***
Three: Shoot Out
It was dawn and quite beautiful, the sun painted the sky a vibrant pink, the vibrant pink became a vibrant orange and just when you thought it couldn't get any better it started to fade into a silent and peaceful blue-grey.
'Bloody beautiful,' I said as we lugged our kit up the hill.
'I don't see it,' said Kashmere. 'I've never been very good on beauty, it's just a pink splodge in the sky to me.'
'Just look at the vitality, the energy in those colours, it looks like the dawning of a new age.'
'The colours are good,' she said, 'but I just don't see it.'
'Look, I'm sorry I've been so sarcastic, I don't know what came over me. Well actually, yes I do. When we got locked inside that submarine something happened, I was claustrophobic, but it was more than that, suddenly I thought what the fuck am I doing here? Why am I going off to foreign and exotic places killing people. I'm not a killing machine, there must be more to life than this, I want more from life than this.'
'Well I apologise if I'm not more sympathetic but I've been trained to do a job,' she said.
'Yes same here, I was trained to go out and do exactly what I was told to do, if they said stand on one foot and shoot dead the next person to come through that door I would have done it, but now I've started to think.'
'Fatal,' she said.
'I know, maybe the end has come for me.'
And then they started shooting. Kashmere immediately prepared to return fire.
'Don't shoot,' I said, 'they don't know where we are, they just want us to shoot back so that they can locate us, it's an old trick.'
'I can take them out.'
'I know you can. When you were little did you catch flies and pull their wings off?'
'How did you know?'
'I bet you were a tomboy?'
'I was called that by the girls but I made them suffer.'
'I bet you did.'
'Well…'
'Just leave the flies alone today.'
'They buzz, they annoy me.'
'Ignore them.'
'Okay I'll hold fire,' she said. 'Come on stop shirking, let's keep moving.'
'Yes sir,' I said saluting and standing to attention.
'I'm going to take out the operative that we were sent to get, then I'm going to shoot you.'
'Yes sir,' I said saluting and standing to attention.
'Hang it all, I'll bloody shoot you now.'
'Go for it,' I said and I stood stock still and put my hand over my face as if I was blind folded like the victim of a firing squad. 'Squad attention, take aim, fire.'
Our pursuers were now getting closer and calling out to each other, instead of shooting me Kashmere opened fire on them, obviously she thought the time for idle chatter was over and our pursuers immediately returned fire, bullets hit the ground all around us.
'Come on!' Kashmere shouted and we raced up the hill. Bullets zipped and splattered all around our feet and Kashmere staggered and fell.
'Have you been hit?'
'Yes.'
'Can you feel where you were hit?'
'My back.'
'I'll get the first aid kit.'
'No I order you to go, leave me here, I'll take out as many as I can before they get me.'
'Don't be a drongo,' I said and I quickly took a look at her, a bullet had entered her backpack and gone through. Funny but there was no blood.
'What's the verdict?' she said.
'You'll live but Shakespeare's dead.'
'I'm not following you.'
'You've been shot through the centre of the collected works of William Shakespeare. He saved your life, what the hell is he doing on this mission?'
'I always bring it on assignments for light reading.'
'Bloody hell light reading, what would you call Einstein's theory of relativity, a children's book?'
'Quiet,' she whispered, just below us in the bush Black Shirts were crawling through the undergrowth.
'Can you walk?' I whispered.
'Of course I can walk, it was Shakespeare who was shot not me.'
'Okay start moving up the hill then move off to the left, I'm going to give our friends a little birthday present.'
Bullets zipped and splattered around us, Kashmere moved and I sprayed the undergrowth with bullets from my liberated AK47. Somebody threw a hand grenade, it went off far too close for comfort, and to my left, where I had sent Kashmere, there was more shooting. A tall blonde barbarian with a hunting knife jumped into the scrub behind me, he wore black boots, black trousers and a black shirt and would have been described, by that famous humanitarian Adolf Hitler, as the perfect figure of Aryan manhood. I spun around and kicked him in the guts and he went down. This war games stuff is getting a bit serious, I thought, I might take my bat and ball and go home, then an inner voice shouted in my ear, get the fucking hell out of here and I took his advice. I scrambled up the slope humping my kit, there was a wounded black shirt in my path, he raised his gun at me.
'G'day' I said.
'G'day,' he said and lowered his gun.
'You're Australian?'
'Yeah.'
'What the hell are you doing in this Black Shirt brigade?'
'Streuth, God only knows.'
'Give me your arm, looks bad but not real bad.' I bandaged him up.
'Thanks mate,' he said and I crawled by him and kept going.
'Over here,' a familiar voice shouted and I scrambled towards that voice. A gun fired in my ear and more guns went off behind me.
'I'll cover you while you move up the hill a bit more,' I said and fired my AK47 down the slope at any noise I heard. Bullets zipped up the hill bouncing all around, I fired back, then I scrambled up the hill after Kashmere. Bullets smashed into the kit I was carrying over my shoulder and something gooey started to ooze down over my face.
'You've been hit?' said Kashmere.
'Yes, I think I've been shot in the baked beans.'
'The Black Shirts are on our left, they are on our right, they are below us and they are working their way around above us,' she said.
'Never a dull moment eh?'
We were now under fire from three sides, I fired off in reply but ran out of ammunition, Kashmere fired with her captured weapon but her ammunition ran out as well.
'All good things must come to an end,' I said.
'We're dead,' she said.
'I could say it was nice knowing you but I'd be lying,' I said.
'Damn, we haven't accomplished our mission.'
'Mission impossible.'
'Do you take pleasure in saying the obvious?'
'I do yes, people are often scared of talking about things, let's sit down and discuss our inner feelings, how are you coping with the current situation? Are you feeling threatened? Do you feel that you need more time to adjust to the situation? Do you think we should tell the Black Shirts that we need more time to explore our inner feelings and adjust psychologically…'
'Shut up, you talk so much crap.'
'Thank you.'
'We still have our sniper rifles,' she said.
I pulled my rifle out of my kit and snapped it together.
'You keep going up the hill and drag all the kit, I've got a plan,' I said. I had no plan so I cocked my gun, jumped up, shouted 'Geronimo!' and charged down the hill firing whenever I could cock a bullet into the breach of my gun. I came across another black shirted Aryan and hit him in the face with the butt of my rifle, another one sprang out of the scrub and I kicked him hard where it hurts most, I felt for that fella, he went down and yet another Black Shirt appeared and pointed his gun at me, Kashmere loomed out of the early morning light and performed the best karate chop I have ever seen and down he went. At this stage the rest of our assailants seemed to find their legs and were busy racing each other down the mountain.
'Was that your idea of a plan you idiot,' she said.
'As you are obviously a useless female, I'm taking co
mmand of this operation from now on,' I said.
'I'm putting you on report.'
'I love it when you're angry,' I said and moved closer in order to whisper sweet nothings in her ear and she once again twisted my arm up behind my back and dropped me to the ground. 'You certainly have a way with the men.'
'Don't touch me.'
'Thanks for saving my life.'
'Don't take it personally.'
'I think we need to talk about your lack of social skills and your inappropriate responses to the beauty of the world.'
'Stop the crap,' she said. 'Come on, they'll be back before we know it.'
'Let's just make a stand here,' I said, 'I like it here, there's a lovely view of the dawn.'
'No we'll go higher up the hill and fight them there.'
We collected ammunition for our AK47's by rifling through the abandoned ammunition packs of our assailants and then we dragged our kit up the hill. Funny how we wouldn't leave our kit and run for it, as would have been quite sensible. We came to the wounded Black Shirt I had helped.
'Mate.'
'Mate.'
'Listen mate,' he said, 'to your right, up a bit, there's some beaut caves you can get lost in there.'
'Thanks,' I said.
'Catch ya.'
'Listen mate.'
'Yes.'
'Word of advice, get your arse out of here and hot foot it back home to Oz.'
'Will do.'
'Make sure you do.'
'Come on!' shouted Kashmere and she pointed her gun at the wounded Black Shirt.
'He's my mate, you shoot him and I shoot you,' I said.
'You are in big trouble,' said Kashmere and we started to run up the hill.
It wasn't long before bullets were whistling past us again. I fired in return and then a mass of ballistics exploded all around us.
'Run faster!' Kashmere shouted and the shooting and explosions revved up a notch, we were running up and up the hill and then Kashmere was gone.
'Kashmere!' I called out but she didn't reply. A Black Shirt came out of the scrub, I laid him out with one king hit to the jaw, then I turned to run and fell in a black hole, the world had eaten me up, I didn't get time to be claustrophobic before I landed on someone and we both fell in a heap.