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After the laughter has died away
And all the boys have had their fun…

From McGibbon, I. RNZIR: A History of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment 1961-2011. Auckland: Communications Corporation of Australasia, 2012.

Singapore to South Auckland: 1st Battalion After World War III

…story of the survival of 1st Battalion was an unexpected surprise and at first unbelieved by the High Commission in Melbourne. But after contact was re-established with RAAF Butterworth – itself the miraculous survivor of the Exchange and the largest outpost still operating under the Five-Power Defence Arrangements, alongside Penang which was serving as the interim continuity of operations headquarters for the Malaysian government after the destruction of Kuala Lumpur – the tale could be told in full.

The Battalion, it transpired, had obeyed its orders to discreetly go north across the Straits of Johor on February 20, and made its way in good order towards Kuala Lumpur even as communications with Europe grew patchy amid the Soviet advance to the Weser…

…the absence of losses on the way to Penang which stands out, with the only casualty being a badly twisted ankle suffered by an Army cook while retrieving supplies, during which he slipped and fell on a wet floor.

This surprisingly not-arduous journey was complete before the first device landed on New Zealand; there was not, however, sufficient time to break radio silence between the arrival of the convoy at Butterworth and the
sight of the mushroom cloud over Kuala Lumpur, and it was therefore assumed that they had been lost somewhere en route until the re-establishment of communications with the Malaysian government in April…

…arrived at Whenuapai with as much fanfare as the authorities in Auckland could scrape together in mid-June. It was the first time the men had seen what had befallen their country, and it was said that many wished they had stayed with the rest of the Battalion in Butterworth. Nevertheless, all put their hands to the task of reconstruction and civil authority before them, as winter loomed over the country…

Transit of Venus, Pilgrimage, and Early Rover: The Odyssey of 5th Battalion

…Company of 5th Battalion earned itself a storied history throughout the first six months of the Emergency, the Territorials having seen reasonably intensive use since X-Day in a large operational area extending from Taranaki to Wellington. Lead units of B Platoon were detached in the first week post-X-Day on the first reconnaissance mission to the capital, and later participated in urban patrol operations during March’s civil unrest incidents in Porirua (with A Platoon detached to Wanganui in the far more severe civil unrest the same month), and C Platoon found itself acting as armed auxiliary for the overstretched civilian policing elsewhere in its jurisdiction…

…of the Regiment in the Defence Force detachment taking part in Operation Transit of Venus was made up mainly of B Platoon, as well as a token guard of NZSAS and military for the small diplomatic corps on board Otago and a few auxiliaries from A and C Platoons. Alongside Lieutenant Commander McKirdy was the recently-promoted Major Mateparae, still on secondment from his formal role in 1st Battalion and for the foreseeable future effective company commander…

…provide “all aid and comfort such as Allied Governments may require”, including tasks of reconstruction, medical assistance, and logistical support. This was not of course an easy job: Britain, as everyone knew, was in ruins. The Company still endeavoured to do its best to meet this challenge, however, and worked tirelessly to put its hard-earned experience to the test…

.. ..-. / .. - / .. ... --..-- / -.-. .- -. / .-- . / .- .-.. .-.. / -.-. --- -- . ..--..

No surface noise now, not much to say
We’ve got the bad guys on the run…

"Somewhere in the South of England"
(beneath Corsham, Wiltshire)
June 2, 1984

Lieutenant Commander Jock McKirdy wasn’t thrilled at the latest turn of events. It wasn’t that the Poms hadn’t been grateful for the help sent in the aid convoy; no, it was that they were so grateful they’d invited the New Zealanders and Australians and Indians to stay on a bit of a holiday. Provided, of course, your definition of ‘holiday’ extended to going out for little day trips on convoys up and down the coasts and pressing inland, trips which put New Zealand’s boys, his boys in the line of fire from whatever was going on in this burnt and scarred little country when it wasn’t being dressed up as a Potemkin village.

He’d known it’d be bad, and he had suspected that the soldiers at least might have to get involved with some kind of domestic reconstruction – but when the Poms had made it clear they had every expectation that the men from the tri-national convoy would be staying in the country for the rest of the month, McKirdy couldn’t help but feel they’d been sold out by the Beehive or Town Hall or whatever woebegone building it was the politicians were infesting these days down in Christchurch.

Still, he remained optimistic that the Brits would feel compelled to give their colonial nieces and nephews something in return for all their work – there was nothing to spare, but even their jerry-rigged equipment was streets ahead of the radiation gear people had back home (DSIR tried their best, bless their little cotton socks, but people weren’t exactly lining up for the work outside Wellington or inside the Auckland exclusion zone).

Being a commanding officer on one of His Majesty the King of New Zealand’s Navy vessels still afforded you some privilege, though, which merely made Jock feel worse for not being out there with the rest of his men. Instead, he got to cool his arse with a briefing from an unctuous little shit in a suit, Timothy Something-or-Other from the This-And-That Office. Officially, he was here as a liaison to help answer McKirdy’s questions. Unofficially…

“…so no, I don’t think I really know a lot at all about our facilities in that regard. I imagine we have looters. I’m pretty certain anyone would in this sort of case. But I can’t say anything on what the measures in place are like to deal with them.”

Timothy merely gave the little know-it-all half-smile the Commander had managed to establish a lifelong loathing of within a few minutes, nodding silently and scanning McKirdy’s face before making another comment.

“That’s understandable, Lieutenant Commander. Land-bound matters are rather out of your jurisdiction, I dare say.” The pointed air of those last few words did little to endear Timothy to the New Zealander; even his small talk, it seemed, was calibrated to insult without leaving a mark. “But then your dilemma is rather less than ours, even proportionally speaking. Britain is in such a sorry state these days, you know.” A pause – just the slightest pause – to indicate an answer would be appreciated from McKirdy, who took the chance to catch him off guard just as the grey functionary opened his mouth to speak again.

“Oh, she’s a right fuck-up, Tim; we don’t need to lie to ourselves there.” A slight wince met him, prompted by the honesty, informality, and swearing. Two can play at that game, you obsequious Brylcreemed turd. “Still, you’ve done a damn good job of rebuilding. We came through, ah, Southampton on the way, and I must say it’s not looking bad for a place which looks – well, I, ah, I mean it was – hit by an nuke.” Jock fired his own little smirking smile, aiming for congratulatory and pitying and superior all at once.

Of course, the Lieutenant Commander not being a man of broad emotion, he looked more like he was trying to pass a kidney stone than deliver condolences. McKirdy more than made up for it with his next remarks: “Which is why I’ve freed up our men to give your lot a hand;” implying I had a choice after your lot nuked Buenos fucking Aires “if nothing else I believe it’s a valuable opportunity to gain some experience we can put towards rebuilding back down home.”

A sage little nod from Timothy, the little smile never leaving his face or, more importantly, those beady little eyes. It was the eyes, they were like he knew something you were keeping secret, and so you began to take it for granted that he already knew everything, or like he knew some private little joke about you that he was smirking at.

“Well, we’re all tremendously grateful for the help, Captain. It’s always so gratifying for us to know that we here in Britain can call upon our friends in the Commonwealth when their support is so badly needed.”

“And New Zealand is happy to respond. After all, we know we can always count on Britain to spare us some attention themselves every once in a little while.”

Whatever dear Timmy was going to say was cut off by the intrusion of a tall, lean man in a suit so well-kept it would otherwise have looked alien. Would have, that were, if the grey hair, aristocratic glare and aquiline nose he addressed the world with hadn’t made it seem like the most natural thing in the world.

“I say, Stamper? Have you quite had your turn with our guest?” The gaze flicked towards Jock, the grey eyes looking through and past his own, before flitting back to the other suited figure. “I’m told he’s rather expected over in Cabinet.” A brief glance back at McKirdy and a smile the casual observer might take as genuine rather than idly commanding. “If you are ready, of course, Lieutenant Commander.”

“Course. Of course.” McKirdy stood to shake his interviewer’s (interrogator’s?) hand. “Well, thank you, Tim, you’ve certainly given me plenty to take back to Lyttelton.”

A slightly indulgent tilt of the head and a “You’re quite welcome,” as the apparently more senior intruder showed him the door. “Cheerio, Francis.”

“I do hope our Stamper didn’t tire you out unduly,” the beak-nosed man said with that false concern only the British upper crust could do so well, as they walked along one of the endless concrete corridors. “Assistant Whips can be such loquacious fellows, you know.”

McKirdy nodded and offered some bland answer, before venturing a question.

“Ah, so what do you do? Hell of a posh tour guide, I must say.”

The bespoke-tailored man smiled, modest-yet-smug. “What, me? Oh, I’m just the Chief Whip. Well, officially just a Whip, but as you may well have found yourself, promotions come rather more generously in these times, do they not?”

A smile in response which was appropriately congratulatory and commiserating.

“Yeah, yeah, I reckon it’d a bit more acute up this end, though.”

“Well, quite. Speaking of the chain of command, captain, I am to conduct you to the Prime Minister’s Office.” A faint smile danced its way across his lips. “If you would care to watch for a Number 10 on one of the doors, I shall introduce you.”

“Lead on, then,” said Jock, all at sea in the underground labyrinth.

Another agonising meeting with the Prime Minister. More pussyfooting around the fact the world had gone to hell in a handbasket and nobody knew what to do. McKirdy had thought even once the guns started firing that he was safe of such diplomatic bullshit in the Navy.

Too bloody bad.

We’ll not fade out too soon
Not in this finest hour…

Brighton, East Sussex
June 16, 1984

It was summer, if you could call it that. The sun shone weakly through the slate-grey sky as if it too had developed radiation sickness or succumbed to the almost unthinking state of blind, bland, robotic routine which was visible in every action and thought around here.

It still beat Palmy this time of year.

The Lance Corporal thought so, anyway: you could just about, if you tried really hard to think about it, forget there had been about twenty nuclear detonations within a worryingly short piss up the road (speaking of which, would his kids – if he ever had any – come out two-headed?) and that you were in one of the biggest remaining outposts of civilisation on the edge of a huge smouldering offal pit.

It was actually quite easy to do once you ignored the carless roads, the gaunt faces haunted by mistrust and fear and hunger, the soldiers and special constables and traffic wardens and was that really a Salvation Army bloke I saw on that last patrol? and men with armbands and rifles outside half the buildings, the slowly-mounting piles of rubbish in dark corners, the grime, the all-permeating stink of unwashed bodies, the noticeable lack of cats or dogs or even many seagulls, the barbed wire, the closed shops, the occasional burnt-out house…

Alright, so maybe not that easy, then.

It could’ve been worse. The New Zealanders had been regarded as too soft and green for any of the real work of the British forces (not unfair considering what the Poms were expected to do), so they’d been divided into platoons and sections before being put on what was effectively a cop’s beat in a green zone or running guard duty on a few truckfuls of pitiful rations.

He’d gotten away with doing the former. It wasn’t the worst work in the world, especially considering what similar tasks had brought in the past.

The makeshift hospital in Wellington still appeared when he closed his eyes sometimes.

There’d been a lot more of that sort of shit going on up here then even Wellington, but the Poms made up for it by being almost frantically happy to see friendly faces from somewhere, anywhere else. They were skinnier than the worst of those back home, too; dark mutterings claimed (quietly and far from listening ears, of course) that the Powers That Be had withheld food supplies for a fortnight after the bombs had dropped, just to weed out the weak and sick. The Lance Corporal had shook his head at the two or three people who’d said that. Okay, sure, things were pretty fucked up around these parts, but nobody would starve old folks and kiddies just because they couldn’t work.

He kept telling himself that.


Like any of the other Kiwis, your well-fed young man in a cleanish uniform stuck out like a sore thumb on a fingerless hand. Like any of the other Kiwis or Aussies or Indians, that meant he attracted whores and beggars and children and the weak and sick like cowshit drew blowflies.

“Fuck sakes, Zitty,” said Scott as his fellow private swatted away the cadaverous woman he’d just given a packet of dried soup to, “at least be choosy with ‘em, won’t ya?”

“Eh?”

“He means don’t feed the ones you don’t wanna fuck,” drawled Tangaroa out the corner of his mouth, his enormous forearms folded across his chest. Very few people had tried to scab food off him, the Lance Corporal had noticed. Tommy Zitnik, on the other hand...

“Do I have to want to fuck any of ‘em?” he said plaintively. “Can’t a fella just want to do somethin’ nice?”

“Tommy,” began Scott, “nobody up this way’s doing anything nice for anyone anymore. If the fallout warning earlier wasn’t enough of a clue for you, there’s a war on.”

“Bet your arse there is,” interrupted the Lance Corporal, “and that means when I tell you to shut your trap and let Zitnik piss away his rations, you zip it.”

Silence descended, for about fifteen seconds (how far you obeyed authority had ranks, too), as the squad kept on watching the crowd assembled – queued up, actually – outside the fenced-in area around the shopfront acting as a distribution centre. Then Tommy piped up again in his defence with “ ‘Sides, you fuck any of this lot, you’re liable to come away with her vaj in your hand,” and even the Lance Corporal had to join in on the laughter as they masked the horrifying truth of radiation poisoning with some good old fashioned profanity.

That distracted them just long enough for someone to break from the line and make for the pile of provisions nearby. The New Zealanders turned an instant too late to catch him and the man – the boy, really, sixteen or seventeen if he was a day – leapt upon a duffel bag full of oats and rice, after which things began to move quickly. Smelling a chance and, more importantly, unattended food, the line began to disintegrate as people got themselves ready to take advantage of this windfall.

Large crowd. Sixty, a hundred even. Not fit, not strong, but desperate, tear a bugger’s arm off for a leg of lamb. Other fella, troublemaker, thief, running towards them, setting an example of cowardly Kiwis.

The Lance Corporal saw this and began calling the squad to order.

Stand tall, show strength, spook ‘em into submission.

The Pommie auxiliaries raised their own weapons to the crowd alongside them as the kid scrambled to his feet and hauled the bag along with him towards the crowd which, possessed by the spectre of anarchy, had started rearing up before them.

Food riots they’ve seen food riots one of them said something about a whole town rebelling up north need to stop it now dammit now.

Now.

The teenager had covered about twenty metres, maybe three-quarters of the way to the throng of people, when his face exploded outwards just to the right of the bridge of his nose, spraying viscera across the courtyard and the legs and feet of those before him as he collapsed forwards bonelessly and the bag split as impossibly red blood began pouring across the ground. Silence – real silence, not the polite pause of the conversation half a minute ago – clanged down like a steel grate.

“Everyone stand the fuck back in line before anyone else gets it!” bellowed someone close to the Lance Corporal.

As the ringing and rush of blood in his ears died down and the edges of the world became less fuzzy he felt the weight of the semiauto in his hands and the pressure of the butt against his shoulder and the hoarseness in his throat from when he’d shouted just now.

He felt everything: the clammy plastic of the handguard, the dust in the breeze blowing across his cheek, the streak of sweat scouring its way down his spine, the static tension crackling through the square. As he breathed coolly, mechanically, and lowered his gun, the crowd pulled back and reformed their silent queue, one of the Poms came along and directed two aides to “cart that one off for disposal,” and order restored itself, the momentary turbulence passing like a squall on an otherwise humdrum day.

The jokes rang hollower for the rest of the squad’s watch that afternoon, and even though when they went back to camp the Lance Corporal was the same as ever, he looked through everyone he spoke to for the rest of the day.

He’d never killed a man before. That wasn’t really what he’d signed up for the Army to do. Too bloody bad for the kid he’d just gone and shot in the fucking head.

He’d looked like his cousin.

Whistle your favourite tune
We’ll send a card and flower…