so that both Bolton and Westley could see it and then counted down.
Three . . . two . . . one.
He pulled his hand into a fist as he jumped to his feet, leading his men round the iron gate and into the opening of the gateway. All seven of them dropped down to their knees and let loose a barrage of fire on the crowd that now was almost upon the stranded Rover. Meanwhile, Westley led his men out through the gate, breaking right across half-a-dozen yards of uneven paving towards a rusting truck parked with two tyres up on the kerb. There, they quickly found covered positions, and placed a withering barrage of suppressing fire down the boulevard. The advancing crowd, as one, dropped to the ground to avoid the opening salvo of gunfire.
‘Yankee-two-two . . . Go!’ Carter shouted into his throat mic.
The squaddie who had been doing an excellent job of top cover with the Minimi, instantly ducked down through the roll cage and began to scramble towards the back of the Rover. The other two men, meanwhile, leapt out from the meagre cover provided by the rear of the vehicle and started across the thirty feet of open ground towards the pink-walled compound, weaving to and fro in the hope of throwing off anyone attempting to draw a bead on them.
The third man still in the Rover suddenly stopped, and was hesitating, like some piss-head wondering whether he’d left his wallet back in the pub. Then Carter saw him reach up through the roll cage bars to retrieve the machine-gun.
He was tempted to shout out an order to the man to forget about it. But the Minimi was such an effective support weapon, to have it would make a real difference to the platoon’s chances of holding this position. They had plenty more belts of ammo for it in the other Rovers.
‘Come on, come on,’ he found himself muttering as he and his men continued to offer staccato bursts of covering fire, which for now was keeping most of the heads down out in the street.
The soldier in the vehicle managed to pull the awkwardly shaped weapon, with its extended bipod, down through the bars of the roll cage, and then out of the back of the Rover, tumbling out on to the ground with it in the process.
‘Smeggin’ hell move it, Shirley, you lazy bastard!’ Carter heard the Geordie lance corporal shout over the platoon channel, completely dispensing with formal call-sign protocol.
Over the shared channel, he heard the laboured breathing of the man, as he struggled with the gun and made ready to cross the open ground towards the entrance.
‘Fuck off Westley, you girl’s blouse,’ he heard the man reply.
‘Yankee-two-two . . . Dammit! . . . Shirley!’ barked Carter, making a mental note to ask him how he got that nickname. ‘Get over here now!’
The man shouldered the weapon, took a moment to steady his nerves, and then lurched out into the open, adopting the same weaving pattern as his two comrades had, but dangerously slowed down by the bulk and weight of the machine-gun.
The suppressing fire coming from Carter’s men, Sergeant Bolton’s position over the top of the compound wall and Lance Corporal Westley’s men was breaking down as magazines began to empty. At least half the men in all three sections were now somewhere in the process of ejecting a spent magazine, pulling a new one out of their pouches and slamming it home.
The armed militia amongst the crowd were beginning to be encouraged by the faltering volley of gunfire and several of them emerged from places of cover across the boulevard. They tapped short bursts in the direction of the lone soldier, desperately scrambling across the road.
Inevitably, a shot landed home.
A puff of crimson exploded from the man’s leg and he clattered to the ground still some yards from the kerb.
‘Get off your fuckin’ arse, you twat!’ bellowed Bolton from the top of the wall, his booming voice carrying over the din of gunfire.
The intensity of the fire suddenly increased as the militia-led mob were further encouraged. The cinder-block wall beside Carter and his men began to explode with bullet impacts, showering them all with a cascade of plaster dust and stinging splinters of cement.
Carter heard a hard wet smack and glanced to his left to see that the squaddie who had been kneeling next to him had been thrown backwards by a shot dead centre to his face. There