Time Riders

CHAPTER 60

1957, Prison Camp 79, New Jersey

Liam felt it rather than heard it.

Another whump nearby that punched his chest softly.

A geyser of snow and soil was tossed into the air a dozen yards from him. Then another onefurther away. And another.

‘Mortar shells coming in!’ shouted somebody in the trench.

From the treeline across the field he saw flashes of light amid the undergrowth and momentslater heard the distant percussive rattle of gunfire.

The guards reacted swiftly, dropping down into the ditch alongside theprisoners and returning fire on the treeline. An officer quickly issued orders to several ofhis men to escort the prisoners back inside on the double.

They barked hasty orders at the prisoners, shooing them along with their carbines.‘Prisoners must go inside, now!’ one of them shouted. ‘Move… MOVE!Schnell!’

Liam did as he was told, keeping his head low as he ran along the ditch towards the opengates at the front of the camp. Div0ts of soil spat into the air just above his head as shotslanded home from across the field.

Another half a dozen whumps landed either side of the ditch,showering them with clumps of wet soil. A prisoner in a tattered olive-green marine uniformjust in front of Wallace shouted out: ‘Those are US army mortar shells!’

The guards bellowed shrilly at them to move faster and Liam soon found himself climbing upout of the ditch and running into the compound through the open gates, herded in by half adozen more soldiers.

Wallace, behind him, slapped his shoulder, grinning and gasping at the same time. ‘Whatdid I tell you, kid?’

The guards standing nearby had their eyes on the increasingly intensive exchange of gunfiregoing on in the field and warily on the jubilant prisoners. Liam could see they were nervous- as much worried about the growing jubilation among the prisoners inside the camp asthey were about the attackers in the treeline.

‘Yeah!’ yelled Wallace triumphantly at them. ‘They’re coming for you,you scumbags!’

Several of them turned towards him, eyes darting from Wallace to the growing crowd ofprisoners emerging from their huts into the courtyard to see what was going on.

‘Come on!’ Wallace cheered on the distant attackers. ‘Come get theseKrauties!’

Liam grabbed his arm. ‘Wallace, hey, keep it down!’

A mortar shell landed amid several of the guards in the ditch outside, blowing them to bloodyshreds. Wallace and several other prisoners cheered noisily, punching the air with glee.

The camp kommandant emerged from his hut at a trot, flanked by a dozen more guards. There wasa brief, harried conversation barked over the increasing noise of battle. He gestured towardsthe growing crowd of jeering prisoners. The guards standing around them nodded at his ordersand slowly raised their guns.

Liam realized by the calm, ruthless expression on the kommandant’s face that he’djust given the order for them all to be executed on the spot. None of the other prisonersseemed to have noticed, their eyes on the gunfight across the fieldoutside.

I have torun… run now!

Liam began to shoulder his way back through the jeering, defiant prisoners, as the guardssilently raised their pulse carbines.

Jay-zus Christ.

The rattle of guns being cocked to fire alerted the rest of the prisoners, their eyes dartingback to the line of guards. Before they could react, the kommandant barked a single word.‘Feuer!’

The guards opened fire.

Suddenly the air about Liam was alive with the hum of passing bullets, the hard thud ofrounds impacting bodies, the muffled gasps of those falling and dying, the screams of thewounded and terrified.

He stumbled back through the panicking crowd, expecting at any second to feel a hard, sharpblow between his shoulders, punching the air from his lungs and throwing him down on to thecompacted snow and muddy slush.

The opening volley of shots came to a rattling conclusion as ammo clips emptied and theguards began to reload. In the pause the air was filled with moaning and crying and wailing,and the nearing sounds of fighting across the field.

Liam realized he wasn’t running. He was on his knees in the mud surrounded by bodiestwitching and flailing.

Run!

He scrambled to his feet, stepping over and on the bodies around him. He glanced back to seethe guards finish loading their carbines and begin to level their barrels at the remainingprisoners still on their feet. Many of those still standing were rooted to the spot in shock.Others who’d been towards the back of the crowd were now on the run, scrambling awayfrom the guards towards the open doors of their huts.

The guards began firing again at will, now picking out individual targetswith short aimed bursts, mechanically aiming and firing… aiming and firing… likeautomatons, obeying their orders mindlessly.

Liam rose from a crouch to run for the nearest hut. The lurch of movement caught aguard’s eyes and he swung the barrel of his gun in Liam’s direction. Several shotswhistled past him — close, very close — and over his head as he dived, staggeredand fell across a writhing carpet of dead and dying towards the open door of the nearesthut.

He fell into the dark interior and scrambled on hands and knees across the rough wooden floorto hide beneath the nearest of the wooden bunks.

Outside the firing continued. Sporadic clusters of shots, short bursts, long bursts andsingle taps to finish off the wounded as the soldiers stepped forward among the bodies.Meanwhile, the rattle of gunfire in the field outside was coming closer. He heard the muffledthud of more mortar shells landing, this time inside the perimeter of the camp.

He heard the shrill sound of panic in the guards’ voices.

Liam prayed. It wasn’t something he often did. Rarely, in fact. Catholic faith, drummedinto his head since birth by his mother, father and every schoolteacher he’d ever had,had never managed to take hold of him. But he certainly was praying now, begging the VirginMother of Jesus to make sure that none of those soldiers outside had decided to stick his headin through the open door and finish him off.

He heard heavy jackboots slapping through the mud outside, running past the open door, theguards’ attention now on the approaching attackers. They began taking up defensivepositions as the noise of exchanged gunfire seemed to be reaching a new intensity.

It sounded like the fight was now within the camp itself.

A row of jagged holes suddenly stitched its way across the thin plywood walls of his hut,sending a shower of wood splinters on to the floor and leaving a line of pale sunbeams lancingthrough the air.

Another explosion, deafening this time, amid the mud and bodies right outside the hut, hurleda wet spray of soil inside through the open door.

The guards were screaming in German. Not the barked orders of professional soldiers, butcries of sheer terror.

‘Der Eisenmann! Das ist der Eisenmann!’

‘Toten Sie ihn! Toten Sie ihn!’

Liam heard the appalling sound of a protracted scream, suddenly ending with a fleshy rippingsound. Other cries. Across the compound, faintly, the sound of Americanvoices could be heard.

‘Kill the guards! You kill them all!’

Then the rattle of gunfire and feet splashing the bloodied ground outside. ‘You men!Get those guards… They’re running! Take them down! We’re not taking any ofthese scum prisoner, understand? Not a single one ofthem!’

Liam wanted to climb out from beneath the bunk, but fear kept him cowering in the dark. Therewere plenty of shots still echoing around the camp, snarling angry voices of men appalled atthe carnage in the compound.

‘Ahh man… ohh Jesus,’ he heard a man outside crying. ‘They massacredthem. Before we could rescue ’em, those scum shot ’em dead… ain’tnever… seen… Oh Jeeez.’

The distant pleading of a German voice… ‘Nein! Nein!Ich… ich habe niemanden erschossen — ’… ended with the singlecrack of a gunshot echoing among the rows of huts. He heard another pleading German voicesilenced by a single bullet further away across the compound. And the distant rattle ofgunfire as the fight continued somewhere on the far side of the camp.

‘Is Liam O’Connor here?’

A deep and monotone voice without any sense of expression.

‘Is Liam O’Connor here?’

Louder, closer, like a foghorn — without any variation.

‘Is Liam O’Connor here?’

He heard the heavy splatter of boots in mud just outside the door and then the hut was throwninto darkness as a large body stepped into the doorway, blocking out all but the thinnestglimmer of light.

‘Is Liam O’Connor here?’ the voice bellowed deafeningly into the hut.

It was almost too much for him to react. Almost too much. He’d convinced himself thathe’d never see that big robotic ape again. The truth took a moment to sink in.

Bob hovered a second longer then stepped out of the doorway.

‘Bob!’ Liam cried out weakly, scrambling on all fours to pull himself out fromunder the bunk. ‘Bob! Wait! I’m here!’

A pair of broad shoulders and a small head crowned with a tuft of nut-brown hair leaned backinto the hut. ‘Liam O’Connor?’

Liam looked up. ‘Oh sweet Jay-zus-’n’-Mary-mother-of-mercy! It’s goodto see you again, Bob, so it is.’

The support unit stepped inside and then squatted down on his haunches, studying the frailform of Liam on the floor, his calm grey eyes quickly adapting to the darkness inside.

Liam could have sworn that in that moment of recognition, as Bob’s computer mindconfirmed Liam’s visual identity and verified the signature tone of his voice, he saw atear in those dull, expressionless grey eyes of his.

Then, of course, he went and ruined that sentimental moment of reunion bygrunting emotionlessly: ‘Target successfully acquired.’

‘Good to see you too, Bob,’ replied Liam weakly, choking back his own tears andgrinning as best he could.