ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (10 page)

Ray nodded.

“
You going
to St George’s
too?”

The young Guardsman looked at the label tied though
the buttonhole of a breast pocket on his combat jacket.

“Yes
sir,
looks that way but
the doctor thinks it shouldn’t be long before I get a few days leave.”

Ray had been told something similar, and there was
nothing he was looking forward to more than holding his wife and kids again. St
Georges’ hospital in south London was only a few miles from the family’s
married quarters, and if for some reason the doctors there kept him in then his
wife could easily find her way there.

The line for the seriously wounded began to move as
RAF personnel wheeled the patients out to the waiting aircraft, and an hour
later it was their turn.

Ray managed to get himself seated beside the other
Coldstreamer, over the objections of an Airman with a list attached to a
clipboard. Ray switched on his Sergeant Major persona and the airman hurried
away, amending the written seating plan with a biro as he went.

The flight into Gatwick airport passed swiftly, but
they found they still had to go through Customs when they got there. Ray and
the Guardsman had only the dirty and rather ragged combat gear they wore, but
they still had to go through the ‘Nothing to declare’ channel and submit to a
body search to ensure they didn’t have some lethal souvenir from the
battlefields concealed about them before they joined the queue being checked
off at the exit to the Customs hall.

It
wasn’t as if
anyone could have gone missing between Germany and Gatwick, but Forces Movement
Control has their way of doing things, and that includes head counts at every
opportunity, checking the face and the photo on the individuals I.D card, the
MOD Form 90, matched the details on the clipboards.

Ray didn’t pay any attention to the military policemen
stood near the exit until his name was checked off the list by a Staff Sergeant
with the cartwheel emblem of Movements worn on an armband. The man looked over
his shoulder at the nearest RMP.

“Got another one here, corporal.”

He had not returned Ray’s I.D card, but had stuck it
under the spring clip of his clipboard instead.

Two RMP lance corporals started towards him, and Ray
asked the Staff Sergeant what he had meant by ‘another one’.

“Just go with them when they get here, sarn’t major,
sir.” The Staff Sergeant put up a hand to rest on Ray’s chest, preventing him
from passing the checkpoint.

Bringing his good hand up to the restraining hand on
his chest, Ray curled his fingers around the Staff Sergeants thumb and bent it
backwards, just enough to elicit an “Ow!” from its owner.

“I said,
what
do you mean by ‘another one’
, Staff?”
He kept a hold on the thumb, adding a touch more pressure.

“Coldstreamers…fuck sake sarn’t major, leggo of my
hand!”

Ray let go of the thumb and the Movements NCO tucked
the clipboard under one arm in order to massage the offended digit. “The RMP
are picking up all members of 1CG when they come back to the UK…I don’t know
why and I don’t think they do either.” 

The RMP NCOs arrived and one stood by Ray without
speaking whilst the other spoke to the Movements Staff Sergeant, discussing Ray
as if he wasn’t present. He consulted a list of his own, and upon it were two
columns, naming those who had been at Leipzig and those who had joined after
that particular battle. Finally he took the I.D card from the Staff Sergeants
clipboard.

The figure in the ragged combat jacket and trousers,
stained with blood and ingrained with dirt did not look a lot like the picture
on the I.D card.

The left side of Ray’s face was swollen and bruised
black and blue, with shades of yellow thrown in. Somewhere between the
makeshift mine going off under the Warrior and here, Ray’s solitary badge of
rank, a smaller version of an RSMs coat of arms, had been torn from the front
of his smock, but his rank was clearly displayed on the lists both the Staff
Sergeant and the RMP carried.

“Is your regimental number, 27130087?”

Ray looked at the military policeman and felt his
temper start to rise, but he didn’t reply.

“I said, is your number 27130087?”

The line of servicemen from the flight had come to a
halt, and whilst some were impatient to get on there were others obviously
curious about what was unfolding.

CSM Tessler felt embarrassed about being questioned in
such a fashion by an arrogant junior NCO who’s own uniform was pressed and
pristine, having been nowhere near a battlefield.

Ray’s companion on the flight, the young Guardsman,
had now been stopped by the same staff sergeant, who again signalled to more of
the waiting military policemen. However, having double-checked his identity
another RMP lance corporal withdrew a pair of handcuffs from a pocket, and made
to put them on the Guardsman’s wrists.

Confused at the turn of events the Guardsman resisted
and a small scuffle broke out, during which the wounded soldier let out a cry
of pain as his injured arm was grabbed.

This was too much for Ray who pushed past his own pair
of RMPs, who were still waiting for an
answer
to their question, and placed himself between the Guardsmen and the RMP trying
to cuff him.  

“This man,
unlike
yourselves
, has fought in every one
of our brigades actions since day one of the war…so you
will
treat him with some fucking respect or I’m going to start back-squading teeth!”

This young NCO wasn’t used to having his authority
questioned. He hadn’t managed to cuff the Guardsman either, who had managed to
get free and now stood a half dozen paces away looking angry and not a little
frightened. Another ragged form had placed itself in the way, obstructing him
and he was now in no mood to mess about. Setting his feet, his hands started to
close into fists.

Ray wasn’t exactly in his best fighting form, although
as he saw the RMP prepare to take a swing he resolved to go down throwing
punches and to hell with Queens Regulations, but he was reprieved when their
audience began making angry noises at the treatment of wounded soldiers by the
forces of military law and order. Surging forward they placed themselves in
front of the wounded Guardsman, and Ray found himself flanked by men who like
himself carried injuries from recent combat, but who were fully prepared to
give the Red Caps a good kicking if they forced the issue. 

Angry jeers brought a young lieutenant from a side
office where he took in the tableau of impending mayhem, and cursed himself for
not being present when the flight had arrived. His RMP detachment was made up
of young men and women rushed through training at Chichester and then given
their single stripe at its conclusion. The Corps more experienced soldiers were
across the channel, keeping the MSRs in operation and even manning traffic
points in the middle of air raids. His detachment lacked seasoning and
experience; otherwise this confrontation would never have come to pass. As he
viewed the servicemen facing off against his young military policemen he
noticed the
figure stood front and
centre. Despite his appearance he had the air of command about him.

The RMP lieutenant pulled on his beret and he strode
over to the exit.

“What’s going on here, and who are you?” He addressed
the question to Ray, who gritted his teeth as he pulled his feet in as best he
could, coming to attention and identifying himself, before explaining what had
occurred.

The RMP officer let him finish before swivelling
around to take in the junior NCO with the handcuffs, and then turning back.

“It seems that someone got a little ahead of
themselves…however, we have orders to detain you for questioning about matters
of which I have not been given the details.”

“Thank you sir.”
Ray
answered, impressed with the RMP officers calm disposition when a small riot
had been in the offing just moments previously.

“Are we under arrest, sir?”

“Not to my knowledge, sarn’t major…but that may well
change later once we’ve handed you over to SIB.” Looking levelly at Ray he went
on.

“I really don’t know what this is about, but if I were
you I would get legal representation before I spoke a word to
anyone
,
if you get my drift?”

Ray looked into his eyes and could see written upon
them that contrary to what had just been said, this lieutenant had a pretty
damn good idea about what was going on.

Nodding his thanks Ray first turned to the lance
corporal with the handcuffs.

“Put those things away before I stick ‘em where
they’ll smell!” He then turned to the first
pair
of RMPs, snatching back his I.D card and pointing a stiff digit at his
interrogator.

“And in future, Lance
Corporal
, whenever you
address a Warrant Officer you’ll stick a ‘Sir’ somewhere in the sentence, or
I’ll drop kick you into the nearest empty cell…understood?”

There were few civilians out and about at the airport,
but those who were present were all maintenance workers, only Heathrow catered
to those few who still needed to travel by air. They had seen returning soldiers
being escorted by the military police on a number of occasions and it had lost
its novelty value by now, so the sight of Ray and the Guardsman being driven
away to Her Majesty’s Military Corrective Training Centre at Colchester
attracted little interest.

1 Mile east of Devils Island: French Guiana.

Twenty two gallons of water is shipped daily aboard
the Juliett class submarine
Dai
when in the tropics and all of it as a result of
condensation even when she is submerged, mainly in the bow where the hull was
coolest. Captain Li knew this as it was one of the myriad of statistics
associated with being captain. It was flushed out of the bilge each day after
being measured.

No doubt one day a discrepancy in that amount would be
the first clue to some mechanical fault.

He made a mental note to check on how much was in the
bilge tomorrow because the whole crew were hushed as they listened to the sound
of propellers approaching from the starboard side.

With the memory of the depth charging by the Brazilian
frigate still fresh, even the coolest calmest crew members were already
breaking into a sweat.

Dai
was
at 200 feet and moving forward at a bare three knots with all ancillary
equipment shut down to minimise their audible profile, or Silent Running to the
picture house audiences.

The quiet within the vessel served to magnify the
sound of the approaching enemy corvette. The water being thrashed by the blades
driving it towards them, louder and louder with each revolution of its
propellers, the audible thump of the bow smashing through the waves along with
the higher pitched whine from the ships twin screws was causing a nervous
gesture here and there.

Eyes fixed on the starboard bulkheads and traced the
sound, heads raising as it drew closer and louder, and then they were staring
straight upwards as the corvette was overhead, the whine of the screws now
almost as shrill as a dentist drill, their whole bodies braced and ready to
flinch, but no warning call of depth charges hitting the water came from the
sonar shack. The heads continue to follow the sound to port as it forged away,
diminishing in volume as well as in threat, leaving a hundred sets of
gratefully relaxing shoulders clad in sweat darkened shirts.

Li had no doubt that there were nervous eyes watching
Bao’
s
bulkheads also, even though they had yet to suffer the character building and
brown adrenaline producing experience of a depth charge attack.

Bao
was
off their port quarter and in the process of moving into position a quarter
mile behind them as
Dai
aimed for the gap that lay between the three islands
that formed an unequally sided triangle off the coast of French Guiana.

The submersible was still riding piggy-back as they
edged closer to the islands, seeking both traditionally chain anchored mines and
 bottom seated magnetic mines.

The Juliett carried shortwave ultra-low frequency
sonar that was first devised by a clever man in a shed as a means of avoiding
reversing ones car into walls or other cars when parking. The invention was
then stolen by an even cleverer lady who adapted it as a tool for ships and
submarines to find sea mines without being overheard at a distance by the
people who had planted them. China called its own pirated version the Mouse
Roar.

For thirty minutes they cautiously closed on the
notorious islands.

“There isn’t such a thing as a stealth mine is there?”
whispered Jie who was now clad in black wet suit, and with his hands and
features painted for war, daubed dark green, grey and brown with greasy
waterproof camouflage paint.