Chapter 36

Rural Oxfordshire. Halloween

With an area of fifteen and a half square miles and, due to the very strange shape of that area, a perimeter of almost twenty one miles, the whole estate would be impossible to protect. There were nineteen gates onto the estate. Most were just tractor access to one or two fields, but there were also seven gates of various sizes that led, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, onto the estate as a whole.

The boundary itself had nearly a mile and a half of eight foot high brick wall, another four and a bit miles of four foot high brick wall, plus seven and a half miles of hedges between four and six foot tall. The remaining eight miles of boundary was all four foot high wire fencing, none of which was either barbed or electrified. Most of the brick wall was closest to the house, though a short, five hundred yard section of high wall separated an important piece of woodland from a local thoroughfare that led from local villages down to the main A40 road.

Over half of the total border was next to a road of some sort, ranging from good, fairly well used ‘B’ roads, down to farm tracks. The remainder all bordered land belonging to other farmers, and this was where most of the hedges were. Two of the three most important gates, known by the owners and the occupiers as the Main and Back gates respectively, were protected by high walls. The third only by low walls.

The remaining gates mostly only had wire fences. The majority of the gates were simple iron or wood five-bar gates, however the main gate was a huge, old, solid wood and iron affair and the back gate was a similar sized and equally solid iron gate.

It was a sod of a place to defend, if the owner had wanted to defend the entire property. So it was just as well that the first ‘attack’ came in broad daylight, and amounted to just ten security Patrollers, led by a Chief Assault Leader.

Two cars and a Land Rover came to a screeching halt by the front gate. As was usual these days, it was closed, though three or four years earlier it would have been open from about seven AM through to about nine PM every single day. Later some days.

A section leader hopped out of the front car and went to try and open the gate. It was locked. After nearly a minute or so of futilely trying to find a way to open it, he spotted a small electric speaker box and press button. He pressed the button.

“Yes,” came the reply many seconds later. The voice sounded female and out of breath, “sorry, I was busy and couldn’t get to the phone.”

“You need to open the gate. Now,” ordered the Section Leader.

“Who is it?” came the puzzled reply. “We’re not expecting any deliveries, and in any case, you’ve come to the wrong gate. You would be better off going round to the back gate.”

“Just open the gate. This is the Patrol. We are here to see Mister Neve.”

“Oh right, sorry. I’ll send someone down.” The intercom clicked off. The Section leader looked at it crossly for a moment, then turned and stared at the adjoining gatehouse.

It took him a few moments to realise that it was unoccupied, and probably had been for a great number of years, so he turned his attention back to the gate. He didn’t spot the three tiny cameras looking out at him and his colleagues from the gatehouse. Half a minute later he pressed the button again. Nothing happened.

Across the road, and hidden inside a small clump of trees thirty yards away, two men who were watching what was happening, had already alerted the main house to the number and disposition of the ‘attacking’ force.

The Chief Assault leader chose that moment to climb out of the second car.

“What’s going on?” he asked mildly. He didn’t seem at all cross or irritated.

“She said she’s gonna ‘send someone down’ sir,” responded the section leader. “But it’s takin’ ages.”

“Well don’t worry, she’s got a mile to come to get to the gate. It’ll take her a good fifteen minutes to walk, or she’ll have to get a bike or car out. Either way it’ll take a while.”

“How do you know sir?”

“I’ve been on the estate in years gone. They used to open the estate up from late spring to mid autumn. They’d have classic car fairs, music festivals, local craft fairs. At other times you would come just to wander around parts of the land, or for picnics and so on when the weather was nice. During November and December time they would open up for a couple of yule fayres. I used to come here as a kid. It’s beautiful inside.” He shrugged. “Most of it is working farmland. The house itself is only small, not a true manor house so there’s no tours inside, but it’s attractive from the outside even so.”

“Yes sir,” said the Section leader matter-of-factly. ‘Bloody toffs,’ he thought. In this he was including both his Chief Assault Leader as well as Sir Michael Neve.

In fact it was nearly eight minutes before a small wicket gate opened in the main gate and a young woman stepped through. “Hi. Can I help? Dad is somewhere around the estate and won’t be back until later.”

In the time from the initial report by the outside spotters, to the time that Millie had arrived at the front gate, the people inside had swung rapidly into action stations. It would take a minute or two more yet for every single thing to get buttoned up properly,

Although there were now nearly one hundred men and women on the estate, most were well away from the main gate. The section that normally protected the main gate, which included the two men currently outside, was in position before Millie arrived. The remainder of ‘A’ company were hurrying to get into position farther up the long drive. This was one of a number of standard plans. They wanted to take out the entire patrol before it reached the house, though that required the ‘visitors’ to be on foot. In reality they hoped Millie would be able to just send them away again.

A few hundred yards down the road, around a slight bend, two men hurriedly crossed the road into the field opposite. They pushed their way through a narrow gap in the hedge, and then hurried along it, back towards the main gate. The hedge stopped about forty yards short, and the two men went to ground in a shallow pit that had been dug months earlier just for this purpose. The two men closest to the gate both held L85 rifles, one of which had an underslung grenade launcher attached. The two men in the tree line had larger weapons, one an L129 sharpshooter rifle, the other an L108 light machine gun. All of them were prepared to use their weapons, but they hoped not to have to.

The Chief Assault Leader smiled at the pretty girl in front of him. “It’s very important that we see your father. Can you take us to him?” Millie smiled, just managing not to hit him for his condescending tone.

“He’s somewhere out on the estate. I don’t know where exactly. Can you come back this evening? He’ll be back by about six probably. Certainly back by seven. Can I not help?”

“No. It has to be your father.”

Millie shook her head slowly. “There’s nothing I can do.” She looked at her watch. “It really will be at least six hours before I can guarantee he’ll be back.”

“And there’s no likelihood of him being back before then, or of contacting you before then?”

“He’s out working. I really don’t know whereabouts exactly. There’s four or five things he could be doing, in different parts of the estate. He might come back in the next hour or so but I doubt it. He took a flask and some sarnies with him, so he probably won’t be back for lunch, if that’s what you were hoping.”

The Chief Assault Leader looked frustrated. “We have to see him now. There’s no waiting. This is more important that you can possibly imagine.”

“Look. If you tell me what it’s about, maybe I can help. I know as much about what’s going on on the estate as my father does.”

“It’s got nothing to do with the estate,” came the irritated reply. “It’s about your father.”

“Oh?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Although it wasn’t said out loud, Millie ‘heard’ the ‘you’re only a girl’.

“Look,” she said, barely managing to control her irritation. “I don’t know where my father is. He is unlikely to be back for at least six hours. You can sit here and wait if you like, or you can come back later. Your choice.”

“Can you let us in and we can look for him ourselves?”

Millie burst into laughter. “This estate is nearly ten thousand acres. You would be quicker just waiting.”

“But he can’t be just anywhere, surely? You must have a rough, approximate idea of where he is?”

“I’ve already told you. He has a few jobs he needs to get sorted. I don’t know what order they are being done in, but I know they are spread around the farm. I could send you to a couple of them, but you would need escorts for the others, and you couldn’t drive. You would have to walk.”

“This is getting silly,” muttered the Section Leader. The Chief Assault Leader nodded minutely.

“Very well. Open the gates, we’ll wait, but we’ll wait by the house.”

“Ah you sure? It’ll be a long and boring wait.”

“Quite sure Miss, now open up at once.”

Millie shrugged. “Very well. Follow me.”

She went back through the wicket gate, leaving it open. The two Patrollers got back into their cars and waited. The main gates didn’t open, and a few seconds later Millie stood through again, and looked at them. “You need to come through here,” she called.

The Chief Assault Leader opened his window. “Just open the gates.”

“I can’t. I’m not strong enough to do it on my own. I would need a couple of you to help me. It would be better overall if you and your men just walked up.”

“Oh for fuck sake,” muttered the Chief Assault leader to himself. “You and you,” he said to the two Troopers in the same car. “Go and help the stupid cow.” It was as well for him that Millie didn’t hear him, but she was disappointed that she was going to have to open the gates.

The two Patrollers got out reluctantly, leaving their weapons in the car. Although it was a sunny day, it was cold, and there was a brisk wind. The two men huddled into their heavy jackets for warmth, barely noticing that the young woman they were following had on a much lighter wind cheater and didn’t seem to notice the cold. They were too busy looking at her backside in her tight jeans.

They were knocked unconscious as soon as they were through the door. The four men of Delta fire team, two of whom were dressed similar to the two patrollers, overpowered the two real patrollers before they even knew there was a problem. They were placed onto an electric golf buggy which drove off at speed and was out of sight within thirty seconds.

The two heavy wooden bars, which really did take two men to lift clear, were then lifted out of their rests, and placed on the special trestles on either side of the roadway. Millie and the two dressed most like the Patrollers then slowly pulled open the heavy gates, while the other two faded back into the wood.

The cars drove through. “Well get in,” snapped the Chief Assault leader to what he thought were his men.

“I need them to help me push the gates closed again. It’ll only take a moment. I won’t put the bars on.”

“You can leave them open,” snapped the Chief Assault Leader.

“I can’t. You could be here for hours and our cattle could get out if we leave it open.” He wasn’t to know this was complete rubbish, of course. During better times the gates were regularly left open during the day. There was no livestock anywhere near the gates, and never had been.

“Oh very well then. You two stay here and guard the gates.” He looked at his driver. “Drive on then.”

The three vehicles moved off. Millie sighed and retrieved her hidden bicycle. She had half expected them to do something like that, so had come down on her bike, but had deliberately come down slowly so that they thought she had walked down.

Behind her, the four men of Delta quickly put the two great bars back in position, then joined the four men outside the gate, the other half of the section. Their job was to watch out for reinforcements. Not that any were expected. Not for a long while anyway.

The trees only went for thirty yards or so, before opening out to fields on either side. It wasn’t a straight road to the main house, but eventually curved around a small lake on one side, over a small bridge across a stream, and then turned sharply towards the house. There were a number of road humps along the way, forcing the drivers to drop their speed to little more than a walking pace, but since Millie, on her cycle, could go around them, she was actually quite close behind when they reached the house.

“Come on in. It’s cold out. You might as well wait inside. I’ll sort you out some hot drinks if you’d like.”

“Yes please miss,” said a couple of the troopers. It was bad enough coming out here in the cold, if they were going to be given hot drinks, and by a young lady as ‘cute’ as this, then it would make all their lives easier. Or so they thought. Millie had quite easily put them all at their ease.

“You two stay out here with the cars,” ordered the Chief Assault Leader.

The two troopers so ordered looked quietly mutinous, but just nodded. “Yes sir,” muttered one.

“It’s okay,” whispered Millie conspiratorially. “I’ll bring you some hot drinks out.”

“Thank you Miss,” said one gratefully. The other nodded and smiled his thanks.

“This way.” Millie led the six men onto the house, and into the small kitchen. “Take a seat guys. It’ll be a while so you might as well get comfortable.”

All six were facing away from the door leading to the utility room off the kitchen. The chairs had been set that way deliberately only a few minutes earlier. Millie had a tiny microphone attached almost invisibly to her jacket, so her father, who wasn’t and never had been out and about the grounds, and the others knew exactly what was going on.

Millie turned and filled the huge kettle, the noise of the old tap hiding the tiny noise of the utility room door opening. Within seconds all six men were unconscious, rendered so by stingers.

“The men outside are just too far away from the house to easily sting them from inside,” Millie told her father. “And we’ve not got anything we can put in their drinks to just knock them out.”

“Tell you what,” Tony said. “Take them out a huge flask, the biggest we’ve got. Bet you anything they’ll drink it all in the next hour. It’s bitter out and getting colder. They’ll need the loo. When you take the flask out, tell them where the loo is. Bet you any money you like, within the hour one or both will come around to use it. Get them then.”

“Knocked unconscious with a full bladder. I can do without having to clean that up,” muttered Millie sourly.

“Do it on the way back out then,” said Simnall sharply.

“Agreed,” said Sir Michael. “Do it.”

Forty minutes later, the first of the two men left to go to the toilet. When he didn’t return within five minutes, his companion began to get annoyed. Another five minutes later and he still hadn’t returned.

“Bastard,” the remaining Patroller muttered. “Bet he’s inside with the others. All nice and warm.” This was in fact true, sort of. It took him another ten minutes before the pressure in his bladder forced him to go to the loo himself, and see if he could wangle his way back into the warmth.

It was nearly twenty minutes after that, that a Merlin helicopter clattered noisily in to land not far from the house. Twenty-eight fully armed men and women hurried out, a full platoon, and the ten unconscious but fully bound and secured Patrollers, plus nine civilians who were being evacuated, took their place. The Merlin was on the ground for just seven minutes before taking off again and racing northwest, keeping low.

The officer in charge of the new platoon, saluted the slightly startled Lieutenant-Colonel Neve. “Lieutenant Todd Williams reporting as ordered sir.”

Colonel Neve returned the smart salute. “Thank you lieutenant, but I wasn’t aware of your imminent arrival? What’s your unit?”

“We are number three platoon, A company, first battalion the Hampshire Regiment, sir.”

“Hampshire hmm?” He turned. “Captain Simnall. Get these people some hot food, then get them out to the back gate to relieve the men there.”

“Yes sir.”

Sir Michael went back into his office, and picked up the secure phone. He pressed two buttons, then waited.

“Yes?”

“Tim, it’s Mike. Did you send those folks up?”

“Mike. Hello. Yes, I did. I thought you might need them, and they were available.”

For security purposes, even though no-one believed that the TaF or the Patrol could monitor what they were saying, in long distance calls like this, they always used their first names, rather than ranks. For the same reason, they never referred to military units.

“Thank you. We’ve sent the first ten back to you, along with some er civvies. When, or even whether they’ll send any more, I don’t know.”

“That’s fine. You’ve got them as long as you need them, provided I don’t need them elsewhere.”

“Understood, thanks.”

“Good luck, and try and keep me informed.”

“Will do.”

The two men hung up, and Sir Michael went out to reorganise his troops. With Todd’s men, he now had over one-hundred and twenty. Whether that would be enough, he didn’t know, but it would allow him to more easily spell his men while they waited for the attack all now knew must come sooner rather than later.

He went outside to find Tony was arranging for the three cars to be towed away.

“What do you plan on doing with them?”

“The cars I’m gonna put through the replicators to provide more ammunition. The Land Rover I’ll use the replicator to revamp slightly and keep it.”

Sir Michael nodded. “Where’s Sergeant Neve?”

“She’s taken the support platoon,” they weren’t yet big enough to have a full support company, “up onto The Breach.”

The Breach was a natural raise in the ground towards the centre of the estate where, in the early eighth century, a small church and wooden motte and bailey had been built. The motte and bailey had lasted until 1078 when William The Conqueror’s men had it burned down. The church had lasted just another century, until some of King Richard’s men had burned it down, mistakenly believing it was a hideout for some of his enemies. Over the centuries since, many of the stones had been removed by local people for their own buildings, though the stone foundations had remained generally untouched. It had unprecedented views of the entire estate, and though most of the estate was out of range of any sniper fire originating there, the main house wasn’t, nor was the central area where most of the men and women were, and where the Patrol would be attacking.

Sir Michael frowned. The Breach was an obvious point. If the Patrol commander had half a brain, as soon as he found his people were being sniped, he would guess where it came from. And even if it was only used as an observation point, it was such a good observation point that it would have to be suppressed early and quickly.

“Call them back,” he said abruptly. Then, “did you send them?”

“Yes sir. Just to plant some cameras and the like.”

“Uh. In that case, let them be.”

“Yes sir.” Tony frowned slightly. Having Sir Michael’s daughter in the battalion hadn’t yet caused any problems, but if he kept trying to keep her ‘safe’, whilst perfectly understandable in a father, it was going to cause them. And if he kept jumping to conclusions like this, that she was going off on her own, or that she couldn’t use her own initiative, that too would cause issues. He sighed silently. Now wasn’t the time to bring it up, but he might have to soon.

The second attempt came just twenty four hours after the first. This time there were twenty attackers outside the front gate and another ten outside the back. Fortunately the ‘attackers’ still didn’t realise that there were a number of other gates, harder to defend, that would allow them easier access to the estate. Sir Michael had stationed a complete company of men to guard the four most important gates. In two cases, because the terrain outside the perimeter allowed it, this included stationing a section outside each.

The ten attackers at the back gate did not attempt to enter. To the watching defenders it was obvious that they were there simply to prevent any escape by the people inside.

“Complete amateurs,” muttered the sergeant who was leading the section outside the gate, watching from a few hundred feet away.

Nobody responded, but they all knew what he meant. Although there was a high wall either side of the heavy gate, it only went a few hundred meters in each direction, where upon it became a low wall. If anybody had really wanted to get out, they would have gone farther along the boundary. But all the Security Patrollers were stationed by the gate, watching it and paying little or no attention to anything that may be happening not far away.

“Knock em out,” he ordered once he was satisfied that no one else was coming. There was a thumping noise as the lance-corporal fired his underslung grenade-launcher. This was followed moments later by a loud crack, a bright light, and lots of smoke as first a flash-bang grenade went off, followed instantly by something similar to a pepper-spray grenade. Both were new variations of old munitions, designed specifically as non-lethal weapons for the Maquis.

The combination of the flash-bang and the spray had all ten men down, rolling on the ground and moaning in terror and pain. The ten men were very quickly trussed up, before one of the privates sprayed compressed air into the faces of the injured to try and remove as much of the irritant dust as he could.

The front and back gates were nearly five miles apart as the crow flies, so no one at the front gate saw or heard the commotion at the back gate. However they probably would not have heard it even if it had been right next door, as they were trying to use chain saws to cut the gate down.

There was a lot of old cast and wrought iron in the gate, the wood itself was nearly five hundred years old and very, very, solid. This all made for slow progress with lots of starting and stopping and lots of noise. Here the attackers had set themselves up slightly more professionally. About seven men were attempting to break through the gate, the remaining men were not just standing back and watching, instead they had set up a defensive perimeter about twenty meters away, making sure no one approached them from behind.

“We need more men outside, urgently. Over,” the sergeant in charge of that section, part of B company, spoke urgently into his radio.

“D company is en route to your position,” came the immediate reply. “ETA seventeen minutes. Can you slow down the Patrollers any? Over.”

“Negative. Not without revealing our position very quickly. And there’s only eight of us to their twenty odd. Over.”

Inside, Sergeant-Major Tony Goodwin grimaced at the implied rebuke in the reply. He was well aware of the disparity in numbers. He didn’t need reminding. “Roger that,” he said simply. He wasn’t going to rebuke the man for his mild show of insubordination, he was under enough stress as it was. Instead he would have a quiet word later.

Outside, the sergeant nodded to his designated sniper. “Can you take out the man holding the saw? And not be seen?”

“Taking him out isn’t going to be a problem sarge. But not getting spotted? That’s not so easy.”

“All right. We’ll give it five minutes, then you take him out.” He lifted his radio mic. “All stations, we’re going to snipe the man with the saw in five minutes from my mark. He paused for a few seconds to let everyone check their watches. “Mark,” he said as the digital second counter on his watch read ‘45’.

Forty yards away, the lance-corporal in charge of the other fire team in that section, nodded. “Carson. Can you take out the officer type at the same time?”

Carson, his designated sniper, looked through his scope. “Not likely Lance,” he whispered. “He’s too well hidden by his men.”

“All right, take out anyone who looks to be fairly senior. A non-com if not an officer.”

“Lance.”

There was a pause. “Okay, found one who I think is their equivalent of a sergeant.”

“Good. Wait till Staffly shoots, then you shoot immediately after. Should totally disrupt them.” He turned to his other two men. “Spread out a bit. As soon as Carson and Staffly have hit their targets, you open up on the men nearest us. Don’t waste ammo, make sure of your targets before you fire. Three round bursts only, and try and make sure of your target. Got it?”

The two men nodded and slithered slowly off to set up a firing point about fifteen meters away.

When Private Staffly fired, he hit his target. Rather than just dropping the chain saw and it switching off as his grip relaxed and the switch released, his grip on the trigger tightened as he slowly toppled over. The saw, still at high speed, hit the ground first and instantly kicked up small amounts of very rapidly moving concrete before the chain itself suddenly shattered, sending bits of very sharp high speed metal everywhere. Three other men went down with injuries from the high-speed flying shrapnel.

Amazingly, no one had heard or seen the shot and if Carson hadn’t then fired, none of the Patrollers would have realised it wasn’t just a tragic accident. But Carson did fire. He hit the Squad Leader square on in the chest. Killing him instantly. The confusion lasted only seconds, but the Patrollers now knew they were under attack. This was confirmed just moments later when the two other men of Delta fire-team opened up as requested.

The sporadic return fire went high at first, but then fifteen men were firing back at where just two men were. The Maquis sergeant, realising the trouble, ordered his own fire-team to open up as well.

The Maquis section was well dug in and very well hidden, but with only eight of them, it always was going to be awkward. One man of Delta fire-team died within seconds by a stray shot through the head, his friend getting three bullets in the arm and leg, effectively putting him out of the fight also.

Carlson and Staffly both attempted to take out the Assault Unit Leader, both failed, but now the Patrollers knew there were snipers up there as well. When Alpha fire team opened up, the patrollers, who by now had lost seven men, simply turned on them.

The patrollers had nowhere to retreat to, they had a high wall and a solid gate behind them; the Maquis couldn’t retreat, there were too few of them and not enough cover. The firing very quickly died down to sporadic shots as someone thought they might get an advantage, or thought they saw something. The patrollers were all now hiding behind their two mini buses and two cars.

It could have gone either way at this point. There were more Patrollers and they had more firepower and ammunition. On the other hand they were not very methodical or organised. Nor, despite hitting two Maquis men, were they very good shots. The Maquis were more skilled and in better concealment, but they were fewer in number and had only limited firepower. And that running out. The rest of B company chose that moment to put in an appearance. They had raced down the inside of the wall and climbed it about one hundred meters farther down, out of sight of the Patrollers. They had then sneaked back, keeping close to the wall.

The lance corporal spotted them first, quickly opening rapid fire on the Patrollers to try and keep their heads down.

“What the hell’s he doing?” asked the Sergeant, who still hadn’t spotted the rest of the company.

“The LT’s here with the others,” came Staffly’s response a few moments later.

“What? Oh. Open fire. Anyone you can see, get them.”

“Sarge,” grunted Staffly. There was nothing to be seen. Instead he took out a tyre, wondering if the vehicle moving like that would make anyone move. It didn’t. Instead he set to, pumping shot after high powered shot through the vehicles at about knee height, or maybe a little higher. He had no idea whether his shots would go right through and hit someone, or whether they would just ricochet around inside.

Whatever happened, it kept the Patrollers heads down. Now there really was stalemate. This was broken a few minutes later when a hand grenade came flying over the gate and landed in the middle of the Patrollers. There was a brief moment of panic before it went off. A second and then a third came over the gate in slightly different positions, the third still in the air when it exploded.

There was a brief pause.

“SURRENDER,” called out the lieutenant in charge of ‘B’ company.

There was a moments silence, then a hand appeared above the bonnet of the car and waved a white, actually dirty yellow, handkerchief.

“Throw out your weapons.”

There was another pause then a few weapons were thrown out.”

“And the rest.”

“They’re all dead or injured,” came a quavering voice.

“Well you can still throw their weapons out.”