John and his team finally arrived, but now they were carrying Ted Watson, who had drifted into unconsciousness. ‘Get him over to the medical area straight away boys, Marie, can you and your team see to him please, it looks like he’s seriously hurt.’
Two of John’s men lifted Ted onto a table set up to deal with the injured man. Marie examined him closely. He was unconscious and Marie together with Janice was busy checking his vital signs. They were not good. ‘Let’s start by cleaning him up Janice, get some swabs and disinfectant solution.
She removed his shirt and was shocked to see the level of bruising. She called John over, ‘what on earth has happened here? This man has been severely kicked and beaten with clubs by the look of the amount of bruising. I would suggest it’s not all happened at the same time, some of the marks on him appear to be several days old.’
‘He was unfortunately in the care of a very nasty copper Marie and had we not got him out when we did he would not have seen the light of day.’
‘John, I’m not sure he will even now. He needs serious medical attention because there may be internal bleeding.’
‘You will have to do what you can babe, if he is taken to hospital they will jail him again and this time we probably won’t be given the time to stop it. I’m sorry, but all that we can offer him by getting him to a medical facility is more of what he has already endured. He needs to take his chances with us.’
‘I’ll do my best John.’
‘I know you will and that’s all I can ask. Let me know if you need any help. I have to go and debrief the teams now.’ John wanted to take Marie in his arms and hold her tight. Just to feel the warmth of her body and smell the freshness of her skin he knew would help cleanse the odour of death that clung to his clothes. But that would have to wait; it was important that the men were debriefed.
John walked to the group of his men who were now congregated in one area and enjoying hot cups of coffee. ‘Ok, listen in. First of all, I would like to thank you all for a job well done. The commitment and dedication you all showed tonight made me immensely proud. There will be more of these operations and I can assure you they will not always go as smoothly as this one. As our adversaries become more alert to our activities, they will be better prepared. So, do not think that future operations will be as easy as the one were tonight. At the moment not all of us have to spend all of our time underground; most can go about their daily jobs as normal citizens going about their business. That will change over time, especially as we have now raised the bar in our fight against the injustice of the State. Tonight we killed some fellow human beings, let us not rejoice in that but let us be sorrowful. Yes they were evil and they were carrying out orders from their evil bosses but that is still not an excuse for us to revel in their demise at our hands. We must hold all life dear. If there is any justification for what we did it can only be that in the absence of the rule of law and a government that is fair and freely elected we did what we had to do.’
The men were sombre and quiet. They fully understood what John was saying. Alan Walker, particularly, realised that his desire for revenge was suddenly replaced by a sadness brought about by John’s words. He thought he would be overjoyed by destroying the people that were part of the machine that almost destroyed him, yet now he felt the completely alien emotion of sympathy for those that died.
John broke into the thoughts of his men, ‘does anyone have any questions about tonight or where we are headed?’
No one spoke.
‘Alright, I wish you all good night, make yourselves ...’
Marie had come over to him and interrupted, she whispered, ‘I’m sorry John, we’ve lost him. I believe there was massive internal bleeding.’
John took in a deep breath and recounted to the team what Marie had told him. Despair was etched on their faces ‘Terry, will you please nominate a section to organise a decent but discreet burial for Mr Watson. We cannot leave him at a hospital or medical centre; if we do, then we will provide propaganda material for those who are responsible for his death to use against us. Find a bed anywhere you can and get some sleep. Do not go above ground until the morning when there are plenty of people around and use different exit points. Go about your business in the normal way and be careful there will be a lot of Stapo activity.