Silence .. !!

Eyes ... fractionally opened ... he was hanging almost upside down... Slowly, consciousness returned ...only to be quickly replaced by the choking sensation ..his Flak Jacket, caught around his throat. The gagging smell of leaking petol ... the dust & debris from 'The floor' ... filling his nostrils ... The rasping sound of his breathing playing to the beat of the last seconds before the Aftermath. That Whooshing sound of the explosion re-playing over & over in his mind. No 'Big Bang' ... just that horrible sucking whooshing sound as the vehicle had been lifted up into the evening sky along with the bright lights and sparkles of the explosion.

"Come on, for Fucks sake, Come on" Soldier nine was shouting and he felt the hands dragging him from the wreckage.

Outside, the once peacefull crossroads had become a scrapyard of twisted metal and flesh.

In the distance he thought he could hear the rotor blades of a Lynx change direction as it turned into the wind ... but it was hard to say ... For now, he was walking in a strange Underwater World of slow sounds and slow motion ...the constant buzzes of static cutting through his head ... not wanting to acknowledge the reality of what his vision was telling him.

Then, without warning .. the loud hammering of a .50 Cal.started to tear up the road in front of them ... both soldiers running in different directions for cover.
He dived in front of the small grass embankment at the side of the road ... curling up into a foetal position for protection against the zipping pieces of lead as they searched for their prey.

From his new position, eyes caught sight of more devastation ... the Dali'esque landscape .... the Breugel print that used to hang in his Great Aunts house ...Could it be a Dream?? ... Please??

... Soldier six ... a quiet 20 yr old kid, lying grotesquely half in, half out of Vehicle Two ... her skirt blown up around her waist ... her white knickers flecked with polkadots of blood. She would have died of embarrassment anyway, if she had known she was going to end up looking like that ... legs akimbo ... like some hungry nympho..... Soldier one, the Boss, a 21 year-old veteran of 4 years, still strapped into his seat ..... the huge crater in the Road .. where Vehicle One should have been.

Jerked back to reality by the hammering of the .50 Cal ... he imagined he could feel the rounds hitting the other side of his meagre protection ... seeking him out like a trapped rabbitt. It would only be a matter of time before the soil was chewed away .... and he would be left ... exposed .... no helmet ... no weapon, naked in front of the 'T1' pulling the trigger.

Peripheral vision was overloading his brain .... as more & more of the scene in front of him was trying to impact on his mind. His face pressed close to the tarmac of the road ... eyes searching for some kind of recognizable normality to focus on. Greedily, he noticed how the tarmac of the road, was really full of little holes and craters .... he had always imagined it to be smooth.

Three small stones, directly in front of his eyes .... slowly, he reached out to move the middle one .... concentrating all his conscious thought into calculating how much he should move it so that they would form a perfectly stright line ... an orderly queue ...

'Order' !!

a sense of Order must be resumed.

There!... it was done !!.... he had regained 'Order' amidst the carnage.

"Sierra **** Echo **** Victor **** November ..."

... crackling from the Radio in the tangled remains of Vehicle Two.

"Yes" his mind reported back.

"Yes Control"

... we have regained Order here .... the Three stones are all at attention .. reporting for Duty.

Desperately, not wanting his vision to seek out Vehicle one ... the lead vehicle in the Patrol ... and Eight!! .. Where was Soldier eight??

cont'd on Maggie tra