The Toymaster's Castle

Chapter Fifty-Four - The Cost of Victory

Everybody came out to see us… like everybody! They shouted and cheered… a complete explosion of relief… word must have got around about the total hell on earth that life under Angus had been.

We pulled up in front of the war memorial and waited for our boys to line up at the back of the Land Rover so it was as if we were up on a bit of a stage in front of them. And, even though the rest of the town had gathered around, there was no question that Daniel was just talking to our boys.

“Over the last couple of days, we have met a larger, better armed and unimaginably brutal enemy. But, thanks to your discipline, your determination and your raw courage…”

He paused for a moment to look across at me, sort of telling me that he was talking to me too!

“We won!”

We were hit by a wall of ecstatic cheering as the relief and jubilation exploded out of all of us. I just grabbed Daniel and he grabbed me and rocked me from side to side as we embraced. For some reason, that seemed to kick off another wave of cheering.

“Of course I can’t promise you that this is going to be our last battle,” he went on as the cheering died down. “But this one puts us on the map. It establishes ‘The Kingdom in the West’ as a force to be reckoned with in the world and, with our new-found reputation, nobody is going to want to face us in the field…”

Another wave of cheering… then somebody shouted, ‘The King in the West’… and a few other voices were taking up the chant… and suddenly they were all shouting it… and not just our men but the whole town.

And there was none of the jokey business that there had been when they had called him that before. This time, they really meant it.

At last he showed the men that he wanted to carry on talking and the roar of acclamation died down.

“The reputation that ‘The Kingdom in the West’ now enjoys, thanks to your achievements of the last few days, will, of course, strengthen my hand when it comes to negotiating with our neighbours. I’d even go so far as to say that it makes war much less likely in future.”

Another wave of cheering… and more chanting… They liked that idea!

“I’d like to be able to tell you that you can rest now… put your feet up… celebrate! But we all know life is not like that… particularly not for soldiers… or Royal Marines! There’s still plenty to do to put the final seal on this victory.”

That caused some laughter!

“First, there are our dead boys, Jake and Dean…” that killed the laughter. “Not as many as there might have been but, then again, two too many. I need volunteers to go and collect them and bring them back here so that we can bury them, with full military honours, tomorrow. And we need to tidy away their dead too”

As far as I could see, every hand went up.

“Then we have to deal with their survivors…”

That was met by a wall of silence.

“Now I know that some of them were beasts and we will root them out and deal with them appropriately… but my guess is that most of them were just regular guys who wanted to keep their heads down and do the best thing for their families. I plan on offering the decent ones a place at your side. I know it will be difficult for you to trust them… it will be tricky enough for me to trust them… but that’s the only way of moving forwards. So I’ll need to have some of you go down and collect them, keep an eye on them, give them something to eat and so on.”

There were volunteers for that too… not as many but enough.

“And, finally, we need people to go and sort out the mess that Angus has made of Haverfordwest, where he was based. Reports are pretty sketchy from over there but as far as I can work out most of the people are in a pretty dreadful state. We need to go and give them a hand to get themselves back on their feet… so that we can bring them into a new Kingdom.”