The Archer's Marines: The First Marines - Medieval fiction action story about Marines, naval warfare, and knights after King Richard's crusade in Syria, ... times (The Company of Archers Book 5) (17 page)

       The sky is partially cloudy and the flat field of the upward sloping rocky farmland is empty of life and crops.  There are great towering white clouds to the north, but at the moment the men are traveling in bright summer morning sunshine.  It’s dusty and hot on the rough track across the abandoned farm.  The mud ruts from a previous rain are baked hard and the men in the Jeep don’t know what they will find when they get to the top of the rise they are slowly approaching.  But they are highly visible as they slowly bounce over the uneven ground and seriously worried about it. 

       “Careful, goddamn it, careful,” the passenger hisses in an unnecessarily low voice as they slowly approach the summit.  He is twisted around and trying to see over the crouching gunner behind the gun mount.  The driver is slowly backing the Jeep upwards towards the top of the rise.

       Damn
the passenger thought to himself as he tries to stand so he can see better,
and just when I was about to rotate back home for a new assignment.  
He is about six feet tall with close cropped gray hair, about 190 pounds, and, although he never did really think about it, glad he only has daughters who won’t be called to serve.

       He’d picked up the driver’s carbine ten minutes ago, checked its banana clip to make sure it is full, and clicked its fire selector from single shot to automatic.  The carbine had ridden wedged between him and the driver until they reached the start of the gradually rising farm land a couple of miles back.  Now, holding the carbine in his right hand like a pistol and trying to keep his balance by holding the edge of the lowered windshield with his left, he is standing as high as possible in the slowly bouncing and rocking Jeep in an effort to see around the gunner and over the top of the ridge. 

       The passenger is a fairly chunky man wearing the shoes and summer uniform of a garrison officer instead of boots and battledress.  His pants are filthy and ripped, but that’s what he’d been wearing when the war started and he hadn’t taken them off yet.  There is a colonel’s badge on the summer soft cap he’d grabbed off the bedroom table and jammed on his head when he’d gotten the 3am call about the invasion and rushed to headquarters. 

        Brown hair streaked with white pokes out from under the Colonel’s cap.  It was cropped short and neat when the war started, but it hasn’t been cut or combed for weeks.  He is forty two years old and desperately needs a shave and something to eat.  He’d been the commander of a tank battalion in Germany during the big war and knows trouble when he sees it.

       What happened? Why weren’t we ready?
Even bouncing along in the Jeep he can’t get the disbelief out of his mind.   Once again the United States and the United Kingdom have been caught flat footed and ill-equipped.

       The Jeep lurches to a stop at his whispered order.  He hoists himself on the barrel of the carbine and slowly raises himself up as high as possible. 
Damn, still not far enough to see what’s on the other side.
  But he isn’t taking any chances.  He’d quickly learned in Germany that it is really stupid to show yourself on a ridge line until you are damn sure you know what’s on the other side. 

       He hasn’t slept for days, his clothes are filthy, and he is totally exhausted.  Being worried and backing slowly up a hill in a jeep brought back fleeting memories of the earlier war.  He almost smiles at the memory. 

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**Martin Archer can be contacted at
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