Killing Ground by James Rouch Read Free Book Online Page B

compared with the memory bank of a seismically activated mine
    The anti-tank mines would not be interested in them, but buried at the roadside or lodged on a rock shelf there might be a shotgun mine silently ticking off their progress. Many now were set to detonate only when several bodies had passed, calculated to knock out patrol commanders, who rarely took the point and could be caught farther down the line. Well, there was nothing he could do about them. That was down to luck.
    That word played a big part in the so-called science of mine clearance, but Carrington had never had any time for it. He was a fatalist. He didn’t court death, even took what steps he could to avoid it, but he saw no point in worrying at every turn, every time a shell passed by so close he felt the draft of its passage, or when a grenade fragment rapped hard against his helmet or flak jacket. No, when it was his turn it would happen, and until the instant it happened he could savour every pain- free breath he took.
    Through the roar of the flames Carrington thought he heard another sound, but couldn’t place it. As he took another step it came again, but once more just too indistinct to label.
    He unslung his weapon and looked around. There was nothing. Just the rocks and trees and the blazing auto. The slopes held nothing he hadn’t observed previously. Those mines in sight were exactly as he’d noted them only thirty seconds before.
    There were the pair of launchers by the big rock with the prominent quartz seam, another propped in the lower branches of a gnarled pine, the claymore mine at the bottom of the scree slope just below that chunk of panel from the Merc… ‘Down!’
    It was pure instinct that made Carrington hurl himself full length, even then though with the presence of mind to turn and dive into his own footsteps.
    A sheet of flame erupted from the concave cast face of the claymore. It unleashed thousands of fragments at a broad arc of the road, while it’s less powerful but still devastating backlash made multiple perforations in the sliding wreckage that had triggered its anti-handling device.
    Carrington felt a numbingly heavy blow in his side, and an instant drenching in warm, pulsing blood.

    SIX

The blood that soaked him was not his own. Carrington lifted his head to look at the savagely torn remains that had been thrown against him. A wisp of steam rose from ribbons of bowel that trailed from the legless torso.
    He knew that Taylor had been only a few paces from him, and only fractions of a second slow in taking cover. There was a persistent tinny ringing in his ears, the aftermath of the masses of impacts against the hulk of the Estate. It had been that which had saved him.
    Inches from where he’d lain the road was scored with a mass of tiny furrows that were quickly filling with water.
    Revell had seen the burst of red mist that had marked Taylor’s end. It was only a moment, but it seemed an age before Carrington got to his feet. Without any gesture to indicate he was all right, he took a roll of muddy bandage from the grasp of the dismembered hand beside him and started up the hillside.
    ‘There’s something wrong with that bloke.’ Burke watched a tripwire being carefully marked. ‘No wonder he didn’t bother to check if he was hurt. If he loses any of the ice he’s got in his veins he can always top up with a glass of water.’
    ‘Well, at least he hasn’t got the worry of that Red artillery.’ Garrett cocked his head to listen. ‘They’re putting down a heck of a plastering to either side and ahead of us but we seem to be in the clear so far. Gives him a chance to concentrate on what he’s doing.’
    ‘What sort of a nerd are you, boy?’ Ripper, after rummaging through every pocket, produced a bullet-hard, fluff-impregnated wad of chewing gum. ‘Anybody with half an ounce of the sense they were born with would know why that is, and it sure ain’t good news.’
    ‘It’s not coming down on