create chaos within the enemy while he escaped their clutches. In the Sudan, he’d managed to start a civil war between two allied tribes by mentioning in passing that the favoured concubine of one of the chiefs had been sneaking out to see to the needs of the chief of the other tribe. Not an ounce of truth in it of course but the fuzzy wuzzies believed it! He shook his head and stifled a chuckle as he thought about that one. The chaps at the Garrick Club loved that story.
Taking aim through the sights of the AA gun, Murdoch pulled the trigger, wincing as the concussion from the rapid firing gun slammed into his side. Good show though. That was one of the Mustangs down with his first shot. The three remaining planes scattered climbing higher skywards. Concentrating as he was on bringing down the remaining planes his subconscious finally put two and two together. No perimeter fence, flat icy surface, the gang leader at the archaeology site mentioning “The Iceberg”…. Oh stunning. Absolutely stunning. He was stuck on a floating bit of ice in the middle of God knows where. Murdoch managed to take out another Mustang his shots severing its right wing. As it spiralled earthwards to explode near the beached dreadnaught, Murdoch reached into the bottom of his rucksack for his last hope. Even he was going to find it difficult to escape from a floating military base with no support. The transmitter in the heel of his walking boot was for tracking purposes only. The transmitter he retrieved from the padded bottom of the rucksack was far more powerful and signalled an agent in distress. Murdoch flicked the “On” switch and unreeled the twelve foot long aerial cable. He then piled some sandbags around the delicate device to protect it from the chaos that was sure to ensue now.
While he had been doing this the Americans had finally got their act together and several troop carrying trucks were on their way to harass him. Behind them the fire engines were dousing the blaze that had been threatening to envelope the stern of the dreadnaught. Murdoch swung the AA gun from its skywards position to one pointing directly at the lead truck. The driver realised too late what was happening and tried to avoid the hail of bullets that crashed mercilessly into the bodywork before detonating the fuel tank. Limp bodies flew high into the air tossed high by the resulting explosion before being engulfed in flame. The other two trucks halted in a spray of ice particles and snow before disgorging their cargo of troops. Murdoch quickly turned the gun on the new enemy catching another truck in a pitiless salvo.
The soldiers were all lying flat on the snow crawling forward, weapons before them. The AA gun wouldn’t traverse far enough to let him target the soldiers. Taking aim with his Thompson he picked off three of the soldiers before the resulting covering fire forced him to take cover behind the sandbags.
This could be it, Murdoch thought. No more fighting for King and Country. No more gin and tonics at Ascot. No more impressing the ladies with tales of derring do. Dashed bad news. Murdoch spluttered as a bullet kicked a spurt of snow into his face. He stuck the Thompson round the sandbags and let off a brief burst of shots in several directions and was rewarded with cries of pain and shouts for a medic.
Let’s see what we’ve got. Three magazines of ammunition for the Thompson including the one already on the gun, one grenade, a dagger and errr... that was it.
A metal shape landed at his feet. Murdoch quickly picked it up and tossed it back over the sandbags. The grenade exploded loudly in the air and shrapnel pattered off the sandbags. More yells of pain.
Murdoch almost kicked himself for being so stupid. What weapons did the gunners have? He quickly searched the three bodies keeping low as the covering fire had greatly intensified. A pistol between three soldiers? Murdoch grunted in annoyance at his paltry find. Still, it would do.
Turning to face the blistering hail of gunfire threatening to shred his sandbags, Murdoch saw the top of a GI helmet peering over part of his cover. Pulling a pin from a grenade he counted to four before throwing it just over the sandbag wall. Shouts of panic were drowned by the resulting explosion.
The grenade explosion destroyed much of his cover. Murdoch was going to have to surrender or die or both more likely once the American Secret Service got their hands on him. He threw the last grenade in the general direction of the approaching GIs, fired a quick burst from the Tommy gun before running desperately for the edge of the iceberg. Maybe there were boats moored at the bottom. “It never hurts to optimistic, Johnny,” Nanny always said. “Have faith and the good Lord will provide for you,” was another one. It was hard to be optimistic with the air full of hot lead all looking to bury itself in his body, an entire enemy military base stirred up like a hornets’ nest and finally, but definitely not least, a long rocky way down to the sea with no guarantee that there would be any means of escape.
An involuntary scream wrenched its way from his lips as a searing hot pain burned through his upper right leg. He fell heavily, nearly passing out as he landed on his damaged ribs. Murdoch gasped with pain, desperately trying to drag himself upright. Wouldn’t do to get captured by the Americans. The boys at The Garrick wouldn’t think much of that! Murdoch’s vision blurred and black spots seemed to flicker behind his eyes. No. Must keep going. A bullet thudded deep into his right shoulder spinning him around. He narrowly avoided falling off the cliff edge but the pain caused him to drop his Tommy gun which slipped over the edge and fell into the foaming seas below, spiralling in the gusting wind and bouncing off the jagged ice as it did so. Fire ran through his mind. He couldn’t move his right arm now. His shoulder must be shattered. Looks as if he wasn’t going to get out of this one. Blighty was going to have to wait…
Have faith…
Murdoch could feel his blood running out of his body taking his life with it. Darkness was descending, like a curtain being pulled across a window. He couldn’t hear anything except a dull roar in his ears, like a waterfall far off across a wilderness. Momentarily his vision cleared. He could see Heaven rising slowly from below the white ice cliff he had intended to throw himself off. Its size was beyond comprehension, a shining white torpedo shaped monolith two thirds of a mile long gilded with gold and brass.
Hallelujah, Murdoch smiled as darkness rolled over him.
The GIs’ howls of triumph at downing their prey died to croaks of fear as their entire field of vision was filled by the massive warship. Klaxons screamed the general alert and the GIs could feel the iceberg vibrating as planes were brought up from their underground hangers and launched into the air by steam catapults. Behind them came the rumble of Lincoln tanks rolling across the surface to create an artificial barrier between the planes taking off and the threat that loomed across the entire base. Hundreds of GIs ran in chaotic formations across the ice slipping and sliding as they went, following orders bellowed out by their sergeants. There were further rumbles as sheets of ice slid back revealing heavy cannon rotating up into place facing the enemy airship.
There was a collective gasp of fright from the entrenched GIs and the simultaneous click of hundreds of rifle and machine gun bolts being pulled back. A hatch had opened, a tiny square black mark on the glistening white bodywork framed by sheets of water pouring down the concave sides.
Countless unseen motors whirred smoothly as the white warship’s secondary weapons rotated to face the enemies of the Empire a multitude of lethal black barrels dotting the spotless whiteness all dwarfed by the sheer vastness of their parent. The ships main batteries were still hidden out of sight below the cliff top.
Private Clancy was scared. Sure they had enough firepower to blow even that thing up, or at least he hoped so, but he didn’t want to die while they did it. His rifle shook in his grip and he squeezed his hands tighter to stop them shaking so badly. A shot barked out from his rifle as his fingers clumsily squeezed the trigger and suddenly the world was full of noise.
Machine guns rattled, Lincoln tanks blasted out their shells again and again, the fixed heavy cannon threw in their combined firepower, AA guns chattered as round after round spat out of their mouths. Aero engines screamed as Mustang fighters dived into the attack, cannon and machine guns spitting fire. Seconds passed like hours, then minutes like days. And then suddenly the deafening outpouring of lead and explosive stopped. Acrid blue and grey smoke wafted across the iceberg's surface obscuring the leviathan from view. The GIs whooped and hollered so certain were they that nothing could have survived the massive outpouring from such lethal weaponry. The first indication they had that something was not right was when the Mustangs dived in again, cannons and machine guns blazing. The GIs heard the cannon shells and bullets ricocheting and rebounding off thick armour plate, whizzing and squealing away back into the air. Suddenly, the Mustangs started to peel away half way through their dive, wobbling as if their pilots were panicking. Not one of them pulled out. Tracer fire leapt up from the obscuring cloud, hundreds of tentacles of speeding red reaching out towards the aeroplanes, shattering fuselages into shreds of flaking metal and exploding fuel tanks in briefly beautiful fire blossoms that scattered shrapnel across the serenely white battlefield.
The cries of victory faded into silence as the soldiers saw the remaining Mustangs race away from the battlefield, engines howling. A cold north wind gusted and whistled, blowing away the remnants of smoke and revealing an undamaged airship still hovering in the air, some soot and blast marks besmirching the glorious white metalwork. Sunlight shone around the dreadnaught, lending the white ship a fearsome aura of glory that dazzled all that looked upon it. The GIs felt they had fired upon a messenger from Heaven itself. And such a patient one as well. Still it waited, leaving the Americans quaking at the sight. And then at an unheard word, multiple blasts echoed across the frozen lan
dscape and suddenly there were no more Lincoln tanks defending the USS Ice Base Snowstorm, no more AA guns, no more heavy cannon.
Many of the GIs survived the short demonstration of firepower by the British Empire.
When debriefed, a second lieutenant would note that he had seen movement at that tiny square black mark on the side of the airship, seconds before the Nightshade Division had jumped from the open hatch on to the US sovereign territory of Ice Base Snowstorm. Ten men. Ten seven and a half foot armour clad giants totally invulnerable to small arms fire. They’d been annihilated. No other word would suffice to describe the effect of the awesome merciless firepower those ten giants had wielded against the GIs. There must have been at least a thousand American soldiers out there. A hundred to one odds would sound favourable but in this case odds of a thousand to one would not have been favourable. One unit had the presence of mind to fire a bazooka shell at one of the giant. The direct hit barely rocked the target. The second lieutenant had ordered his men to open fire in the hope of hitting a weak spot, and was closely followed by numerous other squads. An unscathed AA gun churned out a series of rapid shots at the approaching Nightshade all to no effect. It was trying to stop a force of nature. As Nightshade found the American soldiers within range, motors could be heard spinning into action before blazes of fire emanated from the gatling cannon slung under the right arms of each Nightshade soldier. Arcs of fire and bullets swept across the dirty snowfields searching out the terrified GIs. Twenty two survived the battle, with fourteen dying of their wounds. Eight survivors. Merciless.
Once they’d finished their show of power, the Nightshade Division picked up the spy and, one by one, jumped back into the open hatch.
An Atlantean Triumvirate Page 7