Authors: Justin Gowland
The SA80 rifles were brought in just as we were finishing basic training. I have to admit the extra firepower would be good, but I would rather of had the old SLR (Self Loading Rifle) it fired a 7.62 round unlike the SA80 that fire the NATO standard 5.56. The SLR hit harder and did more damage and you knew if you hit the target wasn’t going to get up.
“Meh, we are out and about so might as well try” I thought ‘I mean what can go wrong?’
Pulling away from Hombase, Rees looked at me out the corner of my eye and said “Walker you remember Philly from basic?”
Jesus that is a blast from the past Philly was a member of our training group and one of our mates. He had a bad time of it when we first entered basic. You see for want of a better word he snored like a lumberjack with a chainsaw shoved up his butt. Well, after the first couple of sleepless nights and early mornings, tempers were a little frayed. So the boy wanted to try and get Philly to sort out his snoring or quit. Yeah, well, we were all eighteen and full of male pride.
So late one night when we were suppose to be sleeping in our sleeping bags because we didn’t want to mess our beds up for the inspection the following day. We strapped him up with bungee cords and hung him outside the second floor dorm window with more bungee cords. We couldn’t believe that he didn’t wake up whilst we moved him and hung him out the window. But we did hear the screaming and shouting of our training sergeant in the morning. We all got a beasting (punishment Army style) that we deserved for the next three hours, but we had to admit that he did try to stop snoring after that. By getting all the over the counter gear he could that said it stopped snoring. It did nothing but all the lads in the barracks got used to the snoring, the up side was he was a good squad member and a great mate.
I looked over at Rees “Yeah, I remember Philly, he was a good lad always did what he was told unlike some. Why?”
Rees looked down and seemed upset then said “He’s dead, he was killed in Afganistan about six months ago an IED blew up Hummer he was in.”
“Shit, man he was on about coming up to see me when he was in the UK next. I was looking forward to seeing him.”
“Yeah, he was a laugh, when he wasn’t all ways trying to one up other you or the other lads. You know what I mean, I would say something like ‘I have a high score on Call of Duty of 300 kills’ and he would have said ‘Well, my personal best score is 502 kills and that was in one game.’ There were times I wanted to kick the shit out of him, but you are right about him always doing his duty. I will miss him as well.”
I laughed a short bark of laughter and said “Come on lets sort out these assault rifles from the Chester-Le-Street depot. You know your way round inside don’t you?”
“Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem even now the access codes or the gates if the electric is working.”
With that, we drove on to the A167 and headed toward Chester-Le-Steet. The road was a standard dual carriageway from Durham to Chester-Le-Street. Driving at a reasonable pace we started to come across wrecks and had to swerve in and out of them. The strange thing was that we saw no corpses in the vehicles or on the ground around them. Yeah, there was blood and I mean a lot of blood but no bodies. This was strange and I said it to Rees, who just shrugged and kept on driving.
Coming to one of the roundabouts outside of Chester-Le-Street itself, we saw a lot of devastation. One entire row of houses had been burnt literally to the ground and a garage must have blown up because there were parts of cars and machinery scattered all over the place. We slowed the Land Rover to a crawl and followed the dual carriageway along the outside of the town. We needed the last roundabout because the TA training center was not far off it just past the Aldi store.
We pulled up short of the TA Center because we saw a block of apartments that looked like it had been fortified. The ground floor windows had been covered with large sheets of plywood braced with two by four beams. The entrance to the central car park had been blocked by a van, the large box rear of the van covering the entrance. Whilst we sat looking at the apartments, I saw movement in one of the windows.
“Rees, there are people in there! I saw movement in that top right corner window.”
“Yeah, noticed the movement myself. Looks like they have this place pretty much battened down. I don’t think I would like living this close to a town center. What do you want to do?”
I paused for a few seconds while I thought of what to do. “Might be best we go sort out the rifles first, we could call in on the way back and see if they are ok, and if they need a hand with anything. It looks like they don’t need any help but you never know.”
“Ok, let’s get a move on.” He replied, starting the Land Rover and pulling away.
We slowly made our way along the road and drove on for about another five minutes, then pulled into the car park of the TA Center.
Stepping out the Land Rover we could see that someone had tried to get into the center. I made sure that Ghost stayed in the Land Rover, the reason being if someone has a gun and started firing, then they might hit him and Marc would kill me if that happened. So I told him to stay and got a look from him that said ‘Fuck You Too’. (meh, what can you do dogs these days!)
There was damage to the doors and some of the windows. The windows were covered with bars and a few of these had been bent by someone trying to force their way inside. Rees walked up to the main doors and I followed with my rifle in my shoulder. I kept looking behind me every few seconds to make sure no one or thing was creeping up behind us. Turning back, I saw Rees bent down at the keypad lock and after what felt like an age, the door clicked and Rees pushed it open. Inside the center was dark and the opening looked like the open mouth of a large beast. Rees lifted his rifle to his shoulder and pointed first to the right hand side of the entrance, then to left and lastly at me. I nodded and he slipped inside and I followed moving to the left as I entered.
Paper was scattered around and in the corners, of hallway that we were standing in. There were three doors off the hallway and at the end a corridor leading off to the right and on off to the left. The doorways were two on the right wall and one on the left. I went to the first door which was on the left, I saw that it was a gents toilet. Pushing the door open with my foot I went inside with my rifle up and ready. Rees closed the door to the center and stood watch outside the toilet.
Inside was a hand basin with mirror above it, a wall mounted urinal and then there was a toilet stall, painted the usual military green that near all Army toilets I have ever been in are colored. The door to the stall was closed, so I nudged it with my foot. The door swung back and hit the wall, but nothing sprang out or fell out. I walked back to the door and out into the hallway.
All I said was “Clear!”
Moving to the next door which was on the other side of the hallway. I stood with my back to the wall and nodded to the door for Rees to go in. I covered him as he pushed the door open and went inside. From the angle I was at I could see that it was an office of some sort with maps and papers pinned to the walls. Turning I watched the hallway, and listening for anything that was out of place.
Rees appeared at the door “Clear, but there is paperwork about what is happening. I though once we clear and grab the rifles we can come and grab some intel.” He said.
To be honest, some intel about what had been happening would be better. Every time I was asked to run some kind of Op the intel was important, so some now might help.
“Yeah, if we have time we can grab what we can.” I replied.
We moved off to the last door and saw it was the female toilets. Nodded for Rees to head in and he just shook his head and motioned that it was my turn to go in. I just sighed and pushed the door with my foot again, it was open so I went in. It was nearly the same as the male toilet, the only difference I could see was that it was a mirror image. I walked up to the toilet stall and nudged it with my foot the door only swung open about three inches before it hit something and swung back closed.
Chapter Four
Ok, there is something in here I thought, pushing slightly harder the door moved further, but I could feel some resistance. I saw that if I placed my back against the opposite wall to the toilet stall door, I would be able to place my foot on the door and push it open. Bracing my back against the wall I lifted my foot to push on the door when it opened and there stood in front of me was a Reaper. Now I know I must have looked stupid with my leg up in the air. But the sight of a Reaper wearing a tshirt with the words ‘Chester TA Rugby Team World Tour 2012’on it in pink sparkly writing. If that wasn’t mad enough, it was also wearing a pink tutu and army boots.
It looked at me and I looked at it, the Reapers eye’s narrowed and then opened wide, by this time it hadn’t lunged at me so I took a snap shot and managed a classic eye shot and it fell. The door banged open and Rees came in to see the dead Reaper in the tutu and me with my leg still up in the air. He cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘Really!’. I lowered my leg and turned to walk out the toilet as I passed, I said “Not a fucking word or I will tell the girls about that time in Amsterdam!” and went to stand in the hallway.
“Look, no need to threaten me mate, it looked all legit to me.” He said coming out the toilet with a small smile on his face.
“Don’t’ just fucking don’t. I know what you’re like, which way is it to the armory?”
He came to the end of the hallway and pointed to the right and we slowly went down the corridor clearing the four rooms that all turned out to be classrooms of one sort or another. Apart from Reaper McTutu (Rees name it that.) that we had found no more of them. We came to the end of the corridor and there was a heavy steel door, which was painted the obligatory army green. Beside the door was a small keypad, that Rees bent down to look at.
“Hey, bud why are you leaning so close?” I asked
“Er….. Well, my near eyesight is a little shit lol, but my long sight is still fucking great.” He replied.
“So if a small Reaper was to come and attack, you would be well fucked then!” I said smiling.
“Funny fucker. Hold on, here we go.”
There was a small click and he pushed the door open and we went inside. There was a small outer room and opposite the door was a waist high counter which Rees jumped over. I closed the door and managed to climb over the counter without falling flat on my face.
What greeted me on the other side was something that made me smile as if I had just had a new born son. There was racks of SA80’s, a couple of LMG and even a GPMG. At the end of the racks was a stand that had about a dozen Browning Hi Power 9mm pistols. Rees was busy bringing ammo crates and placing them on the counter.
“Right, Walker what do you think we could do with? LOL.” He shouted from the other end of the armory.
“Well to tell you the truth, I don’t think we need to take to many with us and weigh us down. Why don’t we take a rifle for each of us, a pistol each. Of course webbing would be good if it is in here, also I would think all the ammo we can carry and the magazines to go with it.” I really couldn’t think of what else.
I mean I didn’t think that there would be any time we would need a LMG or GPMG so leaving those behind would give us more space for other important equipment.
“Hey, Walker I have a present for you!” shouted Rees
I turned to look at him and there, in his hands was the most beautiful piece of weaponry I have ever seen. He was holding an SLR and it looked virtually brand new, but the best thing was it had a x15 scope attached. I was shaking when Rees walked up and put it in my hands.
“Rees, you’re a star mate, but it’s no good if there isn’t any ammo for it.”
“Aww, come on do you think I would give you that without ammo. There is about a thousand rounds that I can see in the ammo store for it.” He said smiling at me.
We found a cart that they used to take stuff out the armory and loaded it up. I placed my .22 rifle on the cart and loaded three magazines with rounds for the SLR, attached a strap to it and slung it over my back whilst we loaded up. We decided that it might be a good idea for me to take an SA80 as well as my new baby. When we had enough on the cart, I lifted the counter top and opened it and the door to the hallway. Moving the gear to the front door was a pain in the arse because it weighed so much. I stood guard at the door whilst Rees moved the Land Rover so we could load up.
Rees did all the heavy lifting because I said I was still injured. It didn’t take too long to load the gear with the rifles going in last.
“Rees, did this place has a stores for cammo and shit?”
“Yeah, it is down the other corridor at the end near the conference room. You want some gear like?”
“Just thinking it might come in handy.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, he said “Makes sense.”