State of Emergency

by Hilary Green

  There were few cars on the roads. As long as we were in the country lanes this did not worry me but when we were forced for a while to follow a larger road the absence of traffic made me feel uneasily conspicuous. Then, just outside Bracknell, I came up behind a queue of vehicles on a bend. I knew there was a roundabout ahead. Perhaps we were just waiting for another convoy to pass —or perhaps not. Without hesitating I swung the wheel and turned the car onto the other carriage way. It took me sometime to find a way to by-pass that section of road, but I managed it in the end.

  I edged south of Wokingham and began to follow the line of the M4 planning to get to the west of Reading before I crossed it and headed north. There was a good deal of helicopter activity above us and once one dropped down to within a few hundred feet and appeared to be inspecting us. Then I saw ahead of me a section of the motorway on a raised embankment. Along it at intervals the hunched outlines of tanks stood against the sky, their gun turrets swivelled to point north. I took the next turning and made a wide sweep before approaching the motorway again further west. I chose a narrow lane which, according to the map, passed under the motorway. The fields were empty on either side and the only house we passed appeared to be deserted.

  Then three men stepped out from behind a barn and barred my way.

  They were in civilian dress—jeans and anoraks. One stepped forward and leaned down to look in through my window. Hesitantly I wound it down.

  “What do you want?”

  “We was wondering where you was headed for,” he said, quite pleasantly but looking, I thought, puzzled.

  I had my story ready. “I’m going to visit a friend near Oxford.”

  “Well, you won’t get there,” he said flatly.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  He frowned at me. The other two had come closer and I saw them exchange glances. One of them was quite young, around twenty perhaps. He came and leaned down to me also.

  “Have you come far?' It was an educated voice, different from the first man’s, with a slight west-country burr.

  “Not very,” I said. “Look, what is all this?”

  In the back of the car the boys squirmed uneasily. I had impressed on them that if we were stopped they must say nothing. Once again the men exchanged glances and then the younger one said, “If you lived around here you wouldn’t need to ask. You won’t get to Oxford because the whole countryside between here and there is saturated with army units and every road is blocked.”

  “But why?” I asked helplessly.

  The two men straightened up and conferred in undertones. Then the first one bent again and said, “Look, is it really important —for you to get through to this friend? Because if it isn’t the best thing you can do is turn round and go home.”

  “It is important,” I said earnestly. “Really it is.”

  “All right, then,” he said heavily. “But I can’t let you go on on your own. The best thing I can do for you is send you through to our headquarters and see what they say about it. If they think you might have a chance —well, that’s up to them.” I tried to ask “What headquarters?” but he went on, “Jim’ll come with you. You’d best let him drive. He knows the roads better and which areas to avoid.”

  The younger man opened the car door and smiled in a friendly manner. “Would you mind moving over? Don’t worry. You’ll be perfectly safe with us.”

  Helplessly, unsure whether to be encouraged or afraid, I eased myself into the passenger seat and Jim took my place. He spoke a few words more with his companions, then started the engine and drove on down the lane.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Into the city,” he replied.

  I felt panic grab at my stomach. “But I don’t want to go into the city.”

  “Look,” he said, “you don’t understand the situation. You’re not just out for a country drive, you know. You’re in a war zone.”

  “But why?” I cried. “You’re right. I don’t understand. What is going on?”

  “Do you mean to say it’s all quiet where you come from?” He glanced swiftly at me, frowning.

  “Well, pretty quiet, yes. I mean —not like this with tanks all over the place and everything.”

  He sighed. “Looks as if we are on our own then. Somehow I thought the rest of the country would be doing the same as us.”

  “What are you doing?” I persisted.

  He did not answer at once. There were houses ahead and he made a sharp turn into a side street, peering ahead of him with acute concentration. Then he relaxed a little and said, “When the General Strike was called all the workers in Reading came out and started demonstrations and marches. We joined them —I’m a student, you see, at the University. To begin with it was all fairly good tempered—well, as much as you could expect a political demonstration to be. The police couldn’t do much, there were too many of us. It went on for several days. We occupied University buildings and factories, burnt our identity cards, refused to respect the curfew. Then they sent the troops in. I suppose their big mistake was that they didn’t send quite enough. After that the feeling changed. It became a battle. They hit us with tear gas and water cannon, and then they started using rubber bullets. We built barricades and attacked public buildings. It was like the gilets jaunes in Paris in '18.” He broke off with a shrug and a half laugh. “I never thought of myself as a militant. Agriculture’s my subject.”

  “If it comes to that, I’ve never thought of myself as a —fugitive,” I said. “But I’m beginning to feel like one. Is it still going on?”

  He looked grim. “It can’t go on much longer. To begin with we felt we were getting on top. We made contact with Oxford and the same thing was going on there. We thought it must be the same over the whole country. People said the government couldn’t last more than a few days. By then, of course, the ‘leaders’ had appeared. We were getting organized.”

  “What sort of leaders?” I asked. I was beginning to feel at ease with this quietly spoken young man whose matter-of- fact approach was tinged with irony.

  Once again he lifted his shoulders slightly.

  “The people who make a career out of violence and unrest. I don’t know where they come from. You’ll see.”

  We were entering the outskirts of the city, keeping to the side-roads with their long, drab-looking terraces. The roads were almost deserted and the few people we saw moved furtively, keeping close to the buildings. I began to see the evidence of what had happened in the last weeks. Windows were smashed, street furniture twisted and broken, burnt out cars stood at crazy angles across the road, forcing Jim to slow to a crawl. Then we came to a barricade of derelict vehicles and bits of furniture. Jim stopped the car and went forward to confer with the group of men standing by it. Simon leaned over to me and hissed urgently,

  “Where are we going, Mum?”

  I tried to smile reassuringly. “We’ve got to see some people, that’s all. It’ll be all right.”

  “What people . . .?” he began, but I hushed him quickly. Now that the car was stationary I was becoming aware of a distant noise, a constant roar which fluctuated in volume but never died away —the sound of many hundreds of voices.

  Jim came back. “We’ll have to try a different route. There’s a battle going on up ahead.”

  He reversed the car and set off again through a warren of small streets.

  I said, “Why did you say it couldn’t last much longer?”

  “You saw the tanks,” he replied briefly. “About three or four days ago we suddenly heard that they were drafting in hundreds more troops. Since then we’ve been losing ground steadily. We’ve occupied the Buttes —the big shopping precinct —it’ll take them a good while to drive us out of there, unless they decide to shell the place, but they are bound to win in the end. They say Oxford has fallen already. That’s why we couldn’t let you go on.”

  We turned into a larger road, empty except for a burnt out double-decker bus. I could hear the crowd nois
e above the sound of the engine now. Suddenly half a dozen running figures burst out from a side street ahead of us and in a few seconds the junction was filled with a surging mass of people. Jim braked sharply and then swung the car around. The bus restricted his area of manoeuvre and by the time he had completed the turn the crowd had reached us and we were surrounded by running figures. There were men of all ages and a sprinkling of girls; some dressed in working clothes, some in trendy denim, some in motor-bike leathers. Many wore crash helmets or the sort of hard hats issued to building workers and had scarves wrapped about their faces. The first few ran on past us, obviously intent on losing themselves in the streets ahead, but the next comers saw a rallying point in the derelict bus. The crowd checked and milled around us. Some banged on the roof of the car and shouted. A dozen or more laid hold of the car and began to rock it, clearly intending to add it to the partial barricade formed by the bus. Tim was screaming in the back seat.

  Jim wound down his window and yelled at the people nearest him. His words were lost in the roar but I heard him say “The Irishman”. A man bent to listen to him, peered at us and then straightened up to shout at his companions. More faces stared in at us and the car ceased to rock. Through a gap in the crowd round us I caught a glimpse of the road junction from which they had appeared. I could see three armoured vehicles advancing inexorably into the mass, water cannon sweeping the way ahead of them. Between them foot soldiers held a steady line, bayonets fixed.

  The car engine revved and we jerked forward. The crowd was parting to let us through. Slowly we inched ahead towards the clearer road. From in front of us a party of perhaps twenty young men came charging down in a disciplined formation to join the battle now raging around the bus. They carried metal shields and at least some of them, I saw with a shock which only registered later, were armed with rifles.

  We were almost clear of the crowd when the explosion came, jolting us all in our seats and making me feel as though I had been struck violently in the middle of the chest. Jim braked violently and we all twisted in our seats to look behind us. The far end of the street was momentarily hidden by dense smoke which revealed as it cleared the twisted remains of one of the armoured vehicles. There was a crescendo of yells and screams as the crowd of demonstrators swept forward again, taking advantage of the confusion, and the wreckage was hidden from sight. I found myself leaning over the back of my seat, clinging to the two terrified children. Jim let in the clutch and the car leapt forward, rounding a corner with a scream of tyres. As we accelerated again I heard firing break out behind us.

  I turned to Jim and said, shakily, “You didn’t tell me you were using guns and bombs!”

  “It wasn’t my choice,” he replied tersely. “The people in charge now seem to take it for granted —and we can’t do without them.”

  Only a few streets away he stopped the car abruptly outside what looked like an abandoned office block.

  “Right, inside quickly!” he said.

  We ran across the pavement and into the entrance hall. It was littered with sleeping bags, empty cans and bottles, odds and ends of personal possessions and the banisters had been torn away from the staircase, presumably to be used in a barricade. Four or five men were lounging among the debris. Jim spoke quickly to one of them who nodded and went out.

  “He’ll keep an eye on your car,” Jim said. “Otherwise it probably wouldn’t be there when we come out.”

  He took us upstairs and into what was once, presumably, a secretary’s office. Here another small group of men and girls were occupied with paper work of some kind. Once

  again Jim held a short, sotto voce conversation. A girl disappeared into the inner office. After a short wait we were summoned inside.

  There were three men in the room. One tall, big built with a beer-drinker’s belly which overhung his trousers; the second younger with long, greasy dark hair which almost obscured his face as he sat with his head bent over a map. It was the third man, a slight, active-looking man with a narrow, clever face and very compelling blue eyes, who spoke, and as soon as he did so I understood Jim’s reference to “the Irishman”.

  “What’s this?” he asked sharply.

  Jim explained. “They tried to come through our check point. She says she’s got to get through to Oxford, to visit someone. Apparently they didn’t know about the situation round here.”

  “Didn’t know?” The Irishman looked me over with cool, impersonal eyes. ‘Where are you from?”

  “Not very far away,” I said as casually as I could.

  He came round his desk and moved closer to me.

  “Look here. There’s no point in us playing games with each other. If you were from anywhere round here you’d know what was going on. If you’re trying to lie your way through it’s one of two things. Either you’re travelling without a permit —or you’re a spy. Now which is it?”

  Something bordering on a hysterical laugh caught at my throat. “Do I look like a spy?”

  “I’ve seen some unlikely looking spies in my time,” he returned, unmoved. “If you’re not, then what are you trying to do?”

  I hesitated. Jim said, “Look, you can talk to us. We’re on the same side.”

  I saw the Irishman shoot him a quick, contemptuous glance, but he said, “Well, is he right?”

  “How do I know?” I snapped. “I don’t want to. be on anybody’s side. I just want to get on with my own life.”

  He leaned on the edge of his desk.

  “Look, lady, if you wanted to do that you should have stayed at home. Right here there’s only two sides. The fascist pigs who shoot down ordinary working men—and us. Now, if you want our help, you’ve got to be straight with us, and quickly. I’ve more important things to do and, God knows, not much time left to do them in.”

  I took a long breath. “All right, I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  I told it, briefly, but leaving out nothing of significance. At the end Jim said, “There you are, you see. We are on the same side.”

  The Irishman was still looking at me. “What about your husband?” he asked.

  I looked away. “He was killed, in the riot at Waterloo Station.”

  The Irishman leaned forward and said sharply, “What was his name?”

  “Michael Fairing.”

  I was aware that the information had caused a stir in the room. Everyone was looking at me. The Irishman straightened up and held out his hand to me.

  “Mrs Fairing, your husband was one of the first martyrs in this struggle. If we can help, we’ll do all we can.’

  The thought flashed through my mind that it was ironic that both Harrington and now this man should claim Mike as a martyr in their different causes, but I said nothing. From then on we were honoured guests. We were given chairs and brought cups of real coffee, something which we had not seen in our area for weeks. With the coffee came, luxury of luxuries, chocolate biscuits. It appeared that the occupation of the shopping precinct had yielded some stored up supplies, probably destined for the black market. While we ate and drank the Irishman pressed me for news of what was going on in my part of the country. There were, I gathered, various pirate radio stations on the air but their broadcasts were erratic and the information they gave confused and sometimes contradictory.

  I said at one point, “Surely you won’t be able to hold out here much longer. What happens then?”

  He shrugged. “We move out and start again somewhere else. We’re not getting much news through from the rest of the country but we did hear that resistance is holding up well around Birmingham and Coventry. We’ll head for there when they flush us out of here.”

  I put my hands through my hair. “I had no idea that all this was going on. The country seems to be in chaos.”

  “The government can’t hold out much longer,” he said with an edge of triumph in his voice. “Did you know that the Scots have declared independence? And most of the Scots regiments are supporting them.”

  “My God
!” I murmured. “We’re in the middle of a civil war!”

  ‘ It's the beginning of the Revolution!” he corrected me crisply. “It’s been a long time coming, but nothing can stop it now.”

  We were silent for a while, then he said, “Now, are you really determined to go on?”

  I sighed. “I don’t see what else I can do. I’m terrified of the children being taken away if I go back.”

  He nodded. “Well, I can understand any woman wanting to keep her children out of the clutches of bastards like that. We’ll do what we can to help you, but we can only get you out of the city. After that you’re on your own. If you keep away from the towns you shouldn’t come to any harm.” He turned to Jim. ’’You go with them. Take them through our check points and get them as far north and west as you can. According to our last information there were army units here —and here ...” They bent over the map. After a brief conference Jim straightened up.

  “All right. I’ll do my best. Are you ready?”

  The Irishman shook hands with me.

  “Good luck to you! I hope you get through.”

  "Thanks,” I said. It was on the tip of my tongue to wish him luck too.

  The car still stood outside, watched over by the student. The noise of the crowd had faded, but we still heard occasional shots and distant explosions. Obviously the fighting had moved away. Jim drove fast through the deserted streets, stopping once at a barricade to identify himself. When we were beginning to leave the city behind he spoke for the first time.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through all that. But if we’d let you go on someone else would have brought you in. We’re trying to keep a fairly tight control over who goes in and out of the city.”

  I said, “Doesn’t all this sicken you? The violence, I mean —bombs, guns, in an English city.”