Colin had strained to see or hear movement on the track in case the enemy had passed the cut-off groups unnoticed in the poor visibility and with the wind and rain drowning out the sound. He could just about make out the sand and shingle bank on the far side of the track, and he never took his eyes off it.
There was little chance of the tired soldiers falling asleep in that environment, but having made their lives thoroughly miserable the weather then relented, tailing off gradually but leaving the patrol cold and soaked.
With the passing of the storm Colin could hear individual drops of rain water falling from the branches of the trees, such is that clarity which follows mother nature’s little tantrums, but he had a nagging worry that gunfire would announce that the enemy fighting patrol had got past them during the storm.
Acutely aware of how sound carries in a wet environment he countered the involuntary trembling of his cold limbs by slowly clenching and unclenching his toes and buttocks, which encouraged some blood to flow to his extremities. Turning his head with deliberate slowness he listened for any out of place sounds coming from the track, and resisted the urge to switch on his night scope with its much-depleted battery.
Colin didn’t hear them but the right hand cut-off group did, and he felt the steady tugs on their communications cord signalling the enemy’s arrival.
Extending the fingers of his left hand he traced the tape he had stuck to the side of the clicker closest to hand, feeling the single protrusion in the otherwise flat surface that confirmed it controlled the claymore he would use to spring the ambush. His right hand grasped the length of communications cord that when pulled would set off a flare pot beyond the track
Alerting the rest of the killer group was a simple matter, as they all lay with legs interlocked the warning signal passed down the line smoothly. The gunners either side of him slowly raised their weapons, pulling the butts into their shoulders and each man locking his wrists together, ensuring a firm grip on the weapons.
Colin could not see a damn thing on the track until a dark shape appeared in front of the sandy bank, silhouetted against its lighter hues.
A column of men was on the track, moving slowly and quietly toward the east and Colin counted them as they appeared.
Eleven had entered the killing zone and that worried Colin because the numbers were a little on the light side for a fighting patrol, but he dared not wait too long on the off chance that there may be stragglers still to come.
He could feel the tension amongst his men and removed the safety from the clicker, closing both eyes tightly to preserve his night vision before closing his left hand firmly and ducking his head to the wet earth.
The concussion from the mines back-blast brought down debris from the branches of the trees above them, and a wave of heat swept over Colin.
The directional mines detonation was nothing like those depicted in Hollywood movies, there was no petrochemical booster to add to the visual effects, and no sound lab created throaty roar. A momentary flash of light of the same duration as that of a flash bulb was accompanied by a thunderclap of sound as the Claymore sent an expanding wall of seven hundred ball bearings outwards at an angle of sixty degrees from the point of detonation. Colin’s right arm jerked back, pulling the communications cord hard and there was a loud crack as the detonator in the flare pot blew off the top of the pot, exposing to the air the white phosphorous it contained.
A heartbeat after the Claymore went off the killer group opened fire almost as one, firing into anything that looked like a man, be it lying down, standing, kneeling or crawling away. They fired into the shadows where the trip flares light couldn’t reach and they fired into the bushes and trees that they could see, and they carried on firing until they heard Colin’s shouted
“Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire!” But as taught they remained in the aim because the cease fire order is merely a dummy, a lure for any enemy still able to make a break for it. Only one did, rising from a shallow piece of dead ground with the intention of getting beyond the illuminated area as fast as possible, he only got two paces from his hiding place before being cut down by a dozen weapons.
In the trip flares light Colin counted eight recognisable bodies, but there were other torn things lying out there, which could be three men nearest the Claymore when it went off. Nothing moved, and he reached inside his tunic, extracting a whistle that hung about his neck from a length of para cord and blew three loud blasts, the real signal to cease firing and also for two pairs to go forward and search the dead for anything of intelligence value.
Speed was now of the essence, and although Colin was fairly confident they had killed all the enemy before them, there was no one within five miles of this spot who was not now aware that they were here.
In the trip flares failing light the searchers moved quickly, but Colin was getting anxious and wanted to be gone from this spot. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, and he was acutely aware that they were out on a limb, over a mile from the safety of friendly lines.
The tug of the communications cord attached to his left boot initially made him think one of his callsign had jumped the gun, snagging it as they moved about in preparation to bug out, but then the night was torn by the detonation of a Claymore behind the position, and with it the rear protection party began firing.
Despite Colin’s instructions to get in his bag and get a full nights kip, Oz found himself lying in the darkness of the shelter bay listening for the sounds of distant conflict. Oz had been in, and heard enough ambushes to know what they sounded like and his mind would not let him relax until he heard the distant boom and two brief instances of gunfire, and then his brain went to neutral and he started to slip into a half sleep in the knowledge that his friend would soon be returning.
It was with a start that Oz came to full wakefulness and it took him a moment to work out what had disturbed him. With an oath he groped for the maggots zipper and dragged it down, kicking his legs clear and dragging his SLR out of the bags folds before crawling quickly into the firebay.
In the darkness he could make out the shape of the 2 Pl Guardsman who was trench-sitting for the night. The soldier was looking toward the southwest when Oz emerged but turned his head toward the Sergeant.
“Summat’s up, sarge.”
Away from the warmth of the sleeping bag the chill night air made its presence felt but he ignored it as he listened to a smattering of small arms fire that tailed off into silence, before crouching to retrieve his woolly pully and smock from the bay and pulling them on hurriedly.
There was a distant flash of light, followed a moment later by two more in rapid succession but it took several seconds for the sound of the explosions to reach his ears as rolling booms, by which time red and green tracer rounds appeared, the stray ricochets from opposing forces.
The gunfire re-started in an almost halfhearted way but grew into a steady sustained roar dulled by distance, punctuated by the bangs of exploding hand grenades and the deeper thumps of detonating Claymore mines. Someone out there decided to put some light on the subject and a shermouli rose above the trees like a rocket on bonfire night, where its parachute flare gave the combatants a harsh and short lived chemical light to fight by.
Oz knew that there were no other friendly patrols in that area, which could only mean his mate and the platoon, were in deep dido.
Shrugging into his fighting order he put on his helmet and gathered up his SLR, before climbing from the trench.
The sounds of the firefight continued as he made his way behind the mainly empty trenches to find out what the score was with the men who had dug them.