James Rouch - Killing Ground

‘It’s like finding the Garden of Eden in the middle of the Utah salt flats.’ Garrett picked a flower and finally succeeded in entwining it among the sparse dead foliage adorning the netting on his helmet.

‘More like the eye of a storm.’ Sampson shrugged his sixty-pound pack of medical supplies higher, but otherwise his gangling frame showed no discomfort under the crushing load. ‘Listen, man, the Zone is a killing ground that’s been well turned over. The Reds push us, we dig in, then we push them and they dig in. The next time we just push and dig in different places. Result, everything gets turned over, blown up, killed off. Only we found a slice of real estate that they’ve all missed. You got one guess where all hell is going to break loose next.’

Garrett looked at the radiation counter on his belt. It registered little more than background, as if it too was reluctant to admit what they’d found. His chemical-level indicator was reading an unflickering zero. He double-checked with Thome’s meter before he could bring himself to believe it.

‘They wouldn’t do anything to mess up this place, would they? Hell, they just couldn’t, could they?’

It was as if being among the fresh greenery had revitalized them. Even Andrea caught something of the mood. She accepted a flower that Dooley half jokingly offered. To his ill-concealed surprise she picked another to go with it and threaded both through the pin of a phosphorus grenade at her belt.

Their luck changed also. They struck a road that with only minor and brief deviations kept them headed in the right direction. And it was just as well. The country through which they passed now became more rugged with each kilometre. Frequently the road was flanked by the precipitous walls of a gorge of steeply rising hillsides that were plentifully littered with outcrops of rock and scree slopes.

They emerged from a belt of dense woodland into a patch of open meadow and the sudden silence, without the patter of rain on leaves, was strange.

Before crossing, Revell made a careful sweep through his binoculars. The road was dead straight for a half kilometre, and almost level. Where there was a slight dip a shallow flood was creeping over the asphalt. On the far side of the open ground the way plunged between near-vertical slopes lightly grown with stunted firs.

‘Shit, what was that!’ Burke jumped and several rifles were levelled at a patch of tall grass. ‘Bloody hell, it’s pigs.’

A small herd of wild boar broke from cover and plunged into the concealment of the trees.

‘There goes breakfast.’ Fast as his reaction had been, Sergeant Hyde saw only a glimpse of the rump of the last animal to disappear.

‘Not to mention bacon butties for lunch and pork chops for dinner.’ Reluctantly, Burke lowered his M16 and set it to safe.

‘Would have gone a treat with these veggies.’ Scully slapped the plastic of the bulging bag slung over his shoulder.

‘You are mad dragging those along.’ Sampson had taken advantage of the halt to seat himself on a rotting stump. ‘When you ever gon’ to get the time to cook them?’

‘You’ll see. Anyway, why are you dragging about enough medicine and bandages for a battalion?’

‘He sells them, I’ve…’ Ripper stopped abruptly as he saw the anger in the black’s face.

‘You shut your mouth.’ Effortlessly, despite his load, Sampson got to his feet and advanced a step toward Ripper. ‘And you keep it shut when you don’t know what it is you’re talking about.’ With a last glare he turned and resumed his seat. ‘I was only saying that’s what I heard.’

‘Well, you heard wrong, so forget it, okay?’

‘Yeah, fine.’ Moving away, Ripper passed their sergeant. ‘Shit, that must have been a real sore corn I stood on then. But if he’s not putting them out in the black market, why bother carting them around?’

‘He gives them away.’ Hyde noticed the PFC’s look of blank incomprehension.

‘To refugees who need them. I’ve seen him stay up two nights in a row when we’ve been camped near one of their settlements. And he doesn’t just do basics either; he’ll tackle surgery, even an amputation on a couple of occasions.’

Altering the focus a fraction, Revell again turned his attention to where the road left the far side of the open ground. There was something there, but he couldn’t quite make it out… small white objects, of no uniform size or shape. Just scattered at random…

‘We’ll cross in extended file.’ Revell returned the glasses to their case. ‘I want thirty meters between each man.’

‘Any reason to expect trouble, major?’ Hyde checked that he had a full clip, and unfastened a pouch that held two more.

‘Not that’s obvious. Let’s go.’

The leading man was halfway across and the last of them leaving the cover of the trees when they heard a vehicle coming up from behind. It was motoring fast and there was only just time for them to throw themselves down in the wet grass beside the road.

Every weapon was aimed toward the gap in the trees, as the harsh note of a diesel engine being pushed to its limit came to them. Rounds were chambered, grenades clenched, and then in rapid sequence each of them held their fire as a Mercedes Estate flashed past at high speed. The station wagon’s camouflage paint was topped by a chromed roof rack.

Only Garrett snapped off a single shot, that missed, before he recognized the Mercedes.

‘Crazy shits.’ Scully jumped up and shied a stone at its rear window. It missed and bounced sadly along in the mist of spray to roll apologetically back to the fields. ‘I hope you fucking…’

Flame and smoke erupted beneath the rear of the Merc. Its sheer speed, so much faster than the target for which the anti-tank mine had been intended, almost defeated the device. Almost but not quite.

The powerful blast lifted the back of the Estate, rupturing and igniting its fuel tank. The flaming wreck turned a complete somersault to crash back down on its side. Echoes of its pounding impact rolled through the meadow.

‘Don’t move. Don’t anyone fucking move.’ Hyde’s drill-sergeant bellow checked Sampson as he stood to go forward.

A figure crawled from the wreckage. Hoops of flame rippled its length, then turned it to a pillar of flame as it lurched to its feet. It reeled forward a half pace, staggered sideways, and then there was a second, smaller explosion. The effect was no less horrific. A limb spun through the air, and the debris cloud of the anti-personnel mine detonation cleared to reveal the smouldering hulk of what had been a human being.

‘Where the hell is the bus?’ Using extreme caution, Burke retraced his footsteps to the road, as the company moved forward using the faintly visible wheel marks as safe paths.

When they came to the partially flooded section, those who walked in the nearside track had the nerve-wracking experience for several meters of being unsure whether or not they were still precisely on course.

Garrett stood retching for a minute after safely regaining the barely visible trail beyond the ankle-deep water. ‘Fuck the bus. I’m just thankful that old bastard Klingenberg showed us we were in a mine field.’

‘Yeah, it was very kind of him.’ Dooley was having to sweat more than the others as his large feet with each step came dangerously close to overlapping the safe lane. ‘I’ll tell you something, though. I don’t think the old guy meant to do it.’

Revell paused a moment to wipe water from his eyes. As he did his fingers brushed the edge of the camouflage cloth covering his helmet, and the part of the brim that felt brittle, and broke into dark flakes at his touch. It was a reminder of how close a twenty-millimetre cannon shell had come to scattering his brains. The cloth still held the pungent tang from its brush with the tracer base of the shell.