slack again – sorry

“I’d invite you in, but I’m too tired even to consider it.”

Simpson snorted. “Any excuse. Bloody Ossies, weak as piss.”

“Am not!” He said, trying to defend himself, and then saw the grin on her face. “You wait, Simpson. You’ll get yours; don’t you worry about that.”

“Promises promises.” She said with an even wider grin before she pushed open the door of the room she had selected and then disappeared from his view. Andrew was so exhausted that all he did was take his boots off before collapsing on the bed. The next thing he knew, there was a knocking on the door. He decided it must be the morning already, as it appeared to be light outside.

“Come.” He yelled.

The door opened, and a Nuzeeland soldier entered.

“Captain’s compliments, sergeant, but he wonders if you could come and see what’s going on with the Japs.”

Andrew couldn’t help himself and sighed loudly. He sat up in bed and looked blearily at the soldier before shaking his head.

“Righto. I’m going to have a quick shower first, Japs or no Japs.”

“Don’t care, bro. I’m just the messenger.” The soldier replied and exited the room.

Andrew kept the shower brief and headed back to where he thought the command post most likely was. In the event, they had moved it upstairs from where it had been the previous day because the view was better.

“Ah. Harris. What you make of that.” The Captain said, pointing out the window.

Andrew looked out the window, which gave him a view across the river. There were people filling the streets everywhere we looked. Women and children mostly. They were all standing in big clumps, and then he noticed individuals walking amongst them, handing things out. He brought up his telescopic vision spell and looked at one of the individuals. They were carrying a sack draped over their shoulder, handing out globular items to the women and children. Oh fuck! They all had Japanese features, so the crowd must be all the women and children attached to the male servants whom they’d been using as soldiers. Possibly even the widows and children of those who had been killed in action. Who knew what criteria they’d use with the way the True Men carried on?

“They chip all the women, don’t they?”

“That’s the report your people sent us. All the women and the boys born to servants who otherwise aren’t selected to become Real men.”

“Yeah. There handing out grenades. They are going to send all those women and children across the bridge and force our men to kill them all; otherwise, they’ll become thousands of suicide bombers.”

“Fuck.” The Captain said.

Andrew stood watching the crowds for some time, trying to think of some way of dealing with the issue that didn’t involve massacring thousands of women and children. He’d sort of felt the control spell that the Japanese mentalists used to control their cyborgs a few times, but only the edge of it. He had no idea of what form it actually took. Then he looked at the bank that supported the bridge approach road on this side and at the bushes on the right-hand side of that bank, which ran all the way up to where the concrete abutment of the bridge proper was.