My Name is Stab

Chapter Twenty Five - Ambush

"Ambush right!" Mike suddenly yelled.

We knew we were getting close so we were moving even more cautiously than usual and, because of that, Mike was able to spot them moments before they struck.

He had taught us that, when caught in an ambush, you react with instant, extreme violence.

James and I threw ourselves from our bicycles, rolling towards, not away from the threat and, before anyone had a chance to think, we were charging towards the men in the ditch, firing shot after shot into their twitching bodies. Soon they had all stopped moving.

Apparently Mike had managed to do the same with some men behind us.

I turned to embrace James but something was wrong. He had a frozen, shocked expression on his face.

Only as he collapsed to the ground did I notice the entry wound in his chest. The bullet could have been aimed straight at his heart. I collapsed to my knees, clutching at him but I knew it was useless. He was already dead.

I was gently brushing his hair from his eyes when I was yanked from my stupor by a course voice from behind me. "Killed your little lover boy, did we?" it mocked.

I drew my knife and walked towards the man who was lying on the ground with an obliterated right arm. As I approached, I realised I recognised him. In fact I recognised all the men from the ambush. Mostly they were members of Deemo's gang but scar-face from yesterday was there too.

As I drew closer, I was stopped by Mike's gentle hand round my shoulders. "Allow me," he said in an unusually tender tone. "I'm much better at this than you will ever be." He kissed me gently on the forehead then eased me back.

"What?" the man exploded when he saw Mike. "Greggo said there were just two of you. Who the fuck are you?"

"Your worst nightmare," Mike answered. With a few swift passes of his knife, he sliced through the man's trousers.

"What the..." the man exploded but he was suddenly silent as Mike laid his knife across his scrotum.

"First you're going to tell us all about where your gang is based and about how your defences are set up," Mike told him.

The words were tumbling out of the man as he described the farmhouse and their two observation posts.

"Good! And now you're going to spend the rest of your life regretting what you did to Theodora and to those she loved."

"But I told you..." the man began but his words were cut off by a single swift slice of the razor-sharp blade. As he opened his mouth to scream, Mike stuffed his severed genitals into it then picked up the man's rifle and used the barrel to stuff them deep down his throat. Then he casually smashed the man's nose with the heel of his boot, rendering that useless for breathing.

The man reached up towards his throat with his good hand but Mike prodded it down with his foot then obliterated it with a single shot.

"You talk too much," Mike said casually as he watched the man slowly turning blue.

For a while, I really don't know what happened. The next thing I knew, Mike was easing me off the floor, rubbing my back and firmly saying, "Stab! I still need you!"

Somehow that grabbed my attention. "We can still win this..." he went on in a gentle voice; gentle but with suppressed violent passion. "As much as winning is possible any more. At least we can make damn sure those bastards lose. But to do that, you have to stay with me. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Sarge," I replied. In a snap, I switched off all emotion and turned intensely cold. I collected James's rifle and the rest of his equipment. Mike lifted James's body onto his shoulder and we moved a short way away to bury him.

"It's all my fault," I said as we stood, side by side, at the edge of the shallow grave.

"Wrong," Mike said. "We both knew what we were letting ourselves in for when we chose to come with you. Also, if you want to start throwing blame about, you can think about the fact that I should have been expecting something like that ambush - particularly after bumping into scar-face yesterday... and, if you're honest with yourself, you knew James said too much to him. I saw you flinch."

"But he..."

"Listen!" His voice was rising. "You're not going to get a single thing past me because I'm a world expert at blaming myself for things that are not my fault. A world fucking expert! Hell, you're both still kids! I should never of allowed either one of you to set foot outside the camp."

"But I loved him." This was Stab saying it. Theodora was back in her box and had no intention of coming back out.

Ever

He eased me round, put his arms round me and kissed me on my forehead.

"And he loved you," Mike said. "That was clear for everyone to see."

He released me from his hug and stepped back a little so he could look me in the eye though he kept hold of my hands.

"And I loved him too," he said. Suddenly he was talking very quietly. "When he was two days old, I held James in my arms and promised his mother that I would look after him. I've failed. If you want to wallow in self-pity and self-recrimination, we can do it together. Just not yet. There's a job to finish first. For his death to have any meaning, we have to wipe every one of those bastards off the face of the earth."

He paused for a moment and then concluded, "So dry your tears and get your head back in gear, soldier!"

"Yes, Sarge." There was nothing else I could say. I was suddenly cold. Ice cold.

He squeezed my hands and then let me go.