Chapter 83

The day was overcast with the mist lowering and descending down the slopes of the ridges driven by a zephyr carrying icy fingers as it wandered down the glen and across the loch to push over the blackened stumps of the cottages and the charred heather around the bunkers and shelters on the small hillock o'er looking the estuary.

The skirl of a solitary pipe beginning its groan echoed from the hills as the sharp tap of the side drum tested the skin's tension; the drum broke into the command to advance in column at the slow march.

The women and the children gathered on the promontory overlooking the graveyard and the grim obelisk down at the shore seemed to stiffen, gather their courage and check their grief.

Soldiers wearing disrupted pattern armour and sandy berets, carrying assault rifles came into view, seeming to move in and out of the inconstant mist, spread out over the hillock and down to the shore to mount outer guard over the graveyard.

Out of the mist on the path cut into the side of the hillock came the piper blowing his crying laments (In the garb of old Gaul) accompanied by the drummer boy with his bugle horn on its golden cord hanging from his right shoulder tapping the stately rhythmic pace. Behind them came the vicar, clutching his breviary, in his stark clerical robe gently swirled by the errant breeze.

Then came the dead, ten of them, mangled and torn, each borne on a primitive bier of kilt stretched over saplings; but not one bloody, each corpse lovingly cleansed with limbs straightened.

The first seven bodies were males and the eighth female; they had been big statured with rough hewn features. The biers were carried by similar looking men, grim visaged, black jackets, Government Tartan kilts, bare headed, with heavy ancient blast weapons slung. There were no following mourners — only pallbearers; the unwounded* men of the village.

(*The McKinnon definition of "unwounded" appeared to be "able to walk and carry arms" as evidenced by the multiplicity of blood stained field dressings.)

The last two biers, carrying the bodies of young men, rode smoothly on antigrav over the dirt path accompanied by stricken faced armed young women in chameleon armour with leashed head pieces, wearing Lovat green Glengarries with their black and red diced band and the Regimental Brooch of the once 8th Bn KOH (The McKinnons — long stricken from the Military List for its mass desertion after the Supersoldiers' War) - women must always be covered. This cortege was led by two men, large even by the standards of the McKinnons, in matt black armour with headpieces leashed, and was followed by a thickset man with a very lived in face, now creased with sadness, in a space black uniform of a style favoured by navies on whose arm walked a thin woman, clad in ankle length black, with an equally thin face which had seen much grief in her long years.

The three official guests presented an equal contrast. The two big men, one wearing dpm armour and sand coloured beret and the other a dark green jacket and Royal Stewart trews, were accompanying a shorter thicker man with granite face wearing a black jacket and a kilt in the pale blue green tartan of the Campbells of Argyll.

The pibroch's sorrowed keen swept across the still waters of the loch and through the gorse on the hills as the procession wended its way to the freshly dug pits on the gentle slope. The biers were gently lowered and the funeral parties fell into ranks.

The pipe and drum fell silent.

The Agnes Witch, accompanied by two younger women each carrying a wide mouthed jug, one of dirt and the other salt, walked from the mourning women to place a handful of dirt and a much smaller handful of salt on the chest of each body. They returned to the women — only warriors could bury the fallen in battle.

In the silence, the wind quavered reedy voice of the vicar lead the grieving in prayer with the rumbled responses intermingled.

The bodies were handed down into the pits, the McKinnons in the larger and the Grace brothers into the smaller. The Schoolie made note of where each body was placed. The biers were stacked on the anti grav and the congregation reformed as the vicar gave the benediction.

The quiet command barely carried to the funeral parties as the Gennies responded,

"Firing party! Ready! Set to low power. Aim, fire; aim, fire; aim, fire..."

The crackling beams momentarily lit the sullen overcast.

" ... Safe. Orrh-dahr arms!"

The drummer boy advanced to the side of the pit, raised his bugle, wet his cracked lips and blew the long mournful notes of The Last Post sending the sweet call reverberating through the glen. As the last rising high notes vanished into the mist, the booming roll of the broken sound barrier crashed to earth as, high above the mist and cloud, the seven surviving HACs, in close formation with the No3 missing, o'erflew the village in salute.

To the weeping skirl of "The Flowers of the Forest", the antigrav under the dirt piles stirred and then tipped the earth back into the pits while shovel wielding men tidied the mounds.

The troops reformed. The drummer boy blew the staccato sharp notes of the call to parade for the morning roll call — "Reveille".

The order to advance in column and to turn from line to column was given. The drones moaned as the drummer beat the quick march and the column stepped out to The Retreat, "Black Bear".

The burial party marched back to the tent city which had sprung up on the shore of the loch.

The Sundowners, except TJ, returned to their ship which stood in overwatch, fully stealthed, in n space; Threep and his team had handed over their patients to the medical teams which had accompanied the relief forces.

Harold (how did he get here?) chaired the wash-up.

Argyll's eyes were wide as he silently asked Alistair Wollaston with a nod at their liege lord.

"Stowed away. Don't ask" Alistair explained(?).

A certain person had been working very late catching up on his farms' reports to prepare himself for a meeting with his factors which had the potential to be heated.

He had a very unapproved and unauthorised com set (Could that be said to be the case in his case?) which monitored a tightly encrypted channel from a HQ not too far from his country home. He had responded to the Brigade emergency callout like a warhorse to the charge. Grabbing certain equipment cases, he had bolted for his air car leaving the startled butler listening to receding pounding boots and the screaming whine of the air car accelerating off to the west. He dropped the speed to something more sedate to pass the guard house — no sentry in his right mind would challenge the driver of that air car, particularly not in the controlled chaos of a full turn out.

He dropped the air car in the parking bays alongside the big hangar, donned his body armour, trailed his sniper laser and tailed on the end of the second last section to embark onto the new shuttle. He, and the others of the duty battalion, crushed in as they were, barely had time to be seated before the ramp came up and the shuttle began moving under full thrust. They managed to secure harnesses or hang onto seated mates while their secured mates snapped their harnesses closed as the shuttle began evasive manoeuvring while it screamed into the lower stratosphere. It was some minutes before his seat mates had the time to look about.

"Oh the son on the cross! ... Nosey, the Boss is gonna kill you."

"A good evening to you, Corporal Parker; where's our friend?"

"Jonesy? On the other side of me." Parker elbowed his mate, "Jonesy, look who's here."

Trooper Jones leant forward and looked past Parker,

"Oh fook! We're dead; they'll never believe we had nothing to do with him."

Major Geraghty's voice came over the battalion "open" channel

"Listen up, we are responding to..." continuing with the situation and then to brief tasks on landing.

The shuttle continued its evasive manoeuvres and occasionally the briefing was interrupted by some explosions, one quite close with shrapnel rattling off the shields.

The order to prepare for a hot landing came immediately and knowing he was stuck with him, Parker instructed

"Nosey, stay with me and for fook's sake do as you're told; Jonesy, cover our arse."

"On it, Parky; and Nosey, if I see you even lookin' like wandering off I'll break both yer bloody legs and drag you!"

The fighting had stopped and the battalion had recovered to the village. Occasionally a weapon sounded far off. Those, not on "sentry go", were settling in around the periphery, deepening weapon pits, refurbishing weapons, breaking open rations, brewing up etcetera.

The call cut through the rattling murmuring of the activity

"Corporal Parker! I see you. I want a word!"

"Satan's crutch! The RSM! We're done like a dinner" Jonesy muttered as he dropped into the 'pit having seen that worthy determinedly striding across the side of the hillock.

Parker stood to face the approaching fate. He started to stroll unconcernedly away.

"Where's Trooper Jones? Seen! (then bellowed) That man there! I don't know you! Come here."

Sprung, no help for it.

He came to attention, sloped arms, smartly about turned and with a grin spread from one side of his face to the other, marched exaggeratedly up to the RSM performing a perfect crash halt — except it doesn't work on grass — and shouted

"Sar' Major, Sah!"

RSM Tommy Williams recovered quickly and sighed

"Oh shit! Veerrryy funny. So, you were the extra sniper. The Boss is not gonna be pleased" and turned to Corporal Parker accusingly demanding

"Why the Hell didn't you tell someone?"

Parker just stared at his old friend — they had run selection together so many years ago and been through a lot.

"Tommy, be fair! I didn't know the sod was there until the briefing started. He snuck on while we were loading and in the hurry up I didn't see him; and then we were off like a startled gazelle bouncing all over the sky, trying to get the brief and then we're into a hot landing. We're hugging dirt under fire and then Leo (the Platoon OC) tells me to take two and go sneaky beaky over the right flank. We get there and he sets himself up, telling me to spot and Jonesy to cover and starts shooting away. Then we're ordered up the valley to do the nasty to the rearguard with the rest of the company and it was bloody hot, I can tell you, until the Jocks arrived and then it's all over and what's the bloody point of telling you then. We was gonna brew up and then he was going to see the Boss. Fair do's."

"Yeah, okay; next time, tell a man will you? C'mon, you. And stop mucking about!"

The pair walked across the slope to the HQ and Williams attracted his Brigadier's attention

"Look who was wandering by, Sir." (The gathered officers turned and all recognised him.) "He was the extra sniper."

The reaction varied from blanching to closing of eyes to stifled moans. Alistair addressed his officers politely, tightly and evenly

"Gentlemen, please excuse me while I take a walk with our distinguished friend. Sir, if I could?"

And waved his liege lord to the path to the cemetery. An earnest conversation was seen to be taking place — rather one sided - the Brigade Major, Bernard Geraghty, remarked

"I must learn how to scream in a whisper — handy to have."

The wash-up pulled together the skeins to provide a coherent story — not that it was going to be told any time soon.

The McKinnon, remembering the recent attempts at snatch, had a long chat with the Schoolie about the capabilities of the new technology. This had led to conversations with Cedric Cahlewis and, using some of the gold for the wool, certain purchases were made and linked to the N-409A.

The McKinnons' tribal knowledge included the electronic warfare as it was about a century before the Wars and that knowledge included stealth systems and white noise attacks. The McKinnon was therefore biased towards simpler systems like sight, sound and feel.

The McKinnon reconnoitred his Clan's lands looking at the areas as if he was going to attack the village — individual snatch attempts he guarded against by roving patrols and never having a Clansman or woman alone; the herding was done by well trained dogs oversighted by daily visits of the patrols.

The detectors were concentrated about the village farms — the Clan's lands were too far flung to cover.

Tunnels were dug to connect the cottages and bunkers with interlocking arcs of fire constructed off them and camouflaged from the outside by grass and living shrub. The old weapons, cumbersome and unwieldy, were dug up (literally) and refurbished. The veterans began training the youngsters in the skills of patrolling and static defence. The McKinnon did the best he could.

The detection system was designed so that there was enough warning that the villagers could get into the bunkers and in the event it did work well.

The Argylls and The Isles got wind of the 'net and their Schoolies visited for a professional chat — the protocols were so relaxed for these occasions as to be non existent (The Schoolies were effectively the Clans' Heralds.). Despite the inter Clan antagonism, the antagonism to outsiders was greater. A mutual defence treaty was nutted out and the Argylls' and the Isles' clans took note and upgraded their 'nets.