Authors: Robert Cole
‘Piece ... of ... shit!’ Dougan mouthed the words slowly and clearly, so there could be no doubt as to what he had said.
‘You'll live to regret those words, Dougan!’ the sergeant scowled, his face twisting in a nasty snarl.
‘Why, are you going to murder me like you did Carlson?’ Dougan asked. ‘Or maybe you'd like the personal touch, like smashing me over the head with a shovel...’
Alex watched the performance, full of admiration for Dougan's courage. Looking left and right, he was glad to see that the guards had closed in on the column, and were listening to the argument. The guard behind, Alex judged, was about two metres away. He could see the other prisoners snatching quick glances back at him.
The moment had come.
Alex readied himself to pounce.
‘NOW!’ he screamed.
He sprang backwards off his haunches into the following guard. The man went down with Alex on top of him. Quickly Alex rolled over and tried to pin him to the ground until the others reached him, but the guard was much stronger and broke Alex’s grip, pushing him off. Fortunately, a second prisoner landed on the guard and began showering him with wild punches. A third man also joined in, kicking and punching. Alex pushed the rifle away and looked around.
The column had scattered into a mass of struggling forms. The sergeant had attracted the most attention and was now lost somewhere under a pile of thrashing bodies. One guard lay motionless in the snow, and a second was being badly beaten by four of the workers. The guard behind Alex was still fighting back. He rose to his feet, shaking off his weakened attackers, and Alex went for him again, pushing his face deep into the snow. But he twisted away and lashed out; a knee jerk into the groin made Alex dizzy with pain, but now he had his hands around the man's throat. Steadily he tightened his grip until the guard's eyes bulged, his hands fluttering desperately, trying to loosen the vice of the closing fingers. Once again, the two prisoners weighed in, and one of them, retrieving the guard's rifle, bashed away with the butt until he didn't move again.
All the guards were now overpowered. As for the sergeant, six men, including Dougan, were standing over him. Dougan had the sergeant’s knife in his hand, and from the savage wounds plastered all over his body, it was clear that he had taken his revenge. Blood still oozed into the snow in every direction. Alex, sickened by the sight, turned away, leaving Dougan still staring wildly down at the dead man.
Already the group was beginning to break up, warning each other as they scattered of the dangers of meeting a military patrol. Alex grabbed the sergeant's rifle and ammunition and disappeared into the shadows to shave, hoping that when the men from the work party had disappeared, he could strip down one of the guards before a patrol arrived. He climbed a fence into someone's front garden and knelt by the light of one of the windows. The razor was awkward to handle with his gloves on, so once he had splashed his face with snow and lathered it with soap, he took them off.
It was slow, painful work, scraping off a centimetre of thick growth that had accumulated since the holocaust. Frequently the razor became clogged, and he had to rub it in the snow to clean it. At best he knew it was going to be a rough job, with no mirror to work by, but as Tina had said, appearances were not what they had been, these days, even the soldiers looked scruffy and unkempt. He doubted his appearance would attract much attention.
When he looked around again the street was empty except for the bodies of the guards. Alex stripped one about the same height as himself. The man was unconscious, but breathing steadily. He dragged him to some shelter and dressed him in his own clothes so he wouldn't freeze, then set off towards the town centre.
Flickers of light were beginning to appear in the houses as night started to close in. Alex hurried on his way, staying close to the huge ridges which the snowploughs, in their repeated passages, had piled up on either side of the road. Each time he heard a vehicle approaching, he threw himself over this ridge and waited until it had passed. After half a kilometre, the two storey, grey brick terraces and closely packed shops of the town centre replaced the cottages of the suburbs. He moved more cautiously now, glad of the fading light. Finally he reached the road junction where he had seen the Land Rover. When he turned the corner, he found the whole military base and its surrounds lit up by powerful floodlights, and directly below one of these lights stood the Land Rover. Alex swore under his breath. He thought his luck was too good to last. Everyone in the street would be able to see him steal the vehicle.
Despairingly, he crept as close as he dared and waited. After a while, a patrol appeared and flashed its way into the darkness again. There was nothing for it but to take a gamble, he decided. Plucking up his courage, he tucked his ragged hair under his beret, straightened his uniform and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He strode out to the vehicle with as much authority as he could muster. The tyres had chains on them, which explained how the Land Rover could still negotiate the icy streets. However, it also meant it couldn't reach high speed without ripping the tyres apart. He opened the door and found the wires under the dashboard. When he touched them together the engine ticked over. That was a relief, anyway; he threw the gear lever in first and eased up on the clutch.
A face with a handlebar moustache, and with an officer's tabs visible, appeared at the window. Alex’s heart pounded. Another military patrol was approaching down the road. He wound down the window and saluted.
‘What are you doing with this vehicle, soldier?’
Alex thought fast. ‘Colonel Kirton ordered me to park it in the garage, sir.’
‘There is no garage, that's why he parks it here.’ The officer's eyes narrowed as he watched Alex’s face.
Alex swallowed. ‘Not this building, Sir. The one two doors along, with the driveway.’ Alex pointed to the driveway he had just been hiding in.
‘That's a residential house,’ the officer said, frowning.
‘That's right. Colonel Kirton doesn't think the Land Rover is safe here, since he lost his keys. The owner of the house has offered him the use of his garage.’
The officer scratched his jaw thoughtfully. ‘I see.’ His eyes returned to Alex's face. ‘Why haven't I seen you here before?’
‘I just arrived today with Colonel Kirton, Sir,’ said Alex smartly.
The officer nodded slowly, then stood back, satisfied for the moment at least. ‘Very good, soldier, carry on.’
Alex figured he would be confirming his identity with Colonel Kirton at the first opportunity, but he would be long gone by then.
‘Sir,’ Alex saluted. He put the vehicle into gear and drove slowly to the driveway. There he parked it, and pretended to fiddle with the garage door. A second patrol crunched past while the officer watched him, before finally disappearing into the building. Alex immediately jumped into the vehicle, reversed up the drive and drove off as fast as the chains on his wheels would allow.
Ten minutes later, the gates of the camp came in sight. Alex, calming his nerves, mentally rehearsed his story, trying hard to reason out all the possible questions he could be asked. The gates opened and a young blond soldier with sunken eyes and a drawn face waved him down.
‘I have a dispatch from Colonel Bradshaw from the Bristol camp,’ Alex recited.
The man looked puzzled. ‘We had a dispatch two days ago,’ he said.
‘This is a special dispatch, marked urgent,’ Alex replied, trying to sound full of authority.
The guard walked round the back of the vehicle, then returned to Alex. ‘Why isn't the usual dispatch driver here?’
‘He was taken sick this morning,’ Alex replied promptly. ‘In fact,’ he went on, confidentially, ‘I think my camp's coming down with the flu. That may be what this urgent dispatch is about.’
The guard registered alarm at the very mention of flu. He leant closer to Alex, ‘There's a strong rumour here also, about a flu epidemic. Many of the inmates have already died and a number of the guards are becoming sick, some very seriously. They say there's no cure.’
Alex nodded. ‘Don't tell anyone,’ he said, ‘but I think Colonel Bradshaw is thinking of abandoning the camp because the epidemic is out of control. We hardly have any medical supplies left. He may be instructing Major Hayes to do the same.’
The soldier grew wide eyed. ‘No, that's impossible!’
‘I don't know for sure,’ Alex said. ‘But in these conditions flu spreads like wild fire. The Spanish flu killed fifteen million in World War I, you know. Well,’ he continued, tapping significantly on a folder he had found under the front seat, ‘I'd better get this dispatch to the Major.’
‘Oh yes,’ said the guard. ‘By God, abandoning the camp, is he? It must be bad.’ He signalled the guard towers and waved him through.
Alex smiled, feeling pleased with his performance. When he was sure he was out of sight of the gate, he switched off his lights and waited for the others. He didn't have to wait long; Tina, Cliff and Roy bundled into the back almost immediately.
‘Congratulations, guv. Any trouble?’ Cliff asked.
‘I'll tell you later,’ Alex said. ‘Keep down low, I've decided to try and bluff my way out?’
‘Is that wise?’
‘I've no choice. This Land Rover's got chains on it; if I try to reach high speed, I'll only tear up the tyres. Besides, I doubt whether I could control it in the attempt. The guard expects me back about now, anyway, so I can at least approach the gate without being shot at. We're quite chatty. There's an outside chance we might get clean away.’
‘What if he looks in the back?’ Tina asked.
‘That's a chance we'll have to take,’ Alex replied. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, I'll ram the gates. Get down, now.’
The blond guard saw him coming and waved him down again.
‘I just want to ask you,’ he said. ‘Did you see a group of workers marching here on your way in?’
‘No, I can't say I did,’ Alex replied, trying to sound casual.
‘That's funny. They were due back over an hour ago. The sergeant who's in charge of them is a stickler for time. Something bad must have happened.’
Alex shrugged sympathetically. ‘Hmm, I don't like the sound of it. Well, I'll keep my eyes skinned. If I see any sign of them, I'll let you know.’
The guard seemed satisfied with Alex's offer. ‘Okay,’ he said, slapping the roof. ‘I won't keep…’ He stopped in mid-sentence and leaned through Alex's open window into the back. Alex knew then that the game was up. With his right hand he gripped the guard around the neck, while he threw the Land Rover in to gear with his left. The wheels spun, then gripped the road, making the vehicle lunge forward. The guard struggled violently, forcing Alex’s head over the back of the seat. Roy suddenly appeared and Alex heard his fist crash into the guard's face. The force of it drove him out of the window like a rag doll. The gate sprang back on impact as Alex jammed his foot down on the accelerator.
Shouts of alarm and curses sounded through the darkness as the huge searchlights were swung round a hundred and eighty degrees and brought to bear. But a full thirty seconds had elapsed before the guards could open fire on the receding vehicle. Although some shots came close, the Land Rover was already a distant shape, well out of effective range, tearing along the road.
Alex brought the Land Rover to a halt by the side of the road. Beyond, the land fell away steeply into the Bristol Channel. He switched off the engine and headlights and turned on the cabin light. Earlier, he had found a number of maps in the glove compartment, one of them showing the county in some detail. He unfolded this on his lap and scratched his cheek thoughtfully. By his estimation, he had driven about thirty kilometres north-west of the camp. Wales was twenty kilometres further north, across freezing, ice laden waters.
Since escaping from the camp events had taken a distinct turn for the worse. Even with chains, the Land Rover had proved very difficult to manoeuvre above forty kilometres an hour. Twice they had rammed the snow banks piled along the sides of the road, and although there had been no damage, it spelt out just how impossible it would be to leave the cleared tracks and strike across the country by themselves. And by following the roads, they were inevitably going to come across a military checkpoint at some stage. At night they had proceeded without incident, unchallenged by the army vehicles they had passed. But in daylight, when the military reasserted their dominance over the land, they would be required to identify themselves. With only one rifle between them, they were hardly equipped to shoot their way out. So it became clear that, comfortable and reassuring as the Land Rover was, they could not stick with it for very much longer. It would be madness to do, yet difficult to give it up.
‘Where are we?’ Tina was looking across at him from the passenger seat. Those were the first words she had spoken to him since they had left the camp.
Alex sensed that she wanted to repair the bridges between them, but had not found a way to do it. A problem he had also been struggling with. He pointed to the map. ‘Somewhere near Minehead would be my guess.’
Cliff craned over from the back seat to see. ‘How far west do you intend going?’ he asked.
Alex had been waiting for that question ever since the escape. He had been turning over the options in his mind and more and more the decision to head north seemed the only wise one. ‘I want to try and cross over into Wales,’ he said bluntly.
Cliff took the news without any noticeable emotion. ‘I guessed as much,’ he said mildly.
‘It's the natural place for people to go,’ Alex continued, warming to his theme. ‘Very little industry, population thinly spread, no obvious military targets.’
‘The same could be said for Devon and Cornwall, of course,’ Cliff replied. ‘A community could be forming there right now.’
‘But everyone will be going there,’ Alex argued. ‘It's so accessible, that's half the problem. And if the refugees have taken the epidemic with them, as they're likely to have done, that doesn't make it a very inviting prospect.’
‘I think Alex is right,’ Tina weighed in enthusiastically. ‘There are bound to be thousands of people heading west and probably very little food for them when they get there. I can't help feeling that Devon and Cornwall wouldn't be able to cope with the numbers.’
Roy, who had been studying a map of Wales in his quiet, methodical way, broke in at this point. ‘Blaenau Ffestiniog,’ he said, indicating the place to Alex and stumbling over the strange Welsh words. ‘I know the government has a huge underground storage facility there somewhere.’
‘Storage facility?’ Alex queried. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I read somewhere…’ Roy sat back in his seat, his large broad features creased in thought. ‘Yes, I'm sure.’ He leaned forward again and drew an imaginary circle around the area of the town with his finger. ‘There's a large disused slate mine, it's government property. They took it over for storage space in case of war.’
‘What do they store?’ Alex asked.
Roy shrugged. ‘In the last war it was British art treasures, but I assume it could be almost anything. Apparently the mine is huge.’
‘If the government foresaw what was coming,’ Tina picked up the thread of the argument, ‘they'd have had time to fill it with stores and supplies. There could be tonnes of food there, just waiting to be discovered.’
‘It won't have been a very well-kept secret if they did,’ Alex said sourly. ‘I'm sure the local population would know about it and the government would be bound to post a guard.’
‘But they might be rationing it out to the survivors,’ Tina persisted.
‘Hmm.’ Alex nodded his head slowly. ‘It's certainly a possibility. Anyway, I think there's more hope for us in Wales than further west.’
‘So how do we get across?’ Cliff asked.
‘I wish I knew,’ said Alex. ‘Maybe we could find a small boat. Or, if it comes to that, I suppose we could build a raft.’
Cliff sat back. ‘Do you reckon?’ he said. ‘Oh, don't misunderstand me, guv,’ he went on. ‘It's fine if it can be done, but those are treacherous waters, and with the weather the way it is, well...’
Alex took the point. Although they had not seen the Channel by daylight, they had been driving along its shores and the sheets of floating ice had shown up in the beams of their headlights. In some places, the ice sheet had appeared complete, solid and glistening as far as they could see.
‘But what chance do we have on land?’ Alex turned back to Cliff, his need to reach Wales suddenly becoming paramount. ‘We can't drive on roads which have not first been cleared by the military and by daybreak it will become obvious that we are not an official patrol. They may have even radioed our description ahead, so they'll be looking out for us, which makes the Land Rover a liability. And without it, on foot…we have to go somewhere we're not known, and where no one else is willing to go.’
The argument for abandoning the Land Rover had obviously not occurred to anyone else, and it met with a number of heated objections, but the logic behind it remained sound. If they wanted to avoid being a sitting target, they had to find some other way. Crossing the Channel, despite its hazards, seemed to offer a real possibility of deliverance. This was the position finally reached; it was agreed they would leave the vehicle in the morning and travel along the coast until they found a crossing point. If necessary, they would venture into the coastal villages to find a suitable craft.
The discussion ended on a dejected note, exhaustion and depression finally silencing the company. The remainder of the night they spent huddled up against each other for warmth. Without any invitation, Tina curled up in Alex's arms and immediately dozed off. The simplicity of her actions amazed Alex. With one act she had invalidated the barriers that had built up between them. How could he continue to rage at someone who wrapped her arms around him in such a fashion? She nuzzled up closer to his chest and he found himself watching the gentle lines of her face as she slept. They had taken on a curiously serene appearance, as though her mind was completely at ease. This ability of hers to accept and to go with the flow was a tremendous gift, he thought. She appeared to suffer none of the inner turmoil he always endured. For him, the events of the past twenty four hours were like splinters of horror that jagged at him through the darkness. They kept tumbling out at him the white, terrified faces of the soldiers as they tried to fight off the work party; Dougan with his bloody knife and mad eyes, the corpse of the sergeant, punctured and bleeding. Even on the edge of sleep, another fearful image would leap out at him and jerk him back to consciousness, so that he dozed only in snatches.
He awoke properly as the shadows drained from the soupy smog, heralding another day. Tina still lay, as she had done for hours, half on his lap with her arms around his waist. He could hear Cliff and Roy conferring quietly, rummaging through the supplies for something suitable for breakfast. He gently eased Tina to one side and climbed outside. More snow had fallen during the night, giving the Land Rover a fresh dusting of powder. Inside again, he exchanged a few words of greeting, but nobody felt much like talking. Tina awoke a few minutes later and they dutifully forced down a breakfast of salted meat and soya beans. Then the remaining food and water was divided amongst the party in makeshift blanket bags, which they slung over their shoulders before they set off.
A chilling wind had begun to blow from the east. The smog rolled up and fled before it, leaving behind a vista of a shallow, dipping plain, rising to blunted peaks in the distance. Soon the wind brought more snowflakes in its wake, which turned to pellets that stung the exposed skin, forcing the party to avert their faces.
They began their journey in a westerly direction, hugging the coast, searching each bay and inlet for boats as they went. By mid-morning they had covered nearly five kilometres. By now they were strung out with Alex leading, then Tina, and Roy and Cliff bringing up the rear. All except Alex had their heads tucked into their overcoats for protection against the cold, so it was Alex who first spotted the lines of people. They stood out as black dots, moving against the snow, all in formation like ants on the march. The appearance of order, at a distance, made him think it must be the military abandoning the camps en masse and moving further westward. But a closer view soon revealed that, unwittingly, they had stumbled on one of the main arterial routes westward. These unhappy pilgrims were what were left of the survivors from south eastern England. Not the indirect victims of the bombs, like Alex and the others, but people who had seen and experienced a nuclear explosion at close range. These were the walking dead, hairless, pitiful creatures, covered in heat blisters and lesions. Many nursed blackened limbs bent and twisted into impossible positions. Alex felt his own flesh creep as he watched them pass. By rights most of them should have died weeks ago. Only the numbing effect of the extreme cold had kept the wounds from festering, and the pain from killing them.
They stopped at the edge of the road and watched. Their presence was ignored. No one paused to ask who they were, or even noticed them, it seemed. The procession of ragged forms just continued unbroken, appearing through the driving snow a hundred metres to the east, and fading back into it a hundred metres to the west.
Alex grabbed the shoulder of a short, hunched figure who came trudging past. A finely built man, still dressed in the remains of a dark business suit, looked up. His young face was skeletal and the eyes unfocused and dull, as though the passing world had ceased to register on his mind.
‘Where are you going?’ Alex asked.
The man's blank expression didn't alter.
Alex clung on to him. ‘Did the military tell you there was food and shelter further westward?’
The man blinked, then moved his head vigorously, as though trying to shake out an answer. ‘No,’ he frowned. ‘Yes, I mean, someone said there was food and shelter in Cornwall.’
‘Who said?’
‘I don't know, I don't know.’ The voice faded into a mumble as Alex released him. The man re-joined the flow and shuffled on as if the conversation had never taken place.
Cliff and Roy were getting a slightly better response a few paces away. They had stopped a young couple whose injuries were not so serious. They had come from a small village north of Southampton and had spent the past two weeks slowly working westward. As one food station had become too crowded they had moved onto the next, hoping eventually to reach a place where the government had complete control and the food and shelter were plentiful. But they had no positive reason for believing that conditions would improve further west; it was just that it could not be as bad as what they had left behind. Several other people said more or less the same thing. No one really knew where they were going, and no one really cared.
After they had watched them for a while, Tina put one hand in Alex's pocket. ‘We may as well follow them,’ she said gloomily.
That was the last thing Alex wanted to do, but, the road having been cleared of snow, it was likely to be the quickest route westward. He finally nodded and they reluctantly joined the ranks of the survivors.
By the afternoon the snow had eased. The land reappeared, its summer beauty irrevocably broken. Every house they passed had its doors kicked in, the windows smashed and its curtains missing; every last item of warmth was gone. Not a single tree had escaped damage, much of it from the burden of the snow snapping the boughs under its weight. Their upper branches, which still clawed the sky, whistled in the wind like a multitude of tuning forks. This sad music, which rose and fell as the wind strengthened or died, seemed somehow appropriate to Alex, like a mournful serenade of the doomed. It would be the last sound that many of the walkers would hear as their strength failed them and they fell over for the last time.
But Alex did see one hopeful sign in all this destruction. The snow was losing its smoky grey colouring. In places, where the crust had fallen, the different layers stood out like strata, almost black at the bottom, like slate, then merging into a dirty white. Presently the road broadened and dipped through a forest of broken saplings and spiky heath; then, after passing through an open meadow, it brought them to the outskirts of a town. The town was on the water's edge and from the number of wharves and jetties Alex imagined it was a fishing or trading port of some kind. However, he could see no sign of any boats. The main street was lit with rows of roughly slung lights. The road snaked down into this area and its human freight formed ragged black lines, which trailed off into the town centre. The heavily cloaked figures of the military could be discerned, moving alongside them, like dogs patrolling a flock of sheep.