Interrupted Journey

Part 4 - Chapter 1 - First Attack

Once again, I was on evening watch. As spring was moving along, the first couple of hours were quite light with a variety of interesting birds and animals to observe. This evening, I even spotted a hedgehog and, when I pointed it out to Ashley, she gave a squeak of excitement, earning us both a brief frown of reproach from Laura. But then, as darkness fell, there were just the hours of staring out into the black nothingness that was the bridge - there was no moon and even the stars were hidden by a thick blanket of clouds.

After about an hour, we were startled, though not surprised, by the call of an owl just behind us. He seemed to live locally. Little jolts like that were quite useful to avoid completely losing focus on the job we were supposed to be doing.

At least the rain had held off so far. It felt like it was still on its way but, if so, the 'professional' company - including Mike, Jimbo and Samson - were going to have that pleasure. They still ran the night shift because that is when they judged it was most likely that an attack would come.

Suddenly I sensed movement from the direction of the bridge. My suspicions were heightened by a slight stirring from Laura and Ashley to my right.

We peered down into the utter blackness below but could see nothing.

"I'm moving to the right cross trench," Laura whispered. Perhaps she would be able to see more from down there.

A few seconds later, her voice rang out, "Halt, identify yourselves or we shoot."

This triggered distinct sounds of movement from below. Anticipating her next command, I crawled sideways into the 'Molotov' trench. For some reason it was not deemed safe to store bottles of flammable liquid in the same trench as us. I lit the screened candle that was kept there.

There came a shout of "Light," in Laura's distinctive command tone and I threw the first bottle. Though I did not hit the woodpile with the that one, I was close enough to correct my aim with the second.

As the dry wood sprang into flames we could see figures moving on the bridge in front of us. As I started to crawl back towards the firing trench, Laura shouted, "Fire." She immediately loosed three rounds towards the figures.

Shots came out of the darkness aimed, I think, towards the Molotov trench. There was a muffled scream from the trench to my right and I froze. These people were shooting at us - trying to kill us. Had they shot Ashley? I suddenly felt very protective towards my niece and realised that unless I did something she was definitely going to die. With that thought, my training took over. I started crawling back towards the main trench.

I was hugely relieved when I saw the flash of Ashley's rifle. She was shooting down towards the people on the bridge. The scream was fear not injury. That was completely understandable.

Shouting, "It's Phil," I tumbled back into the trench next to her and span myself around. More shots seemed to be flying towards us. With a strange kind of detachment, I watched myself as I started shooting down towards our attackers. The moving figures and flickering light did not make it easy to aim but on, I think, my third shot, I'm sure I saw one of the figures collapse in my sights. Then a second figure fell. Another two started to run back across the bridge.

"Cease fire," came Laura's command and we did as we were told. The fire was dying down to a steady blaze now. There was no movement. Just two crumpled mounds on the ground.

"Swap out your magazine," I whispered to Ashley. "Let me know when you're done."

"Swapping..." she said, as we had been trained. I heard the sound of the mechanism then, "Done."

"Swapping..." I said myself then, "Done."

For what seemed like an eternity, we waited, eyes scanning the bridge by the fading firelight. I tried to look across to the far bank but my night vision had been completely compromised. I could see nothing.