Interrupted Journey

Part 5 - Chapter 1 - Night raid

After the storms of September, October brought a dry spell with chilly nights and surprisingly warm days. Our main task at this time was preparing firewood for winter and, though we had managed to persuade one of the chainsaws to almost work, it still involved large amounts of exhausting physical labour.

So I was quite grumpy when I was woken by Susan shaking me none too gently in the middle of the night. But all grump was torn from my system by the jolt of adrenaline triggered by the phrase, 'Alarm bell'.

Bells were being rung in every house down the valley: three rings; pause; three rings... People were inside our defences. We had to defend the farms. We knew what to do; we had practiced plenty of times.

Of course, this could be a false alarm or an unscheduled practice... but somehow I just knew it wasn't.

Tumbling out of bed, I pulled on my trousers and jacket over my pyjamas and stuffed my feet into my boots. To save fuel, we were allowing the fire to go out at night so I had taken to wearing a pair of thin socks in bed. Nonetheless, I stuck a thicker pair in a pocket.

"Take care out there," Susan said, as I passed her in the upstairs landing. She was in the girls' room, waking them and taking the younger ones down to the basement where she had an expedient operating surgery. "I love you."

I was out of the front door first - quick enough to hear the sounds of gunfire from further down the valley. By the moonlight, I could just make out three figures throwing themselves over the dry stone wall into our lower field. As they moved out of my line of sight, more figures appeared at the wall and took cover behind it. I guessed that the first three were raiders and the figures behind the wall were on our side but it was two dark to be sure.

I started to cut across the yard to get a better look but was momentarily distracted by a flash above me and to my right and tripped over something in the dark. As I fell, I felt the rush of air as a bullet passed over my head.

That moment would stay with me for the rest of my life. I was only alive because I had tripped.

"Sniper up on the hill behind the house," I barked as I rolled towards the barn. "Stay in cover."

I looked towards the house. A small knot of people was gathered there, armed and ready for action, but none of our military officers. I would have to take charge.

I moved carefully back to the corner of the barn then dashed back across to the cover of the house. Even Alice was there, ready for action, with her ancient shotgun.

"James, with me," I said in a low voice. We didn't know where the attackers were and I didn't want them to hear my plans. "We're going up the hill to deal with that sniper," James was by far the best of us at moving without being seen. "The rest of you, I think there are three people down in the lower field and another couple behind the wall on the Drummond's side. Get behind the barn and workshop and see what's going on. I don't know who's who so don't shoot until you're certain."

"Ready, son?" I asked as the others made their way down towards the barn and workshop. He nodded.

I hoped that the sniper would be distracted by the activity in the yard because, for the first hundred yards, we only had hedgerows between us and him. We moved as quickly as we could at a low crawl. I heard shouting behind me but ignored it.

When we got to the relative safety of the first dry stone wall, I relaxed for a moment and, looking back, was astonished to see Alice and David calling the dogs out of the barn. Though they were very well trained, they were collies and it wasn't in their nature to be aggressive towards people. I shrugged and moved on. Not a problem and nothing I could do anyway.

Behind the wall, we could advance much more quickly, though not much more comfortably, at a low crouch. When we reached the top of the ridge we paused to catch our breath and, from here, we had a panoramic view of the skirmish below us.

As the first watery light of dawn started to spread across the valley, I could make out Samson's unmistakable profile behind the wall. There were a couple of other figures with him, one of whom was lying on the ground as if wounded. I did not recognise the three figures in our lower field but they were hidden behind the grassy bank that led down to the stream.

Another shot rang out from the sniper, along the ridge from us and, even from here, I could see Samson and his group duck down behind the wall. We had to take that sniper out.

As we hurried along the field wall towards the sniper, I was again distracted by the familiar whistles and shouts as Alice and David guided the dogs. By the light of the moon, I could just make out the three grey blurs as they flew up to the far end of the field where the sheep had fled. I had no idea what they were doing but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except eliminating that sniper.

By this time, I had a fair guess as to where he was located. There was a standing stone in the middle of the next field - a 'glacial erratic', to be technical. It was not too tricky to climb and provided a superb view over the farm and valley. It's where I would have gone.

I sensed more movement down in our lower field. The dogs were running the flock back down towards the gunmen. At first there were bleats of protest; this had already been a disturbed night for the sheep and they were afraid of the gunshots but instinct and experience had taught the sheep to obey the dogs. As Alice and David directed the dogs to increase the pace, the sheep became silent... intent on staying with the charging flock.

The gunman on the standing stone must have seen what was happening, too. He started shooting at the sheep. This only served to further panic them and to confirm his position.

I don't know what would have happened if the men behind the bank had stayed where they were. Even one sheep can do a surprising amount of damage and, by now, these sheep were very frightened and very angry.

But when the three saw the incoming tide, they panicked and tried to run. They didn't make it very far. There were gunshots from the farm and they stopped running. They disappeared beneath the feet of the charging flock.

I was caught in horrified fascination at the scene below but James was using the distraction to move. He flitted across the open space - betting his life that the sniper, too, would not be able to take his eyes off the scene below. I knew that it would be too much of a risk for me to follow so I held my position and did the only thing I could think of to help him. I took an unaimed shot towards the sniper then, as my training demanded, shifted position.

As I prepared to take a second shot, I heard another shot and a muffled shout. After a few seconds of unbearable tension I heard James's call of, "All clear," so I cautiously approached. I could see James standing on the stone so I went up to join him.

A middle age man was lying on the ground with a huge wound to his stomach. "What are you going to do with me?" the man asked, fear written clearly across his face.

"First I'm going to ask you a couple of questions," I explained calmly and placidly, channeling my inner Mike, "and then I'm going to kill you. It's up to you to decide how painful the time in between is. But first I'm going to tell my son to go down and report our status. I think he's still a bit too young to see me torturing a wounded man, don't you?" I gave him my best frightening smile.

In the end, he didn't need anything but that little bit of encouragement to talk. He held no particular allegiance to the red sleeves - he called them 'The Axis'. They were just prepared to pay food for his special talents. There were a couple of others in the group who had been through military basic training but they had not served in front line roles. He, however, had been in the 'proper' infantry and seen real action in a couple of middle eastern hell holes.

He described how his presence was part of a developing relationship between the red sleeve Axis group and a community that called themselves 'The New Covenant', down in Greenings. "There's some weird shit going off there," he told me, "but they do seem to have an unlimited amount of ammunition. I only..."

I was about to ask him for more details when the world suddenly went dark.