Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. Collateral Damage continued. The display was building up to some kind of grand finale. The rockets were going up thick and fast, bursting into globes of falling yellow, blue and red embers in the sky, one every second or even less, and behind them a huge fan of deep violet light moved from side to side across the clouds. It was pretty damned impressive he had to admit. The local council weren't doing things by half measures. He sipped his sherry and lay back in the chair. It was soft and enveloping. Outside the firecrackers rattled like machine gun fire and the rockets exploded like thunder. Thunder or distant mortar shells--- - o 0 o - It was impossible to judge how far away that crater might be. Maybe as much as a mile, he reckoned, but probably less. He tried to keep his back bent and his head down as he ran, to present as low a profile as possible to the stray machine-gun fire. Quite a lot of it was British, he knew, but flying lead was no respecter of nationality. In the near darkness he stumbled many times over bodies and shrubs and rocks and discarded back-packs, but paid them no heed. He knew where he was going now, he would not be deflected. Just in time, the explosion of a distant shell back-lighted a huge tangle of razor-wire directly across his path. He managed to stop just before plummeting headlong into it. "Jeez Christ!" he heard himself mutter as he ducked low behind it. "Are you British, mate?" said a faltering Cockney voice from almost directly in front of him. The wire seemed to twitch slightly as the voice spoke. He stared down and saw the round wide-eyed face of what seemed a young boy, so drenched in blood that in this light he could distinguish nothing but the eyes and the teeth. He was wearing a British uniform but no helmet, and his body seemed to be bent double beneath the razor wire with his legs out of sight somewhere underneath his back. "I'm Bob Dempsey, private in the Royal Engineers," he said, as though introducing himself at a polite cocktail party. "Who are you? What happened to your helmet?" It was a ridiculous question but simply the first thing that had come to his mind. "Len Farrow is the name. Sixth Infantry. Had to take my helmet off. Took a bullet. I'm not sure if it went right through. Can you see if my head's okay?" He bent right down and examined the other's head as best he could in the faint glimmer of light from whatever was burning up ahead. He could have lit a Lucifer to see better, but it would probably have signed both their death-warrants. Anyway there was no need. It was the first time that Robert had seen an exposed section of the human brain. "I think it's quite bad," he said as cheerily as he could. "If I was you I would stay here and wait until I come back with help." "Whatever you say, Doc. I wasn't really planning any journeys anyway." He touched the fallen man's hand. "Hang on in there, Len. You're going to be just fine." "Of course I am. Say, Bob, have you got a good memory?" "Pretty good. Why?" "My girlfriend is Joyce Bennett. She lives up north. 19 Sharrow Road in Hull. If you're ever up that way you might like to drop in and give her my love, would you?" He felt himself choking up. "I'll do it Len," he promised solemnly, "if it means coming back from the dead." He didn't say anything more but got out his wire cutters and started working on the coils. It was tough material but within a few minutes it yielded and he was through. "19 Sharrow Road," he shouted back as he continued on his journey, "I'll tell her you love her a lot!" There was no reply. Len didn't seem to be moving any more. The razor-wire, he knew, would mark the outer boundary of enemy lines. If he met anybody else from this point onwards it was almost certain that he would be a German. He moved more cautiously now, tried to listen for the least movement. Another shell-burst lit up the landscape for a fraction of a second, like the flash-bulb of a reporter's camera. It told him that there were very few bodies in this area and the ground was relatively flat, but it also picked out an odd human sculpture a couple of hundred yards ahead of him. It looked like the back view of a man sitting on something with his hands held out slightly from his sides, palms upwards, almost as if he were checking to see if it was going to rain. Robert slowed down even more and approached the weird seated figure as silently as he possibly could. It was difficult to make out the man's form, but the faint glimmer from the fires up ahead let him see that the man was wearing a German helmet and sitting bolt upright on what looked like a discarded kit-bag, most likely his own. He was keeping his hands still, but his head rocked very gently from side to side like the bough of a tree in a soft summer breeze. For all the world like a scarecrow in a field of rippling corn. Anybody could see that he was out of it, he had flipped. What was it the Americans said? This guy is counting the fairies on the toadstools. He probably didn't even know which way he was facing, because he was staring mindlessly at his own lines, with his back to the advancing British. But he could still be dangerous. Where was his rifle? Robert couldn't see it, which meant that he might have it between his legs. Also the German officers and NCOs carried pistols. Madman or not, this was an enemy soldier and Robert wasn't going to take any chances. He reached down for his sheathed bayonet. Not there! Impossible! It had been there barely half an hour ago. Could it have slipped out while he was cutting the wire? Ridiculous, the clip was still buttoned across the sheath. He stopped moving and feverishly went over the events of the last few minutes one after the other. He was sweating now, all that he had was his rifle, and if he fired that he was going to draw attention to himself in a big way. Behind him, somewhere along the British lines, a flash of light gave him one more still image of his surroundings, and to his vast relief the bayonet was on the ground beside him. He must have stuck it into his belt incorrectly before and dislodged it a moment ago when he was fumbling with the sheath. No matter. It was firmly grasped in his right hand now and he knew exactly what he had to do. He stepped up soundlessly behind the seated figure and brought the bayonet down over the man's shoulders and through his windpipe with all the strength at his command. With a skilled encircling movement the man's head was all but severed from his neck, and blood gushed upwards to drench Robert's torso and arm. The whole thing had taken perhaps two seconds, and made less noise than a single footfall. Robert gently guided the limp body forwards on to the ground so that it would make no noise in its falling. He looked down at it and noticed a strange rippling effect around the helmet. It was as though he were seeing it from a long way away, through a shimmering heat- haze. Sometimes it looked like a German helmet and sometimes it looked like a grey woollen scarf tied around a woman's head. The light was getting a little better, he noticed, and an occasional peculiar whizzing noise seemed to have mixed with the rattle of the distant machine-gun fire and the stomach-wrenching booms of the exploding shells. He held up his bayonet and noticed that it had an imitation ebony handle with a hole drilled through it for hanging it up on a kitchen rack. Dropping the knife, shaking uncontrollably, he was just able to summon up enough strength to hold the body of Mrs. Nugent by the thick furry shoulder-pads of the coat she was wearing and turn it over to stare for the last time into her wide sightless eyes. He stopped shaking and looked up. That crater couldn't be much further away now. Time to carry on. He recovered the bayonet, shoved it into the belt of his dressing-gown, and set out at a brisk pace towards the bursting shells behind the line of yew trees. The End Story Index Home Page (c) David Gardiner 2001

The author can be contacted at: davidgardiner@davidgardiner.worldonline.co.uk

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