The Red Alert Story

The Red Alert Story.
by Gareth Bird

CHAPTER XI
They trudged for what seemed like hours carrying their wounded, unsure whether they were even dead. In reality, they had travelled a few hundred yards over a short period of time, but were compelled to dart for cover down eerie alleyways and behind out-houses every time a car or truck drove nearby. The constant drone of the police siren was clearly audible, and could therefore be heard to systematically sweep the town for those who had, more or less, escaped the ambush.

"What the hell are we going to do now?" called Munro. Everyone stopped walking for a moment to catch their breaths. "I mean, he's just not going to make it, how he is."

Jack unloaded Rigg from his shoulders and sat him on a wall. "I know." he muttered, as he wrestled with his conscience over the prospects of just leaving them. Similarly, Black deposited Gray as Taylor caught up with the rest of them. Jack fumbled around inside one of the backpacks until he produced a small first-aid kit. His cumbersome gloves made it impossible to open, so he peeled them off to reveal his weathered hands; blue with cold, red with blood.

He spent a minute or so clawing at the tin, but he just could not find the necessary grip. Eventually, he gave in and threw it down into the snow-filled gutter. He leant back against the wall and took a few breaths. Black had a go at the tin, before opting to break it open. Inside, he found a length of bandaging and other such minor equipment.

"Here." he said to Taylor, who was clutching his shoulder. "We can't afford another loss." he stammered, wraping the bandage around him. "Keep this tight around your shoulder." He stepped back, without a moment's hesitation. "Come on." he told Jack.

Jack looked up towards the voice in the shadows. Black told Taylor to look after the the other two as he, Jack and Munro carried Murphy towards the light eminating from a busy bar. "We need to write a message to explain the situation - otherwise they may just kill him."

"Well, have you got a pen and paper?" asked Black. Jack rolled his eyes around his sockets. "'Thought not. Besides," he justified, "we haven't the time. We'll just have to risk it."

Munro quickly pushed open the door and Jack and Black slid Murphy inside before all three of them turned and ran back to Taylor. "Let's get out of here!" yelled Black as he picked up Gray. Within seconds, they were all, in one form or another, running down the street, heading towards the safety of the shadows which filled the alleyways.

However, their run was shortlived. None of them had the stamina to continue more than a few hundred yards, by which time, Jack opted for them to stop for as long as necessary to get the strength to continue for a reasonable distance. Taylor agreed. Munro kicked open the door of a small flat and they all barged in. They pulled out their weapons and pointed them in the direction of the surprised occupants.

They stood their with either their weapons or countrymen in their arms for a while staring at the three figure panicking in front of them. Black yelled something in Russian, but, by his own admission, he could not speak enough to reassure them of their safety. The distant wail of a police siren became noticable closer by the second. Taylor pushed the door closed again, but it did not disguise the fact that the police were close by.

One of the two threatened men edge slowly around the table. Black yelled at him to stop. He didn't, and Taylor raised his gun to shoot, but Munro screamed for his not to as it would attract the attention of the police. Instead, Jack dropped Rigg and lunged at the man. He had grabbed a large knife which had been lying on the table, where they had minutes earlier been sitting for their supper.

Jack grabbed his arm, but he was too strong. His other hand grabbed Jack around the throat and thrusted Jack back onto the tabletop. Jack was unable to do anything except wait and watch the knife plunge down into the table beside his head.

Black also dropped Gray and jumped at Jack's assailant, whilst Munro grabbed the screaming woman and covered her mouth, whilst holding the gun to her head. The knife had been wrenched out of the table and once more was looming down towards Jack's face. Black dived and slid across the table and collided with the pair sending all three of them sprawling on the floor.

The other man made a run for Munro, and what appeared to be his daughter. However, he was old and his reactions slow and was helpless to stop the butt of Munro's gun striking him across the face. He collapsed on the floor and quickly posed no threat.

Jack pulled himself out from under his opponent, such that he was able to strike him across the face. He tried to respond, but not before Taylor had leapt across and kicked him in the head. The crack of his splinting nose came over painfully loud, and his body fell back, limp.

Jack helped Black up to see a patch of fresh blood on his thigh. "Is that yours?" asked Jack, sounding optimistic that it wasn't.

"'Fraid so." reported Black, quietly. "He must have stabbed me." Jack tore the jumper off the man and wrapped it around Black's leg. "But don't worry," he insisted, "it's not deep - more a scratch than anything serious."

"Yeah, well, either way, it need's something." decided Jack as he tried to finish tying it off, a difficult task due to the pains of his hands.

Black gingerly stood up, before applying his full weight on his leg. "Yeah, just a scratch." he repeated. He looked over at Munro who was still holding the gun to the woman. "What's up?" he asked. "'Can't bring yourself to hit a woman?" he asked.

Munro sighed. "She's just an innocent victim of war."

"Yeah," argued Black, "as innocent as the next man - and you saw what he just did to me!" Black pointed at his leg. "Look, are you going knock off this greasy little wop or have I got to show you how it's done?" Munro didn't answer, so Black took it upon himself to thrust his arm forward and strike her across the face. "There." he declared. "That wasn't so hard."

Munro lay the unconscious body down as Jack and Taylor searched around for anything which they may be able to use in their quest. They couldn't. All they could make use of was the soup and toast, which were rapidly going cold. They ate up the family's meal before tying them up and locking them in the cellar.

"It's pretty cold down there." observered Munro "D'you reckon they'll be alright?"

"So what?" replied Jack. "D'you think I care anymore?" Jack suddenly realised the harshness of his voice, but erased any compassionate thoughts from his mind - after all, they were at war with these people and they had had their evil ways with him and his comrades working as slave labour, albeit for only a short while. "They'll be OK. It's a shared cellar, isn't it? Someone from the upstairs flats will find them tomorrow, no doubt." he comprimised.

"Yeah, they'll be OK." agreed Black from behind the kitchen table. Gray had regained consciousness, due mainly to the strong salts which had been the only other useful find.

Jack finally sat himself down on one of the wooden chairs which were scattered scarcely around the house. Painfully peeling the shirt off his back, he called Munro over. "What's the verdict?" he asked.

"I'm no doctor, but I'd say you were, no maybe, well." he started as he argued with his initial diagnosis. "Yeah. It looks like you've been shot a couple of times, but I can't see any bullets. Surely they aren't lodged in your back, are they?"

"Are they bollocks, he'd most probably be dead if they were." called Black.

Jack passed Munro a towel to clean off some of his wounds. "No, he's right." explained Jack, "I was shot, but they got me in my back pack. They must have taken the brunt of the force and just protruded through and taken the surface off of my skin."

"I'd say it was more than the surface." disagreed Munro. "You need a doctor."

"We all do." protested Black.

"I need an undertaker." corrected Gray. "How's Rigg?"

"Undertaken." presumed Black.

"No, c'mon." defended Munro as helped replace Jack's shirt. "We don't know that. And until we do, we're not going to right him off."

Black leant over and felt for Rigg's pulse. "Well OK, he's still alive - technically." He released his arm before his eyes widened and called for the others. "Oh my God! Have you seen this?" he yelled. He parted Rigg's left arm from his body's side to reveal a neat family of four tidily place bullets. "How long's he been like this?"

"I don't know!" replied Jack, as they tried their best to help him, although they could think of little that they could realistically achieve. "I mean, look, there's no blood!" he observed.

"D'you reckon we can get them out?" inquired Munro, as Black and Jack looked at each other. "Or do we leave them in?"

"We've got to get them out, haven't we? I mean they could be infected, couldn't they?" asked Jack.

"Yeah," said Black, hesitantly. "Er, any suggestions?"

They tweazered them out using a couple of items of cutlery which had been knocked on the floor. As they retrieved the final bullet, all seemed well until the strange absense of blood was more than made up for as Rigg's side began the bleed incessently. "Shit!" yelled Black as he scrabbled for something to stop the bleeding. They wrapped a rug around his waist as a temporay hold as they raided the house.

"Hurry up!" yelled Gray, who was now mobile enough to help with the search. Jack returned to find a sea of red filling the floor in regular waves. "He's losing it!" Gray had pulled off the useless, improvised bandage and was squeezing at his waist with his hands, but it had not stopped the blood. Jack took over as he tried to improve on the rug with a larger towel.

"Jesus!" screamed Black as he ran in with a pile of clothes from the wardrobe in the only bedroom. After nearly an hour of constant dressing changes, they finally managed to reduce the blood loss.

"I think that's done it." remarked Munro, without a hint of triumph. "Of course, that could be 'cos he's run out of blood to bleed. Take his pulse." he suggested.

"You know what happened last time, we found a set of bullets which were doing fine." replied Gray, as Black started to count the pulse. "Fine, that is, until someone decided to pull 'em out."

"Shut the fuck up!" ordered Black, releasing Rigg's arm. "It was me who got you 'round from unconsciousness,"

"And I'm very grateful for it." interrupted Gray.

"Yeah, well just remember I could just as easily put you back there." he finished, before reverting back to Rigg. "I think he's going to be alright - well I hope he is."

"Doesn't look it from where I'm standing." replied Munro. "'Look's like we've got more blood of his than him." reaching for another shirt to mop up the blood.

"Hey, save some clean stuff for me!" called Taylor from the chair in which he had been resting. "I've been shot twice too!"

"Oh yeah," recalled Black as he stood up. "D'you need them prising out?"

"Not likely!" he replied, "Not from Doctor Death anyway." he joked. "Besides, they passed quite cleanly through, I think." Jack and Munro verfified this before Black drew up a verbal rota of staying on watch and who got to rest.

"What about Rigg?" asked Gray.

"What about him?" asked Black. "We've done all we can. Now it's up to him to pull through."

"He's got no bloody...blood left!" he yelled, attempting to sound authoritive, but failing due to a few unchoice words.

"Well, are you going to take him to the local hospital?" asked Black. "''Hi, I'm a British sailor and here's my comrade. I think he's a bit dead, but I'll let you spend your under-financed resources on him.''"he mimmicked. "Yeah, that'll go down like a ton of bricks."

"Well," started Gray, "what are we going to do?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm going to clean myself off and get some kip. It's my sleep first, isn't it?"

"You'll have a job," muttered Taylor under his breath, "there's no running water in this dump." Black ignored him and wiped himself down before taking one of the beds, stretching out and lying down to sleep.


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