Scorched Earth - Robert Muchamore Page 0,10

arm blown off. Glass blasted across the room as the grenade exploded and splinters of window frame speared the ceiling.

‘Is anybody hurt?’ PT yelled, as debris settled and his ears rang.

Upstairs, Rosie pulled a pistol from under a loose floorboard and aimed out of the window. Her three bullets tore through the back fence, halting a second grenade throw and knocking both men back with large stomach wounds.

Miraculously, nobody downstairs got hurt by shrapnel, but a bottle of medical alcohol had shattered and combusted in the heat from the blast. Lines of blue flame shot across the kitchen dresser and into a coal bucket. Within seconds the coal, dresser and front curtains were ablaze and choking smoke curled up to the ceiling.

‘Rosie, we’re on fire,’ PT shouted.

Rosie charged downstairs, as fast as her billowing nun’s habit allowed. ‘I hit the two guys out back,’ she said. ‘Can’t see anyone else on that side.’

‘What if there’s an ambush?’ Franco asked, coughing from the smoke as he grabbed hold of his boots and tried standing on his good leg.

‘I doubt it,’ Rosie said. ‘If they had a lot of men they’d have surrounded us rather than sneaking up and bursting in.’

‘Gotta get out one way or another,’ PT said, trying not to breathe the smoke as he headed for the rear.

There was no back door so they had to straddle through the window. This wasn’t hard, but it was impossible not to tread on the gruesome remains of the Milice, who Jean had killed with a headshot before his corpse caught the grenade blast.

As Rosie and Jean covered with their pistols, PT hauled Franco out and supported him as they hobbled to the back gate.

One of the guys Rosie had shot behind the fence looked dead, but the other still writhed. She finished him with a shot through the heart, then reached down, grabbed his MP35 sub-machine gun and tugged off a shoulder-belt fitted with grenades and ammo clips.

Rosie looked comical in her nun’s habit, accessorised with ammo belt and machine gun, but nobody was in the mood to laugh. She reached cover 20 metres from the burning cottage and tried to work out what they were up against as Jean arrived, trailed by PT who was still helping Franco.

One Milice officer had escaped from the vicinity of the cottage, but Rosie didn’t get a chance to shoot before he vanished into the lines of flapping laundry pegged out behind the orphanage. Their position gave no view over the front of the orphanage, but they could hear Milice officers shouting orders over the wails and shouts of distressed kids.

‘There’s a car down here and another further up the road,’ Rosie said. ‘I reckon we’re up against eight or ten Milice at most.’

PT nodded in agreement. ‘And we took out four of them already.’

Round the front of the orphanage a nun screamed and young boys wailed in a way that made you know something horrible had just happened.

‘We need to get out of here,’ PT said.

Jean shook his head. ‘You’d abandon defenceless nuns and children?’

‘They’ll probably give the nuns a hard time and slap a few of the older boys around,’ PT said. ‘If we attack, we’ll be shooting towards the kids you’re so eager to protect.’

Jean tutted with frustration. ‘I suppose.’

A cocky, amplified voice echoed through a megaphone. ‘Jean Leclerc.’

Rosie, PT and the others exchanged confused glances before megaphone man spoke again.

‘Jean Leclerc, I am Milice Commander Robert. I know you’re out there. I’ve got eighty men surrounding your position. Come out with your hands raised and nobody else will be harmed.’

‘Eighty men, my arse,’ PT said.

‘How does he know we’ve not scarpered?’ Franco asked.

‘He doesn’t,’ Rosie said. ‘But what’s he got to lose by bluffing?’

‘If you don’t show yourself, the orphanage will be destroyed and three nuns executed,’ Robert continued. ‘I will execute the first nun in thirty seconds.’

Jean stepped forward, but PT pulled him back.

‘You can’t surrender,’ PT said firmly. ‘They’ll torture you for the names of everyone in the woods. Then they’ll start going after their families.’

‘Twenty seconds.’

Clutching the German machine gun, Rosie handed Franco her pistol. At the same moment part of the cottage roof caved, releasing plumes of trapped smoke.

‘Five seconds.’

‘He’s bluffing,’ PT said. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

A gunshot rang out, closely followed by the sound of kids screaming hysterically and cries of ‘No!’.

‘One dead nun,’ Commander Robert shouted through the megaphone. ‘Thirty seconds until the next one gets it.’

Jean moved and this time