Just as the Rabid stumbles level with Alice and just before I shoot, Alice, with amazing speed, lifts from where she is taking cover in between the walls of the opening. In one rapid motion, she steps out into the room, swings the butt of her rifle around, her hands spread along the rifle’s body. With an almighty, ferocious force, she smashes it into the face of the Rabid.
This male Rabid, who must be at least 5’11”, has no chance. His head shoots backwards with the sound of a dull thud and cracking, as the butt of Alice’s rifle breaks the bones in its face. The thing’s legs fly forward as it almost does a backwards somersault before hitting the ground, the back of its head first. Alice swoops around, unsheathing her combat knife in unison and swinging the knife down and around, burying the knife deep into the Rabid’s head through its right temple. She ends up on one knee behind it, the Rabid’s body going limp.
It doesn’t move again.
Alice is still for a few seconds as she looks down at the Rabid’s face which has her knife still sticking out of its temple. Eventually, she pulls the knife out of its head and wipes both sides of the blade deliberately across the dead Rabid’s chest, cleaning the blood from the blade on its clothes.
I’m momentarily rooted to the spot in awe, taking in Alice’s very impressive moves in taking down the hostile, and I pick up a few pointers if I’m honest. Who said an old dog can’t learn new tricks? I’m almost overwhelmed by her manoeuvres. Alice has obviously honed her combat skills and they are proficient indeed; they must be for what she just did.
Alice has soon taken up a covering position behind her rifle and we both scan for any other threats that may be still in the room. What noise we did make in dealing with the Rabids on this floor doesn’t seem to have alerted any others on the floors below.
When I’m satisfied there are no other Rabids in this room, I signal to Alice to come over to me. She stands, walks sideways towards me, stepping slowly and deliberately to not make any sound, all the time scanning with her rifle around the room and as she reaches me, I stand.
“You don’t take any prisoners,” I joke in a low voice to her, “I’m impressed, nice moves. Lieutenant Ward, well done.”
“Thanks,” she whispers and blushes slightly. “Anyway, you can talk, you took four out before I could blink…and then another.”
“We need to check the next room is clear, there may be more than just the one in there,” I tell her.
We make our way past the various exhibits of old Tudor weapons, armour and such like. Some of the displays are damaged or their glass display cases broken, and we are careful not to tread on any of the debris so we don’t make unnecessary noise.
The body of the silhouetted Rabid I shot is sprawled across the floor in the next room. The contents of its head are sprayed across the floor, the moist blood and brains glistening in the dimming light. We tread around it and see that this room, which is smaller than the main room, is clear.
"There looks like there is something through there," I say to Alice, pointing at more openings on the other side of the room.
"Yes, that's the passageway, it leads right around the outside of this floor. On the right, it leads to the top of the chapel where I climbed up. It looks down onto the chapel below and would be a good vantage point for us to see into the second floor," she says.
"Okay, we’ll have a look. Just let me just radio Dan."
I pull the radio off my chest. Dan will be wondering what our situation is. He knows to wait for me to contact him unless something crops up at his end which can’t wait.
“Dan, over.” A few moments pass. “Dan, over.”
“Receiving, over,” comes Dan’s voice, a little too loudly as he shouts over the noise of the helicopter and I hastily adjust the volume on my radio.
“We have had contact, nothing serious and we are proceeding. Any developments with you, over?”
“Nothing to report, Boss, just doing a bit of sightseeing around London." Dan, always the joker, which isn’t a bad thing by any means. “The Colonel has been on, ranting, but I’ll give you the full story later, over.”
“Copy that, don’t stray too far on your sightseeing tour. We may need a lift sharpish mate, over.”
“Don’t panic, Boss. I’m ready and waiting, over.”
“Okay, thanks, Dan, over and out.”
Re-clipping the radio to my chest, I give Alice a look. “Ready?”
Moving through the opening, we go right and I'm taken aback on seeing the structure in front of me at the end of this passageway. There is a walkway that goes straight down to my right a short distance, then ends by the wall of one of the rooms next door. And then to my left, the walkway circles around to the right. Thick square stone pillars are joined with arches at the top, which reach up to the roof of the Tower and border the walkway on the inside; the openings between them look over the chapel that must be below. Looking through the pillars, I see they circle right around to the opposite side too. The walkway must also circle around the same way, following the arches to that side. I move behind the nearest pillar and Alice moves to the adjacent one on the right, both looking out carefully from our positions, down onto the chapel below.
The scene before us as we peer around the pillars is awful,
