Scott Andrews - Operation Motherland

Beyond the trucks were three cleaners, crouched behind available cover – a car, a brick flower bed, a phone booth. All were now armed with machine guns taken from the squaddies. They leaned out, took their shots, and then ducked back under cover, obviously involved in a firefight. But none of them spared a glance behind them.

I turned to Caroline.

"Okay," I said. "We go quickly and quietly. Move from car to car, stay in cover as much as possible. When we're close I'll give the signal and you take out the one on the right. I've got the machine gun, so I'll take the other two. OK?"

She nodded but I could tell she was having to work very hard to keep herself under control.

"It wasn't your fault, Caroline," I said gently. "But we can talk about it later. Right now I need you to focus on what we have to do. Can you do that?"

She nodded. "Yes, Miss."

I put my arm around her shoulder squeezed. "Good girl. Now come on."

We moved out of cover and ran into the road. It took us only a minute or so to get close to the cleaners. They were so preoccupied, and the noise of gunfire was so loud, that they had no idea they were being stalked. Both Caroline and I, on opposite sides of the road, took up firing positions behind cars.

I was just about to give the signal when it all went wrong.

There was a burst of gunfire from behind us and to our right. I ducked instinctively before I realised it was echoing across from the car park. A cleaner must have bumped into Rowles. One of the men in front of us heard the exchange of fire and turned to look back. He saw Caroline. I turned to the girl and yelled at her to get down and as I did so I saw, over her shoulder, another cleaner emerging from the bank.

And then there were bullets everywhere. The one in the bank doorway raised his shotgun as the man in front of us turned and raised his machine gun. Caroline, unaware of the cleaner to her right, opened fire as I dived sideways and shot around Caroline at the man in the bank.

Caroline hit her man. He missed her and fell backwards, shot in the arm. I hit the man with the shotgun and his arms flew up as his gun went off. This saved Caroline's life; only the edge of the shotgun's pellet spray hit her, and those pellets were slowed by the glass in the car behind which she was standing.

But it was enough. She fell, screaming.

I continued firing and the cleaner in the bank disappeared back into the gloom, full of bullets.

The two remaining cleaners turned to see what was going on. One of them foolishly allowed his head to pop ever so slightly out of cover. A single shot from Sanders, still out of sight down the street, took the top of his skull off. I rolled on to my back, brought the gun up to my tummy and turned the middle cleaner's chest into mincemeat before he could get a shot off.

That left the wounded one. I stood to see where he was, but he was out of it – the bullet had hit an artery and he was lying in a widening pool of blood, not long to live, no threat to anyone.

I ran to Caroline. She was lying in the road, breathing hard, teeth gritted, whimpering.

Before I could bend down I heard pounding boots approaching and I spun, gun at the ready. A yellow suit passed in front of my eyes but the helmet was hanging down. It was Sanders. He casually put a bullet in the wounded cleaner's head as he ran past, without even slowing down.

"Easy, Kate, easy."

I lowered my weapon.

"First aid kit?" I asked.

"Truck," he replied, and ran to get it while I knelt down to tend to Caroline.

She was barely conscious.

She had been lucky. When I rolled her over I could see that pellets had hit her from the waist up, including five that were embedded in her right cheek, one that looked like it had damaged her right eye socket, and a couple above the hairline. If I could treat her quickly, and if I could prevent any of the wounds from becoming infected, she should survive.

"Hold on sweetheart," I said, grasping her hand tightly. "Hold on."

We set up camp in a house near the centre of town. It had been lived in until very recently so it was clean and had everything we needed. I set up a workspace in the living room and did my best to patch Caroline up. Once I'd finished, I went into the kitchen and gratefully accepted the mug of hot tea that Sanders offered me. The kitchen had been installed some time in the seventies and had escaped renovation. The table had a chipped Formica top, like a greasy spoon cafe, and the chair was cheap moulded plastic.

"Well?" he asked.

"I got all the pellets out, sterilised the wounds, stitched the ones that needed it, dressed them, put her to bed. She should really have some antibiotics, but there's nothing I can do about that. The vodka you found helped, thanks."

"Any left?"

"No, sorry. I wish."

"You lush," he smiled.

"I couldn't save her eye," I said quietly, "and her face will be horribly scarred. Rowles refuses to leave her side. He's just sitting there, holding her hand and stroking her hair. I never really thought he had a tender side. Funny how people can surprise you."

"He's not people," said Sanders. "He's an eleven-year-old boy. Who you took into combat."

I laughed bitterly. "Like I could have stopped him! Trust me, Sanders, the boy's a law unto himself. I'm just trying to keep him contained and alive."

"And Caroline?"

"Goes where he goes. Always."

"And which of them shot Patel?"

Shit, that took me by surprise.

"Sorry?"

"I found his body where you told me," he said. "He wasn't killed with a shotgun, he was shot with a sidearm, and you three had the only ones in play."

"There was a fight upstairs at the bank," I lied. "One of the cleaners got my gun off me. Patel burst in and got shot. Then Rowles hit the cleaner over the head with a chair and in the confusion I snatched back my gun and ran."

Sanders shook his head slowly. "Nice try. If I thought you shot him trying to escape custody…" He left the threat unspoken. "But no, I think one of you shot him by accident. Caroline, at a guess."

I stared intently at the swirling patterns on the surface of my tea.

"He was a good lad," continued Sanders. "Would have made a good officer."

"Look, she just panicked, that's all."

"And that's why you don't take children into combat."

I looked up at him angrily. "What, like we seek it out? Are you joking? I just want to keep them alive and teach them to read. But people keep pointing guns at us. People like the cleaners and you." I jabbed him in the chest with my index finger. "We have no fucking choice. Do you think I like seeing what it does to them? You know, Rowles used to be the sweetest kid in the world. I mean Disney sweet, saccharine, cutesy. Now look at him! He's terrifying. But he's alive, and one day, maybe, if I can keep him alive long enough, he can stop fighting and grow into a man. That's all I want, to see him grow up safe, to see all my kids grow up safe. But as long as there are nutters with guns strolling around telling everyone what to do, that's not going to be possible. And now Caroline. I was supposed to keep her safe."

I stood up and threw my mug across the room, full of fury that had nowhere to go. It smashed against the wall and then, before I knew what I was doing, I was crying my eyes out and Sanders was holding me tightly as I pounded my fists against his chest and wept for the girl lying shattered in the bed upstairs.

Then there was kissing.

Then there was sex.

Then there was sleep.

When morning came I woke refreshed, warm and mortified.

Not because I'd slept with a guy who was about as far from my type as it's possible to get, but because as I lay there feeling him breathe, I replayed the night's events in my mind and realized something awful.