Staying Alive

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As I u-turned to the right, I took the brunt of the incoming belt-fed fire from insurgents hidden under the fruit & veg stand. The impacting rounds on the vehicle’s armour sounded like sledgehammers & eventually at least one of them found a weak spot & entered the engine bay. I could feel the Land Cruiser was mortally wounded and I ended up facing away from the contact with a dead engine. I resorted to holding the key down & chugging up the road with flat tyres on the batteries and starter motor! Suddenly BANG-BANG, I took a huge double impact somewhere in the rear of the vehicle. All of the loose gear was thrown around the interior like shrapnel & we came to a grinding halt in the centre of the kill zone with the world erupting around us...