Too Bright the Sun

Part 8

A few flashes from behind and a seribdenum beam above my head glowed red. Men started to drop. One, then two and then I couldn’t look any more. We had to keep going. Sweat streamed down my face and I struggled for every last gasp of breath. The men around me weren’t doing much better.

I glanced at the sides of the shaft-props but couldn’t find what I was looking for.

“Keep going!”

I glanced again at a prop and saw number 573 marked on it. I knew from my visit, days before, that we needed to get to prop 613.

“Nearly there! Another one hundred yards!”

I think!

I counted down the props. 600, 601, 602 and 603.

“Stop! Help me!”

Every mine shaft has spare props in case of collapse and I had known there were some at prop 603. I pulled the spare props, about eight feet long, out from the wall and laid them across the tunnel between two vertical props each side of the tunnel. In less than thirty seconds we had ten props, overlapping each other, forming a low barricade right across the tunnel.

“Okay. We will make our stand here! The charges are about another one hundred yards down the tunnel. Osei. Get five men together. You will blow the charges. I want ten men on the ground behind the props five men each side, crouching and standing. We have the advantage here as there are too many of them to all fire at once. Militarily, it’s called a bottleneck!” I said calmly, hoping to sooth the men’s nerves.

The IM halted in the distance and took up positions as they opened fire.

“How many do you think Stone and Osei?”

“Forty!” Stone replied, from the right wall.

“More like fifty.” said Osei, whose eyesight was keener.

“Osei. Get going!”

“Ahhh!” It was Stone. He had been hit in the leg. The shot had almost taken his leg clean off. It hung by the material of his fatigues and a thin sliver of muscle. He stayed on his one good leg but leaned against the wall, panting.

“Stone! Your laser! Do it!” I shouted.

He nodded. He pointed his laser at the exposed femoral artery of his stump and fired a short burst, to cauterize the wound and seal the artery. In shock, and with such an unwieldy instrument, his aim was haphazard and he burned quite a bit of flesh as well. He gasped in agony and dropped the laser, grasping his leg and slumping to the floor.

Remembering Osei, I watched him tap five good men on the shoulders and break into a run but just as he reached the first prop he was hit and went down.

“Osei!”

One of the men with him shook his head.

Shit!

“Stone! Are you okay? Can you move with assistance?”

“Are you kidding? I am fucked. Look for crissake!” he shouted

“Take him!” I beckoned to two of the men Osei had chosen.

“Leave me here! I can still fire a laser!” he shouted through gritted teeth.

“Don’t argue.”

The two men returned, took an arm each and hauled Stone off, up the tunnel.

“Prop 613 Stone! You know what to do. Don’t fail! And you lot - defend him to the last man!” I watched them them grow smaller as they struggled down the tunnel with Stone.