Sloan: Outback Exodus, #5

By Dawn Millen

I am Sloan, some people call me their worst nightmare and others call me their saviour. I am a bit of both. No one calls me friend. This is how I came to be who I am today.

04.00 hrs 01 January 2013

Company Barracks

I must be the only person round here that did not celebrate New Year’s. It’s five am, almost time for the guard to change and there is not a sign of another living soul. With the exception of the ever present guard on the gate no one has risen from their cots to get ready for duty.

The canteen is deserted as I head to get my first cup of coffee for the day. The urn’s hot, so someone has been around, but there are no signs of them now. No sounds from the kitchen where normally I hear the crash and rattle as the breakfasts are cooked and put on the trays. No chatter from the cooks and no barking of orders from the Sergeant Chef. I wander around the room and settle at a table at the back. Facing both the front and rear doors I sit ever watchful, the training we all have sticks with you for life. 

What happens next changes many lives in the course of the year as Sloan takes to the road to revenge the murder of his wife. Read on to learn how he does this. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twinny in a Tinny Publications
• Release date: May 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386392125

Dawn Millen

Dawn Millen was born in North Wales UK has lived for long periods in New Zealand and currently lives in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia.  Dawn was widowed in late 2010 and wrote her first book, “Widowhood 101” was published in May 2012 and quickly followed by “Widowhood 102 – The Diary Entries” and “Widowhood 103 – Tears Grief”. Widowhood 103 was written in collaboration with Annie Watson. These books describe Dawn’s journey through the death of her husband and the first year of widowhood. There are more books planned for the series over the coming years as the changes wrought by the loss of her much loved husband become apparent. “Outback Exodus” was Dawn’s first venture into publishing her fiction work and the story has been written with a deep love of Australia which expands across the vast Outback and culminates on the beautiful East Coast Flood Plains.  “Settled on the Coast”  followed “Outback Exodus” and continues the story of the band of travellers as they set up their new lives  Gordon Under Attack takes you into the first year of settlement and the gangs which threaten the safety of the village. Sloan carries forward the story of the saviour of the village of Gordon.  New Generations carries the story of the settlement of Gordon 50 years into the future. If you enjoy the work please return to the place of purchase to leave a review. Dawn now adds a new series which has spun off from the Outback Exodus which picks up where Sloan finishes. The new series is called The Long Road South which was released in February 2017.   Connect with the Author on line Facebook    https://www.facebook.com/dawn.myfanwyn.millen https://www.facebook.com/JourneyfromWetoMe Amazon       http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008NF9JLK

Book preview

Chapter 1

I am Sloan, some people call me their worst nightmare and others call me their saviour. I am a bit of both. No one calls me friend. This is how I came to be who I am today.

04.00 hrs 01 January 2013

Company Barracks

I must be the only person round here that did not celebrate New Year’s. It’s five am, almost time for the guard to change and there is not a sign of another living soul. With the exception of the ever present guard on the gate no one has risen from their cots to get ready for duty.

The canteen is deserted as I head to get my first cup of coffee for the day. The urn’s hot, so someone has been around, but there are no signs of them now. No sounds from the kitchen where normally I hear the crash and rattle as the breakfasts are cooked and put on the trays. No chatter from the cooks and no barking of orders from the Sergeant Chef. I wander around the room and settle at a table at the back. Facing both the front and rear doors I sit ever watchful, the training we all have sticks with you for life.

More coffee and after I fill the cup I wander outside to smoke a cigarette. The only people I can see are the guards on the gate and a member of the Provo squad patrolling with his dog. The dog’s tail is down and his ears are laid flat. He looks almost afraid. Not often I see that with one of our dogs.

Glancing down at my watch I see it is now 5 a.m. and time for breakfast to start serving. Still no noise from the kitchen, at this stage. I head towards the kitchen doors and open them. One very hung over cook is sitting with his head in his hands at the long preparation bench in the middle of the room. His blood shot eyes ratchet over towards me before they lower again and he groans.

You sick mate? I ask.

Yeah, hair of the dog would help cure it though.

Self-inflicted, mate. No bloody sympathy here.

Shut up Sloan. Just because you don’t drink it don’t make you fucking better than the rest of us.

No son, it doesn’t, but these stripes on my shoulders do. No get off your arse, rouse the rest of the cooks and get fucking breakfast underway.

"Yes Sarge. Going now, Sarge.

He scuttles off with a half-hearted salute and staggers still drunk out of the door and off to wake the rest of the kitchen corps.

I head over to the large pantry area and grab a box of cereal, quickly pouring it into a bowl that I find on the bench and adding sugar and milk. I stand at the metal bench and eat quietly while I watch the clock.

0529 hrs and the kitchen staff start to stumble through the door.

Many are incorrectly dressed and still drunk from the night before. Two barely able to stand are holding each other up and are clearly not in a fit state to take on their duties.

As I open my mouth to give them a dressing down a loud growling sound echoes through the kitchen. The whole room starts to move and twist and people start to fall. Items fall from tables, benches and cupboards before the roof starts to twist and fall.

Take cover, take cover. I roar above the growling, groaning sound which fills the room and air around us.

I did not wait to see if they obeyed the order, like all soldiers they should have done, instantly. I dived under the metal table in the centre of the room and stayed there as the earth rocked and twisted under me. Holding the metal leg bolted to the floor I curse and swear as the seconds roll past.

One minute, two, and then it was over. The swaying stops and the falling objects roll across the clear areas of the floor and down the rubble piles, denting and smashing before all is still.

I stumble out from under the table into the dust filled air. Rubble lies all around me, walls and ceilings have caved in and the coffee urn is upturned over one of the men. His screams are the first sounds to penetrate the silence that hangs as thick as the dust. Loud groans, screams of pain and the copper tang of blood mix with the dust in the air. I stand amid the wreckage of the kitchen as activity and sound resumes around me.

I smell roasting flesh and turn towards the stoves. One man has been thrown across the hot elements and his clothes are burning. His eyes are open, but life has left them. I haul him off the stove and throw water from the sink over the burning clothes. The smell of gas hangs, pungent, an explosion is the last thing we need. Amid the damage there are bodies, crushed, broken, burned and bloody. Others appear shell shocked and are stumbling around trying ineffectually to remove debris from the dead and dying.

I head for the door, breathing in shallow gasps to make sure that I don’t breath in too much of the dust. I open my mouth to scream for a medic, but it dies in my throat. The sight that greets me sends me reeling backwards in shock. The whole camp is a tumbled mass of twisted metal, broken bricks and bodies lying everywhere. A figure looms out of the dust inside and stands beside me.

What the fuck just happened here? he asks.

I thought it was an explosion, but this is far worse than just an explosion. I speak softly. Look at the place. Hardly a building standing and what still stands is damaged beyond belief.

The water mains have gone bloody fountains of the stuff everywhere. They are gonna have to get on this quick.

Gas mains have gone too, so don’t light up a ciggie.

Christ, it is like a bloody war zone out here.

Inside too, we’d better go do what we can in here. Not that there is much we can do for some of those poor bastards. Turning we head back inside to start helping as best we can with what we can find.

Hours pass and the death toll climbs faster than we can keep up with. Basic first aid is all we can do. The base hospital is in ruins, equipment destroyed, medics killed. The tents we set up for casualties are understaffed and without the facilities needed to save many lives. Stretchers line the clear areas with dead or dying men and women on top of them. The stench of urine, bowel movements and blood hangs heavy with the still hovering dust cloud.

We now know that an earthquake has done this damage and that beyond the walls of the camp the city lies in ruins. We can barely help ourselves, but rows of civilians are starting to gather at the gate, injured, homeless and hungry, just like we now are. There will be no rescue from this base for those civilians. We will have to wait for help from outside for them and for us.

The earth continues to heave throughout the day and into the night. Rescue attempts are abandoned each time as we retreat to save the living, then scramble back madly trying to find those trapped. More and more bodies are piling up along the cleared areas.

Our minds are turning to our own families now as the death toll climbs higher each hour. I worry about my mother and wife on the other side of town and hope they are okay. I’ll find a way to check on them soon. Many men have gone AWOL already and the ranks of those able to assist in rescue's is thinning by the hour as each new earthquake or after shock sends men and women scurrying for their own homes and families.

Chapter 2

––––––––

Morning comes, little has changed, and there is still no outside help. No communications are available. No one is sure what is happening beyond the gates. The queues of civilians are growing by the hour, we can offer no help. Too few remain who are whole and healthy. The lightly wounded are assisting the more serious cases to help the remaining skeleton medical staff. Those who are able are still sifting through the rubble of the fallen and twisted buildings. Small fires and large columns of water hamper the search efforts in places. The groans coming from below the rubble are quieter now and it is becoming obvious that our search is becoming fruitless as the people we are finding now are dead; there is nothing we can do for them.

The piles of bodies are growing quickly now and the summer heat is causing them to decay at an incredible rate. The smells are becoming unbearable, body bags are no longer available and the Acting Base CO has decided that we can no longer keep the dead for proper funerals. A bulldozer has been digging mass graves in the parade ground and the piles of bodies are being pushed into the holes, then covered quickly. There is nothing else we can do.

Noon and the fruitless searching is coming to an end. News is filtering through with the extent of the devastation outside of the barracks. After shocks are causing more and more building collapses.  With no communication with the outside world we are left to make our own decisions. The General was killed in the first earthquake and command has become a hotch potch of small groups commanded by those who hold the highest rank. The current Base Commander is a Captain, but his wounds are severe and he is just clinging to life. Discipline is becoming none existent, fights are breaking out and men and women have deserted their posts in droves.

Those of us who are left are now turning to our own concerns. I head for my room in the half demolished barracks and retrieve my weapons in their pouches, ammunition and survival pack before returning to the ruined Sargent’s Mess to retrieve some food. The time has come to take care of my own family. My car is crushed under the rubble of the car park so I grab a motorbike which is standing in a clear area and wrestle it over a few small rubble piles. Quickly I pull the wiring out and hot wire it. Mounting the bike I am out of the gate and heading into town and to my family.  As I travel through the city I am glad that I am on a bike, rubble is strewn across the streets and the bike’s manoeuvrability means that I do not have to stop often to clear a path.

Travel over the thirty miles home takes time as I am dodging around places where the buildings have spilled into the streets and diverting around huge cracks in the road. I can see where a tsunami has encroached onto the land and caused further destruction.

People wander in the cleared spaces clutching each other or a few pitiful possessions. Stunned faces and tear stains are the order of the day. Shock and fear have overcome most of the population, those that have survived. Many scramble through the rubble searching for loved ones and possessions. Some who are carrying dead children, stumbling through the rubble strewn streets crying or worse still, are silent. A nightmare parade of the wounded and dying are lying in the cleared areas.

Home, but not the home I left on my visit last weekend. The roof has caved in, the lounge room wall has fallen outward, the ceiling sags and the furniture looks strange exposed to the outside world. Heading in through the shattered remnants of the front door I smell gas, the coppery smell of blood and rotting food.

Mum, Cherry, are you here? I call out.

A loud groan from the back room lets me know that someone is here. I head down the hallway and turn sharply right. Mum and Cherry are in the room. There is blood everywhere and Mum is leaning over the bed where Cherry reclines on blood soaked sheets. Blood soaks Mum’s white hair and the front of her dress is torn.

What the hell happened here Mum? I ask quietly as I take in the shattered looks on both Mum’s and Cherry’s faces.

Mum mumbles indistinctly and Cherry starts to cry quietly. Silent tears slide down her cheeks and divert into her hair and onto the pillow under her. Her face is swollen and bruised, but it is the bruising that you find on a bloke that has been in a fight. My mind is running fast with questions.

Mum, talk to me, Mum.

More mumbles from the side of the bed and more tears from Cherry.

I lean over and take Mum’s arm, turning her towards me. Mum, its Roger, tell me what happened to you both. I speak gently while I take in the bruises and cuts to Mum’s face.

The tears start as Mum tries to speak.

We were attacked this morning. There was three of ‘em. Big blokes, bikies. Covered in tattoos and rough. They came through the front wall looking for money and what they could steal. Cherry went out to try and stop them and they grabbed her. The tears are flowing down Mum’s face and her voice is choked with emotion.

What happened next, Mum?

The big bloke with the spider tattooed on his neck started hitting Cherry. I came out then and went for them. They hit me too and kept on hitting us, over and over again. The pain was terrible........

Oh Mum. My own eyes fill with tears.

I pull Mum close and feel the shaking in her body. She trembles for long moments and then with a sniff starts to pull herself together. Turning back to the bed she smooths