by Frank Tayell
“The clothing,” Chester realised. “A white scarf. White boots. The rest is grey, but that’s not far from white. You want to know if this is one of the snipers from Calais?”
Tuck nodded. “Was that Cavalie down there?”
“In the tank? No,” Chester said. “Two men. I didn’t recognise them.”
“How did you stop the tank?” Tuck signed.
“With a grenade,” Chester said. “Must have been a lucky throw.”
“A grenade?” Tuck signed. “Against a Leclerc battle tank? No one gets that lucky.”
She picked up the sniper’s rifle, then peered through the scope. “Zombies,” she signed, one-handed.
“You’ve got the photograph?” Nilda asked. “Then we better go before they get here.”
Chester, most likely to fall, insisted on descending first. Nilda came second, but both were so exhausted, Tuck had time to load the rifle and shoot three of the approaching undead before she began her descent. When she reached the ground, she made a beeline for the wrecked tank.
“You lost your glasses,” Nilda said.
“Somewhere over there,” Chester said. “I’ll go look for them.”
“Zombies are coming,” Nilda said. “You’ve got the other pairs.”
“Tortoise-shell was growing on me,” Chester said. “It was… um… they were… I… I can’t…”
“Are you okay?” Nilda asked, suddenly concerned.
“Never been shot at by a tank before,” Chester muttered. “Not sure how Tuck does it.”
The soldier jogged back over. “Go to the treeline,” Tuck signed. “I’ll catch up. Quick.”
“Come on,” Nilda said, as she walked and he limped over to the trees while the soldier returned to the tank.
“Thanks for coming back,” Chester said.
“Tuck rigged that thing with the blades of grass,” Nilda said. “I know she did.”
“Yeah,” Chester said. “Something’s up with her.”
“I worry about her sometimes,” Nilda said. “But there’s so much to worry about, I don’t find the time very often. I think she meant we should wait here.” She raised her rifle and fired two shots. “I think we’re safe for a moment. Can you see her? She’s by the tank. Waiting for us, I think. Wave.”
As Tuck saw them signal, she jumped down from the tank and ran. The explosion was muffled. There were no secondary detonations, just a thick plume of black smoke chugging upwards from the turret.
“Was it my grenade that disabled it?” Chester asked when the soldier reached them.
“No,” Tuck signed. “They didn’t know how to maintain a tank. But someone who did know could have repaired it in a few hours.”
“Not anymore,” Nilda said.
Chapter 24 - Planning for War
The New World, North Sea
Chester had to grab hold of the bulkhead as he stepped through the cabin door, steadying himself as the ship tilted into the turn.
“Come on in, Chester. We’re almost all here,” Kim said.
“Who are we waiting on?” Chester asked, pulling himself inside. He looked for an empty chair, or just an empty surface to prop himself on. Bill and his sickbed took up the middle of the room. Kim hovered by his side. Tuck and Nilda had already claimed the chairs by the large porthole windows while Locke was perched on the edge of the bunk. The lipped table was covered in webbing, beneath which were unequal stacks of books, some printed, some recently handwritten.
“We’re missing Jay,” Nilda said.
“Annette’s gone to find him,” Kim said. “Since he went ashore, too, he might have something to add. Besides, this isn’t a discussion we want to have in secret, and the conclusions are ones we’ll want to spread far and wide.”
“There’s a space here,” Sorcha said, indicating the bunk next to her.
“Ta,” Chester said. “Where’s Daisy?”
“With George and Mary,” Kim said. “They like being grandparents. And bath time really is a slog aboard ship.”
The ship bucked, and Chester found himself gripping the edge of the bunk. “I think we need to send our pilot back to driving school.”
“North,” Bill murmured through gritted teeth. “We’re turning north.”
Silence settled.
“This reminds me of staff meetings when I was at the supermarket,” Nilda said. “The manager would never start until everyone was present, but you didn’t feel comfortable continuing to gossip about the tabloid headlines. Not after that meeting where we were told not to read the newspapers since they were for customers to buy.”
“Did anyone see anything interesting in the papers this morning?” Locke asked, and was met with a dutiful chuckle.
“The only gossip I’ve got is that the Courageous has nothing bad to report,” Chester said.
“You were up on the bridge?” Kim asked. She looked exhausted. More than just tired. She was trying to keep up a positive front for Bill, and for Annette, but it was taking a toll.
“I wanted to speak to Leon,” Chester said, “to get some details about the Leclerc tanks. I didn’t realise the colonel was on the Courageous with Bran and most of the other soldiers. Hence why I ended up on the bridge, so I could use the radio.”
“Shouldn’t do that,” Bill said. He winced, and attempted to shift position.
“Let me get you another pillow,” Kim said.
“It’s fine,” Bill said, waving her away. “No radio. Don’t know who’s listening.”
“And that is the argument he and I have been having all morning,” Kim said.
The cabin door opened. Annette and Jay came in.
“Perfect timing,” Kim said. “Find somewhere to sit or stand.”
“Hang on, I need the notebook,” Annette said.
“What for?” Jay asked as Annette pulled a cloth-backed book from beneath the webbing covering the desk.
“For the official record, of course,” Annette said. “This is an official meeting, right?”
“Very official,” Kim said.
Jay sat next to Chester, and Annette sat next to Jay. “Move up, Jay. Honestly. Okay,” she said. “I’m ready. Who’s going to start?”
Locke laughed. “I do apologise, but for a moment there, I was strongly reminded of an old friend.”
“Start at the end,” Bill said. “Faroe?”
“There’s been no word,” Chester said. “They should have reached the hydroelectric plant by now. But it’s still early. They’ve at least another hour of daylight, and we’ve a few more than that. There’s no real news from Ireland. A few injuries, some sickness, some hunger, a lot of exhaustion, but everyone is waiting on Faroe, and waiting on the arrival of the Ocean Queen.”
“What were they told about Nieuwpoort?” Nilda asked.
“That we found diesel, but got it back to the Courageous before we were attacked by a tank, and that both our ships are now heading north,” Kim said. “We’ll keep the details until after we hear from Sholto. Hopefully, he’ll have some good news to soften the blow of what just happened to us. But we will share it. All of it. I don’t want there to be secrets. There’ve been enough of those, and with everyone soon to be living together on Faroe, or somewhere, the truth will get out. That’s why I wanted Annette to record an official account. So, let’s begin.”
“Tuck?” Nilda asked. “For an official account, we should defer to the professional.”
It didn’t take as long as Chester had expected, and it would have been quicker if Annette didn’t occasionally interrupt to ask how to sign a particularly interesting phrase.
“Eight hostiles, one tank, one plough, under-armed,” Bill muttered when Tuck had finished.
“It’s too many for all of them to have been hiding in Calais,” Chester said. “And if they had been there, we’d have heard their engines. They must have kept the vehicles outside the harbour. While we were there, one of them went back into the harbour to collect the radio. Maybe to send a message first.”
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br /> “Or the tank and plough were sent back to Calais to collect the one person left behind,” Nilda said. “It would have to be the woman in white, the sniper.”
“Two options, can’t tell between,” Bill growled. “And there might be a third, a fourth, a million other explanations. If they had the tank in Calais, why didn’t they shoot at The New World then? Was that sniper on the rooftop a spotter?”
“Speaking of the sniper,” Kim said. “I spoke to Mirabelle earlier. The consensus among their collective is that the item taken from the rooftop at Calais was a method of encrypting communications. They can’t be any more certain than that, but it does make sense if these people, or if those originally leading them, were members of the cartel. If Lisa Kempton was preparing for the end of the world, then one assumes the cartel might have been, too. Sorcha?”
“A reasonable assumption,” Locke said. “But not relevant. They traded guns, drugs, and people across every border on the planet. Secure communications were part of their stock-in-trade. Can the Courageous track the signal? What they are saying is hardly as important as where they are saying it from.”
“Mirabelle says they’re listening,” Kim said. “Without a satellite network, the range of our equipment is limited. The consensus is that our enemy are making use of the communications systems at a military base. Leon knows every base, even those not listed on the maps.”
“Even if we knew where they are, what can we do about it?” Chester asked. “Nothing, right?”
“Exactly,” Kim said. “The Courageous has its Vulcan cannons, and we’ve enough ammunition to stop anyone from seizing either ship. I don’t think we have the munitions for a frontal assault, but that is a question for Leon to mull over. Unfortunately, though, I think Bill is correct. We’ll have to be cautious about using radio. We can’t broadcast over an open channel, not if we’re worried they might be listening. The first thing I wanted to do when we got to Faroe was reopen the radio station. It would really help bring people together. But we don’t want to advertise where we are. We’ve the satellites, of course, but not for much longer. Don’t write that down. We’re just chatting now,” she added.
“Oh.” Annette scratched through the last few lines of her notes.
“Diesel,” Bill said. “They stayed in Calais for the diesel.”
“Probably,” Kim said. “And when we returned to Calais, they left to… no, they didn’t. They tried to distract us, to slow us down. They have radio, don’t they? They want the Courageous, and if they can’t have the ship, they want to sink it, and this vessel, too. Remove the ships, remove the threat. The sniper tried to delay us in Calais, to get us to hunt for her in the ruins of that French port. Meanwhile, the other tanks, those others that escaped from Calais, would be making for Belgium. Perhaps along with other vehicles from wherever those tanks came from. But we chased the sniper out of the town. She met up with the plough and tank, and came north to watch for us. Or perhaps the tank and plough were with a different group. Regardless, they had their spotters on the roof in Nieuwpoort, watching, ready to guide the tank’s shells.”
“But they were waiting for reinforcements, yes,” Tuck signed.
“Except we found them first,” Kim continued. “The tank lobbed some shells at us. None came even remotely close, so they had no training before the outbreak. They’re not professionals. And you say the state of the tank confirms it?”
Tuck nodded. “It broke down under the strain of the shelling.”
“That’s something,” Kim said.
“An unknown number of enemies with an unknown number of tanks, somewhere on the European mainland,” Bill said.
“But the horde’s there, too,” Chester said.
“Zombies are dying,” Bill said.
“Yep, but winter is coming,” Chester said. “I saw enough war movies to know tanks are pretty useless in mud.”
“Old movies about old wars,” Bill said. “These are modern tanks.”
“Fair enough,” Chester said. “But they came from France, and thanks to us, they’re all heading to the Belgian coast. Even if they don’t all break down, they’ll be running low on fuel.”
“Diesel in Calais,” Bill said.
“Nilda,” Kim cut in. “You’ve been rather quiet.”
Nilda looked to Jay before speaking. “What’s there to say? They have tanks, so what? They are in France or Belgium, but we want to get to the Pyrenees, so what does it matter? Even if we knew where they were, we don’t have the weapons to destroy them, or the people. Not really. They had no food in Calais, so they’ll starve this winter. Let them have their tanks, let them have Belgium. It doesn’t matter to us. What matters is getting to the Pyrenees. I’m right about that? Captain Fielding has accepted her people are dead?”
“For now,” Kim said. “With time, she might change her mind.”
“And if we’re searching for them between here and Ukraine, we need the help of people who travelled there recently,” Nilda said. “We need the help of the people in the Pyrenees.”
“May I make a suggestion?” Locke said. “Perhaps it is more of an observation. We are safe. The issue before us is a logistical one. The Courageous only has a range of a few hundred miles. And we are travelling north? The Courageous will run out of fuel around the West Frisian islands.”
“Where’s that?” Annette asked.
“A small archipelago running along the northern Atlantic coast between The Netherlands and Germany,” Locke said. “The islands were sparsely inhabited with no bridges connecting them to the mainland. Think of the Scottish islands, or the islets off Connemara. It is the direction we are going, and as far as the warship can reach. The range on a Leclerc’s cannon is three miles?” she asked, turning to Tuck.
“Effective range is two miles,” Tuck signed.
“Two miles?” Locke said. “Then the Courageous will be safe. If Cavalie follows us, she will need a boat to launch an attack. Even if she can manage that, we’ve established that the Courageous can defend itself against such an assault. Thus the ship is safe. They found fuel on Faroe, didn’t they? Some diesel?”
“They weren’t sure how much,” Kim said. “We should know when they call in tonight.”
“Either it is enough, or we look for fuel elsewhere,” Locke said. “Again, it is a purely logistical problem. If there is fuel on Faroe, bringing it to this corner of the North Sea will require waiting until after the Amundsen has refuelled the Ocean Queen. I’d estimate that will be in two weeks.”
“Depending on the hydroelectric plant,” Bill said.
“Not really,” Locke said. “There is a safe harbour on Faroe, few zombies, no people, and there is fuel. Whether we can restore electricity doesn’t alter that. It might determine how long the Ocean Queen spends in dock before going west, but that will be decided by the baser needs of water and food. The admiral can’t decide until the cruise ship is ready to leave Dundalk, and so, again, we have time. A luxury we have rarely had since February.”
“And you have a proposal?” Kim asked.
“I do,” Locke said. “We had a redoubt, a refuge, on the eastern coast of Denmark. A place called Haderslev. It is, or was, a marine-science outpost for monitoring experiments in the Baltic.”
“But it’s like Elysium?” Kim asked.
“Yes and no,” Locke said. “It was a functioning scientific research station, and a major employer in the area. Its design was determined by that need as well as local planning restrictions. Its other purpose was as an embarkation point for our people in Europe. There is an airport nearby. We paid to have the runway extended to accommodate Lisa’s jet, and paid for the installation of two new helipads. Again, ostensibly for a billionaire’s convenience, but also as a bribe to the government for us having our way. As a marine research facility, we had a fleet of small boats and the fuel tanks to supply them.”
“By now, it will be gone,” Bill said.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Locke said. “Haderslev was
an embarkation point. Our people would have arrived by helicopter. They were meant to board this ship. They didn’t. It is possible they used the helicopters to leave Denmark, but to go where? If they flew away, then the boats might still be there. If they left by boat, we will find the helicopters at the airport.”
“Unless someone else has taken them in the months since,” Bill said.
“And did they take all the fuel?” Locke asked. “And all the aviation fuel at the airport, the ammunition and weapons hidden inside our facility? There is food, too. Not much, considering our numbers, but enough to make the expedition worthwhile. The satellites have been singularly useless in locating the professor and her people among the Pyrenees. Helicopters would do a better job, and will be essential when it comes to actually making contact. If we found our own supply of diesel, the Amundsen would have no need to come this far south.”
“And if we find nothing?” Bill said.
“Then we’ve wasted a few days,” Locke said.
“It’ll take a week to get into the Baltic Sea,” Bill said.
“We don’t need to,” Locke said. “Take this ship to the western shore of Denmark, and then travel overland. It’s only sixty kilometres across that neck of land. We can cycle it in a day. If there is fuel, we can drive it back. If there are other supplies, then we can bring the Courageous right up to the shore, and drive them aboard. It is an amphibious transport dock, after all. That is what it was designed for.”
“Not all your people are friendly,” Bill said. “I’m thinking of Belfast.”
“It is unlikely anyone remains there,” Locke said. “But yes, that is a risk. There is a certainty, though, that one day we will send an expedition to Denmark. Everyone knows of Elysium and Birmingham. They know of this ship. They know there are other redoubts. You have their location. If we make Faroe our home, then we will send an expedition to the Baltic, and so Haderslev will be a stopover, if not a destination. If there is nothing to be found, then let us waste our time now rather than in the weeks ahead. And whatever there is to be found, there will be considerably less after two more months of decay.”