Chapter 7: Winter, The First Major Disaster

Two days later we had the first major test of our defences. Graham had been teaching everyone to handle weapons. Kelly was one of his star pupils, she had a steady hand, a good eye and could decide which bit of the target she was going to hit. I was pleased enough just to hit the target!

The call came in from the watchpost just before lunch. There was a group of between thirty and forty armed men moving towards the village through the snow.

Graham had drilled us through several exercises over the the last few weeks so we all knew what to do. There were now several dugouts on either side of the road into the village and we would man them when the alarm went out. Graham didn't use the siren, with the slow progress the group was making through the snow he had time to organise everyone into position before they were within a quarter of mile of the village. Graham then had a post on the green from where he could direct operations. The group approaching would probably have no idea how prepared we were.

As the group got within range of the first dugouts he used a loud hailer to challenge them. "Stop where you are. If your intentions are peaceful send one unarmed man forwards to talk to me."

One of the leading group replied by discharging both barrels of a twelve-bore shot gun at him. Totally ineffective at that range but it made their intentions clear.

Graham gave the order, "Begin target fire."

We had agreed that 'target fire' meant single shots, aimed, and hopefully lethal. 'Fire at will' was designated to cover a more serious situation, where we would fire bursts from the semi automatic weapons we had. Our one problem was a finite supply of ammo. OK, we had several tens of thousand rounds but would we ever be able to replace them?

Kelly and I were in our dugout and we began firing, as did the other three couples at our end of the village. The group obviously hadn't seen the dugouts, the snow camouflaged them. Kelly's first five shots accounted for five attackers, I got three with six, and there were no more targets within range. The other two dugouts also accounted for between four and ten attackers each, it was hard to tell exactly, but within a minute or so over twenty attackers were dead or wounded.

We waited and a few of the stragglers pressed forward. Each time one of them got within range he would be mown down, sometimes from two different directions. Our fire was deadly, we had 'range markers' from each dug out, a bush or a tree, which marked the limit of our effective range, and although we were all crapping ourselves, Grahams training had paid off, there was no undisciplined fire. After about ten minutes a man at the back of the remaining group raised his hands and shouted, "We surrender. We'll leave."

Graham then issued the order which we had already agreed, "Continue target fire!"

There was to be no 'surrender'. After all we couldn't take prisoners and we would be stupid to allow any members of a gang like this to escape, regroup and threaten us again.

Kelly and I moved forward to the next dugout, which was unoccupied, and continued to target attackers as they now fled. The other dugout did the same, Dan and Stella were manning that one, and we continued to press home on the remainder of the group. By now Graham had joined us and was coaching us, keeping us behind the hedges on either side of the road, and moving us forwards, picking them off one by one. They really didn't stand a chance and in less than half an hour we were pursuing the last two down the road towards Brid. They were armed with handguns which were no match for our weapons, and we finally accounted for these two about half a mile from the village.

It was obvious that the attackers were not expecting the sort of defences we had; their arms were a mix of shotguns and handguns and they had not even spotted the dugouts as they entered the village, although the snow cover probably helped. We had defeated them easily, however I was in no doubt that if Graham hadn't contributed his knowledge, training and arms over the last two months the outcome could have been very different.

He made us check each body and we had to despatch four badly injured men. We also gathered all their arms, possessions and clothing. "You never know what you might find," Graham stated. It was a gruesome task which took the best part of two hours. Once every body had been checked and stripped Graham used the siren to sound an all clear, and we dragged the bundles of clothing and arms to the boiler shed.

Graham sorted the captured weapons and ammunition out into those that could be used and a few guns which he said looked dangerous. He asked if I could arrange for their destruction, "So that they won't be used to shoot at us again."

While we were doing this other villagers were joining us, Phil and John Bolton were helping go through the personal possessions looking for any clues as to the origin of this group. As Graham said, "They weren't trained, but if they had attacked an undefended village they would have taken over easily."

There were a number of disturbing finds as we went through the back packs, among them a couple of small but well used whips, handcuffs and some strange metal objects which Stella eventually identified as branding irons. There was also evidence of various drugs, including what looked like wraps of heroin and cannabis resin.

At this point all hell kicked off.

Michelle stormed in and made straight for Graham, almost spitting, "Those people surrendered, and you ordered everyone to carry on shooting."

"Yes, what else can we do?" Graham said quite calmly."We can't take prisoners, if we had let them go they would have returned with more people and attacked us again. There seemed to be some fairly unsavoury characters amongst them and I don't think they would have played by your rules."

Michelle refused to see the sense behind his decision and carried on, saying that Graham was an 'incomer' and should no longer be in charge of our defences.

I stepped in at this point. "Michelle, I was elected leader by a majority of villagers and Graham has my full support. He was brought here by me to assist us with our defences and he has carried this role out admirably, training us and turning us from a bunch of amateurs into a reasonably well disciplined and trained defences force in two months."

At this Michelle left shouting, "We'll see about you being leader!"

I was going to follow but Kelly stopped me. "Leave her. Nothing you do or say will change her mind. She still hasn't woken up to the realities of our situation."

"Fuck her," said Graham, "let's get this lot tidied away."

"No thanks," I replied, "I've seen the trail of men that've been there in the past." We both laughed but it was a hollow laugh, we were a bit upset by it all.

As we were leaving Michelle appeared with another six people in tow and said, "Mark, we have no confidence in your leadership. We want you replaced."

One of the others then said, "Michelle should be leader."

Our group, Graham, Larry, Katie, Cheryl, Phil, Shaun and Dan, turned to face them. Michelle began hurling insults at us.

"As the oldest resident," said Phil staring at Michelle, "I will not accept you or anyone else as leader. If you continue, you'll split the village."

Shaun then added his voice, "Michelle, you're a lovely woman but in these times, nice just doesn't cut it. Mark is our leader and my family will continue to treat him as leader."

This debate carried on for about thirty minutes. Initially I had hoped that if I kept out she might back down. I could see that Michelle would never have a majority but she was whipping her supporters up and trying to get them to break away.

Kelly called me over to speak to Katie at this point. Katie said, "I had my doubts about Kelly as you know, but the two of you have worked well together and you both have our full support," she indicated Larry, Cheryl and Scott. "If the situation here becomes impossible why don't we all set up at Railway Farm, at a push there's enough room."

I then dug my heels in and said, loud enough for Michelle to hear, "I will not be forced out of my house by some namby-pamby do-gooder. I've lived here for thirty years, if anyone leaves it will be Michelle, and her group."

Battle lines were drawn and no one seemed prepared to back down. I was surprised Michelle had support from a couple of families who I thought had seen the sense in what we were doing, but there we go. The debate petered out and Michelle said, "We'll stop you attacking anyone who hasn't directly threatened us."

"Come on, Mark," said Graham, "let's go home now, we're not getting anywhere."

We went home. Kelly and I sat at the table and talked about the day's events. She said, "I think the village is now split in two. In a way, that victory over the attackers was too easy, some of them haven't seen how much time and effort Graham and the rest of us have put in to actually making ourselves effective. I bet if someone had been hurt or killed the reaction would have been different."

We were still very pissed off when we went to bed that evening. Once we were in bed Kelly said, "Come on, Mark, we're still together, no one was hurt, and look..." with that she rubbed her wet pussy up my body.

This soon got my mind off the day's events and we made love in the moonlit room.

The following morning Dawn came to see me, early. "Mark I'm sorry about yesterday, not about what you did to defend us but Michelle's reaction to it. Some people just don't realise how well off we are here. Look at Bridlington, maybe a hundred survivors out of thirty thousand or so."

We talked about things and the rest of 'our' group soon joined us. Everyone told Dawn that there was to be no negotiation. Katie even wanted me to go and cut power from the homes of the breakaway group. Dawn said she would try talking to Michelle, but she didn't think it would do any good. Graham was really upset, he was blaming himself, but I told him that we had discussed our tactics in advance, and that every member of the original 'defence committee' supported our approach. To allow people who attacked us to escape, regroup, and attack us again, with prior knowledge of our defences was beyond stupid, it was suicidal.

We all spent the morning moping around, the upbeat atmosphere of Christmas was well and truly gone.

Katie pulled us out of our mood at lunchtime. "Come on," she said, "let's do something useful and clear the snow from the road between here and Railway Farm. It's bloody dangerous at the moment, someone is going to fall and break something."

So we all gathered shovels and started to attack the snow. By the time the sun was setting over the Wolds we had cleared a decent track though the drifts. Everyone was tired, cold and hungry but I think we had cheered up. With the reduced numbers we couldn't have a twenty-four-seven lookout but we decided that a dawn to dusk watch should be sufficient.

Kelly, Kirsty and myself ate at Graham's house that evening, Linda had gone back to Shaun and Jill's to eat. While we were eating Graham said that the gang that attacked us had not travelled far that day and that the personal possessions pointed to many of them being inmates released from Hull prison.

While we were chatting after the meal Michelle stood outside with Tim Westwood and his wife, and started banging dustbin lids and shouting, "Murderers!" We tried not to let it worry us but I know everyone was upset.

When we left, with Kirsty between us, they started again. Kirsty was crying when we got home. I was all for going out and kicking the shit out of them but Kelly held me back. "Leave it," she said, "Linda will stay at Jill's tonight, let's get Kirsty calmed down." We got Kirsty to bed then Kelly sat me down.

"I know you don't want to move but I think we should all try to establish a new settlement this summer, designed specifically to be easily defended, and expanded. We should leave those who don't want to protect themselves to their own devices in Newsham. I've spoken to the others and, though they aren't over the moon about the idea, they all agree that it may be the only way forward. After all, our group does most of the work."

I thought for a bit and said, "Kelly, you and Kirsty are now my main priority. If we're going to have more situations like this evening's little 'demo', then I will do it."

The next day Dawn tried to set up a meeting between myself and Michelle. It was a waste of time. I had 'instructions' from our group not to give any ground at all and after an hour of trading insults we called it a day.

I went back home and worked on a new design of wind generator.

The following morning, about nine o'clock, Graham came over. The watchpost had called to say there was another group of maybe a dozen men heading for the village from the same direction as the earlier gang., Again, they appeared to be all armed men, not a good sign.

As they reached the village they split into 3 groups. The first group carried on into the village on the same track as the previous group. The other two groups were now making their way, with difficulty owing to the snow drifts, around the village.

Graham again challenged the group on the road, and they replied with a shotgun blast. At this point Michelle and Tim Westwood, who appeared to be her main supporter, came up the village towards us. As Graham gave the order to open fire they started shouting, "Murderers!"

The four men lasted about fifteen seconds, eight shots, from the two dug outs, Newsham four, attackers nil, they never managed to let off another shot.

Then Graham shouted, "Mark, Kelly — Phil's house, four attackers approaching across the fields. Shaun, Dan — with me, another four at the rear of the Hinds' house."

We turned and made our way back down the lane towards our and Phil's houses.

Unfortunately Michelle was ahead of us and was in the lane outside his house, he was behind his front wall with a rifle. I heard him shout, "Get out of the way you stupid cow, you're in my line of fire." Then there was a shot from the four men who were behind the trees at the side of his garden. Phil fell. I reacted by running towards him, but Kelly grabbed me and dragged me down, while saying, "Get down you idiot, they're in the trees." Michelle was in our line of fire now but Kelly said, "Ignore Michelle, you take the two on the right I'll deal with the two on the left. Six shots later all four were dead.

As soon as they were down I was up and running towards Phil. Michelle came up to me, hurling abuse, but I pushed her out of the way, she slipped and fell on her amply padded arse. Phil hadn't moved, if that stupid bitch had caused him to be hurt I would hate her for the rest of my days.

Kelly shouted up the lane "Phil is hurt, help, help."

As I got to Phil it was even worse than I thought. It was a lucky shot at that range with a hand gun. The bullet had penetrated his eyeball, he was dead.

I just sat and held him, tears streaming down my cheeks. As I did so I heard more shots, rifle fire.

The others came running and shouting but their voices went silent as they approached. Kelly turned to Michelle and screeched, "Pleased with yourself!"

By now there were about six people around and no one was speaking. Then Graham appeared, and asked what had happened.

Kelly told him and he came over to me. "Mark," he said softly, laying a hand on my shoulder, "come on there's nothing you could do."

I saw Michelle standing there, looking worried, and said, "No, but if that stupid fucking pacifist whore had kept out of it Phil would have stood a chance of getting them first. She deliberately got into his line of fire. He should've fucking shot her"

Kelly them came over, pulled me up and said, "I'm so sorry."

I then turned to Michelle and hissed "Get out my sight, Phil was a good man and my best friend. You killed him!"

Michelle looked shocked. "I didn't shoot him, they did. And anyway he was old."

It was said in a tone of voice that implied that he didn't matter because he was old. I did something that I have never done before or since, I hit a woman.

I went up to her and slapped her hard across the face. "He was worth twenty of you," I growled. "And it's not just me, everyone respected him. Get out my sight before I use this," and I pointed to my rifle. Kelly and Graham then helped me home while Jill went to comfort Mary, her mum, after all she was robbed of Phil's companionship as well.

Someone grabbed Michelle and dragged her up the lane.

Kelly and Graham sat me down in the kitchen. Linda came in and asked what was going on. Graham and Kelly told her.

"Come on Mark," Kelly whispered as she wrapped her arms around me. "I love you, don't beat yourself up."