The Fall of Night

Chapter Three: They Also Serve…

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

The girl was waiting for him in the darkness…

He could see her, her haunting dark eyes in her dark skin, wrapped in a purple cloth that had covered her young body. He had seen her in the refugee camp, her dark eyes pleading for the safety that the Europeans had promised her… and then withdrawn. He remembered her, dreaming — had the dream become reality or had reality become the dream? — her body charred and burnt by the fires that had consumed the camp, her body dying even as it moved sinuously towards him. He could make out her curves, slowly being washed away by the fire; her breasts and thighs consumed, leaving only her eyes to glare accusingly at him. She blamed him…

Captain Stuart Robinson woke up screaming. His body was coated in sweat; there was a body by his side. It took him long terrifying moments to remember that the body was that of his wife; he checked her pulse with one practiced hand, only to sigh in relief when he realised that she was alive. The remains of the nightmare still floated around his mind; they were not in Sudan, but in Edinburgh.

His wife looked up at him. “The nightmare?”

Robinson would have lied to Hazel if he could have done; they had lived together long enough to know that lying would be futile. Hazel had been there for him when the remains of the Sudan Deployment had returned to Europe, some of them to face charges of disobeying orders, others to quit their various armed forces in disgust, others to soldier on as best as they could. Hazel’s father, a man who was quite a powerful local businessman, had offered to take his son-in-law on, but Robinson had refused the offer; the military was his life.

“Yes,” he said. The nightmare always returned the day before a deployment. The long period of leave for his infantry company had come to an end. “I saw her again.”

Hazel placed her hand in his and they held each other. It wasn’t fair on her, Robinson thought, but there was nothing he could do about it. The girl — he had never learned her name — had been one of the teenage girls at risk of losing honour, dignity and lives to the insurgents in the Sudan, the type of people that the deployment had been intended to protect. Instead, they had merely made a bigger target for the insurgents, the bastards who killed, raped and looted across the entire region. The Rules of Engagement had made engaging them difficult… how else were they meant to prevent a massacre? General Éclair's decision to tell the politicians in Brussels to go fuck themselves and order the enemy engaged had come too late; thousands had died in the ‘safe’ refugee camps. And then…

They had been ordered home, of course, some of the British soldiers to face charges of disobeying orders. Robinson had been a young private at the time, newly married; he had been spared any formal prosecution, but morale in the armed forces had plummeted. General Éclair had killed himself, taking the blame on himself; some said that the European military tradition had died with him. There had been a time when ‘damnation to the French’ had been a British toast; now, soldiers drank to the last of the European commanding officers worth a damn. All Robinson had to worry about had been the nightmares.

Hazel’s blonde hair spilled down as she straddled him. “Do you have to go back?”

He knew what she meant; why don’t you leave the army and take up the job offer from my father? It wasn't as if he hated George Alban; the man had been quite accommodating to the squaddie who had courted, and then married, his daughter. They might not have managed to provide him with any grandchildren yet, but Robinson was sure that they would have time for that one day; it was the thought of becoming dependent upon his father-in-law that bothered him. He loved the junior ranks of the army.

And besides, even in this times, it was far better than life as a civilian.

“I don’t have a choice,” he said, as his hands explored her breasts. Nearly a decade of living together, since they were both in their teens, had given them unmatched knowledge of one another’s body. She could draw anything from him and he could make her come for hours; nothing he had experienced before matched it. She pushed down on him, pulling him into her, and he forgot himself for nearly an hour. “Hazel…”

“Don’t you dare fall asleep,” Hazel said, afterwards. “You have to have a shower and then I think I’ll make you change your sheets.”

“That’s your job,” Robinson said, and ducked the pillow she hurled at him, running into the shower before she could find something harder to throw. He took a moment to shave, using one of the new vibrating shavers to quickly remove all of his stubble, before running through a quick exercise routine and then showering to remove all the sweat. The nightmare always made him wake up screaming; he wasn't the only one who had been to Sudan to have nightmares, but the Government had refused counselling to the soldiers who had been. They had just wanted to forget about it. It had brought down a government, after all; they would have been happier to dance across a minefield.

He dressed quickly and neatly, and then headed into the living room. They kept such a large house because of the lodgers — something that George Alban had organised to ensure that his daughter was kept in the manner to which she was accustomed — but none of them worked in the mornings. They had only two lodgers at the moment, something that Robinson was privately relieved about; the last thing he wanted was to run into them after a nightmare.

“I’ll have your breakfast out in a moment,” Hazel called, through the doorway to the kitchen. She was a pretty good cook; she had also been surprised to learn that Robinson himself could cook, something the army had bashed into his head. “Why don’t you watch telly and find out what’s going on?”

Robinson laughed and sat down, finding the remote and clicking the interactive television on. It had been a gift from his father-in-law on their wedding day, a new system that could present news to them based on their requirements, or give them an entire series of programs, if they had time to download them. He had once downloaded all ten seasons of Doctor Who and watched them, end to end; now, he put the temptation aside and turned to the news. The computer in the system knew his preferences.

“American spokesmen today informed the world that American soldiers had been dispatched to South Korea in conjunction with a division from Australia and a smaller unit from New Zealand,” the newsreader said. She was a computer-generated program with impressive vital statistics; she was also the most popular pornographic character in the world, all computer-generated. It had sparked off an entire series of studies into the human character. “Despite protest marches in a dozen European and Latin American capitals, the administration of President Joan Kirkpatrick is determined to avoid any appearance of weakness in the run-up to the forthcoming American elections. The marchers…”

“Leftist morons,” Robinson muttered, knowing that it had been the marchers who had gotten Europe into Sudan and then out of the damned country. George Alban had been really scathing about them. “Next!”

Another computer-generated face, this time vaguely French in appearance. “The leader of the French National Front yesterday called for Arab and Palestinian immigrants to be forcibly sterilized,” she said. Images of protest marches and riots spread across the scene. “Jean-Luc Barras claimed that the rising tide of immigration was permanently changing France’s demographics and insisted that the French Government take firm steps to prevent further immigration. The pronouncement was greeted by riots and protests; the European Court of Justice will meet today to decide if they should prosecute him for hate speech. Both Radio Jihad and Islamic Law stations, broadcasting from Algeria, have called for his head. The Islamic Government of Algeria has demanded that the French Government hand Barras over to them for trial.”

Robinson rolled his eyes. The French would probably give in too.

“The Canadian Government today refused to hand over a suspected terrorist to American authorities without some proof that he was a terrorist,” a different face said. “This comes in the wake of American draft-dodgers fleeing to Canada and being turned back by the Canadian authorities, despite an underground movement intended to help the young Americans. Congressman Dave Howery, of Michigan, demanded that President Kirkpatrick show resolve and compel the Canadian authorities to surrender the man. The White House has not commented.”

“Cheerful news,” Hazel commented, as she placed his breakfast in front of him. Robinson grinned; bacon, eggs, fried potatoes and hash browns. What more could anyone want? All of it was cooked by his wife, not by a mess officer; the British Army had a recurring joke about men taking one look at the meals and deserting to the enemy. “Is there any good news?”

Robinson passed her the remote, allowing her to skim through the hundreds of different news articles that were available to them. It wasn’t like it had been back in 2007, when it had taken hours to download one episode of Doctor Who; now, it only took minutes to have an hour-long episode streamed over to them, and seconds for a short and chunky news piece. He’d read articles that claimed that it was bad for people to have such access, but personally he loved it; the service was available everywhere in the UK and America. They could even have accessed news reports from Poland, or watched Polish television… and the world became a little smaller.

“Ah, a kitty caught up a tree,” Hazel said, after a moment. “Shall we watch that?”

Robinson realised that he was being teased. “No,” he said. “Anything of more interest to me?”

“The convicted killer of a child molester-, Alfred Ashford, was today remanded to the custody of a medium-security jail,” the newsreader said. Robinson felt his jaw clench; there had been protest marches against that, the only protest march he had ever attended in his lifetime. Ashford had caught a convicted paedophile molesting Ashford's daughter and had killed the bastard, only to be charged with murder; the streets of Britain were no longer safe. “Ashford is expected to spend at least ten years behind bars…”

“Assuming he survives his first year in prison,” Robinson snarled. He glanced down at his watch. “What are you doing for the next hour?”

“We have another lodger coming to look at the third room,” Hazel said. “I want to give it a clean-up before they look at it and make their choice. I need to check that Rashid and Sergey have left the bathroom in good condition, just to impress the newcomer. The conditions here are so much better than the hostels and the rent isn’t much higher.”

Robinson shrugged. Rashid Ustinov and Sergey Ossetia were both refugees from Russia, people who had fled the police state that the new government had created, somehow finding their way to Britain and temporary workers permits. They both had jobs within the city and paid taxes; they were also both quiet and soft-spoken. He had worried, at first, about leaving Hazel with them, but they had behaved themselves. Sergey was homosexual, something that Robinson knew was taboo in Russia, while Rashid had brought home a girlfriend from time to time. It was hard to see what they actually had in common.

“So, no time to get back into bed?” Robinson teased. He wanted her so badly at that moment. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Randy animal,” Hazel said, teasing him. He reached out for her and their lips met in a long kiss. “I’m going to miss you too… and if you get killed, I’m going to kill you, understand?”

“Yes,” Robinson said. He gave his wife a second kiss, then a third, and then a fourth. He would come back to her or die trying; what they had was too important to lose. “I do have some sense of self-preservation, after all.”

He kissed his wife goodbye and started the long walk towards Redford Barracks, pausing only to throw a quick salute to the portrait of General Éclair that he had attached to the wall. It was — officially — frowned upon, but hundreds of soldiers had decided to ignore official warnings and keep the pictures of those who had died or been betrayed by their own governments after Sudan. The Netherlands and Denmark had been particularly vile to their soldiers; if a far-right group did manage to get into power there, Robinson privately predicted blood on the streets.

Redford Barracks themselves were a set of massive buildings, set within Colinton, home to The Rifles as well as several smaller units and a Territorial Army base, right next door. Robinson showed his security pass to the guards at the gate, armed and ready for trouble; they searched him and allowed him to enter the base. He paused to salute the flag flapping in the wind, and then headed into the briefing room. Other soldiers would be trickling in over the coming two days; as a Captain, Robinson had the pleasure of being called back into service early. It wasn't an easy time to be a junior officer in His Majesty’s Army.

He stood and saluted, along with a handful of other officers, when Major General John McLachlan entered the room. McLachlan was fairly well-known; unlike Robinson himself, he had seen service in the ill-fated Iraq campaign, as well as Afghanistan and several other places where the general public would be astonished to learn that British troops had served. His dark hair was fading to grey now, but he still gave the impression of strength and, more importantly, competence. Rumour had it that he had wanted to retire, but the person who would be likely to get his job was an incompetent paper warrior.

“At ease,” McLachlan said, as he returned their salutes. “You will be pleased to know that we are being deployed, along with several RAF and SAS units, to Poland. You may have heard rumours about the repeated Argie claim to the Falklands, and the Government has authorised the deployment of a major force of Royal Marines and Royal Navy ships, but we are going to Poland. So far, the fact that a major force is going to the Falklands, in the hopes of preventing a repeat of the 1982 war, has been kept a secret; the requirement for a deployment to Poland has not. I assume that all of you know the background, seeing that you all did a tour two years ago during the first crisis; there are few changes of importance in the background.

“Almost the entire regiment is going, along with several other regiments, under my national command and the European command of General Konrad Trautman, who has experience in the Balkans and the Ukraine. No one expects serious trouble on this deployment, but we have been able to gain some permission from Brussels to deploy some units to expand our control of the area and hopefully increase our ability to react to any real emergency. It should be noted that there have been several incidents recently in Ukraine that Intelligence fears will trigger off a full-scale civil war; if that happens, we may find ourselves working with the Poles to seal the border. We are supposed to have reinforcements in that case, but with the Falklands becoming a trouble spot again, we may have reinforcements from France or Germany, rather than British reinforcements.”

He paused. “Forward deployment will be at Rheindahlen Military Complex, North Rhine, Westphalia, Germany,” he said. “You have all been there before, so you know the area; kindly ensure that your soldiers always use their contraceptives if they intend to sample the local nightlife before we get permission to move on into Poland. We will have a long and enhanced period of training; the good news is that we will be getting some of the new equipment that they promised us five years ago. The 7^th Panzer might have the new Eurotanks, but we will have several smaller vehicles, including some Close-Air Denial Systems, trucks carrying the latest antiaircraft missiles. I expect heavy training from all of you.”

Robinson nodded. McLachlan could be a martinet from time to time, but he knew his business, even if he had been known for insisting on perfect grooming in the field. Everyone hatred training until they had actually been under fire, in which case they loved it; they could never get enough training. The new enlisted soldiers, who had been surprised by the intensity of their early days in the army, would be astonished to discover that they would be expected to train until they reached the end of their careers. Far too many of them had come unprepared to the army.

“We will be deploying one week from today to Rheindahlen,” McLachlan finished, after briefly detailing the other units that had been assigned to EUROFOR, including several French, German and Spanish units. “I expect that all of you will have your battalions and companies ready before we move to Catterick Garrison, where we will be transported to Germany. It may not be the Falklands, but I expect each and every one of you to carry out his or her duty to the best of your ability. And besides, we have to show up the French at something other than football.”

There were some chuckles. “Dismissed!”