Glenn and Scott stared at one another in shock. They could not make any sense of what they had just seen, and when they saw more of the missiles snaking their way across the sky from above the clouds, headed towards the east, they became rooted to the spot. Only Stan and Bull had realised what was happening and jumped into action.
“Move,” Stan roared, turning in the opposite direction and increasing his pace until he broke into a run. “Get to the heli, now.”
Bull grabbed the two pilots by their harnesses, physically turning them around and dragging them along with him as he chased after Stan. Behind them, far off in the distance, more sonic booms rang out as the volley of rockets smashed into their targets, blowing them to pieces, and destroying men and material alike. The calm night had been swept aside, being forced to retreat under the torrent of explosions that now filled the air above the island. The crackle of exploding munitions and roaring missiles became more intense as wave upon wave of guided bombs soared through the skies. It became impossible to distinguish the individual detonations from one another as the bombardment intensified. The ground shook violently with each impact, denoting the destruction of yet another position and the obliteration of its unfortunate occupants.
“What’s happening?” Glenn shouted as he was pushed and pulled along by the huge arms and shoulders of Bull. “Who’s firing missiles at us?”
“Does it actually matter who or why?” Bull growled back at him above the din of the distant assault and continuing to force both men along with him. “We’re under attack. Fucking move yourselves and get that chopper up in the air.”
A deafening whoosh drowned out their thoughts and words. For a fraction of a second, it sounded and felt as though they had been picked up and dropped into a vacuum chamber. Their ears almost imploded from the pressure, and their hearts and lungs jumped into their throats. In an instant, they were flung to the ground and then lifted up into the air as the airfield exploded around them. A blinding flash seared their eyes, sending their optic nerves into convulsions as their vision was momentarily snatched away from them, being replaced with a blanket of all-consuming whiteness.
As the blast wave struck, and the intense heat threatened to strip the flesh from his bones, Bull felt himself being tossed a great distance from where he had been standing. He was hurled through the air and in the opposite direction from the helicopters as a number of the aircraft disintegrated, throwing out glowing fragments of their rotors and engines in all directions. As his eyes were almost sucked from their sockets, his body twisted through the air, his arms and legs flailing. For a fleeting moment, he saw more flashes and balls of fire as the deluge of guided warheads ploughed into the airfield. The whole island seemed to be engulfed by fire and ear-piercing thunderclaps of detonating high-explosives.
He landed heavily, hitting the soft earth, and instantly forming a shallow crater around his impact site. Again, his body was buffeted and slung through the grass as more explosions ripped through the airfield and obliterated everything around him. His vision, hearing, breath, and mind were struggling to hold on to their foundations as the assault upon his senses threatened to drive him into a chaotic black hole. He was on the brink of losing consciousness, barely aware of where he was, when he was ripped from the ground once more and hurled, spinning through the air like a rag-doll.
The assault increased in ferocity. Debris was flying in all directions as more of the vulnerable helicopters were torn to pieces by the exploding rockets. Steel and glass, whizzing over the ground like speeding bullets, ripped through anything they came into contact with.
Again, Bull crashed back down to earth with a heavy thud. Any air that he had managed to cling onto was knocked from his lungs, leaving him gasping amongst the anarchy that seemed to reign around him. Agonising screams rang out from somewhere close by. Someone had been hit from the whirling shrapnel, and their blood-curdling howls, for a few short seconds, drowned out the sound of carnage as the rockets continued to stream in from their unseen attackers. Another crushing detonation, blast of heat, and powerful shockwave, and the cries of agony were instantly extinguished.
Bull rolled over as chunks of metal and other parts of a helicopter thumped into the dirt close to where he was. They bounced heavily, spinning off in other directions, and creating their own paths of destruction while other pieces of shrapnel buried themselves deep into the mud. He needed to get out of the immediate area, but each time he was beginning to claw back his mind from the madness created by the booming explosions, another missile would snatch it back and away from him. His eyes refused to focus, and his limbs were incapable of obeying his commands as his psyche rattled precariously along the rim of insanity.
He began to sliver across the dew covered grass and away from the chaos behind him, clutching at the dirt, and hauling himself along on his stomach. He was screaming above the din of the barrage in an attempt to stave off the overwhelming pressure that was threatening to cause his skull to implode. He had been under bombardment from artillery and rocket fire before, but he had never experienced it with such intensity. It seemed impossible that he was still alive and moving while everything around him was smashed and torn apart.
As he made some ground away from the immediate impact sites, he began to hear the distinct thumps of helicopter rotors above him. The sky sounded as though they were filled with a thousand of the machines, but when he turned his eyes to the sky, he could see nothing but the thick, billowing clouds of acrid smoke spewing up from the wreckage of the destroyed helicopters. His mind could not make sense of what he was seeing and hearing. He continued to crawl.
“Stan,” he howled over his shoulder as he crawled for his life, unsure whether the words were actually flowing from his mouth. “Where the fuck are you, Stan? Answer me. What the fuck is happening?”
Another voice was also screaming out from amongst the mayhem and from close by, but it was impossible for Bull to understand the words or recognise the voice. He could not stop. He needed to keep moving and to get away from the airfield. The assault was relentless, showing no sign of let-up as the rockets poured in. Bull could think of nothing other than getting away from the blasts.
A missile landed forty metres away, vaporising the ground beneath it and anything else in the immediate area in a flash of extreme heat. The blast wave ripped along the ground, snatching up Bull and sending him spinning through the air again, and then rolling further across the field as he landed back down to earth. The shock of the explosion caused his teeth to rattle and his innards to twist and jolt against his bones. It felt as though he was being crushed and pulled apart simultaneously.
Above him, machineguns began to rattle.
The swirling, smoke filled darkness over Bull’s head reverberated with the sound of heavy weapons, mercilessly firing into their targets on the ground below. He could hear the rapid, tearing howl of 20mm rotating cannons, spitting out thousands of rounds per minute, chewing up flesh, bone, and steel without distinction or decrease in effectiveness. The cannons were joined by the unmistakable deep juddering thuds of the Browning heavy machineguns, fired from the flanks of attack helicopters while they continued to pound the airfield into a churned mess with their rockets.
The confusion and immediate horror began to fade as Bull created some distance between himself and the rows of mangled helicopters. He could now make more sense of his surroundings and see where he was going. The battle, massacre, continued to rage behind him, but he was away from its immediate effects. Pushing himself up from the mud and grass, he jumped to his feet and took off towards the south, headed for the hedgerow where he and Stan had been standing just minutes before. His legs were rickety and for every two steps forward that he took, he took another two to the side. His vision remained blurred, and his ears buzzed loudly, but he was determined to keep going.
He reached the shelter of the hedge and jumped down into the shallow drainage ditch running along the inside of the field’s perimeter. The thick, gloopy mud sucked and squelched as he landed heavily, coating his entire body in the cold and stinking filth. A number of decomposing bodies lay scattered through the ditch around him, their stench lingering close to the ground and drifting up into Bull’s nostrils. There, he quickly took stock of his condition, checking for any unnoticed injuries and shaking his head violently in an attempt to bring his mind back to its full function. Precariously, he moved his body into a squat and raised his head above the lip of the ditch, careful not to expose himself too much to the shrapnel that still zipped through the air over a wide area.
Where there had once been rows of helicopters and other vehicles, there was nothing but glowing wreckage and smoke filled craters. He could see the helicopters responsible for the destruction now, drifting in and out of the columns of smoke rising up from the ground. They hovered over the airfield, rotating their fuselages beneath their rotors, spitting death and destruction with their machineguns and mounted rockets. They were merely mopping up now, picking off targets that had been missed in the initial bombardment, and ensuring that there was nothing left to be used for a counter attack. Other Apache and Cobra helicopters were sweeping their way along the perimeter, smashing the remains of the defences and mowing down any of the troops that fled from the area. Their overwhelming attack was complete, having accomplished their objective of wiping out the island’s ability to transport troops and give close-air support. Whoever they were, air superiority was now clearly in their hands.
Bull would have been impressed by the speed and effectiveness of the assault and of the overwhelming slaughter, if it was not for the fact that he had been on the receiving end of it and clearly on the wrong side. He crouched back down into the black mire and began checking his weapons, removing the magazines from both his rifle and pistol and cocking them a few times, ensuring they had not sustained any damage. He checked the barrels and felt comforted when he saw that they looked to be in working order. At least he still had a means of defending himself, even if it
was
against heavily armoured attack helicopters. He turned his attention back to the airfield, searching for any sign of life on the ground.
Behind him, and towards the east, he could hear more heavy thuds above the screech of the lurking helicopters. It sounded as though Newport was also under heavy attack, experiencing a similar barrage to what the airfield had sustained. The ground continued to shake with each thump of high-explosives, and the sky seemed to flutter endlessly with the flashes of the bombs. Machineguns chattered in the distance as defenders and attackers fought a duel for dominance over the island. The troops stationed on the Isle of Wight had been taken by complete surprise by an unknown and overwhelming force. In their current condition, Bull could see no way of turning the tide and mounting an effective counter-strike.
From amongst the flames and smoke, and as the helicopters relentlessly poured their obliterating fire over the remains of the airfield, Bull saw movement. A figure, stumbling and swaying from side to side was headed towards him, clearly suffering from the effects of the attack. Bull’s eyes narrowed, and he concentrated hard on stabilising his vision.
“Stan,” he gasped, feeling a sudden surge of relief flood through his body and ripple over his skin. “Fuck me, the bastard made it.”
Stan could hardly see where he was going. His head was spinning and his legs were both trying to travel in opposite directions from where his body was pointed. His clothing was tattered in places and smouldering, having been seared in numerous blasts as the rockets had landed all around him. His face, blackened with soot and bleeding from several cuts, was unrecognisable and twisted with pain.
He could hear a voice calling his name, but his eyes would not focus. He could barely see the ground in front of him let alone any detail from a distance. In his semi-delirious state, he recognised Bull’s voice. He tried to reply, but his words would not form in his throat. In their place came a stifled and pain filled groan that slipped from between his teeth, inaudible to anyone that was beyond a metre or so from him. He headed in the general direction of where he believed Bull to be. After a few more stumbling metres, a dark and towering shadow appeared in front of him. It swallowed him up and dragged him beneath the surface of the earth, and Stan was in no condition to fight it.
“Stan, it’s me,” Bull shouted into his face, shaking his shoulders in an attempt to bring him back into the real world. “Stay with me.”
Somehow, and to Bull’s amazement, Stan was still holding onto his MP-5 sub-machinegun, clutching it in a vice like grip. He began to check over his team commander, searching for any life threatening injuries. There was no sign of broken bones or shrapnel wounds on his body, and it seemed that Stan was still in one piece. Next, Bull turned his attention to Stan’s eyes, nose, and ears, checking for any indication of a head wound. He could not see anything on the outer surface, and there was no blood leaking from his ears. From what he could tell in the short time he could afford to check, Bull did not believe that Stan had sustained any damage that threatened his life.
He reached for the water bottle that was tucked into a pouch on the right-hand kidney position of his assault vest. He poured a generous amount over Stan’s face, hoping to snap him back from the shock induced coma he appeared to have fallen into. The cold liquid seemed to work. Stan’s eyes snapped open. He instantly twisted out of Bull’s grasp and rolled away from him, raising his weapon and ready to fire.