Page 122 of Hang on St. Christopher

What the hell was happening with the other Land Rover? Were they dead? Had they gotten out and run for help?

I looked at my watch again: 12:16 and still no firing.

Could the hit teams have withdrawn? Were they trying to flank us?

I poked my head up over the sheugh and looked up and down the road. No movement, no sounds. But there at the first Land Rover, a shadow.

I got back into the trench.

“I thought I saw someone at the first Land Rover,” I said to Crabbie. “I think at least one of that lot got out.”

“Maybe their radio will be working?” he suggested.

“Maybe.” I turned to the others. “Help’s probably on the way. Just keep it together for a few minutes longer.”

“Should we make contact with them?” Crabbie asked.

“I don’t want to shout out and let the terrorists zero in on our voices. I think it’s better to keeping fucking schtum.”

Crabbie nodded. “I could crawl up the sheugh and make contact that way.”

“What’s with you and your heroics tonight? You have a wife and three weans. We’ll just sit tight. Let the bad guys make the moves.”

And that was when the first mortar round landed fifty feet in front of us and exploded in a flash of light and white-hot shrapnel.

“What the fucking hell was that?” Lawson screamed.

“A mortar,” I said. “Everyone, keep your head down.”

Mortars.

They’d gotten their hands on mortars, and they could just lob them at us all night until they finally found the right range and killed us all in the ditch.

We were fucked now with a capital “F” and a big mortar-shaped fucking dildo.

So this was how it was going to end. If it weren’t for Emma and Beth, I’d almost be bloody glad. Dramatic.

We ducked as another mortar round whistled overhead, but this one was even farther off target, missing uslongby a hundred feet.

They’d shot short and they’d shot long, and their range would get better.

“Wait here, Crabbie. I’ll crawl along the sheugh to Clare’s Land Rover and see if their radio is working.”

“You stay! I’ll go,” Crabbie said.

I put my hand on his shoulder and our eyes met. I gave his shoulder a squeeze and he nodded.

“If I don’t make it back, try to save the youngsters, eh?” I whispered.

“I will. Good luck, Sean.”

I crawled along the sheugh, which turned out to be a runoff ditch from the nearby slurry field. I didn’t mind the shit and the bog water and the slurry. At least it wasn’t a mortar in the bloody back.

When I got to the first Land Rover, I saw DCI Preston bent over the radio set, seemingly in concentration, but when I reached him there was an enormous frothing pool of blood on the ground all around him.

“Christ!”

A piece of shrapnel had somehow missed the body armor on his chest and the metal plate over his heart, hit his armpit, and traveled down into his chest cavity.