Renford was a real mixture of people who were a cross section of this small society not far from the borders of Scotland. Protecting them was an organisation called the Frontier Corps, who numbered two hundred men and women, based in a secure compound in the centre of town underneath the old civic hall where the council offices once where. Now those offices were occupied by the town defence group who were in contact with all of the people with guns and weapons. This included the Medusa Weapons Facility staff, with certain gangsters who could be trusted, with Ernie the Worm, with Big Jake at Pistol Packin’ Mamma’s, with Tina and several other individual escort/protection people. Armed with only personal weapons in the small arms class like: sub machine gun, automatic pistols, medium strength machine guns and hand grenades. The Corps was mainly defensive in its military force make up and weapons – an infantry force. Where they shone strongest was in the area of intelligence, they organised the defence of Renford by collating information, intelligence and rumours into something solid and workable, thus making a plan of potential usefulness.
In the event of war, heavy weapons would be provided by the Weapons Facility to stop the English army or Scottish freedom fighters/raiders if they used heavy weapons. Staff would be allocated to man them with whoever had the most training/experience having first choice, no one wanted to see Renford destroyed or occupied. Many people had battle experience of different types and this could be used now for training and in the future for defence. Offence was not even considered due to wanting to be left alone and not cause trouble with a superior enemy force. If urgently necessary, the small infantry force of the Frontier Corps could be used as a blocking force either on its own (this would be a last ditch suicide mission if they faced English army units with tanks and big guns), with part of their number being expendable to buy time to organise a better defence or as a total force. If this occurred everyone expected to be killed in battle, orders were not to give up ground, to make every bullet count on target and to not be captured alive (their intelligence skills and information was far too valuable an asset for the army to find out).
With the English army occupying a huge area of eastern England, information was needed so a two-man unit would be organised to glean covert information. Rumour abounded of new terrifying weapons of unknown capability, type and use being developed by the army. Was there any truth in this or was it army propaganda and lies to scare the enemy to weaken them? The mission was being planned, two men were picked to man it and they were: Noel Jennings and Cris Holmes.
Noel was a twenty two year old man whose main hobby was sniping with his old Lee Enfield rifle in his spare time, when he was not working for the Frontier Corps as an intelligence officer. He had untaken this role for the past eighteen months and rapidly gained experience on the theory of armies on the move but had yet to see action; this was his first operation. His colleague was three years older and had two previous ops under his belt so he was teaching the younger man the way to do things, to learn and stay alive. Cris was a dynamic individual sent to lead this small operation, if he did things right they would both return home alive with valuable information on the areas under army control. If he failed, they both would face death in any number of wicked ways, this was the reason they carried cyanide capsules to use in the event of capture. Cris usually planned operations out to the army area of occupation but now and again he needed to get on the ground and experience a real op, like in this case. Wearing dark coloured civilian clothing so not to stick out like the secret intelligence men they were, they set off in the early evening heading away from the Frontier Corps base in an easterly direction out of Renford, on the main road out of town slowly walking, the best way to travel quietly and stealthily.
No comments:
Post a Comment