“Objective two is hard. Why? Because the vermin are
better armed than we are; they have more money to buy weapons than the
Government does and because the High Echelons don’t give rat’s arse if you live
or die just as long as, eventually, that lot is cleared. Then the next lot.
After that? The lot behind that one until they are all gone. Until we, those
that have God on our side and righteousness in our pockets, are all that is
left on this green and pleasant land.
“The bit that is behind me is green and pleasant
because that much has been cleared by our dead comrades of yesteryear, it has
been watered by their blood. That which is behind you is now our job.
Good luck. I’ll see you when you get back. If you get
back.”
The gate swung open, we marched through and
immediately broke formation, scattering into a loose line abreast.
“Does it ever stop raining?” I asked myself and then
recognised the building to my front left. It had a huge faded ‘K’ on the side.
Memories of Mum flooded back.
The Trooper carrying the
radio fell forward on his face into the mud. As he was falling I heard a
‘crack-slap’, the noise a high velocity round makes. The rest of us also
pitched forward, we tried to bury ourselves in the mud to make ourselves as
inconspicuous as possible.
Gradually, inch-by-inch, we
crept forward until we reached a mound of rubble. It was all that remained of a
tenement block.
Whoever was shooting was
good. He was probably a senior ganger who had been trusted with a sniper rifle.
I often wondered, when I was young, where they bought all these weapons and
ammunition.
I scanned the floors going
from left to right until the end and then up a floor to scan from right to
left. I followed this zig-zag pattern until the seventh floor, third window
from the right. The muzzle of a rifle was protruding from it.
I called softly over to the
Trooper on my left, “Do you think you can lob a RPG into that window?”
He grinned at me, “No
sweat.”
Rolling to his left to take
advantage of two large blocks of rubble, he sighted along the barrel of his
rifle; the recoil moved him backwards a couple of inches. He grinned again as
he watched the familiar spiral of smoke from the grenade.
We all saw the flash inside
the room followed a couple of seconds later by a dull thud.
Just to be safe, I scanned
the rest of the windows but none of them were open.
I spoke quietly to the guys
either side of me, “That will have woken them up. They will have spoken to the
people in the next tenement, too. They know they are under attack, they know that
they must kill us or die themselves.”
I paused for a few moments
and then continued, “I used to live here. These people have no mercy, no
compassion. They are not to be thought of as human. At all. Our job is to wipe
them out. Let’s do that. Pass that along the line.”
A young Trooper looked over
the shoulder of the man on my right, “Some of them might be innocent,
Corporal.”
“Innocence does not exist
here. For them life is a disease, it clings tenaciously to them; we shall put
them out of their misery by providing a cure,” I patted my weapon, “These are
the tablets they need.”
We moved forward carefully.
At last we were close to the first tenement. Two Troopers went forward and
placed charges; neither of them made it back to our lines.
A few gangers, young boys,
came out and crawled around the base of the tenement, hiding behind wrecked
vehicles but we were able to pick a couple of them off; the third one was just
about to remove the detonator when I triggered it. He turned into a fine mist
for a split second and then disappeared into the dust and debris from the base
of the building. The rest of the tenement followed downwards.
We cowered under our
protection of the old tenement and waited for it all to die down.
Strangely, when we got our
heads up again there were some people wandering around in the dust cloud. They
were staggering and coughing until we dropped them out of our sense of
compassion.
I told the boys to wait
until dark before we moved again. Four of them had night vision glasses; they
stayed on watch as it became darker. By the time it was full dark the rain had
turned from being a downpour to torrential.
We snuck out to the second
tenement on our list. This was the one with the huge ‘K’ on the side.
There had been no
intelligence as to the capabilities of the gangs. My knowledge was old and
sketchy at best. My skill had been with a knife but I knew they had better
weapons somewhere. Whether they had IR or night vision I had no idea. We just
had to risk it; perhaps the rain would cool us down and mask us a bit.
This time it was my turn to
go up to the tenement with the explosives. Myself and the young lad who had
asked me about ‘innocents’ went up to the building with the rest of the Troop
watching and covering. In truth there was little they could do, they were
unlikely to see anything in these conditions—we just hoped the rats in their
nests would be the same.
We set the charges around
five in the morning. I knew that most of the enemy would be asleep or drunk on
chemicals by that time. The whores would be tired and sleeping, we just had to
watch for the odd guard and, maybe, the occasional one who had got up to use
the toilet.
I heard a sharp crack from
behind me. Nothing from above but I automatically looked right towards the
doorway in case a guard decided to get wet and come out to investigate.
Nothing. I relaxed and set the rest of the charges.
It was all strangely quiet.
Nobody moved anywhere around the tenement. Somebody reported to me that they
had seen a window open and someone had stood in it, urinating. They finished
emptying their bladder inside where they lay dying.
We moved back towards the
fence. When we were clear of the rubble line I detonated the charges. We all
turned and ran, using the dust cloud as cover. We dodged the mounds of rubble
until we hit the bracken and bushes line. The path was slippery with mud and
wet leaves.
We were less than fifty
metres from the fence when automatic fire from one of the tenements opened up.
Rounds were smacking into the ground and whining off rocks and old concrete all
around us. I turned to give covering fire although I was never quite sure from
where the fusillade was coming.
I had only loosed off a few
rounds to where I fancied I saw the sparkling of muzzle flashes when a giant
fist smacked me on the shoulder.
*
I woke up lying on a soft
bed. One of the ‘J’s was taking my temperature. All the ‘J’s were tanned with
strange features. They were all beautiful. One of them had told me that ‘J’ was
short for ‘Jururuwat’, or something, in their language; I think it meant ‘nurse’
but I’m not sure.
‘J’ was
speaking, “You will be all right now, 477. You are with us. We will bring you
back to health.”
“We got them.
We brought down two rat’s nests and slaughtered the gangs,” I tried to tell
her. Perhaps I was boasting, perhaps I just wanted to let her know that what
she was doing was worth it—to us, if not for her.
“Now they’ve got you. Rest. When you are feeling
better we will test you,” she smiled and stroked me gently. Already I felt much
better.
I dreamt of Mum and wondered how many innocents we had
killed when the two tenements came down.
I bet they were grateful to us.
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