Occupation

by Dave Lacey

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, holding up both hands. His features had softened also, and now took on a plaintive aspect. “I’m really sorry. Forgive me,” he said, his head nodding forward. “I’m tired, we’re all tired, and my old fear overcame me for a moment. I was just frightened for everybody, not myself.”

  “You’re a lucky man, Darren. A lucky man.” The corners of Millie’s mouth twitched slightly now, but she quickly moved on, not wanting to let him off the hook so easily. “Now,” she barked slightly louder than she had meant to, “we need a few volunteers and a few weapons...”

  She went on to give out her orders, then gathered the six volunteers together to brief them on what to expect. They had all fought many years before, so they weren’t totally green. An hour after Millie’s arrival, the seven of them left the commune again.

  As Millie and the men doubled back on the route she had taken on her way in, she thought about her two main concerns. The first was that her brother might not make it all the way back to HQ. The second was that, even if he was able to do that, they might attract some company after a while. She was worried that the remainder of Coffey’s troupe had unfinished business.

  She had discussed numbers with Darren and one of the older members of the community before they left. They established that they could account for around seventy-five per cent of the gang having been disabled in one way or another since Jack, Millie, Darren and Smithy had arrived the day before. That left something like ten men who hadn’t been seen or dealt with up to this point.

  That meant trouble, whichever way you looked at it. And that made Millie twitchy. She moved to the head of the small column, her eyes ever scanning for movement. The smoke from a fire, probably set by another community to hide something they were doing above ground, swept and billowed across the landscape. The sky was grey, featureless and pregnant with rain. What little wind there was caused the smoke to swirl. The setting resembled a warzone. Which, in reality, it was. It made scanning for trouble difficult. But then it made it tough for an enemy too.

  It was early afternoon. In mid winter the light wouldn’t last a great deal longer. As they moved through the ghostly terrain, they heard a recognizable sound. Gunfire. It had the all too familiar pop-pop sound of an AK47. They stopped for a second or two, looked at each other, then ran. This felt better, to be moving unhindered. The fear was there. Fear for the two men she had left behind, and for the children, but for now it was overridden by the rush. All subterfuge forgotten.

  They needed to get to their comrades as quickly as they could. Millie ran hard and free. Her legs felt light and easy as they pumped in a well worn rhythm. They reached a gradient, and she took it at full run, powering up the slope until they reached the crest. As she did, the scene unfolded before them like a well-set stage.

  Fortune was with them too, as none of the players were looking their way when they crested the ridge. It allowed them to hit the dirt and take in the layout below them. It was hard to establish what was going on. It looked like Coffey’s followers had caught up with Jack and Smithy. Then it took shape. The followers were laid out in a rough semi-circle, facing away from the slope that Millie and the others had happened upon.

  It looked, at least from here, as though Jack and Smithy were around a hundred yards away. That’s where the gunfire was aimed, that’s where a lot of it was falling. Millie began absently chewing on the inside of her cheek. Something was wrong, and initially she couldn’t fathom what it was.

  Then it occurred to her – there was no return fire. She wriggled back from the lip and signalled for the others to follow her. When they were all clear of the horizon, she spoke. “We need to move now if we’re to take them out.” She looked around at the grim and determined faces opposite her. Not one of them thought to argue about who was leading the assault. “I counted nine of them, so either that’s all there is, or that’s all we can see.

  “But that doesn’t matter right now. It’s now or never.” She paused and started to draw a rough layout in the dirt. “Darren, you take three guys and head down here.” She indicated the left hand arc of the semi-circle with her hand. “You need to take them all out as quick and easy as possible. There can be no nerves, gents, none at all. If we get our timing wrong, it’ll be a bloodbath.” She looked up at them again as if to emphasize her point. “No hesitation. Seven of us, nine of them. That’s one each, with me and Darren taking two each. Aim for the body if you can’t get close enough to blow their brains out. Put them down first, then finish the job.” She was looking for panic, or revulsion, in their faces. She found neither. They were grim and ready for this.

  Clearly drawing on memories from their own past. That’s good, she thought. “Darren, we have to be really sharp here. They won’t think twice if we give them a chance.” Darren simply nodded at her. “Okay, let’s move then. Soft down the slope, then hard into them when we’re in position.” They crawled back up the slope, then swarmed down the other side. They were careful not to make too much noise, but such was the random suppressing fire that the enemy were laying down, it made no difference.

  They were in position within four minutes of starting their descent. The two men Millie was tracking made plans to change position. One of them had started much higher than the others, but was now back down at ground level. Millie’s group were afforded a considerable amount of cover by the debris littering the killing ground. As the man came level with his fellows, so he and another man broke away. They were going to move up on Jack and Smithy’s position. Millie ground her teeth and moved forward. She watched as the two men accompanying her stopped in place, fifteen or so feet behind the two enemy figures they were responsible for.

  For the briefest of moments, Millie considered how cheap human life had become. She then thought how cheap it had always been in some parts of the world. Shaking the thoughts from her head she gave the signal for her team to carry out their plan. It was a simple raising and dropping of her arm, and it worked like a charm. There was a brief fusillade, starting at the far end with Darren, then rippling round to where Millie knelt as she dealt with the two men who had started to move off.

  Too late, they turned. Fear in their eyes as they struggled to raise their weapons. Millie already had her rifle raised to her shoulder. She drew a bead on the quickest of the two, and fired. The back of his head exploded in a pink mist behind him, his eyelids fluttering like doomed moths with the last of his energy.

  Without panic, she slowly traversed the gun to the right, even as the second man opened fire. He was panicked, and his fire sprayed just about everywhere except where Millie knelt. She aimed at his chest and gave a double tap. The two bullets tore into the man’s chest and erupted out the back. They pulled lungs and other innards with them as they went. The area grew silent.

  She stayed where she was, waiting for anybody they hadn’t seen already to show themselves. They never came. She waited a full two minutes, then got up and ran for where she assumed her brother and boyfriend lay. She hurdled piles of tumbled brick and old street signs that lay in her path and dodged round half standing walls too big to jump. She rounded the final corner and stopped short.

  Jack was leaning back against the wall of the temporary bunker. He was unconscious, his gun across the top of his thighs. Smithy was lying flat on his back, his arms flung above his shoulders, his face slack. There was a large, dark stain in the top left quadrant of his torso. A lot of blood pooled beneath him. Millie bit down on the tears; she had to go to work. She moved quickly to Jack’s side.

  She put two fingers on his neck where she anticipated his carotid would be. It was there, faint and slow like the distant footsteps of a giant. She left his side and knelt beside Smithy. She hesitated. What if there was nothing? What would she do? She turned those thoughts aside and felt for the pulse.

  She didn’t realize it, but she was holding her breath. She let it out when she detected a very weak flutter. It was almost an echo of a pulse. With haste, she took her
med pack from her main bag. She cut through his outer clothing, opening it up until she could see the entry wound clearly. Blood was still trickled out, like a lazy oil well. She took a large field dressing from the pack, bit the paper bag open at the top and placed the dressing over the wound.

  She shook her head and cursed herself. Removing the field dressing, she took a packet of powder from the pack, tore it open, and emptied the Sulfadoxine onto the wound area. She silently thanked Darren and turned to look for him. He and the others were checking bodies, and looking for the children. It was Darren who had ensured they had taken the time to grab the extra medical supplies from the supply cabinets kept at the main site.

  She replaced the field dressing and strapped it as well as she could to Smithy’s chest. She braced herself for a few seconds, then carefully turned him over. As he rolled onto his front, she pulled the sleeves of his jacket and shirt off, leaving his back exposed. Her hand flew to her mouth. The exit wound was the size of a saucer. And deep. She didn’t know where to start.

  Darren appeared at her side, his hand dropping to her shoulder. “Can I help?” he asked. As he did, they heard a cry of joy from behind them. Some of the men had found the children. One of them was tending to Jack.

  Millie nodded without looking up. “Yes please,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. He knelt by her side and busied himself. Most people knew a fair bit about dressing wounds these days. It was no longer the preserve of doctors and nurses – everybody had to know something. “We need to pack the wound,” he said. “We can’t just strap over it.” He looked through the pack and found some gauze. “This will have to do,” he said.

  They cleaned out the debris and added more antimicrobial powder to the wound. They packed in as much gauze as they could, and finally put a dressing over the top and taped it down.

  Millie felt for Smithy’s pulse again. It was a little better, but not good. She looked at Darren, her face empty but her eyes filled with loss.

  “You’re gonna love me.” Darren smiled. He reached into his own pack and rummaged for a few seconds. Millie looked puzzled. Then he pulled his arm and a bag of plasma from his pack. Millie’s eyes filled and she felt like kissing him. “Yep, no kisses,” he said with a wink. “Not yet, anyway. Let’s see how we get on.” He acted with quick fluid movements. He had the line into a vein before she thought possible, and held up the bag of fluid until it was empty. “That’s all I have,” he said. “But it should help for a while.”

  Darren paused and looked around them. “He’s lost a lot of blood though.” There was no point in saying or thinking any more than that. “We need to make a stretcher, or a litter,” he said. Millie gave him a puzzled look. “It’s like a stretcher, but only has handles on the front. The back end drags along the ground.”

  Darren looked around at the rubble and objects that dotted the landscape. “We need something we can use as poles, something sturdy.” He called to the other men to come closer. “We need poles for a litter, well two litters actually. We need something at least six feet long, and four or five inches thick. Think something that will take the load of a man.” They started to move off, when he had an afterthought. “And canvas too, or something similar. Enough to form the basis of a stretcher.” They looked at him like he was mad, but made off anyway.

  “You’re not asking for much,” Millie said after the men had gone. “Where are they meant to find canvas?”

  “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. If not, we’ll use jackets. We’ll slip the poles through the sleeves and make the best of it.” Darren looked confident as he walked off to begin his own search.

  Millie considered the change in him over the past couple of days. Even in the past twenty-four hours. His confidence had grown, and he was becoming invaluable. She began a search of her own, which proved less than fruitful. But that wasn’t the case with the others. They came back with a raft of different sized poles of varying materials. Within half an hour of their return, they had fashioned two litters from the poles, a little canvas and some jackets they had taken from the dead.

  An hour after that, they reached the outer gate of the commune. The guards beamed at Millie at first, then more hesitantly when they saw the unfamiliar men, the children and two of their friends on litters. Their faces grew pale and they moved to open the gates. Smithy and Jack were whisked off to the medical bay, and the newcomers were taken to see Tom Bradley. They would be inducted, advised of the few rules that governed the commune and given quarters of their own.

  They would also be given jobs in the short term, with a view to monitoring their strengths over the coming months. Then they would be given proper roles. The children would find new carers if required. Millie saw faces she recognized from Darren’s community. They had arrived safely, thank God.

  Then she watched everybody hasten off in different directions, and felt a dizzying wave of fatigue overcome her. Her hand moved to her head, and she stumbled backward until the low slung bench caught the back of her knees. She slumped down and closed her eyes for a moment. The previous forty-eight hours played through her mind like a children’s flip book, the images blending into one continuous memory. It was hard to focus.

  She was mulling quietly over all that had happened, when suddenly she sat bolt upright. She realized she hadn’t so much as held Jack Junior when they had found them. For the first time in many years, tears rolled down Millie’s dirt streaked cheeks. Her sobs caused her breath to stutter. She gave up and let it all go.

  All the tension and strain of the entire endeavour left her in three short minutes of wailing and sobbing. People saw her, but thought it best to leave her be. It wasn’t the most unusual sight during the occupation, people randomly crying. Sometimes it was just the memory of life as it was; sometimes it was more substantial. People died all the time, both inside and outside the tunnels. She sat, her eyes still blurred from the tears, staring into space. Then she swung up her legs, lay on the bench and gave in to sleep.

  Darren woke her two hours later. He shook her arm gently, until she opened her eyes. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I had no control over it.” Then she remembered everything and her eyes searched his face for news. He looked tired and sombre, and older than yesterday somehow.

  “They have both been operated on,” Darren said. “They both survived.” Millie gave a small gasp, but Darren shook his head and looked at the ground. “They’re not out of the woods, Millie. Not nearly out. The doctor says Jack should survive.” He paused, running out of words. His mouth tried and failed to form them. Millie gripped his hand tighter, willing him to say something.

  “They they don’t think Smithy will pull through. He lost seven pints of blood. They... they don’t have that much of his blood type to put back into him. They’ve given him more plasma, and they’re asking for donors. They’re doing all they can.” Darren stopped, on the verge of saying something else.

  “What else?” said Millie.

  “Millie, Jack really isn’t out of the woods. I know I made it sound as though Smithy was the one in danger, but Jack isn’t certain to survive either.” Darren finished in a rush, his eyes looking away to hide his anger.

  Millie smiled a humourless smile. “Wow, Darren, you could do this for a living,” she said. Darren looked awkward. “I’m not stupid,” she continued. “It’s not as if we have specialist medical care here. But they’re alive right now, and I’m pretty sure the last four hours have been the most trying.” Millie stared at the floor while Darren nodded absently. Finally, Darren clapped his hands on his thighs and made to stand.

  “Anyway, I should be going. I need to get some rest.” As he stood, Millie smiled and reached to squeeze his hand.

  “Thanks for everything, Darren. I really mean that.” She paused, struggling for the right words. “I’m sorry I dragged you into all of this, but thank you.” Her smile became a little crooked.

  “You didn’t drag me into anything. You, Jack and Smithy saved us. All of us. I should be tha
nking you.” And he leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. He let go of her hand and walked like a drunkard towardss the Hub information area. They would find him and his daughters a room, and he could finally sleep. Now she was awake, Millie needed to do something. She put her hands on her knees and struggled to her feet.

  She stood and gave a great stretch, her back clicking as she did so. She wandered off in the direction of the medical bay. And now she was on her way there, she moved with purpose. She wanted to see them both. She wanted to know they were alive. She wanted to know that they might live for a great deal longer.

  As she rounded the turn in the earthen wall, into the medical bay, the head doctor on duty, Emilie, stepped in front of her. She placed a hand on Millie’s shoulder and stopped her progress.

  “I need to see them, doc,” Millie said, her voice flat, her expression hard.

  “I understand that, Millie, but they both really need to rest. I’m not sure if anyone spoke to you already. Things are very touch and go.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. But I haven’t seen them since they were brought in. And I would really like to.” Millie stared straight into the eyes of the doctor, her determination evident. The doctor said nothing for a few seconds, she just stared right back at Millie. Millie had to admit, the doc had balls and a damn good poker face. In the end, both the corner of her mouth and an eyebrow went in the same direction, and she answered.

  “Okay,” Emilie nodded. “Five minutes. After that, I’ll come get you myself.” She folded her arms lazily across her chest and stepped aside. She was taken by surprise when Millie smiled and thanked her as she walked past. Millie went to the far end of the ward. Machines beeped and gurgled, and there were wires and tubes everywhere.

  As she neared, Millie slowed her pace. Her hands came together. She wrung them as she stopped at the foot of Smithy’s bed. His face was slack and he was breathing through a tube. Though she felt stunned and sad, she didn’t cry. All her crying had been done.