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Post by garethn on Oct 24, 2018 0:40:04 GMT -6
My grandfather was born in Ireland so I have relatives on both sides. The big assumption throughout all this Irish history thing is that the English peasantry were treated significantly better - not necessarily a valid assumption.
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Post by texican on Oct 24, 2018 13:30:50 GMT -6
For a little English request.... Texican....
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Post by garethn on Oct 24, 2018 13:42:09 GMT -6
Just for you, Mr T!
Part 5
Chapter 1 - Night raid
After the storms of September, October brought a dry spell with chilly nights and surprisingly warm days. Our main task at this time was preparing firewood for winter and, though we had managed to persuade one of the chainsaws to almost work, it still involved large amounts of exhausting physical labour.
So I was quite grumpy when I was woken by Susan shaking me none too gently in the middle of the night. But all grump was torn from my system by the jolt of adrenaline triggered by the phrase, ‘Alarm bell’.
Bells were being rung in every house down the valley: three rings; pause; three rings… People were inside our defences. We had to defend the farms. We knew what to do; we had practiced plenty of times.
Of course, this could be a false alarm or an unscheduled practice... but somehow I just knew it wasn’t.
Tumbling out of bed, I pulled on my trousers and jacket over my pyjamas and stuffed my feet into my boots. To save fuel, we were allowing the fire to go out at night so I had taken to wearing a pair of thin socks in bed. Nonetheless, I stuck a thicker pair in a pocket.
“Take care out there,” Susan said, as I passed her in the upstairs landing. She was in the girls’ room, waking them and taking the younger ones down to the basement where she had an expedient operating surgery. “I love you.”
I was out of the front door first - quick enough to hear the sounds of gunfire from further down the valley. By the moonlight, I could just make out three figures throwing themselves over the dry stone wall into our lower field. As they moved out of my line of sight, more figures appeared at the wall and took cover behind it. I guessed that the first three were raiders and the figures behind the wall were on our side but it was two dark to be sure.
I started to cut across the yard to get a better look but was momentarily distracted by a flash above me and to my right and tripped over something in the dark. As I fell, I felt the rush of air as a bullet passed over my head.
That moment would stay with me for the rest of my life. I was only alive because I had tripped.
“Sniper up on the hill behind the house,” I barked as I rolled towards the barn. “Stay in cover.”
I looked towards the house. A small knot of people was gathered there, armed and ready for action, but none of our military officers. I would have to take charge.
I moved carefully back to the corner of the barn then dashed back across to the cover of the house. Even Alice was there, ready for action, with her ancient shotgun.
“James, with me,” I said in a low voice. We didn’t know where the attackers were and I didn’t want them to hear my plans. “We’re going up the hill to deal with that sniper,” James was by far the best of us at moving without being seen. “The rest of you, I think there are three people down in the lower field and another couple behind the wall on the Drummond’s side. Get behind the barn and workshop and see what’s going on. I don’t know who’s who so don’t shoot until you’re certain.”
“Ready, son?” I asked as the others made their way down towards the barn and workshop. He nodded.
I hoped that the sniper would be distracted by the activity in the yard because, for the first hundred yards, we only had hedgerows between us and him. We moved as quickly as we could at a low crawl. I heard shouting behind me but ignored it.
When we got to the relative safety of the first dry stone wall, I relaxed for a moment and, looking back, was astonished to see Alice and David calling the dogs out of the barn. Though they were very well trained, they were collies and it wasn’t in their nature to be aggressive towards people. I shrugged and moved on. Not a problem and nothing I could do anyway.
Behind the wall, we could advance much more quickly, though not much more comfortably, at a low crouch. When we reached the top of the ridge we paused to catch our breath and, from here, we had a panoramic view of the skirmish below us.
As the first watery light of dawn started to spread across the valley, I could make out Samson’s unmistakable profile behind the wall. There were a couple of other figures with him, one of whom was lying on the ground as if wounded. I did not recognise the three figures in our lower field but they were hidden behind the grassy bank that led down to the stream.
Another shot rang out from the sniper, along the ridge from us and, even from here, I could see Samson and his group duck down behind the wall. We had to take that sniper out.
As we hurried along the field wall towards the sniper, I was again distracted by the familiar whistles and shouts as Alice and David guided the dogs. By the light of the moon, I could just make out the three grey blurs as they flew up to the far end of the field where the sheep had fled. I had no idea what they were doing but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except eliminating that sniper.
By this time, I had a fair guess as to where he was located. There was a standing stone in the middle of the next field - a ‘glacial erratic’, to be technical. It was not too tricky to climb and provided a superb view over the farm and valley. It’s where I would have gone.
I sensed more movement down in our lower field. The dogs were running the flock back down towards the gunmen. At first there were bleats of protest; this had already been a disturbed night for the sheep and they were afraid of the gunshots but instinct and experience had taught the sheep to obey the dogs. As Alice and David directed the dogs to increase the pace, the sheep became silent… intent on staying with the charging flock.
The gunman on the standing stone must have seen what was happening, too. He started shooting at the sheep. This only served to further panic them and to confirm his position.
I don’t know what would have happened if the men behind the bank had stayed where they were. Even one sheep can do a surprising amount of damage and, by now, these sheep were very frightened and very angry.
But when the three saw the incoming tide, they panicked and tried to run. They didn’t make it very far. There were gunshots from the farm and they stopped running. They disappeared beneath the feet of the charging flock.
I was caught in horrified fascination at the scene below but James was using the distraction to move. He flitted across the open space - betting his life that the sniper, too, would not be able to take his eyes off the scene below. I knew that it would be too much of a risk for me to follow so I held my position and did the only thing I could think of to help him. I took an unaimed shot towards the sniper then, as my training demanded, shifted position.
As I prepared to take a second shot, I heard another shot and a muffled shout. After a few seconds of unbearable tension I heard James’s call of, “All clear,” so I cautiously approached. I could see James standing on the stone so I went up to join him.
A middle age man was lying on the ground with a huge wound to his stomach. “What are you going to do with me?” the man asked, fear written clearly across his face.
“First I’m going to ask you a couple of questions,” I explained calmly and placidly, channeling my inner Mike, “and then I’m going to kill you. It’s up to you to decide how painful the time in between is. But first I’m going to tell my son to go down and report our status. I think he’s still a bit too young to see me torturing a wounded man, don’t you?” I gave him my best frightening smile.
In the end, he didn’t need anything but that little bit of encouragement to talk. He held no particular allegiance to the red sleeves - he called them ‘The Axis’. They were just prepared to pay food for his special talents. There were a couple of others in the group who had been through military basic training but they had not served in front line roles. He, however, had been in the ‘proper’ infantry and seen real action in a couple of middle eastern hell holes.
He described how his presence was part of a developing relationship between the red sleeve Axis group and a community that called themselves ‘The New Covenant’, down in Greenings. “There’s some weird shit going off there,” he told me, “but they do seem to have an unlimited amount of ammunition. I only...”
I was about to ask him for more details when the world suddenly went dark.
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Post by texican on Oct 25, 2018 12:39:37 GMT -6
I was about to ask him for more details when the world suddenly went dark.
Appears that not all of the bad guys were eradicated.... Another kliff....
G, you had to go and do that didn't you....
Thanks for the chapter....
Texican....
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Post by garethn on Oct 26, 2018 2:58:35 GMT -6
I hope nobody finds this chapter offersive. Shocking is OK but I hope not offensive.
Chapter 2 - Unholy Sacrament
The next thing I was aware of, apart from the overwhelming, crushing pain in my head, was being half-dragged, half-walked along a rough path or track. I couldn’t tell which because I had some sort of bag over my head.
“Where…” I tried. Not terribly original, I admit but it was the best I could think of at the time.
“No talking,” a rough voice said, shaking my shoulder and triggering fresh blossoms of pain through my head.
In places the path was boggy and wet and soon my feet were soaking
After a long time, the footing became smoother and then we were on a road. Then after some indeterminate but long time, I was taken into a building and dumped on the floor. My feet were tied together and further tied, behind my back, to my hands
I allowed myself to slip back into the blissful release of unconsciousness.
I drifted back towards consciousness a couple of times. At one stage, the bag was removed, dazzling me with the light, and I was given water to drink. Mostly, though, it was dark and I was exhausted so I allowed myself to sleep.
I was woken by the buzz of conversation in a nearby room. Though securely tied, I could, at least, look around. It was light - it felt like early morning and I was in some sort of room in a church. Perversely, there were still notices on the wall about the flower rota and the youth club, though they were faded and out of date. I guessed that the noise that woke me was coming from the main body of the church; it had the right sort of echo.
Straining to look round further, I could see Ashley and an unknown young man, both also hog-tied, lying on the floor. I could see a wave of relief washing over Ashley’s face when I smiled, or at least grimaced, at her. “I thought you were dead,” she said simply.
“Rap on the head,” I told her. “How long have I been out?”
“They dragged us in late yesterday afternoon,” she answered. “It’s early morning now.”
A service was beginning in the main body of the church. Though I can’t claim to be a regular church-goer I’m familiar enough to recognise what was going on. The familiar pattern gave me some hope that perhaps things were not quite as grim as they seemed. After a while, I recognised the preacher. It was Anthony, the intense young curate whom Mike and I had met on that second day, cycling to the farm. Perhaps, I thought, there had been some misunderstanding and things wouldn’t be as bad as I had feared.
But that hope didn’t last long.
About half an hour into the service, two burly men entered the room, carrying a large, solid wooden cross between them. Without looking at Ash or me they went straight over to the young man who was lying between us. With practiced efficiency, they lashed him to the cross. He didn’t resist but was quietly murmuring, “No... no...” as they were doing it.
They left the door open and we could sense the tension rising in the congregation as the man was dragged out of our little room. His shouts became louder as the words of the sacrament rang through the church. “And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it…” I’d heard the words before, of course, but never spoken with such intensity and fervour. There was further stirring from the congregation and the shouts of the young man were becoming hysterical.
The dramatic pause was broken by the thud of a heavy hammer blow. The shouts were cut off by a single scream of pain.
Another thud, another scream.
Then another… and another…
By now the screams were fading to be replaced by a continuous moan of pain.
“And gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you…”
The moaning was suddenly and sharply cut off.
As the hubbub of motion began in the church, I managed to roll over and look at Ashley. She had turned white.
“Ash, listen to me,” I whispered. I had to say something, anything, to get her mind off what had just happened. “Ashley listen!” I said, slightly louder, trusting to the hubbub of people moving in the main body of the church to hide my voice.
She stared at me with unalloyed panic etched on her face.
“Ashley, we’re going to get out of this,” I promised her. I wasn’t lying. For some reason I truly believed it.
She still looked terrified, of course, but the panic had gone. I needed to build on this. “We’re going to get one chance to get free,” I told her, ”and it’s going to fall to you because they’ll think you’re ‘just a kid’. When it happens, you are to be ready to act, OK?”
She nodded.
The service drew to a close and, with no conversation, the congregation left the church. Ashley and I were left on our own.
It is a source of intense pride that, for the next few hours, I kept Ashley talking. I knew that if I left her to brood on our situation, she would probably become catatonic or hysterical. In all likelihood, so would I.
We talked about everything: school... friends... boyfriend… “he’s not really a boyfriend; he’s just a friend who’s a boy”... boy bands... hopes... ambitions... television... I’d been a bit of a nerd when young and never really had anything to do with teenage girls, so it was all a bit of an eye opener for me. Something to look forward to with my two if, by some miracle, we all survive!
After about three hours, we heard movement outside and I shushed Ashley and prepared myself. An elderly, middle class lady entered the room. Her hair was covered by a dark shawl and she was carrying a jug of water and two plastic tumblers.
She went to Ashley first and helped her to drink with a, ‘there you go, dear.” I nearly lost it at that. Who did this woman think she was? She must know that she is an accessory to Ashley’s impending brutal murder. She has no right to talk to her with anything approaching affection. With an enormous effort of will, I kept myself under control. I remembered one of Laura’s mottoes: ‘Use your anger, don’t let it use you’.
“Thank you, sister,” I said, when she had given me something to drink, too. “I understand that we are to die but please could you, at least, tell us something about your faith so that we do not die in ignorance.” I was relying on the years of little old ladyhood and the evangelical nature of cults to get her talking.
“But of course,” she replied with a smile.
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Post by papaof2 on Oct 26, 2018 11:18:32 GMT -6
Bad circumstances and a charismatic leader can have people accepting strange interpretations of the Bible. Just a little hysteria and paranoia could get some people to accept physical "body broken for you" and "living sacrifice" quotes as being the next level of worship.
Anti-gun people would rather not be reminded of Luke 22:36 ("Sell your cloak and buy a sword", a sword being the weapon of personal defense at that time). I'm not sure how they interpret that verse.
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Post by accountant on Oct 26, 2018 11:30:49 GMT -6
When TSHTF people will turn to anyone who can provide them with the one thing more important than water, food, shelter, and security. That one thing being hope. When everything goes to the outhouse, hope is what enables us to keep going. Hope that things will turn around, hope that we can get out of it somehow, hope that someone or something will save us. The young curate has used the hope of the congregation to justify the wickedness that was occurring.
The human mind is a strange and funny thing. It can help us to stand up against evil one day and the next help us to rationalize the need for that evil the next. It appears that the elderly woman's mind has performed the latter.
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Post by garethn on Oct 26, 2018 12:52:09 GMT -6
Just a little hysteria and paranoia could get some people to accept physical "body broken for you" and "living sacrifice" quotes as being the next level of worship. And Hunger!
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Post by texican on Oct 26, 2018 16:29:38 GMT -6
Just a little hysteria and paranoia could get some people to accept physical "body broken for you" and "living sacrifice" quotes as being the next level of worship. And Hunger! Physically eating the dead.... Texican....
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Post by garethn on Oct 27, 2018 3:10:21 GMT -6
Chapter 3 - Escape
Word count 1984 (09-Oct-18)
I do not claim to understand the explanation that followed but I don’t think she understood it either. I strongly suspect that it was not open to understanding because it simply made no sense. Chunks of the more obscure corners of the Book of Revelations bolted onto the Apocrypha behind the hymn ‘Jerusalem’: “The Holy Lamb of God in England’s pleasant pastures”, with a measure of socialist sloganising: “for the many and not the few”. I nodded approvingly and knew enough of some of the themes to be able to respond appropriately.
My only problem was in controlling my reaction to the casual references to ritualistic cannibalism that were scattered throughout her explanation. Whilst I recognise that she had become insensitive to the subject, I still found it utterly shocking.
“Thank you, sister,” I said when she had finished. I fought to remain calm and consciously stayed in the formal, slightly archaic language that she had been using to put her at her ease. “That understanding is a great comfort to me. If it is not too much trouble, I have a favour to ask. Though she is not one to complain, I know the ropes binding my niece Ashley are much too tight. Could you just loosen them a little so at least her circulation is not cut off.”
“You should have said something earlier, dear,” she said. I had no trouble containing my rage this time, I was too busy trying to send Ashley telepathic signals to get ready without showing signs of anticipation on my face.
The simpering look of gratitude that Ashley gave was perfect, as was the fluid grace with which she broke the stupid old woman’s neck as soon as her hands were free. Laura would be proud of her.
Within seconds, she was completely free and so was I and I caught her in an enormous hug. We just had time to catch our breath when I heard the church door open and a male voice say, “Hello, Gran, are you there?”
“Do something to distract him!” I hissed as I dragged the old woman’s body into a store cupboard.
She thought for a moment then responded, “Don’t look!” She removed her trousers and underwear and lay back on the floor as if still bound. I could have hugged her again but it would have been wildly inappropriate. Instead I searched desperately around for a weapon. Propped up at the back of the cupboard was a heavy wooden pole with a large metal crucifix at its top. I moved to stand behind the door, hefting the pole to judge its weight.
We heard more sounds of movement out in the church then the door opened and a young man stepped in, carrying a rifle. “Hello,” he said, as if he had been expecting his grandmother to be there. “Hello!” he said in an entirely different tone when he saw Ashley’s exposed lower body.
The idiot didn’t even notice that I was missing. He had already put down his rifle and was fiddling with his trousers when I smashed him over the back of the head with the pole. He collapsed forward onto the floor. I continued to hit his head until the pole shattered leaving a long, viciously sharp, splintered prong at the end.
Rolling him onto his back, I stabbed this prong into his eye and, applying my full weight to the arms of the cross, forced it through the eye socket into his brain. That was the last time he was going to try and rape anyone’s niece.
For several seconds, the two of us were silent as I stood back to study my handiwork. The man was lying on his back, a stupid, shocked expression on his face, and a crucifix emerging straight up from his eye. It was the first time that I had ever felt unalloyed satisfaction in having killed someone. It was usually just an unpleasant but necessary task to be performed to allow our community to survive and I frequently felt guilty about it. On this occasion, however, I knew I had made the world a slightly better place.
My attention was dragged back to the present by Ashley scurrying around to find her clothes. I searched the man and found an emergency kit in one thigh pocket and a small amount of food in the other. His belt held a knife and pouches with a surprisingly large amount of ammunition.
Grabbing the gun, supplies and the jug of water that the little old lady had left on a desk, I turned to Ashley. “They’ll be expecting us to run so we should hide here until nightfall,” I told her. “I think I know where we are so I should be able to get us home.”
It was Ashley who found the hiding place. A panel at the back of the organ could be opened to allow access to the instrument’s mechanism. We could hide inside.
But before I climbed into the cramped space with her, I forced a back window of the church with the knife and put a chair in front of it. I wanted them to think we had already run away.
It was a bit of a squeeze inside the organ and, sitting shoulder to shoulder, I could feel Ashley start to tremble with shock and released adrenaline so I put my arm protectively around her.
“Don’t let them take us alive,” she whispered.
“I won’t,” I promised. We were quiet for several seconds and I felt I needed to distract her from her gloomy thoughts. “Well, that’s something to tell your grandchildren about,” I teased her in a low whisper. “How I distracted an attacker and won our freedom.”
“It never happened!” she replied emphatically. I could almost see her glowing with embarrassment in the gloom of our hiding place.
“But how did you think of it?”
“I do watch telly, you know… did.”
She snuggled her head against my shoulders and within a couple of minutes she was asleep. At that moment, I felt very protective of my niece and kissed her gently on the head.
She managed a good hour of sleep before she was woken by activity out in the church. At first a single person then several others with shouts and running about. I quietly prepared the gun. If they found us, they would have to pay very dearly to take us.
In the end, it was no problem. The forced window was soon found and, with that, the noise and bustle moved outside. We were left to relax again and we shared the food I had liberated from the would-be rapist.
They held another service in the evening but this was much more subdued than the one in the morning. At one stage, the incongruous thought struck me that it was a good thing that the power was out. If anyone had been able to play the organ to accompany the hymns, we would have been deafened.
At last the church was silent and darkness had fallen. I allowed the community a couple of hours to fall asleep then we emerged from our hiding place and made our way to the back of the church.
From here, escape was tense but straightforward. They had not even moved the chair so climbing out of the window was easy.
Moving cautiously from headstone to headstone, we made our way across the churchyard then we forced our way through the hedge into some playing fields which had been planted with vegetables. I took the opportunity to pilfer a couple of parsnips on the way past.
Staying to the hedgerow, we made our way round the field to a gate then crossed a little stream at some stepping stones - care was needed here because they were slippery with the recent rain - and then crossed the ‘New Road’ at a high bridge. Then we set off climbing up onto the moors.
We soon lost the path and I didn’t trust the compass that I had found in the paedophilic would-be rapist’s kit. Following an earlier anomalous observation, I’d occasionally been tracking the direction of magnetic north and it seemed to be behaving oddly. Often there seemed to be no magnetic field whatsoever. Strange and probably something to do with all the electronics going pop but there was certainly nothing we could do about it.
Instead, I took my bearings from the sliver of moon that was also providing a little light, and we eventually reached the familiar walled track.
We paused briefly here and ate some pieces of raw parsnip to assuage the ravages of hunger before pressing on. Dawn was breaking as we made our way down the ridge and, at last, the farm came into view. We were home; we were safe. Mike, on patrol with a couple of others, had already spotted us and cut across the hillside to join us. We waited for him to reach us and greeted him with relief and celebration.
Our joy at making it home was short lived, however, as we were told that Ben had been killed in a reckless attempt to rescue his daughter. As I held Ashley, doing what I could to comfort her, I found myself thinking that, in death, he had earned a measure of respect from me that he had never enjoyed in life.
The council of war that afternoon was short and to the point. It wasn’t just a question of revenge. Laura put it in stark and simple terms. “We will never be safe with that group about. We have to eliminate them.”
The next day Mike led a small group to reconnoiter the village. He returned the next evening, reporting that the defences were astonishingly lax, particularly during the morning service. Only two guards were left on a barricade on the main road. Everyone else was in the church.
“Not all that surprising really,” Jimbo observed flatly. “Uninvited visitors aren’t a problem if you consider them to be a high protein snack.”
Our attack was planned for the next morning, timed to coincide with their daily service. In spite of her wish, Margret was refused permission to participate because she had not yet shown herself to be sufficiently capable in combat. She accepted this though the look of resolution on her face told me that it would not be the case for long. Nobody questioned Ashley’s right to take part. I never thought that I would be able to kneel behind a tombstone outside a burning church, shooting people as they tried to escape through the windows. We had already barricaded the doors. But when twinges of conscience tried to emerge, I flattened them by thinking of the screams of first terror, then agony from that unknown young man. It was like eliminating rats; it was an unpleasant job that just had to be done. There may have been innocent victims inside that church but not many - and none of them were completely innocent - the open bone pit in a corner of the graveyard bore witness to that fact. Many of the bones bore signs of butchery.
We didn’t bother burying the people we had shot. We just threw them back into the church and let the fire do its job.
We looted the village systematically, of course. There was not as much food as we had hoped, even after we had harvested the late season vegetables from their fields but, as the sniper above the farm had told me, there was astonishing quantities of ammunition. There was too much for us to carry back and we had to run a couple of trips in the Land Rover to collect it all.
Finally, to provide Ashley and me with a sense of closure, I took fuel from the cars that were still lying around and set fire to every house in the village. In our eyes, the place was irrevocably tainted; nobody should ever live there again.
And, that night, when we returned to the farm, Susan had some news for me. She was pregnant. The idea triggered two conflicting emotions - elation that our love would generate this new life and near panic at the thought of the world into which our baby would be born.
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Post by garethn on Oct 27, 2018 3:13:49 GMT -6
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Post by 9idrr on Oct 27, 2018 15:53:51 GMT -6
Cauterization sounds like just the right thing.
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Post by texican on Oct 27, 2018 15:56:56 GMT -6
When the SHTF, many groups will resort to cannibalism due to two legged prey being easier to find and subdue than four legged animals....
Thanks G for the chapter....
Now what is happening to the king?.?.?.?
Texican....
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Post by garethn on Oct 28, 2018 14:56:47 GMT -6
Chapter 4 - Jimbo
It was a raid like dozens we had experienced before: James, Jimbo and me in the main trench; six attackers with two or three firearms; no chance of success. They didn’t even try to be subtle. They just came charging across the bridge, firing blindly.
And at the end of it, five of them were not moving, one lay groaning… and Jimbo was lying dead next to us. A lucky... or unlucky... bullet had found the gap between the rim of the trench and his helmet.
James and I knelt next to him in the trench: frozen… immobile… nothing in our training prepared us for this. Laura appeared with the reserve company and they, too, froze.
Then Mike was there, or at least his body was. The mind seemed almost entirely absent, hidden behind those terrifying eyes. According to the standing orders that he, himself had written, he should have remained in the observation post on the other side of the junction until relieved but, instead, he was down on the bridge, out of control and unpredictable. He stared up at Jimbo for several seconds then viciously kicked out at the surviving attacker.
“Mike, control yourself!” Laura said.
“I’ll fucking show you control myself!” he shouted, landing another firm kick in the prone man’s ribs.
“Mike,” Laura insisted, “you’re setting a terrible example.”
“I’ll show you an example. I’m going to burn the bastard!”
I decided I had to step in. “We are not in a combat situation,” I said so that everyone could hear me. “Mike, as a senior civilian authority, I’m temporarily relieving you of command. Laura, you have command.”
“You can’t do that!” Mike yelled at me.
“I just have,” I told him. “We can discuss the rights and wrongs of it later.”
Laura nodded to Samson and the two of them moved to stand next to Mike. “Mike, please would you go quietly with Samson,” she said. “I need to get things sorted out here.”
Mike held himself rigid for several seconds then collapsed, tears streaming down his face. “Let me carry Jimbo up to the house,” he managed to sob at last.
“Of course,” Laura said, “off you go.” She reached behind the prone prisoner’s neck and gave a sharp twist. We all heard a snap and he stopped moving.
I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that casually breaking a wounded prisoner’s neck was deemed the humane thing to do.
“Second company relieved,” Laura snapped, jerking us all back into action. “Third company on duty. Come on, moving, people. Standing around and staring isn’t going to bring him back. Phil, can you stay and give us a hand with this lot?”
Fortunately, by now, tidy up had become so routine that no conscious thought was required. Strip the dead of anything that might be useful, including any usable clothing. Try to pretend that you hadn’t noticed that one of them was a girl who looked about twelve. Chuck any detached, non identifiable body parts in the river. Drag the remaining bodies and body parts down to the communal grave we had dug a few weeks ago, a little way downstream and well back from the river. Chuck them in without ceremony. Feel your own humanity evaporating a little with every broken corpse. Throw a skim of soil over them, but not too much - just enough to stop the smell and discourage predators. And finally, walk the couple of hundred yards down the road to the lay-by where attackers always left their packs - inevitably a pointless undertaking. If these people had had anything, they wouldn’t have been involved in such a hopeless attack. Fortunately, this time, no small children had been left behind.
We buried Jimbo up at the top of the garden then, after the kids had gone to bed, we gathered around the kitchen table. We’d have drunk tea but the tea was starting to run out so we made do with water.
“You need to tell them,” Laura told Mike.
“Ok, they chucked me out of the Yorkshires cos I’d gone loony.”
“You were given an honourable discharge because you were showing symptoms of PTSD,” she told him firmly. “If you want to wallow in self pity, do it in your own time. We’ve got work to do here.”
“I told you they wouldn’t stand for your rubbish,” Susan told Mike with a gentle smile.
“You knew already?” I challenged her.
“If you remember how we met, it’s not surprising; I spotted the symptoms within about ten minutes,” she replied. “They’re pretty obvious when you know what to look for.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s called doctor patient confidentiality, she said. “I know I’m not really a doctor but the same principle applies. If I go blabbing, nobody will talk to me.”
I thought about this then answered, “Fair enough.”
“While we’re on the subject,” Susan went on, “I’ve got news for all you front line combat guys. You’re all showing signs of combat fatigue: mood swings anyone?” She looked around the table and got a number of nods. “Depression… thinking it’s all hopeless… irrational anger… difficulty sleeping? I’d be handing out sleeping tablets like smarties but nobody knows when you’ll have to wake up for the next life or death battle.” She gave a grim smile.
I wasn’t the only one nodding. My sleep was being torn apart by nightmarish flashbacks and I could see myself becoming less tolerant, snapping at the girls or at Susan. I hated it in myself.
“You’re all under tremendous pressure: combat stress no one in the West has seen since World War One; you’ve all killed more people than a concentration camp guard; and if you fail, everyone you know and love is going to be killed and probably eaten. Oh yes, and in your spare time, you’re trying to do a full time job of farming because otherwise we’re all just going to starve to death. And this is the new normal for you. If there is still anything like a civilised society out there, I very much doubt whether any of you, Hell, any of us, will ever really be able to fit back into it. We’ve all had to train ourselves to act as psychopaths.”
“Then what the hell are we doing this for?” I exploded. “What’s the point if we’re turning ourselves into monsters just to survive?”
Susan reached across the table and put her hand on my arm, holding it there and leeching away the pain as if it was a poison. The room waited until I could meet her eye.
“That’s an easy one for you to answer,” she said with her most gentle smile. “They’re upstairs asleep right now. Others have to find their own answers.”
“We’re humans. We fight to survive. It’s what we do,” Mike said flatly.
There was another long silence.
“So are you saying that anything goes?” Laura challenged Susan at last.
“No, quite the opposite, I think. We all have to hang on to the little bit of humanity we have left. But you do have to understand that people really aren’t designed to take this and be more understanding with each other and particularly with yourselves.”
“So we’re all going to have to trust each other with the whole ‘moral compass’ thing,” I suggested. “A sort of duty to let each other know when we’re doing something we’ll regret later… and to listen when people are trying to warn us.”
There were nods round the table.
“That’s not going to work with me,” Mike said. “You’ve all seen, when the beast is out, a quiet word is not going to put it back in its cage. You have to take over command, Laura. I’m not up to the job.”
“No!” Laura almost shouted. She composed herself for a moment then went on, “Mike, you’re our best officer, we need you.”
“I agree, we can’t do without you, Mike,” I said. “Am I right in thinking that ‘the beast’, as you call it, only gets out post combat?”
Mike nodded.
“Then let’s just formalise what happened today. Post combat, any two of us,” I looked round the table, “or Samson,” Samson was leading the watch down at the bridge, “can temporarily suspend your command.”
“I suppose,” he answered. He didn’t look happy.
“You think we’re making accommodation for someone who isn’t up to the job,” Susan suggested. We all looked at her. This seemed really harsh, particularly from her.
“Yeah, you’ve got it!” Mike agreed.
“What about Alan? He only had one arm. You made accommodation for him,” she pointed out.
“And none of us would pass any sort of military psychological examination these days,” Laura added.
Mike smiled and gave a sigh. “Ok, I get it. We work with what we’ve got. Yeah, I can live with that.”
The meeting was about to break up when Susan spoke again. “If it makes you feel any better, in my abundant spare time,” she gave a slight smile, “I’m observing you lot and making notes. If we ever get out of this, there’s a doctoral thesis with my name on it.”
“I’m still waiting for the bit that’s going to make me feel better,” Mike observed wryly.
“Nobody with even my tiny bit of psychological training has ever observed a group under this level of combat stress,” she explained. “You need to be more understanding of yourselves… I’m already really impressed by how tolerant you’re being of each other.”
Jimbo’s death was sad, of course, desperately sad.
But that didn’t stop me going back to my notes after the meeting and reworking the calorie calculations.
A couple more meaningless deaths like that and we’d all be much closer to surviving.
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Post by papaof2 on Oct 28, 2018 18:48:10 GMT -6
"But that didn’t stop me going back to my notes after the meeting and reworking the calorie calculations. A couple more meaningless deaths like that and we’d all be much closer to surviving."
Stored foods providing 1500 calories/day for two for 6 months will provide 1500 calories/day for one for a year. Adjust as needed for the amount of work being done by each person. In the days of manual logging of the California redwood trees, the guys using the axes and two-man saws needed 8,000 to 10,000 calories per day.
That 1500 cal/day for a year for one? At 8,000 cal/day it's only 68 days.
Does the spreadsheet for your stored foods include easy adjustments of the calories per day and number of people to get the number of days? Be nice if it also had the quantities of other things than calories (protein, fat, carbs, etc) in the available foods. And do you have vitamins for everyone?
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Post by texican on Oct 28, 2018 22:05:21 GMT -6
Thanks G for the chapter....
Food and fighting to survive will be the two most important activities of survival once TSHF....
Are you ready?.?.?.?
How much food do you have on hand and how long will it last?.?.?.?
Can you raise crops not just a garden?.?.?.?
How safe is you locale, do you trust your neighbors?.?.?.?
Are you really prepared?.?.?.?
Texican....
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Post by hamrad on Oct 29, 2018 2:59:44 GMT -6
Keep it coming Gareth, excellent tale being crafted.
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Post by arkansascob on Oct 29, 2018 10:37:39 GMT -6
Could you survive ? Could you be loving and caring enough to survive ? Could you be cold enough and crazy enough to survive ? Could you be heartless and strong enough to survive ?
Would you survive ?
COB
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Post by garethn on Oct 29, 2018 15:27:07 GMT -6
Could you survive ? Could you be loving and caring enough to survive ? Could you be cold enough and crazy enough to survive ? Could you be heartless and strong enough to survive ? Would you survive ? COB And what does surviving really mean? Is just staying alive enough? G
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Post by garethn on Oct 29, 2018 15:36:04 GMT -6
"But that didn’t stop me going back to my notes after the meeting and reworking the calorie calculations. A couple more meaningless deaths like that and we’d all be much closer to surviving." Stored foods providing 1500 calories/day for two for 6 months will provide 1500 calories/day for one for a year. Adjust as needed for the amount of work being done by each person. In the days of manual logging of the California redwood trees, the guys using the axes and two-man saws needed 8,000 to 10,000 calories per day. That 1500 cal/day for a year for one? At 8,000 cal/day it's only 68 days. Does the spreadsheet for your stored foods include easy adjustments of the calories per day and number of people to get the number of days? Be nice if it also had the quantities of other things than calories (protein, fat, carbs, etc) in the available foods. And do you have vitamins for everyone? That was just the stored food. They acquired more food since then with the farming / hedgerow food / sheep / chickens etc. And in times of desperation, it’s the carbs you need - the rest is ‘nice to have’ and good for long term health. BTW They have got various tins and packages that are likely to contain some of the required vitamins. G
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Post by garethn on Oct 29, 2018 15:38:39 GMT -6
Chapter 5 - The Caravan
As autumn turned to winter, the number of people roaming the countryside decreased sharply. We hadn’t seen anyone for weeks now and there had been no attacks since the end of October. I wasn’t even completely convinced that we needed to bother manning the guard posts - but I realised I would probably think differently if I wasn’t freezing my backside off in a chilly hole in the ground on a damp hillside.
The observation post was a two man sized hole below the crest of a small rise, on the far side of the main road, across from the bridge. It had a commanding view both up and down the valley and anyone who made the mistake of shooting at our main guard post from the road junction below us would regret it for a very short time.
The OP had been much improved since the first weeks when it had been dug. It was no longer just a hole in the ground. It was now a hole in the ground with a tarpaulin and brushwood cover with adequate drainage and a couple of established exit route in case anyone should try to attack us. While the cover was quite effective at sheltering us from proper rain, it was less effective against the continuous drizzle that we were currently enjoying. The stuff seemed to seep into your bones.
I wriggled my fingers and tried to avoid thinking about food. We were down to two small meals - for those of us on active duty. It simply wasn’t enough and we knew there was worse to come. Some of the vegetables were not going to make it through the winter so we were going to be really hungry by the start of April.
I was thinking that, this time last year, I would have been very happy with the new lean, fit me and my thoughts drifted back to the pizza shop where it had all started… pizza!
To pull my mind away from food I took out the binoculars and scanned first down then up the valley. I don’t know why I bothered scanning up the valley. People hardly ever came from up there.
There was movement on the road! I alerted Laura and had another look. There was a significant group - more than ten people - and they were traveling quite openly. I handed the binoculars to her and prepared to tell the main guard post.
We had developed a simple but effective way of communicating with them - coloured sheets of paper that could be hung so that they could be seen from across the river but not from the road below
Green flag: we have a message... there was normally a short wait until somebody across the road noticed.
Green flag: we see you have a message - they only showed this for a few seconds. They knew we were watching.
Blue flag... people coming.
Green flag... acknowledge.
Roman Numeral 'XX' flag - they could read it easily in spite of the drizzle. They had their binoculars on us.
Green flag... acknowledge.
Red flag... end of message.
Red flag... end of message acknowledged
We could vaguely make out the hornets’ nest we had stirred up on the other side as the bell was rung to trigger the ready reserve. For a group this size, we would probably have a third unit on standby too. The first wave of reinforcements arrived at the guard post within a couple of minutes and went to their prepared fighting positions.
We watched nervously as the group drew closer. They were pulling some sort of wagon.
Then Laura, who was watching the group through the magnifying sights of her rifle began to swear. This was quite shocking as she was normally quite careful with her language. When I saw her finger starting to move towards the trigger, I put my hand on her shoulder.
"What's up?" I asked.
"You'll see in a second," she answered. She was almost trembling with anger and her finger was inside the trigger guard.
"Laura," I whispered urgently, "Get your finger off that trigger. Remember our operating procedures. We don't fire first from this side."
With an obvious effort she got herself back under control and moved her finger back outside the guard as the group disappeared briefly from view at a bend in the road.
A few seconds later, the group appeared again and I shared her anger.
I'd never seen slaves before. I'd seen hungry, frightened and even desperate people before but at least they had a spark.
In the people below, that spark had gone.
I forced myself to ignore my revulsion and observe - really observe - the sorry procession below.
It was led by six soldiers who were carrying homemade spears of some sort. At first this seemed desperate but, in a world of ever decreasing stocks of ammunition, it made sense. When we had time… time… we should probably give some more thought to archery.
Next came a cart. It had been crudely made by removing the engine and much of the superstructure from a light van. The driver’s seat remained and was occupied by a large man who was holding a whip.
The cart was being pulled by four of the slaves who were harnessed to it by some sort of rucksack arrangement. There were another half dozen, all girls, tied to the back of the cart and with their hands bound together in front of them. They were scantily clad in what, I suppose, you might describe as erotic lingerie if you were the sort of person to think of anything worn by young teenagers in that way. Whatever it was, it was completely inappropriate for the weather.
The leader of the caravan followed. He might have been a shopkeeper or small business man in his previous life and affected a haughty disdain of what was going on around him. He even carried a short swagger stick which he occasionally used on the slaves if they got in his way. His most striking feature, in a world where people ranged from lean to emaciated, was that he was fat, not huge, but he clearly hadn’t missed many meals
He was accompanied by eight personal bodyguards who were the only people who were visibly carrying guns. I could see shotguns, a small bore rifle and several pistols…. and two serious looking assault rifles - probably AKs of some kind. Their eyes darted everywhere and showed that they were as concerned about threats to their leader and cargo from the soldiers as from any external threats.
As the caravan drew level with the remains of the bridge the leader raised a hand and it drew to a halt.
"Hello!" he called, "who’s there?”
There was no reply.
"Hello!" he called again, "I heard your alarm bell and we can smell your smoke. Please don't make us come over there and investigate. That would be..." he feigned a sigh, "tiresome."
"What do you want?" Mike said, stepping out from behind a tree, holding an assault rifle. Even from this distance I could sense his dangerous anger.
Though he feigned indifference, the leader was visibly shaken by the sight of the rifle and his tone became less pompous and patronising. "I was wondering whether you would be interested in exploring... ahem... the possibilities of mutually beneficial trade. As you will, no doubt, have observed, I have a fine collection of highly desirable young virgins here for, as it were, heat or meat." He feigned embarrassment at his little joke.
"Go to Hell, you despicable parasite!" Mike exploded, glaring at the man with an intensity that made him flinch. The bodyguards hurriedly shuffled the bound slaves round until they formed a human shield in front of him.
“So you’re not interested in trade?” the man asked. He sounded genuinely surprised.
"I am tempted," Mike went on, "sorely tempted, to wipe you off the face of the earth but it would cost us ammunition that we can’t really afford. Our rules of engagement say that we only shoot people who cross the bridge or pose an immediate threat otherwise your brains would be decorating the hillside and the world would be a much better place. Now get out of my sight before the temptation becomes too much. You have twenty seconds to get moving"
“You’re following your ‘rules of engagement’, perhaps you better call down the person who’s really in charge,” I’d prefer to speak to the organ grinder and not the monkey.” He must have thought he was safe because he had a line of slave girls between him and Mike - nothing else could have explained this insane bravery - but I knew that from that distance, Mike could have chosen which of his eyes he wanted to shoot him in.
“I wrote the ‘rules of engagement’, you ignorant git!” Mike bellowed. “That’s the only reason I feel obliged to follow them. You now have ten seconds… nine…”
The caravan was hurriedly shuffled back into its marching formation then continued its weary trudge.
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Post by garethn on Oct 29, 2018 15:40:59 GMT -6
Meet one of my favourite characters... right up there with Emily-Jane.
What do you mean, authors can’t have favourite characters?
G
Chapter 6 - The Fist
As soon as the caravan was out of range, Laura posted another flag - yellow - ‘I wish to be relieved at once’.
Twenty minutes later, we were back at the guard cottage with Mike and Laura. “What's up?” Mike asked.
“I’d like to request a couple of days leave of absence,” Laura replied.
“Laura, you can't clean up all the garbage in the world,” Mike told her.
“Just the bits that are thrown in my face,” she answered grimly.
“I don't like you going out there on your own, and we can’t spare one of the squad to go with you,” Mike said.
Susan was still tidying away the emergency operating theatre she had set up at the first sound of alarm and I briefly met her eye. She gave me a nod of permission.
“I'll go with her,” I said.
“What will Susan say about that?”
“Susan doesn't like it but she supports her husband,” Susan said. “Evil like that must not be allowed to stand.”
“And what will you do with the people you free?”
“We'll divide up the loot and send them on their way. If any want to come here, well… hopefully there share will be enough to buy their ticket in.”
So, two hours later we were jogging down the valley in pursuit of the gang with nothing but murder on our minds. Laura had even borrowed Jimbo’s best friend, the SA-80 L86A2 LSW.
We caught up with the group about dusk. They had reached the now-deserted village of Grasswell and had turned right onto the New Road towards Amberford. They were not difficult to find as they had lit a campfire in the middle of the road.
As night started to fall, we reconnoitered their camp. They had four sentries, two fixed and two roaming, and each team seemed to consist of one of the trusted ‘bodyguards’ and one spearholder.
The girls seemed to be doing most of the camp chores and then were bedded down together under the immediate supervision of the leader.
After inspecting the site, we backed silently away and set up our own, fireless, camp for the night.
The next morning was clear and cold - lovely weather for a massacre - and we worked our way into position before dawn. Laura had selected two separate firing positions. I was not happy about being on my own but she had decided we needed the crossfire. I waited for the signal that she was ready and then I took my first shot - aiming at one of the bodyguards with an AK.
Laura allowed me to do most of the shooting and I don’t think many of them even realised she was there. She simply eliminated any of the defenders who managed to find effective cover with respect to my position.
At one stage there was a half-hearted charge by a mixed group of bodyguards and spear holders but as soon as we killed the bodyguards, the spear holders turned and fled. One of them, I noticed, was shot by their leader as he did so.
It was all over within about three minutes and we cautiously advanced, removing firearms from those who had them and, in Laura’s case, casually breaking the necks of the wounded. In the centre of the camp, one of the slaves, a tall girl, was ineffectually kicking and thumping the body of the caravan leader who was already in significant trouble with a sucking chest wound.
“Hang on a minute,” Laura said and removed the pistol that was still in the man’s hand. When she had done that, she handed one of the spears to the girl. “Try this,” she said and the girl started jabbing at the dying man with evident satisfaction.
When we had finished collecting the firearms, we looked around the camp at who was still left - though we had kept a careful watch on the bodyguards, we didn’t worry if anyone else chose to run away. There were three spear holders, standing together, eyes wide with fear. Two of them looked no older than James. The third was even younger.
They were still clutching their weapons. “Put those down!” I ordered them and they hurried to comply.
Four of the scantily clad young girls remained, including the one I now thought of as stabber-girl. "Right," I said to the three pairs of hollow eyes that were following our every move. "Let's see what we can find in the way of sensible clothes and then we can think about food.”
Laura and I went round to the back of the cart to check its contents. The first thing we saw was some hunks of badly butchered meat wrapped in old newspaper.
"What’s this?" Laura demanded of the young soldiers in a dangerously low tone. They cowered in front of her, unable to meet her eye.
"It's Loraine," stabber-girl said in a small, surprisingly calm voice without interrupting her stabbing.
I have rarely felt so sick. Laura looked as if she was about to shoot the three young soldiers - the three young boys - so I put my hand on her shoulder. "Don't do it," I told her. "You know you'll regret it for the rest of your life."
"You're right," she managed to say though she had started trembling with the repressed violence. "Get out of my sight," she snapped at the child soldiers.
"Go round the corner, there, and start digging a grave for... Loraine, was it?" I told them.
The three fell over each other as they hurried round the corner and started ripping at the stony soil with their bare hands.
“Thank you,” Laura said to me in a quiet voice, almost a whisper.
"Believe me, I was close to losing it, too," I assured her, "but I kept imagining it was James there and that helped me to keep a grip."
Two hours later, we were ready to leave. Loraine’s remains had been buried and the spear carriers had been sent on their way with a warning that they would be killed if we ever saw their faces again. The girls had been clothed and fed and stabber-girl had reluctantly accepted that her pincushion was not going to get any more dead - though she was still keeping a tight grip on the spear. The girls had been told that they could come back with us if they wanted; I was surprised that only two chose to join us, including stabber-girl. The bodies had been searched and stripped of anything useful and it was piled on the cart. Even after we had given the departing girls some of the food, it was still a respectable haul: dozens of tins; a large sack of rice and a smaller one of flour; packets of breakfast cereal; biscuits and crisps; and even half a dozen bottles of spirits. Strictly speaking, it was probably not enough for the two to buy their way into our community but it was close enough.
We were preparing to leave when stabber-girl pointed to the southern horizon. “What’s that?” she asked.
We looked in the direction she was pointing, down the main road towards Amberford. There were about half a dozen vertical columns of smoke rising into the still morning air.
“That,” I said, “looks like a big group of people.”
Laura was quiet for a while then said, “Phil, can you hang on here for a couple of hours while I go and take a look?”
I thought about this. “Sure, I’ll probably move somewhere a bit less exposed though… and could you quickly show stabber-girl how to use the AK?”
“My name’s Theo,” stabber-girl told us. Her session of physical violence therapy seemed to have done her good. She no longer had that crushed and defeated look in her eyes. “Theodora.”
“I am sorry,” I said hurriedly, conscious of the fact that she was in a delicate psychological state.
“I don’t mind,” she replied. “In fact… in fact, from now on, I want to be called ‘Stab’.”
“Because Theodora was a victim…” Laura suggested. “Things just happened to her? Nothing ever just happens to Stab?”
Stab gave a smile; the smile of a dangerous young woman.
Laura gave the newly named Stab some brief instruction in the use of the AK. She even allowed her to fire four single shots, using the mutilated body of the caravan leader as a target.
Then Laura prepared for her scouting mission. She unloaded unnecessary kit and insisted that we swap weapons; if she was killed or captured, she didn’t want the sniper rifle to be lost. As she was about to set off, the newly named Stab announced, “I’m coming too.”
“No, Stab, you’re not,” Laura told her flatly.
I could see a dangerous anger rising in Stab’s eyes. “Nobody tells me what to do any more!” she said.
“I understand and accept that,” Laura said. She sat down on the edge of the cart, a disarming gesture. “And one of the things you may choose to do is join our group.” She paused for a moment.
“If you choose to do that, you are agreeing to follow all reasonable orders through our military chain of command. You’re also agreeing to do any work on the farm that you’re asked to do. That’s the way we work and it’s the only way that a community like ours can work. Now, half of this,” she pointed behind her with her thumb to the contents of the cart, “is yours and you can take it, with our blessing and go… or you can choose to join us and obey the rules that we all agree to follow.”
She paused and gave Stab a smile. “So which is it to be?”
Stab dropped her eyes and quietly answered, “Join, I suppose.”
“Hey, look at me,” Laura insisted. “An independent young woman has just made a decision. There’s no shame in that. Let’s try again. What are you choosing to do?”
Stab thought about this then lifted her face. “I’m choosing to join you,” she answered.
“Good,” Laura answered as she stood up again and prepared to leave. “Just so you understand, the reason that I don’t want you with me is that you don’t know what you’re doing yet and would be a liability. But don’t worry; I’m going to bend our rules which say you’re too young and make sure you’re trained up as a member of our military. And, if you’re good enough and apply yourself properly, there’ll be plenty more scouting missions in the future.”
Stab met her eye and nodded.
With that, Laura casually jumped over a dry stone wall and disappeared.
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Post by papaof2 on Oct 29, 2018 15:41:36 GMT -6
If you're doing more physical labor than typical, you need to increase your fat intake as well - carbs only won't do it. You need more protein to repair body damage, which occurs when farming and even more so when at war.
The US Military has manuals on everything else so there's probably an FM (Field Manual) on feeding soldiers based on duty needs and available foodstuffs. Probably not as high on the "I want a copy" list as FMs on survival and shooting.
---
Answering my own question. There are a number of FMs on food prep and dining service. Search for: army fm food preparation
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Post by hamrad on Oct 30, 2018 2:15:03 GMT -6
even more of the good stuff Gareth, You are keeping the MOAR Monster fed, well done.
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Post by arkansascob on Oct 30, 2018 9:27:32 GMT -6
And what does surviving really mean? Is just staying alive enough? GJust staying alive isnt much of survival to me.
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