Blighted Land: Book two of the Northumbrian Western Series (Northumbrian Westerns 2)

BLIGHTED LAND

Ian Chapman

Copyright © 2016 Ian Chapman

All rights reserved.

Lakeland Writers Publishing

ISBN:978-1-910875-13-1

To Debs and the kids. Always there for me.

T
HE
BIKE
MISFIRED
BUT
picked up speed and I rode fast across town, down to the West Bridge where the setting sun lit the wind turbines, their blades turning slowly as they picked up the breeze from the North Sea. Along the quayside cargo ships’ masts and rigging appeared in the sea-fret that hung over the harbour and shouts came from the taverns rammed with drunks from Scotland and the continent. As we thundered across the bridge I could see something going on at the far end of Harbour Bridge that ran parallel. Smoke curled up and figures milled around in the mist.
 

I swung us down Spital Lane alongside the river and round onto Main Street. It was barricaded partway up with vehicles parked sideways to block the roadway and pavements. At the far end was whatever was causing all the noise, some great machine, an angular outline, dark coloured with protuberances, hatches and brackets. Bullets ricocheted off it as it manoeuvred around, making this clanking and grinding sound, crushing everything in its way.

Nico had his men lined up halfway up the road. They hid behind the cars and vans and fired rifles and machine guns, a pointless cacophony.

I stared at the thing as it crept forward, materialising out of the shadows. Now it was closer it was recognisable. On top of the sloping body was a separate structure fitted with several weapons. There were no wheels just metal tracks. I’d seen these on television when I was a kid, in the days when there was TV, but never in the metal, close up. It was a war machine; a tank, designed to kill. Destroy. Like the ones used in the Oil Wars but bigger, heavier built. If it hadn’t been for the gun Gregg had on my back I’d be off, away from the centre of town. Out of the town, even.
 

Gregg had turned up at my place earlier in the evening, just as the sun was setting behind the west end of High Town lighting the rooftops dull red with its fading light. I’d been wheeling the Triumph up the back lane ready to put it away.
 

Gregg’d ridden across town on a bicycle so his beardy face was all sweaty as he gasped for breath, which was funny enough. When he told me Nico needed me I told him to shove it up his arse, that it was my evening off, which really wound him up. That was even funnier. The gun that he whipped out wasn’t quite so funny. Especially when he started to wave it around. All jumpy like he was going to pull the trigger.
 

‘There’s an emergency. Serious stuff. Nico wants you there.’ He pointed towards the town now turned to shades of grey.

Nico always wanted me somewhere for something but he didn’t usually send his pals tooled up. ‘Going to tell me what this is about?’

‘Yer’ll see soon enough.’

I didn’t like being pushed around by Gregg, or anyone really, but he was as edgy as hell so I didn’t argue. I slid onto the bike, starting it up. There was a loud bang from across town. Like a firework going off, from the days when we had such things. It was followed by the rattle of machine gun fire. A flash lit the valley and the rows of houses down to the quayside. There was another thud.

‘That’s what it’s about.’ He sat behind me on the saddle, his belly pushed up against me. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Where to?’

‘Main Street. North end —’

 
Before he had a chance to say any more I pulled off: hard enough to jolt him but not make him too trigger happy.
 

I’d raced across town with him holding his pistol on me.

Now he nudged me and pointed over to a couple of Committee cars, the usual Volvos. I clunked the Scrambler into gear and rode over to them, parking behind a decrepit V40. He slid off and stared up the road at the tank as rumbled towards us, now driving over a van, one of the ancient vehicles so prized in the town. The Transit caught under the tank’s track and crumpled. Folded up and popped its windows out before it was flattened. As a last gasp it spurted its fuel out that burnt in a shallow puddle.

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘We need to stop that.’ He looked over at me and slid his gun away. There was a slight shrug, almost an apology. But we both knew I’d not have come without his threat.
 

Now I was here but it was hard to see how I could make a difference. There was no way we’d stop something like that.
 

‘Nico is over there,’ he said. ‘He’ll want to have a word.’

Nico was behind a V70 estate, two men at his side armed with machine guns, firing down the road in short burst to save ammo. Nico’s leather coat was pulled tight around him, over his ancient suit, sunglasses on top of his head. He had that look on his face he often had, the one he wore when he was thinking. Making a plan. He saw me and waved me over.

There was whirr from the tank as it stopped. Nico and the men ducked down. So did I. There was a roar and flash, a blast that shook the road before the side of the building opposite collapsed and we were showered in masonry, bricks bouncing onto the parked cars.

As the dust cleared I joined Nico, watching the tank through the Volvo’s windows. It started to move again, now over a cart full of vegetables, the misshapen carrots falling out of the side as the cart was compressed. Gregg ran away at the far side, over to where my Scrambler was parked, well out of the way.

‘Ain’t this something?’ Nico was calm. Almost enjoying it.

‘Why have you dragged me down here?’
 

There was a clatter of machine gun fire that clanked and zinged on the tank.
 

Nico grinned. ‘I’ve got a plan. That’s why you’re here, lad.’ Despite being my junior I was always his lad. ‘I want you to block the bridge. Stop it getting away. Grab the Northern Oil tanker from over the river. Use it to block the way.’
 

‘That won’t stop it.’

One of Nico’s men showed up — Jack, another member of the Round Up crew like me and Gregg and all the rest of us. All of us controlled by Nico. Jack carried a long box, best part of a metre long. It was dark coloured with blocked writing on it.
 

‘Ah, at last,’ said Nico. He pointed at the ground and Jack put the box down. Nico knelt, undid the clips and opened it up. There was a dark tube inside, dark green and twice the thickness of a drainpipe. It had a pistol grip, trigger and sight: some piece of military hardware he’d picked up, no doubt. ‘Yeah, this’ll do it. But we need to hem it in.’ He stood and faced me.

‘This is your plan. You sort it out.’ Gregg didn’t have his gun on me anymore. There was nothing to stop me going.

Nico thrust a set of keys at me. ‘You do what you’re told.’

For a second I did nothing, as the tank advanced towards us. It was tempting to walk away. Fuck off from him and all this.

Nico’s free hand had shifted down his coat. To the pocket he kept his pistol in. The pistol he was happy to use.

There was a fair chance he’d punch a hole in my guts. Send someone else to drive the lorry. He’d done it plenty of times before with others who’d stepped out of line. I took the keys. ‘All right.’
 

Nico grinned. ‘Knew I could trust you.’

As he took the weapon out of its box I returned to the Scrambler. Gregg gave me some look, maybe encouragement or pity or just confusion. I started the bike up and it rattled into life. Gregg shuffled off over to Nico who was shouting instructions. Getting his men moving. They were in the cars and vans that remained intact, driving them out of the way, letting the tank through, towards me.
 

I pulled off and accelerated along the road, clunked up into second as the bike misfired at the top end. The tank was in my mirrors, a great dark shape behind me that vanished as I rode away. There was nothing to stop me riding off. Heading away from all this. But that would be me finished here, finished as part of the Round Up gang that Nico ran. I’d have to leave town before he got hold of me.

I hit Harbour Bridge at forty. It was a metal one with lattice structure up the sides, joined over the top. It crossed the River Farle where it flowed into the harbour. The bike’s handlebars gave a shimmy on the damp surface and it lifted its front wheel as I put the power on, dropping back down as I slipped into third. This was it. If I meant to ride off it had to be now. My last opportunity to escape.

At the last second I eased the brakes on and took the road for the lorry park. Seemed I was happier to face the tank than Nico. All the town's heavy vehicles were lined up: several mobile cranes, a couple of low loaders and six articulated lorries. Three of the artics were out of operation, waiting for parts, another stripped bare. At the end were the two that worked, the Northern Oil one being the furthest.
 

I slid the Triumph up alongside it, killing the engine and jumping off. Maybe I’d made the right choice; maybe I hadn’t. I flicked the stand down and stood by the lorry. It was a Scania tractor with petrol tanker on the back. On the occasions when fuel came into town it was transported in this or the other working one next to it. The door to the cab was unlocked and I leapt in, fumbling with the keys, not sure what the hell I was going to do. It fired up after a couple of churns on the starter, the motor picking up, shaking the bodywork. I adjusted the mirrors, revving up, blurring the image of my bike parked beside it. The tank was now within a hundred metres of the bridge, picking up speed: a great metal block that lurched over the remaining barricades.
 

I shoved the lorry into gear, swinging it wide and out onto the road, facing away from the bridge. There was no way I was going to ram into the tank but if I reversed into it there was a chance I could wedge it while Nico did his work. That way I’d be as far away from it as possible.
 

I took the lorry out onto Bay Road and aimed up towards High Town. Then I stopped and set it up ready to back up across the bridge. Block it.

But it had been some time since I’d reversed one of these, and doing it in the dark made it much worse.
 

The trailer wandered off to the left, ending up jammed against the bank side, leaving room for the tank to squeeze through. I took it forwards then tried again, swinging the tractor unit from side to side to keep the trailer on track and provide a clearer a view of road behind. The tank was now on the bridge and I pushed the trailer back faster until one corner clipped the edge, crumpling against the steelwork. It pivoted on the back end so the front was wedged against the other side. That was all I had time to do. I had to go.

I got out and ran forward, well away from the lorry and tank; not stopping until I was at the steeper section of the road. I dropped down below the drystone wall.
 

There was a roar and the top of the trailer and half the cab erupted. A second later there was a flash as fuel ignited in the tanker unit. It was meant to be empty but there was always some residue. Great flames licked out of the back as the tank tried drive over it.

Then it stopped, jammed in the wreckage. As it rotated its turret Nico appeared on the bridge behind it, walking towards it. Over his shoulder was the weapon. It was aimed at the tank. ‘I’m sure you know what this is!’ he shouted. Gregg and the other men followed after him.
 

The metalwork of the bridge hemmed in the tank’s barrel so it was unable to turn backwards. The turret moved from one side to the other, thudding into the structure then tracking back the other way.
 

The tank reversed off the wreckage and parked. The whirr of the motors slowed, stopped.

For a minute, maybe longer nothing happened. The tank was parked there and Nico faced it, the weapon rested on his shoulder, all casual, like it was an umbrella or something.

Then the turret opened. A man climbed out. Within seconds Nico’s people were onto the vehicle and all over him, pulling at his arms, dragging him off the tank. The hatch clanged shut as soon as he was clear. Nico lowered the gun and waved his hand, some vague gesture that got his men to hold their prisoner to the ground. With two men pinning him down the others started kicking and punching. As this carried on I walked past the burning wreckage, over to the car park. I walked across to my bike not looking back. I’d got used to not looking in this town.