Toy Soldiers 3: Abandoned by Devon C. Ford

Author:Devon C. Ford [Ford, Devon C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DHP Publishing
Published: 2018-06-21T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Barrett slammed his aircraft down to the dark ground, his entire body fatigued with the physical effort of piloting the big helicopter for over an hour of intensive short hops under immense pressure.

Real, literal, life and death pressure.

He waited until given the all-clear from his loadmaster, signifying that everyone was off, and he moved his helicopter to the flat area adjacent to their landing spot; hovering it just a few feet off the ground as the tall beast crabbed sideways.

“Julian? Julian?” a nasal voice called out, snapping Captain Palmer’s attention directly to the unnecessary source of the noise. Mixed relief and annoyance washed over him, and he stepped straight to his younger brother and hushed him, if anything for the embarrassment of the men seeing their officers engaging in such an emotional reunion.

“Lieutenant,” he snapped, sending the message loud and clear which they both heard in their late father’s voice.

Stop your caterwauling! He cried from the depths of their shared childhood, you’re neither women nor animals; show some decorum.

Second-Lieutenant Palmer stopped, wiped the look from his face and resisted the urge to hug his big brother and not let go.

“Sir,” he said formally, finally, “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Where’s the SSM?” his older brother fired back, seemingly unaffected by the emotion of their being reunited. Palmer junior swallowed down the first four things he wanted to say, settling on a brief but thorough report.

“He stayed behind, waiting for the other aircraft and in command of the final group.”

“I see,” the captain said, dropping his eyes in thought. Without another word he thrust a pad and pencil into his younger brother’s chest and waited for him to take them.

“I’ve begun taking a record of who we have left. Unless there are any surviving members of Assault Troop left behind, I’d suggest you start with Sergeant Sinclair’s men.”

The younger Palmer, left without the emotional response to his survival that he had hoped for and, worse still, unrecognised for the fact that he had finally led fighting men in contact and done what he felt was a good job. The final nail in the coffin of his elation was seeing his brother, the man he idolised and tried to emulate all the time, physically grab hold of another officer and turn him to walk away.

“Chris,” he said, using Lieutenant Lloyd’s first name in a rare display of familiarity, “with me, if you please.”

Second Lieutenant Palmer sneered, almost crushing the pad in his hand and digging the dull point of the pencil into his flesh painfully, then stomped away to take the most uncaring and callous butcher’s report ever.

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