Free Severed by Simon Kernick

two exit holes the size of oranges in his flak jacket.
    He didn't make a sound. Not even a peep. He simply slid back into the cab and out of sight, and I never saw him again. That's the nature of violence - its utter suddenness. It can be over in seconds, yet so great is the damage it wreaks that the ramifications often last for ever.
    I dived to the ground, alongside Snowy, grabbing Lucas as I did so and dragging him down with me. Rob Forbes, a few feet away, wasn't so lucky. I can't remember if he even moved. We were all still in shock, our reactions slower than usual, and as the next burst of machine-gun fire shattered the silence, I watched as he was lifted off his feet and driven backwards through the air, his rifle clattering to the ground.
    The bastards had set a clever trap. They would have known that even a powerful bomb would not destroy an APC completelyand that some, if not all, the men inside would be able to evacuate it. But by placing a machine-gun crew nearby with a good view of the ambush point, they could simply pick off the survivors. The brazenness of it was incredible considering that there was a helicopter flying overhead and reinforcements would be on the scene very quickly. It wouldn't have worked if we hadn't been so close to the Irish border, but with barely a few hundred yards to travel before they crossed it and were out of our reach, and with the knowledge that the helicopter was unarmed and therefore unable to fire on them, our attackers obviously considered it a risk worth taking. And Lucas and I were now totally exposed to their fire.
    A drainage ditch ran along the other side of the road, and the two of us were facing it. It represented our best chance of cover.
    A third burst rang out, the heavy .5-calibre rounds kicking up chippings of tarmac only inches away from where we lay.
    'Go! Go! Go!' I howled, leaping to my feet, my hand still gripping Lucas's flak jacket.
    I gave him a huge shove and together we charged across the road, limbs flailing,adrenalin pumping through me so fast I felt like I was almost flying. We launched ourselves headlong into the ditch, landing in a foot of muddy, foul-smelling water. I rolled over in it and got to my feet, while Lucas remained on his hands and knees, coughing and spitting out phlegm. The back of his head was bloody and there was a deep gash at the base of his skull. He'd lost his rifle, but I still had mine. I moved over to the edge of the gully and took up a firing stance, trying to pinpoint the machine gunner's position through the assault rifle's sights.
    There was a bend in the road about thirty yards up ahead, and a tree-covered slope running up behind it. I thought I caught a glint of metal in there somewhere, but such was the thickness of the tree cover that I couldn't be a hundred per cent sure. The rules of engagement in Northern Ireland were strict: only shoot if you're being directly threatened, and use the minimum force required to neutralize the threat. But the potent combination of adrenalin and the frustration of being attacked by an unseen enemy meant I wasn't really thinking about that. I cracked off half a dozen shots in the direction of where I thought I'd seen the glint ofmetal, then stopped, my finger tensed on the trigger. There was no return fire. The world was silent once again, save for the angry crackle of the fire across the road.
    Meanwhile, Snowy was getting to his feet, using the back of the APC as cover. He had a deep gash on his forehead and he was wiping the blood from his eyes as another of the men, a recently recruited Fijian called Rafo, climbed out of the smoking double doors.
    I shouted for the two of them to make a run for the ditch in case the fuel tank ignited.
    At that moment, the second APC finally roared into view. I doubt if even a minute had passed since the initial blast, but it felt like hours. The APC drove past us and turned sharply in the road some twenty yards further on, so that it acted as a buffer