Slow Motion

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Last Month at War

*Monday morning, 0400 hours*

It was now time to get ready for an invasion in Japanese territory. Their base was about, 5 km from where we had been stationed for the last week. This is by far one of the most terrifying and dangerous missions so far. It was still as dark as a house with no windows outside but we had night vision, so we could see just about as much as we could when its daylight. The ground was wet with frost, which made the walk ahead seem even less enjoyable. Everyone was gathered quietly in front of camp, geared up and fired up. We started heading off at around 0430 hours and by the looks of it, every single one of us were nervous as hell.

By the time I had walked about a km I couldn’t feel my feet from the frost and, if I’m right, I think I can speak for everyone else when I say, numb feet were the last thing on our minds. Fifteen of us as quiet as possible trooped through a ruined town, slipping behind any wall that was high enough to keep us out of sight for a moment. We could just see a glimpse of light coming over the horizon, the frost had now turned into dew and the ground became moist and in some places, it felt like we were stepping in quick sand. The light poured through the trees and made it easy enough to see without night vision.

Once we got closer it started to look like a small coliseum with no large stands for people to sit on inside, the only other thing we could see inside was a large concrete stage with an old broken bucket on top. We had no idea what they used this place for but we were hoping that we didn’t have to find out. We made our way slowly towards our destination, so far no trouble had been encountered, but we were sure there would be something to stop us from getting too close to it. The further we got towards it the more the buildings were destroyed and the less cover was provided for us. We were an open target for any Japanese soldier looking for us, but as much as we didn’t want to we had to get down on the cold ground and crawl in the mud for another km until things got too dangerous to be around.

The nerves had already taken over 2 people, Tim and Matt Perkins, the perky bothers as we call them. All this was too much for them to handle, they just buried their heads in their arms when we were half way there and didn’t move, we have no idea if they are still there or not but if they are they would be lucky to be alive. I was still carrying the radio that we found a few weeks ago, so I told everyone to follow me and we sat down behind a small looking house sort thing and turned it on. I flicked through about 6 different channels until I found one with a news report on it. Nothing fancy, just something about a little kid winning a colouring in competition worth $300 but I wanted to listen to it because maybe someone could hear something about our families, but nothing was said about any ones relatives so we kept moving. We kept our distance even though there was no one near. As we crawled in the wet mud we caught a glimpse of what was inside. We could see that there were people in the field that were not there under their own request, they were being forced to do things like flips and different tricks; it was like they were circus animals.

Soon we were all far too close to be safe, we hid behind a building that had just enough wall left to be completely hidden if we sat up. As I slowly glanced around the corner of the wall, the rubble underneath me started to move. I slid down unable to stop myself into the open where unfortunately at that second about 5 soldiers walked out of the coliseum and had me in their sights. I looked up and thought to myself ‘this is the end’, but all of a sudden a strong wind blew and a strange noise came from overhead. The Japanese soldiers looked around in confusion trying to find where the noise was coming from. I took advantage of that moment and jumped up, cocked my gun and shot directly at the soldiers heads. I shot a few of them before they realized what I was doing, and then they immediately started shooting back at me. I jumped onto the ground not caring for the mud and tried to take cover, the other men also jumped out from around the corner of the broken down building stumbling on the rocks. A couple of my men got hit, their wounds weren’t too bad but enough to put them in enough pain that they would stop shooting for a moment. As the fight went on I took a couple hits to my stomach and was unable to continue. The wind was now even stronger and the noise louder. As I sat in the mud hardly able to breathe I saw a large figure appear over the coliseum, it was a helicopter!

All of my men went around the corner and took cover behind the smashed wall. The helicopter started shooting in our direction, not hitting us, but hitting the Japanese soldiers instead, killing them all. The roaring voices from the coliseum could no longer be heard for they had stopped at the sight of the helicopter. Other soldiers took their place on the dusty field and started shooting furiously at the chopper. So we fought back, with the helicopter on our side along with a small troop of men we were sure to defeat the Japanese…and that’s exactly what we did.

People that were sitting in the stands were now pouring out of the entrance in fear, with no idea where they were going they just ran and ran without stopping for miles, giving us clear and covered space to help land this helicopter. We soon directed the helicopter to land in the coliseum safely with out damaging anything. As we all jumped into the helicopter and started to fly over the tracks we took to get to our last battle ground we searched for other men. Unfortunately we never did find the Perkins boys.

*A month later*

I have now been home for at least a month now with my family. They were so pleased to see me alive when I got back from war. As for Luke and his family he wanted revenge on the people who took his parents lives, but that’s another story. For now we were all home safely with our war scars proudly showing and our many medals pinned to our uniforms which thankfully were never needed again.

THE END