Free On Her Majesty's Behalf by Joseph Nassise

and they could fit at least one, possibly two more passengers into the back of the truck in place of the trunk. The sergeant was doing his best to reassure the woman that he would send it on to Marseille as soon as he could, but he wasn’t fooling anyone; the resignation in his voice was plain for everyone to hear. As he droned on, the woman visibly gathered the shreds of her dignity around her like a tattered old cloak and turned away without saying anything more, turning her back on what had to be the last few things she owned in this world in order to give a total stranger a chance at a new life somewhere far from this place.
    It was a brave and unselfish thing to do.
    As she turned away, her gaze met Burke’s and he could see the pain and misery floating there just behind her eyes, held at bay through nothing more than her own raw determination. In response to that burden, Burke did the only thing he could think of.
    Holding her gaze with his own, Burke pulled himself up into a textbook-­perfect salute, his back ramrod straight, his hand like a knife’s edge against the side of his forehead, honoring not only the sacrifice she was making now but also those that they both knew were sure to come on the road ahead.
    They stared at each other and for a long moment Burke thought his gesture would go unacknowledged, but then he saw the edge of the woman’s mouth curl up into the slightest little smile and she nodded at him, noting his unspoken praise and solidarity. When she turned away, she stood a bit straighter and there was a spring to her step that hadn’t been there moments before.
    Feeling as if he’d done his good deed for the day, Burke turned to continue his walk, only to see Colonel Nichols’s aide, Corporal Davis, racing toward him in an open-­topped staff car and waving frantically to get his attention.
    Looks like it’s time to pay the piper, Burke thought.
    D AVIS DEPOSI TED HIM back at MID headquarters, with orders to see the colonel immediately. Burke slipped inside and found Nichols waiting for him in his office. With him was the Black Watch noncom from a few days before, Sergeant Drummond. The expressions on both their faces spoke volumes.
    Burke’s good mood evaporated.
    â€œHow bad?” he asked.
    Nichols’s mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. “See for yourself,” he said, pointing to a table off to one side on which a stack of eight-­by-­ten photographs rested.
    Burke stepped over, picked up the images, and began leafing through them one by one.
    The photos were taken from several hundred feet up, most likely from the backseat of an Avro 504 reconnaissance aircraft or something similar. The photographer had been looking down upon the elements of Calhoun’s rescue operation as they moved through the center of a small town somewhere outside of London. It was clear from the first photograph that the unit had already come under attack at some point; they were short several tanks from their initial complement, and more than a few men were being helped along by their fellow soldiers. The fact that the attack was continuing was made clear in the second image for it showed a handful of shredders charging out of a nearby alley on the column’s left flank. The third image showed that those first few shredders were just the vanguard of an enormous mob of such creatures pouring out of every nearby street and swarming over tanks and soldiers alike.
    By the time Burke got to the last of the ten photographs, there wasn’t a single living soldier left standing in the final image.
    Calhoun’s rescue operation had been overrun before it had even reached the streets of London.
    Just as Burke had predicted.
    Putting the photographs down, he turned back to face the other two. “Did any of them make it out?”
    Nichols shook his head.
    â€œSweet mother of God,” Burke said under his breath.
    The Scotsman laughed, a harsh, bitter