Rule 303

by Harry-Flashman

Green Flu...a global pandemic. March 2010, Infected are hording after winter hibernation and refugees must be evaced from Taranto, Italy by a naval unit. This is a effectively a draft chapter from my full-length L4D novel "Born to Endure". Please visit my Profile for further particulars. I don't own L4D, Valve Corp does. A Survivor link exists...please squint hard.

RULE 303

The season of caution is past when we are in the midst of evils.

SENECA

An hour ago, sometime before midnight, the last vehicle patrol came into the Command Post courtyard. For a few minutes the engines idled whilst doors slammed and tailgates clanged; a smatter of voices echoed in a variety of regional county accents from the surrounding walls. Sharp sounds split the entombing silence which lay beyond the once fashionable apartment building's street plaza: a clatter of an ammunition box falling to the asphalt; a heavy metal object dragged across a load bed, and an outburst of heart-felt four-letter-words-to-qualify-various-nouns profanity batted to and fro between the men. Then one by one the engines died away, and soon the voices grew quiet as their owners departed to find food and rest. Silence returned as an element of the black night. Only the faint, heavily muffled purr of a petrol generator remained. Men slept in contorted, open-mouthed exhaustion. Others lay in slow stiffness under the night sky or in dark corners, eyes open, thinking, or trying not to think, searching for sleep…or just to forget…to not imagine.

A young naval officer wearing a regulation dark blue sweater and a tired, grim expression stretched his back in the patio doorway of what was still recognizable as a first-floor terraced apartment. Selected randomly by a unit signaler to set up shop, the building stood on a low anonymous pimple in one corner of the city. It was a good choice; the plaza out the front comfortably held their vehicles, exit streets led everywhere needed and the roof-top…three stories up…gave a sought-for, if nominal, Observation Post outlook. Navy Signaler's Bonus: the roof wasn't too onerous a climb to install the satellite dishes. Not for the first time since moving in, the officer imagined a gathering of Euro-It-People tinkle-talking in the twilight on this very patio. The same one which now bore a clutter of anonymous military gear and supply cartons…a convenient, chuck-it-over-there-Charlie overflow from the CP…the apartment's open-plan lounge…at his back.

An earlier prod of irony and juxtaposed contrast between a burst carton of MRE's, delicate wrought iron outdoor dining table and a squashed tub of sweet-and-sour smelling geraniums had long since fallen from his central perceptive field.

Lionel Wilkinson had caught three hours of sleep earlier. He was shagged…everyone was…but he'd lost that hollow sense of stress-induced fatigue which made diligent men fall asleep sitting up next a machine-gun with binoculars held to their eyes. The night air was warm and close with little movement to its nature; salt-water sailors noticed such things. It smelt of the sea, and of dust, and bore a thin petro-chemical tang too, for Taranto was at heart an industrial and commercial port. From time to time, a soft susurration of the breeze brought to his nostrils the smell of burnt tarry plastic and raw sewage. Since the mass civilian evacuation to the port's staging area, scattered fires had broken out across the city and mains sewage pumps no longer operated. That explained it. Very logical.

Regardless of two thousand years of historic merit and one-time commercial grandeur as a thriving modern port-city, Taranto, Italy was now a remote…doomed…outpost of civilization. A fuckin' shithole, as one matelot observed within Lionel's hearing.

"Yes, it is." Lionel agreed under his breath.

Lieutenant-Commander (Acting) Lionel James Wilkinson, Royal Navy had no more wish to be here than in any of the other places he'd been to since the dreadful events of the previous autumn. For, as he kept reminding himself, he was an electrical engineer by profession with responsibility for HMS Iron Duke's turbine-electric power plant. A ships' engineer on a Type 23 frigate and neither a bloody infantryman nor a uniformed butler serving tea, buttered muffins and sympathy to teeming throngs of unwashed gabbling refugees.

However needs must when the devil drives, and it's the same for us all in these times.

They had been months of unhappiness, wrenching change, danger and frustration. Charging from one side of the Mediterranean to the other; always in a hurry and desperately short-manned in all branches of the ship. Plugging gaps, tight for supplies; go here…go there…do this…stop them doing that…and do it all yesterday. Now they were at Taranto, misery unrelieved…another critically important mission tasked on a shoe-string. There were persistent tantalizing indications they'd be pulled out and sent to Gibraltar after this job for a refit and crew change. Lionel hoped it was true…God I'm buggered.

Aged twenty-five but with the grooved mind of a man ten years his senior, Lionel pushed his private broodings aside and let his training and hard-won instincts take over. He had to get on ball. Tick-tock. Big day ahead.

"Going up top for a look around," he announced to them all in the CP…and to none of them specifically. Lieutenant George Braddon looked up and flicked him a casual three-fingered Boy Scout salute of acknowledgement. The duty signaler nodded to say she'd heard him. Lionel waved Marine Underhill back down into his seat…a scuffed wine-red leather sofa that must have once cost more than their combined annual salaries. Marine Underhill, his assigned and personally selected duty runner and close-protection bodyguard. His ever-present gun dog companion…a good bloke.

The apartment roof top was a full-sized rectangular terrace…as befitted a circa-2003 European property boom penthouse apartment's pretentious Grand Design. However in 2010, what furniture and fittings hadn't been commandeered for use elsewhere were thrown into a tumbled abattised pile in the centre of the roof garden. There was sufficient moonlight for Lionel to make his way carefully to the western side so that he could look out over Taranto city proper. An off-duty rating was up there too enjoying a reflective smoke. They acknowledged one another with easy familiarity and proceeded to ignore the other's presence…simultaneously tight and loose…true naval discipline.

There was more movement to the air up here but it was no cleaner or more fulfilling to the lungs and senses. The view, whilst not in the eagle's eye category, was expansive. This is what Lionel had really come up here for. That, and to think about what needed to be done before daylight. He had to get his final Orders Of the Day…the ever-necessary OOD…knocked into shape and distributed for the new day and wanted to think out their key points with the help of a moment's peace.

A one-pager with five key points…no more eye-glazing Paralysis by PowerPoint these days.

A flickering dull orange spark of flame which rose and fell with erratic regularity drew his eye. Another of the many inexplicable building fires had sprung up in the supposedly abandoned city. This one was a long way off to the north-east in the no-man's-land of deserted nothingness that lay between his own little circular enclave of naval normalcy and the militia's Green Sector. There were said to be hundreds, if not thousands, of renegade refugees hiding out there in the Old City and in the hills to the north. Sewers, cellars, abandoned buildings housed them…whoever they were. They were no strangers to Lionel; he'd encountered them in every refugee center, these escrementi, tubatura and breccia gente…whatever the locals here called them. A floating underground population comprising criminal elements, the insane, military deserters, black marketers, King Rats, their willing…and unwilling…associates and others less blameworthy who'd elected to drop off the grid always existed in and around Safe Zones. Taranto was no different. Except in the next twenty-four hours, any civilian not at the port for evacuation would be left behind to take their own chances. Lionel supposed those who went to ground and stayed reasoned it was worth the risk.

Beyond the pin-prick of fire, someone was firing illumination flares into the sky ten or twelve kilometers away and his eyes could just make out an erratic sparkle of red-gold lights weaving into the black night in low random parabolas. Even at such a distance the eye-searing Icarus flares were sufficiently bright to touch out nearby building outlines and the face of the cigarette-smoking sailor.

Someone without night vision equipment was under attack…that's machine-gun tracer. One of the Italian militia posts in Sector Red from the looks of things. Poor fucking sods.

Or maybe a sentry thought they saw something, pulled the trigger and kicked off a panic attack…shit happens.

But Jesus Christ, they have every right to be jumpy tonight of all nights…out there beyond the piss-willy HESCO, Claymores, razor wire and perimeter lights…

After a long clutch of minutes, Lionel turned away and moved to the western railing. His reassurance was immediate; whatever was going down out there on the Safe Zone perimeter; three clicks away the container port was a model of order and regularity. By comparison to the city, the port was blaze of electric light which sparkled on the water and demarcated the wharves, container storage areas and roadways. A couple of vehicle headlights moved around and spoke of people…his people…doing their jobs. Yet it was the mass of smaller orange, flickering pin-points which attracted his attention the most. In port buildings, beneath strung tarpaulins, under the open sky around low-guttering oil drum fires they lay…his people too…or more like my responsibilities. Lionel was reminded of a descriptive passage in a book about an old-time army on the march…at the time of American Civil War he thought…which spoke of a valley filled with dotted night time camp fires.

There's a line in that Yankee theme, Battle Hymn of the Republic about such a sight too, I think.

America…my special little Yankee girl…

An estimated nine thousand Italian civilian refugees lay down there. They waited out their last hours on their home soil before the evac ships arrived…to whisk them from a Safe Zone…their home for the past three months…which was safe no more.

This time tomorrow night only the fucking zeds will remain in place here.

Taranto, Italy. March 2010. A little enclave of humanity and civilization: nine thousand civilian refugees, a clutch of Royal Navy ratings, a thin squad of Royal Marines, some drafted Green Army bods and a scratch battalion of local defense militia.

Pray to God the bloody broken-arsed evac ships get here on schedule. Let them do so and we can do the business. If not, we're neck-deep in the shit.

From his earlier, unobtrusive walk around the CP compound…unobtrusive, because no dog-weary combat soldier or technical rating ever wants an officer poking his nose in, Lionel knew those of his command who slept had dropped exhausted after the past few day's corrosively hard work. Others however wanted to sleep but couldn't…kept awake by jangled nerves and unquiet minds. They leaned with their backs against a wall or lay in their sleeping bags in respectful silence; a periodic orange glow of a drawn cigarette throwing the lower parts of their faces into brief freeze-frames of contrasting relief. A guttering blue hexamine flame spoke of two men brewing up teas or coffees; they'd sit later, their finger-burning metal mugs cupped in their hands…comforted by the act's simple reality.

A supply truck had crept into the CP from the harbor before nightfall and now there were MRE's in free supply. Food was always MRE's but few were genuinely hungry enough to relish them…who could? Simple energy…body fuel…was what counted; taste an unreachable nice-to-have. Lionel smiled to himself at the thought…once upon a time, not so long ago, there were clowns on reality television farting on about resting the rib-eye for medium-rare and shitting themselves over the fucking cupcakes being moist.

You want reality? Well, here's a fucking reality for you.

When Lionel returned to the CP's control room, one man…an off-duty naval rating…was writing an old-fashioned letter. He could not…probably would not…post it and would most likely fold up its pages and stash them in his pack. Lionel supposed he numbered each letter so that maybe one day…she…he…they…could read his thoughts, experiences and sentiments in the right order. Or perhaps the author would never send them and in time they'd be torn up and either thrown over the side into the ocean as a libation to the Mediterranean's mythological sea gods or sprinkled into an oil drum fire like a clutch of Japanese Shinto temple prayers.

Lionel understood the guy's motives. It was the act of writing…of transferring one's whirring thoughts to a medium…which generated solace to the soul. And it was always a fine line to draw between disclosing true feelings and felt experiences to another, and pulling the punch so that the reader…Her, oh God, Her…might be shielded from second-hand sights, sounds and emotions that no one could imagine…or should be expected to, no matter how vicariously.

And another man…one of the Marines…small and dark-haired…was cleaning his equipment. Compulsively. Too wired to sleep and too fearful to think. His hands worked out of a slow, carefully paced habit; his face focused in deep intent. It, the fear, would pass as each speck of dust and burnt oil was removed from his disassembled SA-80. Slowly he would become soothed by the slickly polished machined parts and, with an impeccably clean rifle and re-packed magazines in his hands, he would put his yesterdays behind him…and dare to think about the day ahead.

Another man, an exhausted navy signaler, snored on the carpet under a table in a darkened corner; undisturbed by the faint crackles and whispering syllabics chirping as they escaped from the off-set headphones wrapped around the head of his opposite number at the nearby radio set-up. The duty signaler, a tall red-headed rating with dark rings under her eyes, murmured something into her boom mike and scratched quick strokes across a message pad.

Lionel nodded his thanks when Marine Underhill mimed a pouring gesture at the battered copper kettle which steamed constantly…always on duty…above the low, hissing gas bottle flame. He accepted his drink with an acknowledging smile and shifted over to sit next to George Braddon. George was a comparatively new arrival on the Duke but had fitted in well and Lionel trusted him enough to delegate most…if not all…of the proper and correct duties of an erstwhile second-in-command onto his capable shoulders. George had come to them from the Westminster and had been on two prior Safe Zone evacs…all good, switched on and he hasn't yet fucked up.

Braddon looked at Lionel with red-rimmed eyes and said quietly: "What day is it?"

Lionel knew the question was pointless, his companion was either going somewhere or he was simply making conversation.

"You have to ask?" Lionel tapped the dial of his wristwatch.

"Yes."

"We've been here two and half days…call it three days. And tomorrow night we'll be taking on supplies in Salerno with all this behind us. Onward and upward."

There were wide gaps in their terse exchanges. Each simple word and phrase seemed so cosmic in its individual importance that it had to be left to grow, mature and slowly dissipate into molecular nothingness.

"Three days. Seems like months."

"Viewed back-to-back, it is. Taranto is an ellipsis in a footnote in a Lord of the Rings trilogy that's being written faster than buggers like us can read it. Years, George, years."

A faint rattle of a far, far-away machine-gun came down to their ears on a fluke of wind through the open patio door.

"Years…hard to imagine. Like Afghanistan…had a cousin who was out there back in '05. Terry the Taliban was supposed to be tits-up by Christmas."

"Some hope, eh? Politicians, George."

And across the Atlantic…where She was…time multiplied by distance, squared…

If there was gunfire and those fucking zeds over there…in America too, would She be somewhere watching and listening to it?

God make Her safe.

Lionel had thought of it often…every day…when the walls of duty and everyone wanting five minutes of his time weren't closing in. Of her bright, animated, pretty face twisted in fear and isolation. He unobtrusively clenched a fist and pressed it hard into his chest so that the little gold cross that hung here was impressed into his breast bone.

There's been no news for so long. Christ, I've seen the fear and wild despair so many times on the faces of the women and young girls…refugees from hell on earth. It's always the nineteen…twenty-year old girls in the crowds of evacuees who draw my attention…in them, I always see Her….

"It may be years, but if the zeds keep forming mass hordes they're buggered," Lionel said.

"How so? At the moment they're sweeping all before them and we have to cut and run. It's not right."

"It won't always be like that George. We can't knock 'em down when they're spread out over the countryside and hiding in cities in cellars and dens like they did last winter. However when they form a horde and hit the open road, it gives us a chance to smash seven colors of shit out of them."

"If we could only assemble the firepower."

"We can and I daresay we will…maybe not this I grant you. By hording up, the zeds' herd instincts are playing into our hands. That's their weakness…the spring migrating season…if you will."

"I get your point, Lionel. Instead of playing nursemaid to evac ships, we should be drawing…letting…the zeds come down to the coast in their tens of thousands and flattening them. "

"Can you imagine it?"

"Easily. Let them horde…so we can clobber them."

"It's a thought. I bet some bright spark at the head shed has thought of it already."

"Most likely." Lionel suppressed a yawn. He'd expounded his pet theory before to other colleagues. George Braddon was a fresh pair of ears though. "I bloody well hope so…the Russians are already doing it, the Chinese too."

"Did you read the latest sitrep Lionel?"

Lionel rotated and stretched his neck, willing the aching stiffness to ease. His eyes felt overtaxed and strained. He expected their muscles had flickered and moved constantly during his fitful sleep. An old problem.

"Which one? What'd say?"

"Came in about an hour ago, you were kipping. They got a thermal imaging drone up when it was dark enough to make a difference."

"Go on."

"Said we're fifteen clicks from the zeds here."

"You reckon it's true? The last one said thirty kays-plus. They'll be showing up at the perimeter wall in five or six hours if it is."

"They'd never put it in a sitrep if it wasn't mate."

Lionel sighed. "I'm just a ship's engineer George. You know me, turbine-electric engines are my forte…this is all still a bit new to me…especially sitreps generated by army intelligence from air force sources sent through naval channels. I saw some steady firing out to the north-east with illum flares from the militia's Green Sector. Ten clicks out is about right. One of the Italian wall posts getting hit by the horde's advance runners…"

"We should call it in?" His tone was as an interrogative suggestion, not an imperative.

"Why? We're port defense and refugee evac remember. There's militia out on the perimeter, they'll have seen it and made their own decisions."

"I suppose you're right. Cover your arse though and put a line in the duty log."

"I shall…no problem."

Then the two officers stopped talking about it, switching down and off. Lionel was helplessly aware that it was someone else's job to worry about some unknown Italian perimeter guard post either with their panic-pants on or coming under attack.

Yet there was no escaping the reality. The advance echelons of a zed migration horde numbering in the tens of thousands…upwards of two hundred thousand or more…was so close…ten clicks.

He was here because of orders to be here; when he moved, it would be to orders…forwards to the perimeter, backwards to the harbor, up in the sky in a Lynx helicopter…or out to the safety of the Duke. It didn't matter that thousands of thoughts buzzed through his mind; nothing changed. Orders would dictate action. The zeds are here, are there; you will evacuate X thousand Italian civilians to transport ship Y; your assigned unit is to establish embarkation facilities sufficient to accomplish this mission.

This is the way wars are fought, as managed and administered imperatives, in strict accordance with OOD…Orders Of the Day.

Except when there are no OOD's…because the buck stops with the Royal Navy's Beachmaster…me. And…tick-tock…zeds will be here in five hours and I have nine thousand…call it twelve by the time this cluster fuck will have unraveled…kids, women, oldies, disabled and cowardly able-bodied men to Dunkirk over onto a couple of bloody transport ships that're seven hours away.

"How's your brew, Lionel?"

"Done."

"Want another one?"

"Nah…too soon. Maybe later. Don't let me stop you though."

"Pass. Any more and I'll be pissing every ten minutes."

"Too true."

They lapsed back into silence. The dice had been thrown. The harbor was ready to bring the ships alongside…two big ferries with plenty of room for everyone. The outer perimeter wall was manned by local defense militia and on high alert with razor wire, ditches, floodlights, machine-gun posts and five thousand Claymore mines set up at chokepoints. When the zeds arrived in full strength, they'd be slaughtered…cut down like grass. And Duke and Bersaglieri stood ready off-shore to provide gunfire support.

Except it's all bullshit. The perimeter will never hold…not in a million years. Not against a migration horde of two hundred thousand zeds….

Lionel had visited the safe zone perimeter. It was fit for purpose. A banked line of HESCO blocks, shipping containers and similar improvised barricades integrated into pre-existing buildings. Cleared firing zones were laid out and choke points established with the assistance of artful demolitions. Banks of razor wire were staked and spread and supported by Claymore funnels. It was great and had worked well. Fit for purpose…if by purpose one meant keeping random individual and small clusters of zeds out of the Taranto Safe Zone and providing a base for militia hunter-killer teams to drive out in technicals to take down other confused roamers at safe and easy driving distances.

Reassuring too. Machine gun posts overlooked approach lines and bright perimeter lights turned night into day.

I bet these defenses have even featured on propaganda videos.

Except it's all so much bullshit. Fact….

Two hundred thousand zeds will roll over the perimeter wall like a tsunami wave. They'll keep coming and the more you kill, the higher the pile of bodies will grow until it overtops the wall and the zeds can drop over…or a machine gun overheats or breaks a firing pin…or a bunch of militiamen shit their trousers and gap it…. Fact….

Razor wire doesn't work on zeds. In fact it helps them get where they want to go because the ones who get tangled up form bridges for the ones pushing on behind. Fact….

Mark One defenses didn't fucking work. Fact.

But we know what does. The Chinese showed the way, but the Russians…trust the Russians…locked the principles in.

The military was learning fast how to defend against mass hordes of migrating zeds on the march after coming out of their winter hibernation. As expected, Russia wrote the rule book for World War Zed. Vladimir Putin. Supreme Warlord. Hailed as the new Stalin: a ruthless autocrat with unlimited powers who got the job done – Old School WW2 Stalingrad style. The Second Great Patriotic War. The Battle of Kiev Citadel…on a par with that of Kursk 1943. A tremendous victory. Massive and multiple belts of Crocodile Bands…millimeter-thick strips of 200 mm carbon steel cut into long serrated teeth on both sides and banked up as high as three meters from the ground. Zeds were impaled and bled out in their thousands…and when a belt was surmounted, quarter-kilo charges of plastic explosive were fired from underneath. Any zeds not cleaned off the belt by the blast were shredded by its shrapnel. At Kiev there'd been six belts of Crocodile Bands. And that was before the zeds encountered another pair of Russian specialties: massed artillery firing air burst shells and heavy rockets. And tank units who worked in pairs firing beehive flechette rounds; pairs so that the one could delouse the other of zeds with its machine guns. And all the while attack helicopters had ranged over the choke points. Lionel remembered video footage of two hard-faced Russian aviator chicks at a medal parade: their helio alone reportedly culled over five thousand zeds at Kiev.

We should be so lucky at Taranto. No…razor wire won't work here.

The dice had been thrown. Mission directives stood. Transport ships would arrive at their assigned wharves, their stern doors would open, and two hundred refugees a minute step aboard…one hour, make it two for cock-ups and the mission will be accomplished.

This is a big evac and seems easy…a lot of detailed work, but the overall plan is a piece of piss. It's the small evacs that are harder.

The two naval officers sat in silence, alone with their thoughts. Lionel watched the night though the open patio door; his ears unconsciously attuned to the signaler's occasional, quiet mutter into her mike…all routine acknowledgements…no worries. He was secure in the company of his fellows, and of the men who waited on the perimeter…and the naval petty officers and ratings who were teed up for action down at the harbor.

The whole box of tricks explodes into action when the transports rumble their way into the harbor. Everything hinges on that. Pray to God that the damn transports can lift up their bloody skirts and run.

Lionel suddenly thought of Eddie Hammond, and the way he'd suddenly fallen apart; sobbing, sitting on the ground in helpless paralysis, eyes unfocused…seeing a world that those around him could not. His limbs and head had twitched and jerked as if hit with low-voltage electricity. Worst of all was his breathing…huge, hurried and panicked lungfuls…as if drowning or being gassed in the open air. Symptoms or legacy residuals of what a few minutes before had been something else: a man – like any other in this squalid room.

Lionel spoke softly, barely above a whisper, so that the other personnel could not hear: "I was thinking of Eddie…Eddie Hammond just now."

"Poor sod. He held it together for so long."

"Yeah, he went through a lot alright."

"He'll be evaced to Gibraltar I expect…when a chopper arrives to get him into the system."

"Are you serious, George?" The words hung. Medevac helicopters were a once-upon-a-time thing: a sort of Harry Potter species of mythical object. They existed, but few mortals had seen them. "Hammond's down at the port in the aid station knocked out on an IV of jungle juice."

"Right. Sorry…I wasn't thinking. Gibraltar…that's a happy thought. Gib…then home. I can't wait, can you? You've been out here since the earlies… Gibraltar and home…well that's what the little birds say."

"I hate little birds," said Lionel. "But yes…I've seen enough of the Med and sunny Italy and Greece and the Gulf of Sirte and Malta and…etcetera to last me a few years."

"I'm with you there mate."

Lieutenant Eddie Hammond. Lionel hardly knew the man. Green Army. A pongo. He was young…an Army subaltern from some regiment with an animal…an antelope…on its cap badge; drafted into the navy to help fill one of the yawning gaps in the attenuated thin blue line of European Coalition warships. Eddie Hammond…nice enough bloke…very quiet…kept to himself…an artillery officer…or was he from a tank unit? Assigned to one of Her Majesty's frigates as a Dogsbody Officer as she dashed hither and thither around the Mediterranean plugging gaps…holding the line.

Like all of us.

Desperate times…like those German Air Force bods in the end-game of World War Two…aircraft mechanics handed a helmet and rifle and re-rostered as infantrymen on the Russian front.

Eddie Hammond…he'd seen and experienced combat…Afghanistan certainly…the god awful defense of Ostend for definite. So some bright spark in the MoD decided he deserved a nice restful cruise in the warm, sunny Mediterranean.

Lieutenant Eddie Hammond. Rule 303.

European Union Emergency Defense Regulation 303 (2009).

Banks of bright maintenance lights purposefully cancelled out any trace of a shadow in the wide, high cavernous space of Iron Duke's helicopter hanger and decolorized the faces of the assembled servicemen and women. There were more than eighty of them, standing and seated wherever convenient facing the conference table and drop-down projection screen.

"This is a wholesale evacuation of civilians from the Taranto Safe Zone in advance of a migration horde. It will be one of the largest such operations thus far in the war."

On cue the hanger lights dimmed and the first of a series of maps and aerial photographs appeared on the projection screen. Captain John Grindley-Harris RN had a laser pointer in his hand; he aimed at the projected images and spoke to his assembled crew while the ever-present thrum and rumble of a warship at sea provided an audio counterpoint. Soft light burned steadily on the scene. It showed weariness in every face, tiredness, a shabby wornness…and fortitude.

A slow sequence of aerial photographs taken by surveillance drones held everyone's fixed attention. The red laser's red dot skipped and swirled…capturing them like so many mesmerized cats.

"Ladies and gentlemen, an infected horde on the march. Energized by the warm weather and hungry as hell and animated by a collective mass instinct. As you can see it has steadily met and coalesced into a tide flowing southward from the interior corners of southern Italy. A migration horde. Not as large as others you all know of, but large enough. Three days ago when these images were captured it was estimated to be one-twenty thousand strong. To be honest with you, I think that number's bloody conservative."

As did others around him, Lionel glanced down at his open briefing pack and took in the full-color oblique-angle images; large sections of open ground were packed with countless, de-saturated human figures – the focus too distant to make out individual features. Grey human blobs…filling every street, open field and autostrada…like alien corpuscles freeze-framed in constricted blood capillaries.

"There's no one else but the Duke and our old friend Bersaglieri in the cast of this play." The audience broke into small grins, a few heads nodded, a couple of members clapped at the mention of the Italian frigate. Iron Duke and Bersaglieri were tight-bonded by mutual respect born of joint success and shared experiences…sister ships in full spirit. "Duke will handle the shore arrangements and embarkation, Bersaglieri is assigned as transport escort and will come under command to assist as and when needed once the embarkation is under way. I mention this because in the event of any large-scale upsets we're on our own, left to our own devices and can't expect any help from any other quarter."

Lionel felt his mouth dry. He'd already had a heads-up…a gypsy's whisper…that he was in the barrel as the Beachmaster who would Emm-Cee this concert. Whatever happened in his later life and wherever he ultimately ended up; this briefing would remain an indelible memory. He knew many others around him guessed he'd drawn the short straw; their surreptitious glances in his direction were a mixture of blank curiosity, tight relief and…in one or two instances…mild antipathy. Lionel threw his eyes around their ranks in return…he needed to pick his shore party and was working on a short-list of the names he wanted on his team. The assembled crew's faces contrasted starkly with the background of grey painted metal and bright yellow warning markers. They each had their own postures; some stood or sat at angles, an arm draped over a chair back, a shoulder lifted as one nudged a neighbor to gesture at something in the briefing pack, a broad back with legs splayed aggressively apart and the head fixed in a gaze at the screen, and over there at the back, a couple of distracted heads not paying any great moment of attention. The bad boys at the back of the class; happy not to be involved.

"Our primary objective is to evac upwards of twelve thousand Italian civilians from Taranto onto two ro-ro ferries via the container port, here. These people have been established in this Safe Zone for the past two months but now it's time for them to leave. The outer perimeter defenses cannot be held against a migration horde. Once this mission is complete we shall most likely withdraw to Gibraltar for a refit. I take it nobody here has any objection to a spell of R and R?"

The audience stirred and here and there a face cracked into wide smile; Grindley-Harris' words hung in the air…the perfectly delivered punch line. Lionel felt the wire-spring of tension ease slightly within himself.

It was then that he specifically noticed Lieutenant Hammond sitting in the front row diagonally opposite. Hammond was not smiling…in fact it was as if he'd stiffened and clicked-up tighter at the Captain's light-hearted comment. Hammond was intent; impatient almost and in that scattering of seconds Lionel understood all too clearly that the man's nerves were strung across an abyss. An army officer out of his element, torn away from the surroundings of his regiment…an army officer who was too young and who had, by all accounts, seen too much.

Yet I'm required to have him on my shore party because he speaks fluent Italian and can provide me with ground combat insights and experience.

I don't want the poor sod.

Lieutenant Eddie Hammond. There was no steadiness in him, and no reserve of the capital a combat officer must have if he is to get through a war. Hammond had been drawing down his courage…spending his capital…saving none of it for tomorrow, and the day after that. War is a long game and human victory goes to those who can pace themselves and not fly at its open flame like a moth determined to win through and extinguish its heat through sheer willpower and the strength of its beating wings. Eddie Hammond was unaware of this simple truth…or if he was, for whatever reason he'd decided to blank such self-knowledge out and plunge like a kamikaze…a falling cherry blossom…into the maw. Hammond surely knew that each person has only so much capital in the bank and when it's used up, it's gone and finished. There are no loan or overdraft facilities when the account balance plunges to zero. Time and rest and sleep are needed to replenish the essential numbers and de-tune the over-taxed mind.

Lieutenant Eddie Hammond. A nice bloke, but he was compelled to push on, swept on by a delusion that he was the only man who can be active and aggressive.

Perhaps he's doing it for revenge…payback for the loss of someone dear?

Would I do likewise…flip into self-destruct mode…if I lost Her and there was no one left to live for?

Army lieutenant Eddie Hammond. He must never stand still and wait or his fears would catch up and his nerve would crack…go…shatter. And when his nerve fractured, panic and paralysis would come in at a flood. One day, Eddie Hammond would not be in a position to run forward…his massive, impregnable battle tank or battery of 105's administering shock and awe on legions of the undead…in a spirit of hyper-optimistic carpe diem. Instead he would have to make a stand and let events…the enemy…come to him. In that moment, he was going to break.

No my mate. Lieutenant Hammond, I would prefer you stay aboard and sit this one out.

Lionel looked away and re-gathered his thoughts, seeking comfort in the Captain. Grindley-Harris was the stand-out professional here. He disliked panic and disorder. He also disliked men and women who were slovenly, inclined to panic and who could not or would not display intelligent qualities of initiative. He spoke with measured calmness, focusing on a situation's essence…its fundamentals…and stripped away ruthlessly all the bullshit and peripherals. A clipped, decisive professional senior naval officer who always arrived ahead of those who wore themselves…and their colleagues…out with busy-work and useless pernickety detail. Lionel suspected that for some reason Grindley-Harris had hand-picked him for assignment to Iron Duke – at a time when engineering officers were as scarce as rocking horse shit and sea captains were obliged to take whoever they were given. Lionel did not much like his Captain…their worlds and ranks were too far apart for that…but he respected him implicitly and was ready to go into hell under his command.

"Lieutenant Commander Wilkinson is to be the Beachmaster and will prepare his orders accordingly. For those of you who are new to this, I need to point out that under Regulation 303, once his shore party has landed a Beachmaster has supreme authority to act. This means that not even the Prime Minister can go and take a slash without his permission if such a high-level politician should ever pay him a visit ashore."

Lionel allowed himself a relaxed smile and nodded in acknowledgement. Eddie Hammond's eyes burned on him in a wide, fixed stare.

A bullet-pointed PowerPoint appeared.

"Here's the overall time line. The short answer is that we're in a race against the horde with a four and half day time window to prep, organize, evac and withdraw. Any delays will mean the infected get into the city and will overrun it. In the event of that happening, Iron Duke will not, repeat not, withdraw but will prevail…or die…at Taranto in defense of the civilians under our protection."

Grindley-Harris waited and looked calmly around the hanger space. No one moved. Even the bad, distracted boys up the back were fixated.

"War is an uncertain business and this mission hinges on the transports keeping to schedule. I expect they shall not. For this reason, if the bloody zeds look set to beat us to the punch I plan to take Iron Duke into Taranto harbor in order to provide direct, repeat direct, fire support at point-blank range to the container port defense line for so long as it takes the transports to arrive or ammunition to run out." The Captain made a quick mime show of counting heads. "Against this eventuality we shall be RV'ing with fleet supply ship Sarum Venture at 10:15h today to take aboard a maximum supply of munitions. By my calculations each of you here will have shifted the equivalent of three metric tons of ammunition by the time we break for Taranto. I suggest you all limber up, stretch, do yoga…or pilates…because I guarantee all of us, myself included, will have pretty bloody sore backs tonight."

The Captain visibly relaxed, signed for the lights to be turned up and put his hands in his pockets. Lionel found himself blinking at the sudden restoration of brightness. "Personally I like a job like this one where the goals are clear and the boundaries can be seen. Like you, I dislike the type of mission that's tossed into our lap at the last minute and slides into a madman's breakfast of confusion as everyone flaps around for solutions. I know you all feel the same, and that's why I have complete confidence in you and in our collective ability to nail this mission. Thank you…divisional heads will set up separate briefings. Are there any questions?"

Most of the seniors had questions; as was only right. Briefing pages were turned over, comments flew to and fro, as each traced the logic of the Captain's answer and locked in the solution. Most were quickly satisfied; those who were uneasy would never be because in their eyes, no plan or campaign or commander was ever right. But they could command a division or department or span of duties; weak links in the unending chain they might be but they possessed the strength to do so or they would not be aboard HMS Iron Duke in a war zone.

Except for Lieutenant Eddie Hammond. Rule 303.

Their talking fell away again. Lionel dialed into the signaler for a moment then switched to a persistent, harsh-barking dog that could have been around the nearest corner – or six blocks away. The animal's mindless sound was malevolent. A sound like that, empty of purpose and meaning lost its audience's sympathies, and every man who heard it hated the fucking animal in his heart.

Lionel closed his eyes and unfocused.

The picture came back instantly…as it invariably did at such times. From the edge of a tired mind where it parked up…waiting…on sleepless nights like this when random psychological triggers…Hammond's memory this time…were pulled.

Parga…

Parga, an unremarkable Greek resort town; all browns, reds, ochres, blues and white-trimmed buildings piled up in a stack on a steep hillside with the roof of one house level with the door of the one behind. Parga. All flummoxed and schmozzled architecture and as tight as a crab's arse to get into on a damned tricky stretch of rocky, shallow coastline. Homer's wine-dark sea. Part-modern…until the 2008 financial crash extinguished the embers of post-Athens Olympics construction work and kept the Germans away but mostly old…in a country where old could mean 1650 or 1950.

Parga, notable in 2009 for being a refugee evacuation port; a small one for a change.

Intel said there were a little over two thousand refugees in Parga. They'd trickled down from points inland and waited for a week to be uplifted by sea. A C-130 run out of Sicily had sustained them with airdropped supplies every few days, and now it was time for them leave. An ancient inter-island ferry taken off the Corsica-Marseilles run, the San Lorenzo II was to do the business. Iron Duke would supply the muscle because, in very early days, any flabby civilian ship attempting to evac civilians was an interplanetary alignment which guaranteed chaos energized by me-first panic.

The authorities had learned quickly in the wake of the Giralda Disaster. Muscle was needed. It was essential.

At Parga, muscle came in the form of twenty of Iron Duke's bluejackets with rifles and fixed bayonets, some attached Royal Marines and an energetic naval officer in white and gold dress cap acting as Beachmaster. Sent ashore to enforce minimum standards of behavior. Backed up by a low, grey frigate in close escort. Combined, they had a magical calming influence on the excitable, the panicky, the over-inflated self-important…and the ever-present criminals waiting to conflagrate the opportunity for their own advantage.

Bluejackets. Backed up by European Union Emergency Defense Regulation 303 (2009) which conferred sweeping powers of authority on selected military personnel to act as they saw fit according the prevailing circumstances without fear of liability…civil or criminal. And so it came to pass that naval Beachmasters in charge of evacuation schemes came to sit second only to God in the Pantheon of the All-High. Not since the days of Trafalgar had individual naval officers possessed such unfettered and sweeping, unquestioned…unquestionable…autonomous powers of command. Power unlimited. And with responsibilities to match.

Parga, a routine mission for The Dukes by then, and it was Buggin's Turn…Lionel's name appeared next on the duty roster. Parga was his. This was only fair, short-crewed as they were. Cross-training was King. Branch-of-Service trades unions had gone by the board. If ship's caterers could man radar sets and small boats, a ship's engineer would don his impressive service cap…to impress the natives…, strap on a belt kit, take up an MP-5 and loop a Beachmaster's brassards through his shoulder epaulettes. He…or she…could then pretend to be a Victorian-era RN officer on assignment to a Naval Brigade…not up the Nile to Khartoum to rescue General Gordon, but into tin-pot evac shit hole fly-traps…like Parga, Greece.

Parga. At first it had been the usual disorganized comic farce. Loud, unwashed men and women asserting their non-existent self-rights with an authority gifted only by a physical presence and whatever past social or economic clout they deluded themselves they still possessed.

But it made no difference if you were once the mayor or a local body politician or owned the local cement factory or had money and a bad comb-over or had once fucked or been fucked by any of the above.

Because the rules were clear. Rule 303, as interpreted by a twenty-something naval officer, bloody well made them so.

Women and children boarded the transport first, the elderly and the lame second, and the able-bodied men sucked on the hind-tit and pushed their way up the boarding ramp root-last. Yet Lionel and his unit remained pragmatic realists. Of course family groups embarked together…even if an Uncle Georgio of dubious provenance had to wait a while. The objective was to evac civilians in safety and with utmost speed: cruelly adhering to bureaucratic bovinity was not.

Parga. For once San Lorenzo II arrived on time and had suffered no constitutional problems in the tummies of its tired diesels; her stern door had lowered onto the jetty with a hollow metallic boom and an expectant throng had streamed into her dark and rusty bowels in a noisy but orderly fashion. It had been an easy jive. Lionel was impressed and had radioed the Duke that he believed the uplift could be accomplished…home and hosed…within an hour…a Pizza Hut home delivery record.

Two thousand refugees. A small number. Too easy.

Then part of it turned to rat shit.

Lionel had been standing off to one side on the jetty, nodding and smiling encouragingly to the passing civilians. He was flanked by an armed naval rating in boarding rig with a radio set and a close-protection bodyguard, a cheerful Royal Marine in full combat gear who overtopped both sailors by an easy six inches. The sun had been warm and the day bright although the winter air was chilly.

A small Greek boy suddenly ran out of somewhere and began yelling excitedly at one of the bluejackets…Dave Brewer from the electronics branch…a crowd marshal…at alert-ease to the side and at the rear of the shuffling flow. The kid was screaming…ear-piercingly so…and Lionel had sensed an uneasy stir in the refugees' ranks within earshot of the kid's caterwauling. Trouble. A glance at Brewer's bewildered face was enough; Lionel quick-walked along the fringe of the crowd; his personal signaler and Marine dropping into station…his shadows.

The boy was aged about twelve and in gales of tears. Tears of fear, anger and urgency…as only a kid that age can emit. A torrent of rapid Greek poured out of him. Dave Brewer had a hand on his shoulder and was asking him in thick Midlands…Wha's tha matter kud?

Lionel snapped onto an anxious looking woman in the refugees nearby whose facial expression showed she was in the loop. He waved her over and demanded: "You speak English? What's the trouble here?"

"Sir, he says a man is attacking his sister. You must help."

The boy's attention had shifted onto Lionel and his two companions…they got the full brunt of his incomprehensible pleas. It was enough. Lionel ran a quick command into his headset radio for his 2-i-c to take over.

"Brewer, hold position. We'll be back in five once we've sorted out this little man's sister. Keep 'em moving."

He made a shooing motion to the boy, calling to the woman to translate. "Tell him to lead the way. You blokes, on me. We're going to play policemen. Stay on your toes this could be set up."

The woman quick-fired a volley of Greek at the boy who responded by turning and running towards a cluster of what had once been a harbor-side block of apartments. He slowed partway to ensure the men were following. They were.

They approached a nearby building. It was uniquely Greek and had once been a hard-scrabble fisherman's boathouse at ground level. A narrow flight of rough-stone external stairs led up to a two-windowed room above. In the 1950's Lionel imagined the fisherman's family living in that single upstairs space. The dwelling had since been gentrified; the boat shed was now a ground floor bijou vacation apartment and the upstairs was probably the same.

The boy babbled and pointed up the stairs. The Marine took in Lionel's nod, swung his SA-80 up into the high ready position and took point. Lionel fell in behind and un-holstered his service-issue Sig P226…he wasn't sure about cutting loose in a small room with the MP-5 he had slung across his chest…the signaler brought up the rear and used his bulk to block the boy from pushing past and getting into danger.

Slowly and silently they made their way up the stairs and stacked up below a small patio. Up here, the public address system blaring repetitive Greek from the San Lorenzo II was deafening…anyone in the upstairs room had to be a ninja to hear their stealthy approach.

In a five-four-three-two-one-go, the Marine booted the half-open apartment door and burst inside, rifle up. Lionel came in on his heels…heart bouncing.

The scene.

A disordered double-bed. Amidst its covers, a semi-concealed nude body of a small girl…it was a girl because the toe-nails were painted a pastel mauve…no more than nine or ten years old. Thin. Raven hair, spread as though a drowned mermaid. Mottled olive and pale coffee-cream skin. Face down but oddly perched up on her knees and collapsed elbows like how frogs were so often line-drawn in high school biology textbooks. A spew of yellow-brown vomit across the rumpled sheets. Her face was lying in it. Urine. Her bowels had relaxed too. Wet blood on her skinny thighs and paint brushed across her small, boyish buttocks. Motionless.

Lionel knew she was dead…the deep contusions around her neck simply confirmed what his instincts told him.

And standing beside the bed in a state of utter swivel-eyed confusion, a youngish male, about twenty. Sweat-glinting shaved head, ears full of silver rings, bloodshot eyes, white grubby T-shirt with a vivid logo for some Greek rock festival, black faux-leather studded motorcycle vest and black jeans. Barefoot. Euro-man the Underclass…a street corner yob; a foot soldier of the workless, welfare state lifestyle. His fly was open so that his dick hung out, half-erect and stained a wet liquid pink. Most probably he'd been in the process of jerking off before the Navy had crashed the party.

Lionel took in his pale greasy skin and dilated pupils…the guy was someplace else in Chemical Land…and he could see Baldy's misfiring synapses trying to process…three armed men in uniform didn't compute. Like where the fuck am I?

Horse tranks…Special K…dodgy Bulgarian stuff? Who knew?

It was easy.

Lionel shot him.

The P226 jumped in his hands, made an ear-ringing explosion and a miraculous hole appeared in the inner corner of Baldy's left eye. A bright hosepipe of blood, brain tissue and bone jetted from the back of his head until it encountered the pastel blue wall where spattered and larger fids of gluey material clung for fantastically short moments before sliding drippingly downwards.

Lionel dropped the hammer and holstered his pistol. No second shot would be fired. His target lay in a violently spasming sprawl half on the bed for a handful of seconds until its contortions let it flop sideways onto the floor. Bright blood fountained and squirted out everywhere nearby. Within seconds Baldy's head and its immediate surroundings took on the appearance of an Andy Warhol impression of a bowling alley.

"Vere," Lionel said to his signaler. "Take the lad down to the docks and pass him onto Brewer or some friendly face in the crowd. Owens, you have a phosphorous grenade?"

"I never leave home without one, boss." Marine Owens had bent and retrieved the spent cartridge case from the floor. He flicked it like a cigarette butt out the open window and unhooked a small canister from his combat webbing and passed it over. For form's sake, Lionel checked the girl for a pulse and gently pulled the coverlet over her. Baldy had by now added jagged breathing and a gurgling half-speech to his repertoire. He was bleeding out fast…but struggling, going to the Dark Place hard.

"Go."

Lionel pulled the pin on the grenade and tossed it into the corner next to Baldy. He slammed the apartment door behind him.

By the time the party had returned to the dockside, the upper windows of the building were sending up a black haze of smoke.

Parga, Greece. Rule 303. A funny thing. The one thing Lionel remembered most was the fuzzy smell of geraniums in the planters on the patio.

Baldy the Pedo-Rapist? Say hello to Rule 303.

Ten drowsy minutes had passed before the silence returned…or perhaps the fucking dog continued its open-circuited protest. For the wind had risen and switched direction from the sea and perhaps had taken the sound the other way, leaving them in blessed silence.

George Braddon stirred. "Lionel, listen."

Lionel pulled his eyes open and looked around curiously, his focus going onto the radio signaler. There was nothing untoward.

"To what?"

George held up a finger and waited. "There, hear it? Some idiot's singing."

The wind swiveled and it came down on the breeze clearly…or perhaps the singer had moved to a rooftop or turned a masking corner, allowing his voice to propagate more clearly.

"He's drunk."

"Pissed out of his bracket," said George.

"Hope it's not one of our lads."

"It better not be. The bloody fool's been at the Chianti from the sound of him. Chucking out time at the pub."

They listened. The song rose and fell as the singer lost his words and the wind turned; it was something with a tune…but unidentifiable. Department store muzak with garbled lyrics…a sound track for a film that would never be made. Lionel nodded at George who was keying into his personal comms radio headset. Lionel pulled on his own set to listen in…anything to buck the night's monotony.

"Sunray Two here, come in." George was speaking to the duty sentry commander.

"Bravo One, Corporal Packer here."

"There's some stupid bastard in the sector drunk and singing, can you hear him Corporal?"

"Affirmative, boss. He's on our left somewhere. Not one of our blokes. An Italian I'm supposing. A stray refugee or one of their militia maybe."

George looked over at Lionel and raised his eyebrows. Decision time. Lionel nodded and made a cutting motion with his hand. This was a bullshit problem…don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

"Bravo One, let him be. He could be armed and no one wants to get shot by some drunken bugger in the dark. With luck, he'll either fall down a manhole into the sewers or sleep it off in a doorway."

"Sounds like a plan, boss. I'll pass the word along to the lads. All quiet otherwise except…" Packer's soft West Country accent was bland and reassuring. "…err…boss, you heard anything from the defense militia on our front…White Sector recently? There's a fair old amount of vehicle movement and lights been a-goin' on out there for the past ten minutes…just started up, like."

Lionel shifted in his seat and cut in.

"Bravo One, this is Sunray One. What's going on with the militia? Over."

"Hard to tell, sir." Corporal Packer paused and Lionel knew the Marine was collecting his thoughts. "I've had eyes on from the OP. Plenty of headlights and vehicle noises along White Sector front…like a unit transfer's in motion, like. Ain't in the heads-up…that's why I wondered."

"Are the vehicles coming and going?"

"Negative. Headlights they come on and they's moving west at regular intervals across our front."

"Thanks Corporal. Good work. Keep a close watch on the situation and sing out if you see anything more unusual than it is already. Out."

The two officers looked at one another, individually processing the unexpected news. The duty signaler had been listening in and had come alert. Signalers knew everything.

"Sir, there's been no orders or heads-up about militia movements in White Sector," she said catching the officers' interrogative expressions.

Lionel was plunged into a quandary.

Local defense militia had their own chain of command under a separate Italian authority…and each ad hoc militia unit had its own idiosyncratic ways of doing things; for there was no High Command in Rome any more. The Royal Navy's authority, by contrast, was defined and circumscribed by orders, mission and resources. Its presence at Taranto was temporary and possessed a strictly limited scope: set up an inner perimeter at the harbor and get civilian refugees onto evac ships. Lionel's presence in an apartment block on a small hill three kilometers from the port was dictated purely by the needs of line-of-sight radio communications…nothing more.

Nominal and exclusive responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the Taranto Safe Zone's outer…primary…defense perimeter rested on the local militia forces; able-bodied civilians for the most part, organized into company units and considered capable of static guard duties on a fortified perimeter wall. They'd received intensive light weapons training and, the good units at least, were augmented by a sprinkling of military reservists, police and carabineri…whoever could be spared and had some para-military experience. Trained soldiers they were not; their job was to man defense bunkers and snipe the odd small groups of infected who strayed within range. These ones had impressed Lionel on first acquaintance with their ardor and visible dedication to their duties.

Lionel knew the Taranto Evacuation Master Plan backwards. With two hundred thousand-plus active infected on a food migration down the roads and passes into this part of southern Italy, the horde would swarm like African solider ants through Taranto. There was no possibility of defeating them. An old-school B-52 Arc Light strike could. Massed artillery, Russian and Chinese-style, could. Defenses-in-Depth, as per World War One trenches and bastions manned by layers of regular troops could. Easily.

But fifteen-hundred or so civilian militia with bog-standard rifles, a single line of medium machine-guns, razor wire and Claymores could not. They could delay. But not defeat. Culling sick and dying zeds stupid…or unlucky…enough to stray into a bank of razor wire was one thing; taking down a mass migration horde…quite another. The addition of the equivalent of a platoon and half of Royal Marines, some Green Army bods and reassigned naval ratings only added a flavor bean to the shit sandwich.

No. Not ever.

Hence the Evac Plan.

Unarmed civilians would be uplifted from the port whilst the militia held the perimeter. As civilian numbers wound down, the militia would fall back…some to the port and board a transport ship…others to prepared bastions based on impregnable 15th Century fortifications – there to hold out whilst being resupplied by sea. Royal Navy personnel would fold back onto the port, hold the contracting line against any zeds who might leak through the perimeter. The navy and Marines would be the last to leave, returning to their parent ship, HMS Iron Duke which, at that moment, was on-station eight kilometers out to sea teed-up to provide fire support with its 4.5 inch main gun. The frigate would enter the container port if needed and Bersaglieri would shift onto long range fire missions.

That was the Master Plan.

What the bloody hell was the militia doing?

"Get me though to the militia command post in White Sector," Lionel said quietly to the expectant signaler. He stood and watched as she keyed the speed call buttons on her console. Static fizzed and warbled in his earphones until a burst of slow Italian emerged with startling suddenness. That in itself came as a small pop of relief, Lionel had a picture of never being able to hook up to their radio nets. His alternative, taking a vehicle and going off to try find the militia CO in the night did not appeal.

"Milizia comandante, per favore. Este Regio Britannico marina comandante imbarcarsi. Urgente. Molto importante. Grazie." Lionel hadn't time to do anything about kitchen-sink pidgin Italian…it, plus his practiced naval officer tone of voice, would have to do…drinka pinta milka daya…no…not as bad as that. Sorry, Eddie Hammond …Mister Italian speaker…doesn't live here any more.

"Si, prego. Momento." The guy's day job was evidently at a budget internet service provider help desk.

A long wait ensued. Lionel rolled his eyes at George and the signals rating. He imagined some sleepy militiaman wandering around a darkened building with a torch and hand-held radio looking for someone to hot potato the call onto. Not for the first time he wished he had a bilingual militia liaison officer on hand; he should have insisted…but now it was too bloody late.

"Someone's gone looking," said Lionel into the air. This was redundant, everyone was listening in. "George, I've got a bad feeling about this. Rouse a couple of men and get 'em forward. Pass through Packer's position and keep going until they find the bloody militia in White Sector then radio back what the story is."

George Braddon gave a thumbs up and began speaking into his boom mike. There was a rising crackle of tension in the air.

"Hello, hello. Comandante Carboni speaking. How may I assist you, Commander Wilkinson?"

Lionel breathed a soundless sigh of relief; the Italian spoke better English had he did. Even better, the guy was switched on enough to know his name…plus Lionel's unofficial self-promotion in rank worked to level the command playing field…but then it always did.

"Good evening, Comandante Carboni. I'm sorry to bother you but my observation posts have reported militia vehicle movements on my front…in White Sector. Can you put me in the picture please…what's going on?"

"Please wait out, Commander. I shall check. There's nothing I'm aware of…please wait."

"Copy. Waiting out." Lionel frowned. The rising smell of a military cluster fuck had become disturbingly real.

A long handful of minutes passed, during which time two Marines presented themselves at the CP. Lieutenant Braddon took them aside, gave them their orders and they departed in a clatter of combat gear. A short time later one of the unit's commandeered civilian cars ground into life and drew off in low mutter of engine noise. Lionel did the arithmetic…

Ten or twelve minutes to reach the perimeter…tops.

He began composing a signal to Iron Duke in his head; they'd have been listening in on all this…as would be the signal team down at the port three clicks over his shoulder. There was a nasty quivering pile of shit at the top of the hill ready to tumble….

Captain Grindley-Harris on the Duke might have to intervene with someone high up on the Italian side…but he was the Beachmaster, the man on the spot with ultimate command. Plan C…whatever it was…would be of his devising. The mission was unchanged…evac the civilians…get them out from under the noses of the fucking zeds.

Lionel ran The Big Numbers again. The first evac transport was due to dock in six hours. The zed vanguard would be on the perimeter wire in five; no question about it. If the original timetable held good, the militia defenses would hold the zeds back for the four hours needed to clear the port before bugging out themselves.

The full scale of the risks had been long absorbed; fifteen hundred militiamen…three hundred for every kilometer of perimeter wall…one bod for every three meters of wire in raw theory. Cube that for force-multiplier effects; the wire, machine-guns, mines and whatever hot stuff Iron Duke and Bersaglieri could pitch into them. Call it three thousand trigger pullers versus…who knew? Odds of seventy to one looked possible.

Cut to the basics…the heart of the matter.

Everything hinged on the militia.

"Hello Commander. Do you copy?"

"Copy Comandante Carboni. What news?"

"I have checked for you." Carboni's tone stopped just short of condescension. From his accent Lionel picked up clear indications the man had spent time at a prestigious British university…Oxford, most likely. "The sub-commanders of Sectors Red and Green report all is normal. The commander of sector White is rebalancing his forces in preparation of the anticipated enemy attack which, I'm sure you know, is likely at around 06:00 hours today."

Lionel let puzzlement into his voice. None of this horseshit made sense.

"Rebalancing? Does that mean reinforcing? My observers report vehicle movement away from White Sector to the west…White lies directly across my front and blocks enemy access to the port."

"Sector White remains strongly held, Commander Wilkinson. All posts are manned, ready and alert."

"Remains? I'm sorry…am I understanding you correctly? Is Sector White being reinforced from Red and Green or are strength levels being reduced in Sector White? Over." Lionel felt a hot sweat on his forehead.

There was a pregnant pause. This was bad. When a military officer hesitated to reply to direct questions, the news was always adverse to the questioner's net interests.

"Commander," said Carboni at last. "The senior militia officers in Sector White believe their sector will take the full weight of the attack. In consultation, it has been decided to reinforce Sectors Red and Green on their flanks. That way, an increased volume of flanking fire can be directed onto the enemy. An inability to fire from the flank was always a weakness in the earlier defense scheme which, as you may well imagine, was set up to deal with insignificantly small numbers of enemy…not a migrating horde."

Carboni was putting up a wall of obfuscating words. Lionel weighed them, and tossed out those parts which didn't fit. George Braddon slid a marked-up defense map onto the table in front of them.

"With respect Comandante Carboni, the defense layouts in Sectors Red and Green do not permit the deployment of flanking fire into Sector White. Their firing positions face generally outwards to the north along the perimeter wall. There is no possibility of them firing in echelon to the south and west respectively…for one thing no firing positions have been established to permit this, and as you've doubtless noticed, there are hectares of intervening buildings masking their fire. Moreover flanking fire is only ever possible on an enemy who has entered a salient…in this instance a salient formed by a deep penetration through, I repeat through, White Sector.

Comandante, may I remind you that the plan is to hold the wall in White, and then have your men fall back for evacuation and into bastion strong points."

"Yet my commanders are confident the new defense plan will succeed and they have made suitable adjustments in their respective deployments and arcs of fire to neutralize the enemy with intense flanking fire," Carboni replied smoothly. "You are a naval officer, a ship's engineer are you not?"

Lionel knew what was coming and focused at a spot on the wall opposite.

"Affirmative. I have also exercised the responsibilities of Evacuation Beachmaster on no less than four occasions with complete success…this being my fifth such mission. I should also emphasize that the plan, as it stands, was approved by your High Command…yet you are now telling me that your junior commanders have unilaterally thrown it away for something else…which has no chance of working." Lionel's voice was tight but closely enunciated and pitched above the level where crispness of expression descended into terminal impoliteness…fuck this for a laugh...you cunt.

Carboni continued on a fresh tack as though Lionel had said nothing. "Sector White will fix the enemy to allow Red and Green to blanket them in a cross fire. Concentration of force, Commander is the first principle of warfare. The old scheme spread my forces along the entire perimeter and created weakness everywhere. Can you see that?"

"However when Sector White breaks, as it will do in short order, the enemy will have nothing in front of them but empty city streets which will shield them from this fanciful cross fire until they freewheel down to the port. Nine to twelve thousand of your own civilians are placed at risk," Lionel said stiffly. "Once White goes, there's only a platoon of my Marines between the enemy and these civilians…it will be a bloodbath on an epic scale. Surely you can see that Comandante Carboni?"

There was an incomprehensible mutter in the radio as though Carboni had placed a hand over the microphone before he spoke again. "Order, counter-order, disorder. The revised defense plan is under way. To countermand it now would derail all three defense sectors. No. The new plan employs the same strategy as was used by Hannibal against my ancestors at Cannae; soften the centre, strengthen the flanks, draw in the enemy and crush him. The new plan aims at the same objective, but the strategy is different, that is all."

"No one's crushing a massed army of a two hundred thousand mindless zeds…least of all fifteen hundred militiamen. Stop trying to pull the wool over my eyes," Lionel retorted. Politeness was at an end. He was a professional naval officer dealing with some fucking part-time reservist who probably once owned a bloody Alfa-Romeo dealership or ran a couple of gim-crack tourist hotels. "Comandante, you should know that this exchange has been audio-recorded. If…when…nine thousand or more refugees are ripped to shreds and are crushed or drowned in a mass panic at Taranto harbor, your direct responsibility in the matter will be known. I urge you to reconsider and countermand your orders and instruct your men to stick to the original plan. Please…all I need from your men in Sector White is three or four hours of resistance, my ship will provide maximum fire support…your guys are behind secure defenses…they won't be alone in this. They can do this job…and be bloody heroes into the bargain."

Lionel could almost hear his opposite number's dismissive shrug over the ether.

"Alas, Commander the orders have been given. My junior commanders are in complete agreement and their men have been informed of the revised plan. I regret you had to learn of it in this way, but notification was sent through the correct channels some hours ago. I have had these new orders endorsed by my superiors and cannot be held responsible for undue delays occasioned by…frictional losses…in your own service's communication channels and command structures."

"Which is grand way of saying your militia cannot stand and want to bug out and save their own skins," Lionel grated. Continuing to argue with this wanker was a waste of time…futile.

"Who was the American general at the time of their revolution who said 'he who depends on a militia is leaning on a broken reed'?" said Carboni in an abstract tone; he suddenly sounded tired and distant. Lionel had a picture of him taking up safe and comfortable residence in one of the medieval fortifications where tomorrow afternoon he could look down from battlements twenty-five meters in the air at the harmless drifting mobs of zeds below. "Such is the way of things…. I'm sorry Commander Wilkinson. I can perhaps arrange to call for volunteers from among my men. In fact I shall arrange to do so immediately and send them to you…after all it is likely that some have families among the civilians under your care."

"Do that. Every warm body capable of pulling a trigger will help. Please ensure they bring their personal weapons; I have none to spare." But Lionel had already lost interest. Carboni was simply gobbing off platitudes and pie-crust promises for the voice recorder to cover his arse down the track.

"I shall make all necessary arrangements. What ammunition I can spare I shall send to you. God be with you Commander Wilkinson."

"That's very comforting. Over and out."

Lionel stared out into the night and ignored the astonished muted exchanges that were taking place around him. The game had changed. The rules had changed. No longer was this to be a routine evacuation. He was the Evacuation Beachmaster, the buck stopped with him…and even if he refused…unthinkable…there was no time to bring in a replacement.

The container port. The port was the key to unlock the problem. The zeds would be loose in the city soon after daybreak, he could expect the first ones to pitch up at the port around 09:00h hours in the morning with the full pressure coming on an hour or so later. That meant there was a bare seven-and-a-bit hours to set up a proper defense perimeter at the port, delay the zeds in the city….and…ace in the hole…bring Iron Duke into the harbor where her guns could cover the defenses ashore from close range.

Compartmentalize. Focus on the essentials. Decide, don't imagine…or take the council of your fears.

And as if to mock his temerity and hubris, the bloody drunk started up again.

Taranto. Rule 303.

Lieutenant Lionel Wilkinson. Rule bloody 303.

"George…on the QT. Order Group for Marine detachment commander, Port Officer, Signals and Medical…here in…" Lionel consulted his wristwatch. "…twenty minutes."

Ten minutes later there came a faint series of shouts followed two single gun shots which made everyone in the CP start with alarm. Disturbed shouts broke the night's silence for the last time that evening as men tumbled awake and shifted in varying degrees of stealth to their alert positions. Lionel had removed his head-set and was marking key points down on a scratch pad. He saw George Braddon listening intently on his own personal comms set and hold up a pacifying hand when he caught Lionel's questioning look.

"The singing drunk approached a sentry post and refused to halt when challenged. He was armed, pointed his weapon, was challenged again, ignored it and was shot." Braddon's report was succinct.

"Who was the drunk, George?"

"A local, thank Christ. Going by the insignia and equipment, one of the militia. He's as dead as doornail." Braddon neatly anticipated Lionel's next question. "The Marine sentries are on their way to the CP now."

"Thanks George. I'll talk to them privately with you present." Lionel cut away. "Meantime, chase up those guys we sent out to the perimeter, they should be there by now. And when you've done that, please get a confirmation on what small arms ammunition stocks there are at the port."

"Onto it."

A few minutes later three fully equipped Royal Marines presented themselves at the CP. Marine Sergeant Phil McAlister, the detachment commander, stood four-square and stocky two paces to their front. As always when in the presence of such hard men, Lionel was acutely conscious of how Big Boys played Big Games by Big Boys Rules…these blokes weren't wet-eyed, tremble-lipped eighteen year-old naval ratings who went soft and sideways at the mere sight of his rank insignia. Royal Marine bootnecks were of the Navy but were independent of it: elite light infantry forged through centuries of achievement. A soft-handed engineering officer would need to watch his step very carefully around these hard men: a reality that Lionel understood all too well. The Duke had taken on board a platoon of Marines in a mirror of the old tradition when warships routinely did so to provide an unbreakable iron rod for both offense and defense. It was fortunate indeed that these men were available at Taranto; for they would be its rock.

Lionel stood and met their steady, unreadable eyes. "Let's bail next door where we can talk," he said. "Lead the way, Mister Braddon. Underhill, can you please organize a brew for these men?"

George Braddon ushered the group into one of the apartment's side rooms. He entered first carrying a softly hissing gas lamp. It filled the one-time bedroom with a harsh white light that was impossible to look upon without wincing. Lionel took the lead and casually sat back on a delicate white and gold dressing table.

"Take a load off you blokes and let's get this matter squared away." He gestured to the miscellaneous collection of furniture in the cluttered and unused room. Marine Underhill entered with handfuls of steaming mugs which he passed around, making a show of greeting his fellow bootnecks. Lionel knew this was one elite forces Masonic member exchanging secret handshakes with his fellows; he expected nothing less and would have been taken aback had it been otherwise.

Lionel made some general small talk until Underhill returned with mugs for himself and Braddon who pushed the door closed when he left. Lionel had thus been afforded time to collect his thoughts and study the three combat soldiers before him. Marine Martin dominated the room, for all his improbable surname, he was a powerfully built Fijian and radiated warrior-qualities. His opposite number, Payne, was fit-looking but a man of otherwise unremarkable features; the sort of man one would perhaps notice in the street only for his compact energy and deftness of movement. The third Royal Marine was present as of right: Sergeant McAlister, the Duke's Marine detachment commander. Aged in his late thirties with a hard, no bullshit Yorkshire accent he sat as if molded from granite; his intense black eyes gave nothing away and Lionel knew he was being weighed in the balance by a consummate professional soldier…and was probably coming up in very short measure. He could not afford to get off-side with a Sergeant-of-Marines.

"This is off the record," invited Lionel openly. "What happened?"

None of the Marines said anything for a long moment before Martin rumbled: "We heard the fella singing and when he approached our position I challenged him two times, boss. He didn't stop and kept advancing. He was armed. After the third challenge he stopped in front of us and moved his rifle like this…" Martin stood and mimed the action of raising a rifle from the low ready position into a shooting posture from the hip. "…that's when I dropped him." He shrugged and resumed his seat…game over.

Lionel turned to Payne. "You saw this happen?"

"Yeah boss. Night vision goggles. The bloke came round the block, weaved towards our position, was challenged repeatedly, stopped, raised his weapon and that's when Tommo slotted him at twenty meters."

"Who was he? Any ID?" Lionel asked it as a general question. Sergeant McAlister stirred and tossed over a wallet which he drew from his camouflage jacket. Lionel caught the warm greasy-leathered object and laid it on the dresser next to his thigh without opening it.

McAlister said in flat, factual tone: "An Italian male, aged about forty. There's a militia ID card in there which matches up with his ration card, sir. He had militia insignia on his uniform. His weapon and kit are Itie-issue." Lionel had to concentrate to follow the man's accent. Braddon made as if to speak, but Lionel held up a hand and motioned him to remain silent; there was hair-spring of tension in the room. It was crunch time.

"Sounds to me like the stupid bastard made a series of bad life choices: drunk, absent from his unit, ignoring repeated challenges and waving a weapon around. I'm sure that if he'd not been drunk, he'd be alive right now." Lionel delivered his verdict with casual but elaborate care. "It's happened before, it'll happen again. You blokes, especially you Marine Martin, did the right thing for the right reasons. Put your mind at ease, it was a tough call made under difficult circumstances…this matter is closed and won't be going any further. Sergeant, can I leave it to you take care of any loose ends please?"

The atmosphere lifted instantly and, professional hard-men that they were, Lionel noted the two Marines relaxed visibly on hearing his words.

McAlister's face cracked into a grim-lipped smile. "Sorted, boss."

Lionel stood, an action which drew all the men to their feet. "And there it is. You blokes need to know the general situation here's likely to change in the next hour or so and we all need to be on our toes. Right, that'll do it. A sad business, but there you go. Okay dismiss. Sergeant, can you stay behind for a minute, please."

Alone together, the Marine sergeant regarded Lionel with his unreadable flat scrutiny.

"Take a load off," Lionel said resuming his seat. "Forget about this shooting incident, this place is a shit-sweeper's picnic and one more dead 'un won't show in the statistics. The fact is I'm expecting the militia to bail out of White Sector leaving the bloody front door wide open to eight Wembley stadiums full of zeds that are right this red-hot minute less than fifteen clicks from the perimeter wall."

McAlister nodded and rotated his jaw. "I thought as much, the OP's have reported a mass migration."

"I'm expecting confirmation any minute. We're going to pull back to a tight defense at the port and hold them there until the transports arrive to get the people out." Lionel regarded the Marine sergeant with his own brand of level gaze. "I'm an engineering officer, you're the combat professional…this is our fight. I've got some ideas for port defenses but you're the bloke who knows the business. What you say goes. Tell me what you require, and my job is to get you what you and your men need…I shan't interfere or play amateur soldier."

McAlister nodded slowly, Lionel could see the man's brain was kicking into overdrive. "What's the overall plan, boss? If it was me, I'd form a defense line at the port, bring the Duke in for close-range support, and get some demolitions going in the city on the approach streets…zeds don't like rubble and rebar…it hurts their poor fuckin' feet. GPMG's…we'll need those…there's another six on the Duke and mortar bombs, as many as can be landed. I suggest you comb out as many matelots as can be spared from Duke to pull triggers and distribute ammo and supplies."

"Right, on to it. My thoughts exactly. Can you get a list of what you need together? I'm going to contact Duke as soon as I get confirmation of White going by the board and will call an Order Group within the half hour."

"The port defenses will take some doing. I suggest reinforcing the stacked shipping containers already in place to form a stronger perimeter wall and bastions with firing positions on top…overlapping arcs of fire for the GPMG's."

"Noted and approved. Lieutenant Braddon and I have been going over the port maps and have some preliminary ideas along those lines for you to look at." Lionel paused. "Meantime, get that list of what you need pulled together."

McAlister stared at him. "Are my guys in trouble?"

"No, Sergeant."

"Sure?"

"Yes. Rule 303 covers it. Take care of the body and weapon. This happened but stays completely off the record…an accident of war."

The bloody dog started up again; its full-throated tape-looped baying beamed in through the open window and echoed around the room.

"Glad to hear it, boss. Right…I'll get cracking. Sounds like we have a fuckin' interesting day ahead of us."

Five minutes later the Command Post was a disturbed nest of activity, criss-crossing voices and moving lights. Lionel felt the heat radiating from the oil drum fire on his face and hands. He dropped the leather wallet into the flames and turned towards the apartment where his section leaders were starting to gather.

Rule 303. Supreme authority. Crushing responsibilities.