Scrutinizing every yard of ground between the vehicles and the highway he found their passengers dug-in and occupying hastily camouflaged positions astride it.
With the advantage of height, Revell could discern the textbook precision with which the slit trenches and weapons pits were laid out.
‘There’s the best part of a platoon of Russian infantry waiting for us. Seems like we’ll have to run the gauntlet of whatever they’ve got to throw before we’ll reach those turncoat civvies.’
‘And it doesn’t look like they’re prepared to hang about and wait for us either.’ Even without the binoculars Hyde could tell from the patterns of movement about the Range Rover that efforts were being made to repair the causeway.
‘Okay, the schedule’s too tight for us to play Indians and sneak up behind that ambush…’
‘Not much chance of that anyway, with the racket the Marder makes.’
‘Right.’ Revell had already recognized that impediment to any attempt at stealth. ‘So we’ll just have to get as close as we can before they open fire. If we charge in with cannon blazing they’ll hit us with a shower of anti-tank rockets. The road’s not that wide, and there’s nowhere else to go, so…’
‘So…?’ Not that he needed to ask, Hyde was perfectly able to anticipate what was coming next.
‘And so we motor toward them like we’re on a Sunday afternoon drive round the park, make out we don’t even know they’re there. You know what the Ruskies are like. Offer them a sitting target and they’ll wait until they’re within spitting distance before letting them have it. A second or two before they have a go at us, we’ll pour all we’ve got into them.’
‘Sounds fine in theory, Major. Do you think we can make the timing that neat?’
‘Look, it’s all we’ve got. Let’s get ready to put it into practice.’
Walking back to the Marder, a thought kept nagging at Hyde. While they were still out of hearing of the rest of the squad he posed the officer a question whose answer he suspected he already knew. ‘If we had all the time in the world, Major, you’d still have us doing it this way, wouldn’t you.’
‘What’s the matter, sergeant, you think you can live forever?’
‘Just a day at a time, but if I’ve got to cop it then I don’t want to go knowing that I’ve taken some of my men with me who didn’t have to die. Most of the blokes I’ve met in the Zone want to win the war by surviving it, not by throwing their lives away.’
Revell could pretend, to himself at least, that their proximity to the rest of the squad precluded him from making a suitable reply. In all truth he couldn’t argue with the NCO, the sergeant was right; it was he who was wrong. Not that he could stop himself though. It was as if he was trying to make all the war he could, trying to keep the biggest possible share for himself.
In some such actions might have been a death wish, but he didn’t recognize that within him. And even if that were the case then long before now he’d have had it granted. The Zone would have found it all too easy to fulfil. It did as much for thousands of others every day, when death was the last thing they desired.
Unbidden, unwanted, to the forefront of his mind came a recollection of the pathetic group they’d provided with an escape from the Zone. Even in their case though there had been no willingness to embrace death in the solution they’d found to their suffering, distressing in the extreme though it was.
When they’d set out to cross the Zone to reach the west those people had been full of hope. To have got so far that hope must have stayed with them until their condition had deteriorated beyond the point of endurance. They hadn’t wanted to die, and nor did he, but as he climbed back into the Marder, Revell knew that? like them, for him there was no longer a choice.
EIGHT
‘Really, I’m not at all sure that this is entirely practical. I wait to be convinced.’ With his free hand keeping a fierce grip on the Rover’s tailgate mounted spare wheel, Edwards made feeble attempts to cut the rope lashing rough-trimmed logs together. ‘You do realize that once we have removed these from behind us we shall be quite cut off, should the repair to the track ahead not be successful.’ He looked at the ochre water beneath the piling suspended causeway. ‘I should not like to have to wade back to firm ground.’
‘Give it a rest, will you.’ Sherry took the axe from the professor and with a single double handed blow freed the timber for Gross to lift. ‘Go up front and help Webb place and tie the logs we bring you.’
As the nervous academic edged past the high sided vehicle, Gross leered at the woman. ‘Did you get rid of him so it’d be just you and me?’
‘Oh yeah.’ She started on another binding, the blunt blade taking several hacks to get through the plaited strands. ‘Oh yeah, all day I been saying to myself how much I’d love to have your smelly fat gut crushing my bare arse into splintered wood while your soft little prick had trouble finding its dribbling way through my fanny hair.’
‘I like it when you talk dirty, makes my balls go tight.’ Half closing his eyes Gross puckered his wet lips toward her.
‘In a minute I’ll make you leak something, you creep.’ Raising her axe threateningly, Sherry took a half pace back to make room to swing it. As she did her ankle turned, and she lost her balance.
With surprising speed for his bulk Gross grabbed her, and then as he pulled back, crushed her to him while his hips thrust the hard tip of his penis against the front seam of her jeans.
‘See, it’s not a soft little prick, is it. I reckon it’d even fill that well used cavern of a cunt you’ve got. Want to talk dirty again? Go on, I could jerk off with one hand just listening to you.’
Managing to break free she pulled her T-shirt straight where Gross had tried to shove his hand inside it. ‘Jesus, have you ever taken a look at yourself? You’re horrible.’
Undecided whether or not to grab for her again, Gross stood panting, watching her breasts heave as she also fought for breath. ‘What are you getting so fussy about. I’ve seen all your films, all of them, even those early shorts. My favourite was that one called The Boarding School, especially that scene where the caretaker and the boiler man hoisted your gymslip and had you front and back among the cobwebs in the cellar. Were they really buggering and fucking you at the same time? Did they shove their tools right in? Or was that imitation spunk they licked off you afterwards?’
‘Someone should shove something up you, a loaded scattergun maybe.’ There was more Sherry would have said, but from the front of the Rover Webb was calling for another log. Keeping a wary eye on Gross, she resumed work.
Places of weather-stained rope, strips of peeling bark and chips of wood made a continual rain into the tainted water a couple of feet below the level of the causeway. The same evil smelling solution coloured the contents of all the other bomb-made pits carpeting the land.
Beyond the elevated track and the girder bridge that took the route finally to firm ground once more, the landscape took on a curiously monochrome appearance.
Trees and grass, every living thing, or everything that had been living because there was no sign of life to be seen in any blade or leaf, everything seemed to have been literally leached of all colour. The countryside had been turned gray, the trunks and boughs of trees dark, their foliage a paler shade, but all of them gray. It was as if that part of the world had been dusted with an adhering ash that no deluge could remove.
A few wind-blown leaves scrunched beneath their feet, crackling apart like a fine brittle china. Some of the fragments fell between the logs to float on the sickly yellow water, skimming back and forth at the whim of the lightest air current.