The shit hit the fan. The windscreen crumpled in like it had been slashed through with a hot knife, both metal edges collapsing inwards under the pressure of wind speed as the truck gained momentum. Charlie had the truck bursting forward onto the crest they had come down, the other truck still abandoned where it had ploughed into the first.
A blur whipped across the front of the other truck, followed by a blinding flash as it ignited into a fireball that threw the hostile metres off the ground amongst a hail of shrapnel. Baz – that prick – he’d thrown a grenade after all.
Instinctively Charlie ducked as the distinctive ‘ping’ of metal slamming into metal littered his truck, A burning sensation rip through his arm, then the right side of his chest, just as the flaming wreckage of scrap metal pounded back into the earth. They crested the hill and flew out across the other side. Charlie gasped at the shock of his wounds but didn’t feel his consciousness slip. Maybe not too bad.
‘Fuck me!’ Lucky his wife wasn’t here or he’d truly be dead. Charlie looked down at his arm and chest, saw the telltale seeping of blood into his uniform and knew what that meant.
‘Anybody else hit?’ He looked at Simeon but he didn’t respond. Blood was running freely down his temple and onto his collar. ‘Baz?’
‘All good!’ Was that glee in his voice? ‘You see that thing?’
Thing? No, Charlie hadn’t seen much before being blinded, but he trusted Baz to know an enemy. ‘Keep your eye out. I didn’t see what’s coming, but look at this windscreen.’ He indicated with his wounded side and bit back the pain. Couldn’t have been too bad or he would have passed out.
That was when the hostile decided to come back. Charlie saw it in his mirror. From the corner of his eye, a fast-moving black blur pivoted towards the back of the truck. ‘Coming your way Baz!’ He gave the truck all it was worth, whispering a silent prayer that they put some distance on the bastard.
The truck thumped sideways at the impact.
‘It’s on the truck!’ Baz yelled observantly.
Not good, thought Charlie. It was only cloth covered and if the prick could slice through a fucking windscreen, he could slice through the cheap cloth that covered the sides of the vehicle.
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He watched the metal structure of the roof sag, and released the wheel momentarily to spit bullets from his gun through the fabric. The methodical spfith, spfith, spfith of fire, the acrid smell of gun smoke, and the forceful repercussion of its release all greeted Charlie. Shafts of daylight punched into the truck as the back opened up to the outside world – but there was no sound of any other contact, no sound of limbs being blown off or a body thumping to the ground in the wake of the vehicle.
Baz paused, looking curiously through the holes in the sidewalls. ‘Got nothing here!’ Charlie returned to respond when the head came up and looked him straight in the eyes – peered straight at him through the convenient holes it had made for him to see through.
“Oh, shit…” In horror, Charlie watched as it leapt around the side of the truck; a knife blade hacked its way through the cloth heading straight for the heart of Baz, watched as the tip pierced the air on its deadly trajectory.
But the attack underestimated the Australian. He stepped forward, not to the side and took the blow in the body, which slid into him with a sickening gush and crack before bursting out the left-hand side of his back. Clear of his heart, clear of his lungs, yet firmly embedded into the mass of muscle that ran across a thick chest. Baz had used his body to trap the bastard.
The Chisholm came back up. Spfith, spfith. Two new holes decorated the canvas covering directly in line with the shadowy outline. And then it fell back, the knife in his hand yanking back out of Baz’s body and away from the truck as he tumbled from sight.
‘Baz? Fuck me, you crazy –’ He slammed into a pothole. ‘Crazy bastard!’
‘I’ll still pass on that,’ his friend replied weakly flopping down onto the floor, looking in shock at his torn flesh.
“Did you get him?”
“If you call putting two through his face getting him, then I guess so… Gonna need a moment to patch myself up. What is that useless bastard doing up there?’
‘Head wound, he’s out. Patch yourself, then get onto him. But stay alert… Yeah, you know. I’m going to radio Base this whole fucking nightmare.’
He picked up the com and put it to his lips. ‘Base, come in, this Corporal Rodgers?’ Static crackled down the line. ‘Base…?’
Nothing except static. ‘Don’t fucking ignore me Base, answer this radio or I’ll drive this truck into you to say hello.’
‘Corporal!’ Ah, shit. ‘Control yourself.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Fuck you I’ll control myself. We have three injured, two serious. A hostile just shredded our truck with a fucking knife. What the fuck are we in here?’ Authority never really did bring out the best in him, especially when he’d taken an injury. Still, the bastards had known something was up and not given him any intelligence. It was why people hated the upper commands, didn’t they remember being the grunts themselves?
‘We’ll discuss this when you get back Corporal. Report, now?’
‘I just reported!’ You fucking idiot! He barely managed to keep that bit off the radio, the rage simmering inside him.
The line returned to static and Charlie knew, with dead certainty, that this was just the beginning.
He pulled the truck back onto the road and pointed it towards base desperately hoping that whatever had come after then had decided they were no longer worth it.