Authors: Nick Christofides
At first, the NSO began setting positions directed at the house thinking that shots were coming from that direction. As Nat joined Stuart at the other side of the gate, between them they felled another four before the NSO fighters realised the shots were coming from behind them.
There must have been twenty men to begin with, now it was closer to ten, and Nat and Stuart had the protection of the ostentatious stone gate posts that Rowell had built. Nat had laughed when he had seen them for the first time, now he rejoiced in their presence as the NSO rounds whizzed and whistled in ricochet off the gaudy stone. Only a few of the enemy dug into positions, the rest ran aimlessly for cover or straight at Nat and Stuart in panic. It was a massacre. Nat counted five NSO still breathing and dug in by the time Stuart was able to attract his attention:
“What are we doing? We need to get out of here!”
“I want those dead, what if Rowell is in that house?” Nat responded wild-eyed.
“Well, we can’t just sit here, there could be others coming! Amber’s back there, think Nat, think!” Stuart shouted over the sporadic fizzing rounds, chaos all around even in such a relatively small fire fight.
The clang of shots hitting the bus behind them rang in their ears. Nat knew they had to do something; it was only a matter of time before one of the stray bullets was fired true. Nat took the lead, bursting from cover as best he could and leaping behind the trailer which had been barged away from the gates by the NSO.
He lay on his belly between the rear wheels of the trailer and the corrugated iron sheeting which skirted the length of it. He had a good open view over the gardens in front of the house; he could see only the lower back of an NSO soldier lying flat behind a raised flower bed. He lined up the shot and tapped the trigger twice; the red mist of a hit rose from the target.
He raised his eye from the sights and scanned the gardens once again. He saw the muzzle flash of a weapon from within the darkness of a small shed to the far left of the garden. Nat’s gun swung the small arc with the accuracy of a machine and he pumped four rounds into the dark space without hesitation. He watched patiently for a few minutes, no response.
Then he saw a flash of movement, two men running towards the burning house, a desperate attempt to escape this hell. Both bodies dropped to the floor as three shots cracked across the countryside from Stuart's weapon. Now the area went silent of gun shots, their ears were filled with the creaking and snapping of the burning building. The breeze pulled the thick black smoke low over the little theatre of war. At least fourteen bodies lay in the dirt.
“Psst,” he heard to his left; Stuart had joined him at the trailer and pointed over to the right where a white rag had been tied around the end of a weapon. It was being waved from behind the stone wall that separated the drive and front gardens from the field to the north. Nat looked at his friend, the two men shook their heads, and Nat rested his chin on his rifle for a spell as he pondered the situation.
After a few moments, he raised his head and shouted, “What you doing boy?”
Then he pulled the weapon in tight and focussed his eye down the sights on the rag; Stuart scanned the rest of the area for a double cross.
“We want to surrender. There’s three of us - none wants to fight, please.”
“You should have thought about that before burning down that farm! Was there anyone in there?”
“No, no one, I swear,” came the desperate voice from behind the wall.
“How old are you, boy?”
“We’re all seventeen.”
“What are you doing out here?” Nat could hear the boy was not local: his accent was from the Midlands.
“Conscripts. We finished two months’ training two days ago and we were brought up here - we don’t want to fight you!” the voice cracking with fear.
“Ok, all three of you take your weapons and turn them so that the barrel, the shooting end, is pointing at your stomach. One hand on the weapon, the other in the air, then walk slowly towards us.” Nat tensed as the three figures appeared from behind the wall. “We have two of you lined up, so no gambling with any sudden movements, two of you would definitely die.”
In the background, the farmhouse was a raging inferno; Nat was all too aware that they needed to get out of there and he could hear the tuck, tuck, tuck of a choppers rotor blades. It was not the heavy, dull thudding of a military helicopter but, guessing it was a news crew, he wanted to get away before he was beamed across the world again.
“Get a move on!” he shouted.
The fearful young men skipped a step as they heard him; trying to walk faster but without making any sudden movements. Nat had no intention of killing these boys; his blood lust was not for innocents. The three young men drew closer, timidly stepping towards the two giants with weapons shouldered and trained on them. Stuart lowered his gun and walked over to them grabbing each of their guns with fast fluid motions, keeping the kids on edge and under control. Once their rifles were safe he checked them for any other useful items, but barring a couple of lighters they had nothing.
Nat kept his weapon trained on the three men and said, “Keep walking back to town and on home from there; if we see you again we kill you, no questions asked, no second chance.”
The three young men did not need to be told twice; they walked quickly past Nat and Stuart, past the mangled bus and on past Amber, their speed increasing if anything. Nat watched them as they started out down the narrow country road, they moved in single file, their hands had now dropped and were swinging to aid the pace of their march. The pretty road fell away lazily to the left, the tarmac was an elephant's grey, there were grass ditches to either side thick with brambles. The eastern side of the road was flanked by dense coniferous woodland. To the Western side was a thick hawthorn hedge sitting raised above the ditch on an overgrown grass bank. In the distance, the spire of St John Lee church could be seen rising out of the beautiful ancient trees that gave Oakwood its name. The sun was streaming through the cracks in the clouds and illuminated all before them with a golden glow.
The three NSO conscripts were a hundred yards away when the three loud cracks reverberated across the fell. Nat and Stuart hit the floor, but the shots were not fired in their direction. As they looked, the boys were falling into the ditch to their right scragged by the brambles. Nat looked into the trees where the shots must have come from; Amber sat in the small car between him and the trees. Between him and the sniper. Amber looked at him nervously.
“Get out this side of the car and keep low. Sit on the floor with your back to the vehicle,” he shouted to his daughter as his eyes scanned the woodland for any sign of the sniper. Amber shuffled quickly across the front seats of the idling car and fell out of the passenger side door onto the cold dirt where she lay still.
The helicopter was overhead now, the rapid repetitive thud of the rotors pulsed sound waves which washed over them from head to toe. The downdraft whipped up dust and debris all around them and the smoke from the house curled in arcs up into the sky.
The situation was getting worse, they had no idea who or how many people were in the trees beyond their car. To all intents and purposes they were pinned down which was inextricably linking them to the carnage that lay behind them. Something the news crew above them could easily paint as a massacre.
Amber covered her eyes from the whirlwind, and Stuart looked at Nat, who pointed to the car and got to his feet staying low he ran a curving run to the car. As Nat’s back slapped against the cold metal of the vehicle, he sat next to his daughter. Stuart pushed himself to his feet and followed suit.
All three were now sitting; backs against the small car looking up at the circling helicopter which suddenly banked to the right and set off back towards Hexham. As the din died down and the dust began to settle, their attention once again turned to the trees on the other side of the car. Both men turned slowly and looked through the car into the thick wall of foliage.
“I can’t see anything in there,” whispered Stuart.
“No, we’ve got to listen.”
As the rotors of the helicopter became a distant throbbing, the rustle of the trees became the loudest sound. The breeze ebbed and the two men listened intently for a man-made sound. The stand-off had lasted too long before they heard the snapping of sticks and the rustle of foliage. Nat looked at Stuart in wonderment at the racket coming from the trees: he half expected a mountain gorilla to appear.
“Don’t shoot me, Nat!” bellowed a thick Northumbrian accent from the trees. The rummaging in the bushes became louder and louder, cracking and swishing. Stuart looked at Nat in wonder, Nat shrugged and they watched, not sure what to expect. Then, as the final leaves parted, two muddy figures appeared. Old man Rowell and his wife were visibly shaken, weary but smiling at their old acquaintance.
The eighty-year old farmer had a hunting rifle strapped across his back; his wife carried a walking stick. They walked across the road, their brains giving the synapses that, in a person thirty years younger, would lead to a jog. Nat, Stuart and Amber got to their feet and stood watching the old couple approach, they didn’t move around the car. The Rowells shuffled over to them.
Rowell was a man standing five six with boots on. His face was round and ruddy, his grey hair floating in the breeze, his corpulent stomach sat on broad hips, but it was the two fingers missing from his right hand that drew the eye. His wife was a clear half a foot taller than he. She was slender and elegant in comparison to her husband.
“Looks like we’ve been dealt similar cards, Nat,” she said softly, as she put her hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek.
“Everything’s changed now, Susan, you ok?”
She smiled at him with vivacious narrowing eyes in response, then looked down at the dirt and turned away back to her husband.
“We won’t lie down,” grunted old man Rowell. “Do you know why they came here…did this?”
“They want to get rid of the landowners...control the land.”
“Aah, maybe that too…it was my boys who organised the attack on the chipboard factory. They’ve got an army growing by the day, we’re gonna fight, Nat, and you should join us.”
“Where are they…are they safe?” Amber butted in, Jesse being a friend of hers.
“Aye, lass, they’re up Wooler way, based there; the Scots have been training them and giving them weapons.”
“How many are they?” Nat asked.
“I don’t know, man, hundreds, maybe thousands, I don’t keep track. They say there are more and more joining every day, coming up over the Pennines through Haltwhistle and Carlisle. Labourers, country folk from Cumbria, Durham, Yorkshire, even further, I think - all joining up with our boys.”
“Ok, you come with us now. We have a car you can take. Get yourself up to your boys and stay safe up north. Don’t come back - you’re too old for this hell, Rowell.”
The old man’s stunned gaze drifted past the three of them and on towards his burning home. The fire was raging now, the cracking and snapping of wood reaching breaking point. The whoosh and roar of gas canisters and petrol cans sporadically excited the fire. The bodies of the NSO fighters littered the land in front of the inferno. Susan Rowell, sturdy and dignified, took the hand of her forlorn husband and showed him to the car. Stuart and Amber busied themselves with collecting the weapons from the dead soldiers and filling the boot of the small car.
As they wound down the lanes back to Carlins Law, Rowell's wife, sitting squashed on the driver’s side of the back seat, talked of the increasingly violent purges by the NSO and the camps in Slaley Forest holding those who refused NSO orders or had shown some degree of resistance. She went on to mention the latest NSO arrest: the local woman and the journalist dragged from her home in Oakwood by NSO thugs. Nat flashed a concerned look across at Stuart as the big Scot turned in his seat and the mood in the car chilled.
“Who was the woman?” he asked pointedly.
Unaware of any connection, the old lady replied, “It was the nurse, Claire.”
* * * * *
Baines perched, arms folded, brow furrowed, pensive. Start was ensconced in paperwork at the head of the boardroom table. Searching eyes darting from report to advisor and back again, with questions providing accompaniment to the visual waltz. Baines studied the new look leaders of England. There were just two of his left-leaning comrades left in the room, one of them Start.
The rest were radicals and extremists whom he had known on the edges of the political spectrum for years, but he would never have imagined them gaining any sort of influence over governance of the country. But right now he watched as Lee Mannion reported to ‘the boss’ on security in the capital city.
Baines watched the small muscular man talk about his ‘population controls’ and security squads as though they were legitimate means of governance. All the while he watched he could not get the image of this man giving a Nazi salute at a rally out of his head. The image had painted the front pages ten years earlier when he was the leader of the British National Alliance, the right wing fanatics who had gained some marginal success in the troubled years of the financial crisis. Now Baines watched this dangerous little man speaking at his table, in his cabinet, and it made him sick. He was the puppet leader watching on as gremlins controlled his machine, and he was powerless to intervene.