Amidst the falling dust (The Green and Pleasant Land) Read Free

slight sneer.
    “Looking to go home Redmayne?” said Captain Skellen quizzically.
    “No. The coincidence is just that.”
    “Explain”
    So I told them. I told them about the underground bunker at Edenpark. I told them about the command and control centre it housed which might, just might still have an operational satellite link which could give us an idea of what was happening in the wider world, and allow us to link up the remnants of the Royal Navy in other parts of the globe.
    They lapped it up, the thought of not being alone any more was enough to push them over into endorsing my plan. I neglected to tell them that the chances of the building having power, let alone being able to establish a satellite link were slim to nil. Let them have their hope, and I will have mine. The Redmayne house was less than an hour from Edenpark, I would see what became of my dearest after that telephone call, and my fellow lost sailors would be none the wiser.
    The meeting started to wind down. Food was short, water was short, morale was low. There had been two more rapes which had led to two more summary executions, two more bodies to feed to the water. The fine details of the Brampton mission were hammered out and most of us made to leave. I heard one of Captain Skellens aides mention a tertiary objective.
    “A third mission?” queried Lieutenant Tasker.
    “Yes” nodded the Captain. “We have intercepted an unidentified radio signal, as we're heading to Carlisle we may as well expand the mission to investigate that as well”
    “Where is it coming from?” I ask. The Captain looks at his notes.
    “A remote location, in the Lake District National Park, at a place called Ravensburg”.

Chapter 2, Operation Black Rabbit

    The Lynx prowled the skies ahead of us. It swooped from side to side across the land like a bird of prey. I followed behind in the Puma while to our rear was the large Chinook where the bulk of the forty person foraging squad were on board keeping eyes on every horizon. Surprisingly, despite being frequently laid low by the motion of the aircraft carrier on the waves, air travel did not phase me in the slightest.
    Sadly the same could not be said of all of our entourage. I'd heard Lieutenant Tasker referring to the Chinook as the 'puke wagon' and could well imagine there were a few green faces on board.
    They should consider themselves lucky however. The pace of the Chinook was relatively sedate compared with the breakneck sky racer that was the Lynx. It swooped up and down like a peregrine falcon, guns trained on every broken window and swaying tree. That was where Tasker rode, the vanguard, and I was well glad for that fact.
    We'd spent a week getting prepared. During that time Skellen asked me a multitude of questions about Edenpark. I told him the truth, the parts of it which I thought he'd find palatable, the rest I left to chew over on my own time. I could sense that he was having doubts about that part of the mission, so I spoon fed him as much as I could, until he was sick of worrying and would go along with it if I could deliver only a fraction of that which I was promising.
    Supplies were packed, engines were fuelled and the squad was hand picked by the captain and his lieutenant. We flew by charts and came in over a deserted piece of coast. The ashen ruin of a lighthouse waited for as a greeting, a sign of things to come no doubt. I got a lot of odd looks and very little in the way of conversation. I'd been a suit before the downfall and the ill fitting military fatigues did not erase that from peoples memories.
    The people who went on these foraging missions were battle hardened veterans. People who'd become used to killing things with their bare hands. I was not one of them, they knew it, I knew it. But this was an opportunity not to be missed.
    The first couple of days were as uneventful as days get in the world beyond the apocalypse. Our birds had been fitted with specialised fuel tanks so staying