Juggernaut

While all other men fled from the oncoming monster, Kemp held his hands out in front of him in a futile, terrible gesture and ran straight into its path. The juggernaut claimed many bloody sacrifices but one went willingly.

Losing momentum on the flat, the rig halted abruptly. From among crushed and unrecognizable fragments the bulk of the transformer rose twisted but identifiable. Billowing dust merci fully hid details of the trail of carnage. Remnants of one of the ferry buildings leaned drunkenly, ripped open and eviscerated.

My knees were as weak as grass stems and the skin of my face was drawn taut and painful. Hammond was sobbing in a hard, dry fashion that wrenched the breath from his body. Kirilenko was on his knees, gripping a rifle in both hands; the barrel was buckled under the strength he had exerted.

Zimmerman had his hands to his face and blood trickled down where some flying debris had cut him. Dufour and Thorpe stood in total silence; Dufour's arms were wrapped around Ritchie Thorpe's shoulders in a grip of iron. Everyone was white and shattered.

The noise of screams and moaning, voices crying for help, buckling metal and splintering wood were all around us, but we stood in a small oasis of silence. There were no soldiers anywhere near us except Colonel Wadzi himself, who was rocking slightly on his feet, his uniform ripped and dirty, his face haggard with shock.

I took a deep gasp of air.

'Let's get the hell out of here.'

Wadzi raised his face to mine, his eyes bewildered.

'My men…' he said uncertainly, and then more firmly, 'I have much to do. You people, you must go. We do not want you here.'

His voice was drained of every emotion. We were bad news. He had done with us for ever.

Hammond said, 'My God, that poor bloody man.'

I knew he meant Kemp, but it was McGrath I thought of.

Thorpe said softly, 'There's nothing to keep us here now.'

I nodded in complete understanding. Safe from the path of destruction the DUKW was unscathed in its waterside garage.

'Auntie Bess is waiting,' I said. 'Let's go and join the others.'