Geoff interrupted me. “He’s right, Jonathan. Alan Pendelin’s the landlord of the Farmer’s Rest. The pub in the village. I remember you telling him that we was heading for town.”
“So you really followed us?” I said, incredulously.
“I would not say ‘followed’, exactly. I found you. Quite easily done, you know. You weren’t at all clandestine in your operations. And when you went to Gissom Wood…”
“Where?”
“The woodland where you stayed for some considerable time, it seems. Ah, you did not know its name? Suffice to say, I noted your location.”
“You were watching us all along?”
He laughed again – “Ha! No, no, my dear fellow. I had other business to attend to. You err if you suppose I have sufficient leisure time to observe you, as it were, from a distance. I merely noted where you were. And when you departed, I followed in your tracks. Or, at any rate, such was my intention. But rather soon I lost you, I’m afraid. The tracking of vehicles is not one of my more accomplished skills, I fear. However, I made the assumption that you would most probably be heading North and East rather than backtracking in the direction from which you had come. I further made the assumption that you would keep to the minor roads rather than risk being conspicuous upon the motorways. It appears my assumptions were correct and thus, eventually, we ‘bumped into’ one another. Have some more wine, my dear fellow.”
Lying back in a well-stuffed arm-chair (which was covered in a hideously twee material featuring lots of pink roses), I was beginning to relax at last. I hadn’t realised how tense I’d become over the past few weeks. It was a tension that was always there: a slight cramp in my legs and shoulders; a slight ache across the front of my head; the clenching of my jaw for no reason at all. A constant sense of alertness, always looking, always listening, always determined that nothing will take me by surprise.
Now here, sipping wine, listening to the gentle tick-tock of the grandfather clock and the deep, soothing rumble of the Colonel’s voice, I began to unwind. But for the lack of electricity, which accounted for the all-pervading gloom, this could have been a scene from the old world, the world as it had been before the Catastrophe. We could have been old friends chatting inconsequentially, after a hearty but tasteless meal served by a hearty and tactless waiter; we would have migrated to the hotel lounge to relax over a bottle of wine and a cigar and contemplate the indigestion to come. Apart from the fact that, in the ‘old world’, the cigar would not have been permitted, as the sign over the fireplace made clear.
“…relocated to Cambridge. Quite a convenient location in many respects. Just far enough from London but not too far. Then, what with the colleges, the science park, the Cavendish Laboratory…” – the Colonel had been talking for some time and I had lost the thread of what he was saying.
“What’s Cambridge go to do with anything?” I asked.
“The Government. As I was explaining, it is where the Government has relocated…”
“To Cambridge! You mean, the Houses Of Parliament…”
“Oh, the situation in London is quite impossible. Downing Street, Parliament, Whitehall… Command and control centres have been established at COBRA, the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms. And also at Pindar.”
“Pindar?”
“One of the principal underground military citadels in London. Had Britain found itself under nuclear attack, the Cabinet might have relocated to Pindar too. Given the actual nature of the emergency, however, it was decided that Cambridge would be altogether more congenial.”
“How lovely for them all,” said Leila.
The Colonel stared at her for a moment and was about to say something but then thought better of it.
“What happened to the Prime Minister?” I asked.
I was thinking about what we’d heard on Radio True Britain. They had mentioned the ‘acting Prime Minister’. I wondered what that meant.
“The Prime Minister is in Cambridge, naturally. Overseeing things.”
“He’s alive, then?”
“It would be difficult to oversee things if he were not.”
I wasn’t sure who to believe. The Colonel who, by all accounts, wasn’t a Colonel at all. Or the announcer on a radio station I’d never even heard of until a few weeks before and which was broadcasting on a frequency where no radio station should, by rights, be expected to be found.
“What about the Army?” I said.
“What about them?”
“Are they on our side?”
“The British Army?” he said, raising a shocked eyebrow, “What possible other side could they be on?”
“So, according to you, everything’s under control.”
“I would not go that far. But progress is being made. Riots are being quelled. Power stations are being restarted. Order is being restored. Wherever possible.”
“How do you know all this? Nobody else seems to know anything about what’s going on. You seem to know everything. How does an antique dealer manage to keep so well informed?”
“Ah, yes. I can see how that might be surprising. An explanation might be in order. I wonder if any of you have heard of the Civil Defence Corps?”
I looked at Geoff. He shrugged. I looked at Leila. She smiled.
“How about the Royal Observer Corps?”
I looked at Geoff. He shrugged again. I looked at Leila. She smiled again.
“I take it that the young lady is perhaps more informed on the matter than either of you two gentlemen.”
“CDC and ROC were two civilian volunteer organisations,” said Leila, “The ROC kept a lookout for enemy aircraft and bombs. If any bombs should happen to be dropped, the ROC would report them. The CDC would then take control of the country after the event. That is, after the bomb had been dropped. They would go around telling people what to do, clean up the corpses, organise village fêtes, jam-making competitions and so forth.”
“Somewhat of a simplification,” said the Colonel, “But near enough to the truth for our purposes. At one time the CDC alone had over 300,000 volunteers spread right across Britain. Both organisations were disbanded some time ago. After the Cold War came to an end it was though they were no longer needed. In hindsight, their disbanding might appear to have been precipitate. After all, the threat to Britain never really went away. It merely changed in nature. Russia, North Korea, Iran, Islamic terrorism… the threat of a cataclysmic attack was always there.
“That is why another, and very different organisation was created. Of which I am a member. Suffice to say we are not exactly a volunteer organisation. We have been specifically recruited. Until now, our existence has never been officially acknowledged. In the case of a national crisis, we have been trained to observe, report and liaise.”
“Why you?” I said, “An antique dealer!”
“Suffice to say, I was not always an antique dealer.”
Leila laughed. “I bet!”
“Do they know what caused the disease?” I said, “Have they got a cure yet?”
“Disease? Cure?” The Colonel took a languorous puff on his cigar and blew out a perfectly formed smoke ring, “You are starting to sound as cynical as my dear friend, Walter.”
He was talking about Walter Prentiss, the retired doctor who’d tweaked the gun pellets out of Geoff’s arm.
“It’s too early to know if there is a disease. As such,” the Colonel continued, “And, if there is, what that disease might be, where it came from or how to treat it. It might, after all, be no more than an unusually virulent strain of winter flu.”
“You didn’t catch it though, did you?” I said.
“That is true. I did not.”
“Nor did Doctor Prentiss.”
I recalled that just about everyone in the Church Hall back in the village had been coughing or sneezing or showing some other flu-like symptoms, with the sole exceptions of the Colonel and the Doctor.
“That also is true,” he agreed.
“Would I b
e right in thinking that the Doctor is a member of this secret organisation, the same one as you?”
He smiled. “If he were, that is something which I would not be at liberty to disclose.”
“Which means that you must have known – the Government must have known – about the infection before it happened. So you, the doctor, all the important people I’m guessing – the colonels, the generals, the Prime Minister, the Royal Family – they were all vaccinated. While the rest of us, all the expendable people…”
“Let me stop you there. You are now drawing unsupported inferences.”
“Then how else do you explain the fact that everyone else in the village was infected. But you and the doctor weren’t. Another coincidence?”
“Ah, but Walter and I were not the only people unaffected by the, ah, flu. A substantial number of people suffered symptoms and made a full recovery.” He puffed his cigar again and fixed me with a piercing stare – “You among them.”
As far as I could recall, I had never mentioned that I’d been ill. Once again, I was forced to wonder how the Colonel knew so much about so many things. And, in particular, how he knew so much about me.
“There were others, indeed, who suffered no symptoms at all. Were there not, Geoffrey Parkham?”
Geoff shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was in an age-group that had been most ravaged by the disease. Most teenagers had not only suffered the debilitating flu-like symptoms but had also been most affected by the after-effects which seemed to cause a mental change, a break-down of inhibitions, an increased propensity to violence. Not to mention the tell-tale red eyes. Geoff had suffered from none of that. What a strange place this world had become when it appeared incriminating that a person had not fallen ill!
The Colonel, I noted, made no mention of Leila. He could not have failed to have noticed the prominent redness of her eyes. In the case of Leila, his reticence alarmed me. If indeed he was working for some quasi-military governmental organisation which aimed to take control in a national emergency, what implications would that have for someone like Leila? Someone who clearly demonstrated signs of the infection?
In spite of the fact that he had gone to some lengths to find us, the Colonel did not stay long. He had, he said, ‘important business’ to attend to. But, of course, he would not tell us what that business was. In spite of the accident, his BMW had not been significantly damaged and he was soon ready to set off again.
As he was leaving I said, “I can’t believe you found us just by chance.”
“Oh, no. Not by chance. I trust I did not give that impression.”
“Not by following us either.”
“I found you. That is all that matters.”
After he had gone, we decided to stay at the hotel for the night. The Colonel had recommended two bedrooms on the ground floor. I assumed that might be because the bedrooms on the upper floor were already be occupied. And not by anyone who would be inclined to conversation, if you get my meaning. We were by now well used to the ever-present odours of decay and putrefaction. The smell was not especially noticeable in the hotel and it was, to a degree, masked by the bowls of potpourri, overflowing with highly-scented dried flowers and petals. Even so, we decided to take his advice and stick to the ground floor. Leila took a small single-bedded room. Geoff, Bobby and I occupied the twin-bedded adjoining room. Once again, the floral motifs all over the wallpaper and furnishings, added an oppressive air of cosy decay. But the beds were comfortable and weren’t infested with bedbugs. I reckoned I would be able to survive a close encounter with the interior design.
3
That evening, I continued to think about the Colonel. The ‘coincidence’ of our meeting bothered me. I didn’t know what technology he had access to or how much of it was still operational. But I felt sure that he hadn’t just ‘bumped into’ us out in the middle of nowhere. Would it be possible to pinpoint a Land Rover using satellite imaging? Or had he found our location by tracking Geoff’s smart-watch? I had a feeling that watches like that one had some kind of Global Positioning System functionality built in. Were the GPS satellites still working? And, if so, how long would they continue to function? Especially if the USA fell into anarchy.
Or maybe the secret organisation the Colonel mentioned had observers dotted around the country? One, or more than one, of these observers had seen us and reported our position using two-way radios. Strangely enough, I found that idea comforting. You might think it’s odd that I wasn’t worried that we were being spied upon. All I can say is that the possibility that an organisation existed that was able to function with that degree of efficiency gave me hope for the future. And, in those days, hope was in short supply.
But a bigger mystery than how the Colonel had found us was why? Why would he bother? Why were we even worth the trouble?”
4
We approached London by night. We had taken two days to get there, travelling by a circuitous route. We had gone to the north, skirting Didcot and Dorchester, then down through the Chiltern Hills, which at times give the deceptive impression of being in the remote countryside even though they are situated quite close to the north-western boundaries of London. Then we came down past Beaconsfield and the Colne Valley, Brent Cross and Hampstead.
The closer we got to London, the busier the roads became. By now, we were used to the empty roads and deserted streets of the countryside. At first, it came as a surprise to see so many other vehicles. By the time we got to Ruislip and Harrow, there was barely a road that was completely devoid of cars, trucks or motorbikes. Many vehicles were being driven erratically as though the drivers were drunk. Some drivers didn’t bother using headlights even in the pitch darkness. We, however, kept our headlights on. The biggest danger to us was not, as it had seemed in the countryside, the risk of being seen by other people. On the contrary: now the greatest risk was that other drivers wouldn’t see us and would slam into us at catastrophic speed.
There were a fair number of joyriders around. On the A40 at Hillingdon, we nearly had a crash with a Porsche that must have been going at close to 200 miles per hour on the wrong side of the road. From all the burnt-out wrecks of cars scattered around, it looked as though not all joyriders survived their rides.
Apart from the hazards of navigating roads where traffic lights no longer worked and where drivers no longer obeyed the speed limits, we weren’t put in any obvious danger by the people we came across. Our Land Rover was old, the paint was flaking and its top speed hovered around 60 mph when going downhill. It wasn’t worth a second glance from a would-be joyrider. In fact, as far as I could see, nobody paid any attention to us at all. Not in the suburbs. But as we drew closer to the centre, the situation changed.
We took the A502 from Golders Green to Hampstead. It was gone ten o’clock at night and the streets were pitch black. One thing that struck me as odd was that the stars were visible. Whenever I’d been in London before, the brightness of the city lights had masked the night sky. Now I could see the Plough constellation with startling clarity. I could even make out the faint band of the Milky Way.
Hampstead itself was eerily busy. Crowds of youths were strolling along the pavements or down the middle of the roads, many of them drinking from bottles of beer, wine or whisky as they went. As far as I could see, they were in good spirits. There was almost an atmosphere of celebration. The Good Times had come and everyone was out to make the most of them. Some of them shouted at us as we passed or banged on the Land Rover’s bonnet and sides. I couldn’t tell what they were shouting. They were largely slurred and incoherent. But at least they didn’t sound threatening.
There were some people sitting at tables set on the pavement outside a wine bar. Portable LED lights had been set upon the tables. On a warm, sultry night of summer, it would have looked quite normal. In the bitter cold of February, it was surreal. Many of the people weren’t wearing pullovers or coats. They sat there in T-shirts and blouses. One young man was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans;
he was bare-chested and wore no shoes. His companion, a girl of about eighteen, was only wearing a bra and panties. They seemed oblivious of the freezing conditions.
We carried on down Hampstead High Street, past shops whose broken windows littered the pavement with heaps of shattered glass. The glass glittered like ice in our headlights. Going down Fitzjohn’s Avenue, we passed some big, expensive-looking houses that wouldn’t have left much change from eight million pounds or so a few weeks earlier. Now the front doors were open and teenagers were lounging on the steps, drinking, smoking, fighting, having sex. In some places, furniture had been brought out onto the streets: expensive-looking armchairs and sofas, a silk-covered chaise-longue. I wondered what had happened to the people who had owned those houses.
It looked like the grown-ups had all gone away and the kids were making the most of it. They were having a whale of a time. The best time of their lives. I saw two boys playing a sort of football match. The ball looked heavy and didn’t move far when they kicked it. Then I saw that it wasn’t a ball. It was a child’s head.
We turned left before arriving at Swiss Cottage and went via Chalk Farm and Belsize Park, then along Mansfield Road to Gospel Oak. It was quiet there. Hardly anyone was to be seen. There had never been much to do in Gospel Oak – there were just houses there, a few low-rise office blocks, that kind of thing.
I got the impression that the people we’d seen out on the streets were sticking to areas that had been at the centre of things before the Catastrophe. Maybe that was because the shops and pubs still contained enough things worth looting. Or maybe it was just from force of habit.
We parked the Land Rover in a side street. I wanted to take a look at central London before we ventured any nearer. The ideal place to get a panoramic view was from Parliament Hill which is at the top of Hampstead Heath. Geoff was worried about leaving the Land Rover. He thought that someone might steal it or wreck it. I was of the opinion that when there were so many Porches and BMWs to choose from, I didn’t think our clapped-out old Land Rover would be much in demand. So we took our Cree torches and our wooden walking sticks and our knives and we headed up the path from Gospel Oak, past the lido and up to the top of Parliament Hill. We weren’t alone on the Heath that night. We heard rustlings and grunts from the bushes. Well, I thought, not much has changed then. Hampstead Heath was always busy on dark nights in the old days – and for the same reason.
The Exodus Plague | Book 1 | The Snow Page 13