'Word of advice, mate – keep stum about nobblin' that stag,' Harry advised him. 'Don's passionate about it!'
Dillon held up his hand for quiet, pressing the tiny button microphone nearer his mouth. 'Zero contact,' he confirmed.
Blur of static and Cliff's voice, clear as a bell.
'Alpha One to Zero. Two kids moving out of grid range south-east. Suspects armed. Looks like a crossbow. Over.'
'Zero to Alpha One. Maintain position and surveillance. Out.' Dillon flicked off, frowning. 'Going the wrong way for the salmon,' he said, and turned to Jimmy, eyes narrowed. 'Sounds like they're after the stag…'
'Shit! He's ours.' Jimmy wriggled backwards. 'Okay, I'm on my way.' He hesitated for a second, waiting for the nod from Dillon, and crawled out.
Harry folded his arms and stared morosely into the darkness. 'I wouldn't mind nickin' a salmon,' he said with feeling. 'I'm bloody starvin'.'
Pacing himself, Steve jogged for a quarter-of-a-mile, alternated it with a 'double' – double-quick-time march – over the same distance. To his right, behind the chain-link fence, the compound and the salmon tanks, to his left open countryside. Judging roughly where the hide was, he came off the lane and onto the grass verge, intending to cut across below the ridge. In the pitch-darkness he had some difficulty locating the trip-wire the lads had laid, eventually found it, and carefully stepped over. He set off at an easy run, not because he was knackered, but because the little hummocks of tough, wiry grass were treacherous as hell, and he didn't want to finish up with a sprained ankle or, worse, a broken leg.
Steve had remembered the trip-wire. He'd forgotten about the pressure pads, set at fifty-metre intervals, until he stepped on one, triggering the battery of sulphur flares which zoomed up into the dark sky, blinding white bursts of light that blanked out his vision, turning night into day.
Stumbling, almost falling, blinking furiously, all that Steve could see was a mass of whirling red dots imprinted on his retina. High above, the fizzing flares drifted slowly downwards. Steve covered his face, mouth flapping open and shut, realising too late that he was caught out in the open, exposed to enemy fire. Where was the rest of his section? Why the hell hadn't he taken cover, the first rule when encountering SF, Sustained Fire? Tracer was coming at him. Masses of red streaking dots filling the sky. He heard the rattle of machine-gun fire, opened his mouth to scream, to howl, to cry for help, and nothing came. A mortar shell landed right in front of him, and in the gritty explosion a voice yelling, Corporal Harris, take cover: Harris, get down! Harris, take cover, get back, Harris, this is an order!
The voice echoed through Steve's head, but he could see Big Blackie Jeller crunched up, howling with pain, could see him, and no way could he turn back and run for cover. Big Blackie was his mate, and he hesitated just a fraction before he disobeyed the order and went back for him. As he gripped Blackie's hand, he felt the burning red-hot sensation rip through his neck, the blood filled his eyes, his mouth, everything was red, everything was over. Then came the darkness, weeks of darkness, of terror. He didn't remember being stretchered back, airlifted to the hospital, he remembered nothing but that moment of terrible scorching pain, and now it was back, squeezing the life out of him. Rooted to the spot, Steve shook all over, his arms in uncontrollable spasms, fingers twitching, and his mouth, gaping, filled with his own blood, unable to cry out.
Don found him, curled up like a child, hands over his head. For a second Don thought someone had been caught in one of the traps. He slithered and eased his way closer, and then he realised it was Steve. Steve huddled in wretched mute hysteria, his eyes wide, staring into oblivion. Don gently eased him to sit up, but Steve seemed afraid of him, and not until he had wrapped him in his arms repeating that it was all right, that he was safe, did Don feel the rigid tension released. But Steve's hands were still like a vice, holding on to Don, and Don sat with him, rocking him, talking to him. Don, who was too shy to talk to anyone, understood, had no need for words, because he had been in that darkness, he had been in that mute land of fear.
Steve tried, once, twice, and then burped out, 'Poachers – two kids.' Don gave a pat to Steve. 'Good lad, I'll go tip off the lads… they're up in the hide, can you make it there?'
Steve nodded, watching Don move like the clappers, bent low, zig-zagging out of the way of the flares, heading back to the camp. Steve was alone again, listening to his own heartbeat slowly returning to normal, unlike the rest of him, that would never come back.
CHAPTER 17
Kids, that's all they were, one of them barely fifteen, caught out there on open moorland which a moment ago had been inky black, now lit up to the horizon with the brightness of a film set.
Even while the shock of it was still registering, their young faces frozen with panic, Harry and Cliff broke from cover, running swiftly and silently down the slope, and were upon them from behind. It was nasty, quick, brutally efficient. Grabbed by their collars, kneed in the back of the legs, stamped into a prone position, faces pushed into the ground, arms twisted behind their backs. Handcuffs slapped on, sacks rammed over their heads, muffling their terrified screams.
Worse was to come, and it came in the shape of Malone, crashing through the bracken, red-faced, veins bulging in his neck. Pumped up like a mad bull, he charged forward and took a vicious, swinging kick at one of the hooded shapes, swung round and booted the other with all his sixteen-and-a-half stone behind it.
'Hey! That's enough, Malone. Back off!'
Dillon ran up as the two boys rolled and squirmed in agony, shrieking and slobbering in pain. 'Cliff, get the bag off the kid's head,' Dillon ordered. And stepped in front of Malone as he was about to land another brutal kick, shoving him in the chest.
Glowering at Dillon, Malone snarled. 'You don't like it? You got somethin' to say about it…?' He extended his hand, fingers curled, gently beckoning. 'Come on then, come on, Dillon, let's have you!'
Dillon didn't move, didn't speak.
Slowly, deliberately, Malone unzipped his quilted jacket and tossed it down, flexing huge shoulders, hairy tattooed arms and hard biceps straining the sleeves of a black T-shirt. He beckoned again, smiling.
'Don't, Frank!' Cliff spoke quietly in Dillon's ear. 'He's a madman, he'll kill you… back off him.'
'Don't tell me,' Dillon said in a tone like cold steel, 'what to do.' Turning away, he cupped his hand under the blood-smeared frightened face of one of the boys. 'You okay, son?'
Dillon ruffled the boy's hair, then stooped to pick up Malone's jacket, was about to throw it to him when Malone flicked out a left jab, catching Dillon off-balance. Clutching the jacket in two bunched fists, Dillon took a threatening pace forward.
'Frank – don't,' Harry said, shaking his head.
Cliff stepped in, snatched the jacket from Dillon and handed it to Malone. For perhaps five seconds nobody moved. Everybody waiting to see if Dillon, seething with rage, was going to take Malone on. Nobody else wanted to, but was Dillon the man to do it? Did he have the bottle? The fifteen-year-old kid was whimpering, and as Dillon went to him, wiping blood from the boy's nose, Malone laughed. A loud, derisive laugh from the belly. And, shrugging into his quilted jacket, started to make soft little clucking chicken noises, black eyes glinting with triumphant bravado.
Turning his back on Malone, as if he hadn't heard, Dillon said stonily, 'We got a job to do, all right? Now, let's get on with it!'
But he had heard right enough, and everybody knew it.
Little Phil's hacking cough had awakened her, and as Susie hurried through in her bare feet, Kenny was at it too. She didn't turn on the light, didn't want to wake them. A chink in the curtains let in an orange glow from the corner streetlamp, giving a sepia tint to the glossy photographs pinned to the walls. Dillon and the lads, kitted up in jumping gear, boarding a Hercules, thumbs-up to the camera. A couple of the less gory shots from the Falklands. Two photos of the platoon in smart No. 2 dress-parade uniforms, collars and ties – sunlight flaring off their cap badges, taken on the square at The Depot. A large blowup in full colour of a sky filled with blossoming white and yellow parachutes – NATO manoeuvres in Germany. And postcards and mementoes from all over the world, every continent Dad had served in, plus bits and pieces of Para equipment: webbing, HALO goggles, tropical-issue water bottle, Parachute Regiment shoulder flash, the quick-release box off a PX1 harness, camouflage pattern forage cap, empty magazine clip. To the boys a hallowed shrine, material proof that Dad had been one of the famous 'Red Devils' – the meanest, toughest, fittest bunch going.