Darkest Hour 1: Their Darkest Hour

by Christopher Nuttall

  Alex nodded and obeyed. The next three hours were an education. She’d never realised how much had to be done each day on a farm, from mucking out the pigs – who eyed her with disconcerting eyes – to rubbing down the horses. Smith explained that they also made money by renting out their horses to a nearby riding school, which had ties to a college for young ladies that specialised in turning their brains into mush. Alex had never thought much about horses, but it seemed that the young girls honestly had no idea how to treat them when they finally got to ride on their backs. Some of the horses were very docile, even with young and inexperienced riders; others seemed nasty, including a big black horse that eyed her balefully.

  “Stalin there won’t allow himself to be ridden,” Smith commented. Somehow, Alex found it difficult to turn her back on the horse. Stalin – a play on words, she realised after a moment – seemed to be waiting for a moment to kick her or trample her into the ground. “Someone treated him very badly, poor thing, and he’s been good for nothing apart from breeding ever since. A couple of people have tried to ride him and always come off worst.”

  “I’m surprised he wasn't put down,” Alex said. Horses…but then, jet aircraft could be temperamental too. Too many missions had had to be aborted because multimillion pounds worth of equipment had failed at the wrong time. “Isn’t he a danger to everyone?”

  “No kids around here,” Smith said, “and the wife and I know better than to relax around him.”

  He shrugged. “After lunch, do you want to go see old Nathan Archer? He was saying that there’s something he wants you to see. The Parish Council meeting last night rather impressed him.”

  Alex looked at him, sideways. “Should I go?”

  Smith snorted. “Nathan’s a harmless old man,” he said. “He used to run a large farm, but much of it got sold off in the seventies, leaving him with just a couple of fields. His wife died years ago and his kids never visit. I think he’d be glad of the company.”

  “I’ll go then,” Alex decided. “Are we going to have lunch now?”

  “Hungry?” Smith asked. He laughed. “I hear the same from everyone who stays here – and no, it isn’t lunchtime yet. We’ve barely begun to work.”

  He was still chuckling as they walked over to the field. “But you’re not doing too badly, not like some of the visitors,” he added. “We’ll make a farmer out of you yet.”

  ***

  Nathan Archer’s farmhouse looked older than Smith’s farmhouse, although Alex wasn't entirely sure why she had that impression. It was a long low building, with a large door and roses growing up the side of the house. Most of the windows looked too small for their positions, almost like portholes in the side of a ship. A pair of heavy axes had been nailed above the doors, reminding her of some of the decorations she’d seen in Afghanistan. They looked securely fashioned, but she nipped under them as quickly as possible. She tapped on the door and waited. It was several minutes before Archer opened the door and peered out at her.

  “Welcome to my home,” he said. His accent was more rustic than Smith’s accent, suggesting that he didn’t spend much time watching the television. “Did you come alone?”

  Alex tensed at the question, despite the pistol concealed within her jacket. “Yes,” she said, finally. “I only told Farmer Smith where I was going…”

  “Smith can keep a secret,” Archer said. He picked up a stick, closed the door and hobbled out around the house. Alex heard the sound of dogs barking as they rounded the house and came up to a small fence marking out the rear garden. A small army of dogs were yapping away, some large enough to make her glad that she was carrying the pistol. She didn’t recognise half of the breeds, but then she’d never been a dog fancier. Cats were far less trouble to keep. “Down boys, now!”

  Alex watched in some amazement as the dogs sat down, their tongues lolling out of their mouths as if they were exhausted. “I used to be able to take them for walks every day,” Archer explained, “but I can’t do that now and I can’t bear to give them away. I just have to let them have the run of the garden and hope that they don’t make too much of a mess.”

  He led her over towards a barn, standing alone in the middle of a field. “I was a young farmer of nineteen when the war started,” he said. Alex took a sharp look at him, realising that he was talking about the Second World War – just like the person she’d met at the Parish Council. That would make him over ninety years old, surely. “I volunteered for service at once, only to be told that I was in an essential occupation. The young men of the parish called me coward as they marched away and I bloodied my fists on many of their faces.”

  His mouth opened in a crooked smile. “We were all so much more vital back then,” he added. “None of this self-obsessed whining of the modern generation – we worked, we knew where we stood, we knew that we were responsible for ourselves. And there was no embarrassment over fighting to defend our country from the Hun. A quarter of the map was coloured pink and we loved it. All those whiners who say we shouldn’t have had an empire never understood what it was like to have pride. Now, no one has any loyalty to their country.

  “But I’d registered when I’d volunteered and they found a job for me,” he said. “Everyone knew that it was just a matter of time before that little German Corporal led his dragoons over to England. They started preparing for war – for a war that would still continue even if the Germans occupied London and banished the King to Canada. And farmers like me were given a secret role to play when the Germans had defeated the army and believed themselves secure.”

  They reached the barn. Archer pulled an old set of keys out of his pocket and opened the padlock, pushing the doors open wide enough to allow light to stream into the confined spaces. It was empty, the floor covered with decaying straw and pieces of animal waste. Alex wrinkled her nose at the smell, before Archer pushed her to one side and started digging through the piles of straw. It struck her that something was concealed under the barn, something that might have lain in hiding for a very long time…

  “They told us to keep it safe,” Archer said. There was a click as he found a hidden board of wood in the floor and pulled it up. A few moments of struggling revealed a hatch neatly hidden, one that he had problems lifting alone. Alex walked over and helped him to pull the hatch all the way up, revealing a darkened space under the barn. Archer pulled out a small electric torch and shone it down into the darkness, revealing a number of bundles that looked as if they hadn’t been touched for years. “First there was the Nazis, and then there were the Communists – oh yes, we were worried about them. I always believed that they would come and recover the dump’s contents, but the government never bothered to come pick it up.”

  Alex stared at him, and then back down into the chamber. “How long has this been here?”

  “Some of it has been here since 1940,” Archer said, with some pride. “We had some changed during 1944 when we got new equipment from America – and some more got changed during the 1950s. And then the officials stopped visiting and we just kept on taking care of it. And it has never been touched.”

  “My God,” Alex said. Now that he’d reminded her, she recalled a case where one such dump had been discovered fifty-odd years after the war. The farmer who had been charged with taking care of it, knowing that he was growing older, had contacted the police, who’d reported it to the army. Only in Britain could an entire repository of weapons and explosives meant for an underground resistance have been forgotten through bureaucratic oversight. But of course they wouldn’t have wanted records. They would have led the Germans – who had disarmed their subject peoples as a matter of course – right to the cache. “What…what are you going to do with it?”

  Archer let the hatch fall back down. “I’m really too old to feel that I have much to lose,” he said. “The country has been invaded, young lady, and I took an oath to carry on the fight even if the government has been destroyed or forced to surrender. I intend to fight and I expect that
you will fight with me against the bastards.”

  There was no give in his voice. Alex nodded, slowly. He was right; there was little hope of linking up with what remained of her unit, but she could carry on the fight. Maybe they were doomed, maybe the aliens could defeat them with ease…she shook her head. They had to fight.

  It was the only hope of freedom.

  “Very well,” she said. “How many others know about this?”

  “Not many,” Archer said, “but enough to start a small army. And then we can teach them that humans don’t come cheap!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Near Salisbury Plain

  United Kingdom, Day 2

  “Coming through clear as day, sir,” the technician reported. “It seems that the Yanks were right and the bastards can’t track microburst transmissions.”

  Brigadier Gavin Lightbridge-Stewart nodded. They hadn't been able to pull much information from the ongoing war in the United States, but the Americans had apparently had some success with stealth aircraft and UAVs. The SAS had been loaned a Shadow Hawk UAV by the CIA to support British troops operating in the Middle East and it had survived the bombardment of British bases across the mainland. It was currently orbiting high over Basingstoke, watching the alien land forces heading west, and relaying what it saw to the mobile command post.

  A small alien detachment had apparently been ordered to lay siege to Reading, with alien troops taking up positions on the roads and discouraging civilians from escaping by firing over their heads. Despite that, a vast number of refugees had managed to leave the cities and towns and were currently scattered all over the area, often causing confusion and delays for the British military. The aliens seemed to have fewer problems, if only because their standard response to anyone trying to get in their way was to open fire. Their hover-tanks – or so the young soldiers on the front lines had dubbed them – seemed to combine the armour of a Challenger tank with the speed and agility of a far lighter vehicle. It hadn't escaped Gavin’s sense of irony that they’d overrun Woking with terrifying speed. If their infantry hadn't been slower than their tankers, they might well have crushed the remaining British defences before they’d had time to regroup.

  Part of his mind mulled over what the alien technology and observed capabilities seemed to suggest about their motives. They’d come as an army of occupation and they’d obviously come loaded for bear, but they seemed to lack the flexibility that every Western army tried to drill into its personnel. They seemed to have poor coordination between the armour and infantry, a problem that had caused many defeats in human history. In fact, given a level playing field – with no orbiting starships ready to drop rocks on their heads – he was sure that the 1st Armoured Division would have hammered the aliens. Their coordination between their aircraft, their ground forces and their spacecraft was surprisingly limited. It all suggested book-learning, rather than actual experience – and yet they were clearly experienced at taking control of their conquests. The speed with which they’d found collaborators and pressed them into service proved that beyond all doubt. It was all very odd.

  But I bet the armies of Oliver Cromwell or King Charles would have had some problems understanding what we do as a matter of course, he thought, wryly. Maybe the logistics of an interstellar power worked differently to those on Earth. There were seven billion humans on the planet, but for all he knew the aliens had seven billion soldiers and the ability to deploy them to Earth. He rather hoped not, yet it remained a possibility.

  “Contact the advance parties,” he ordered. At least they’d been able to set up some limited signalling capabilities. The aliens struck the source of any transmission very quickly, but his men had set up a series of expendable transmitters. “Tell them that they are cleared to engage at will.”

  ***

  “I got the signal, boss,” one of the soldiers outside the Challenger II tank said. “The enemy are on their way.”

  “Understood,” the Commander said. He’d never anticipated fighting an all-out war in the heart of the English countryside, but he was damned if he and his tank were to be found wanting when the shit hit the fan. “You lot had better scarper. We’ll be along presently.”

  His tank and a handful of others had been involved in the exercises when the aliens had announced their presence by bombarding the garrisons around Salisbury Plain. Shocked and horrified, he’d rallied his men and reported in to the remaining military command structure and had been ordered to take up a position watching the A342. They’d used their remaining fuel getting there – it had been a nightmarish journey – but they’d made it. He now scanned the horizon waiting for the first alien tanks to come into view. They seemed to like human roads.

  Absently, he patted the side of his Challenger. Pound for pound, the Challenger had a fair claim to being one of the best Main Battle Tanks in the world – when tested, during the invasion of Iraq, they’d performed brilliantly. As they were unable to retreat, he’d had his position heavily camouflaged and the tank’s engine switched off, leaving them – hopefully – undetectable. If they were wrong – if they’d been tracked during the night – they’d probably die before they knew what had hit them.

  Suddenly, much faster than he’d expected, he saw the first alien tank heading up the motorway. He studied it with considerable interest, noting that it didn't seem to have been designed to face a modern environment. Their armour hadn't been much better than anything in the human arsenal, according to the reports from London, and it didn't look as if they’d designed it to deflect incoming fire. Maybe they only ever faced handguns, he considered, or perhaps they rarely had to go one-on-one with enemy tankers. Or maybe...he shook his head. There was no time for speculation.

  “Take aim,” he ordered, quietly. They’d get one shot, maybe two, and then they’d have to run for it. Their escorts had left a few surprises down below for the alien infantry when they finally came into view, but they wouldn't be able to survive rocks dropped from orbit. “On my command, fire and then switch to the next target.”

  “Understood, boss,” the gunner said. The tank’s heavy main gun rotated as it locked onto its target. “Ready when you are...”

  “Fire,” the Commander barked. The Challenger shook as it fired a single shell towards the enemy tank. “Reload and...”

  The enemy tank went up in a colossal fireball. “Good shot,” the Commander said, sharply. “Take aim...fire!”

  A second enemy tank died, followed rapidly by a third. The fourth enemy tank returned fire, hurling a shell that went safely over their heads and came down somewhere in the distance. They ignored the chance to take out a fourth enemy target and climbed out of their vehicle, running for dear life. Another explosion shook the world around them as the enemy tank zeroed in on its target. The Commander felt a moment of contempt. He understood the rationale behind firing back as quickly as possible, but a human force wouldn't have missed so many times. The aliens were out of practice...

  He heard a whistling and then the world seemed to explode behind him, the force of the blast picking him up and hurling him into the ground at terrifying speed. His last thought was the brief hope that some of his crew might have escaped...

  ***

  “Get moving, you idiots,” Tra’tro The’Stig shouted. The thrice-damned humans had shot up one of the infantry’s personnel carriers and instead of disembarking and taking the fight to their foes, the infantry unit inside was cowering. They’d never been under fire before, even in the exercises, but that was no excuse. “Get out before they hit you again!”

  He cursed the humans again as the infantry unit finally started to disembark, half of them forgetting their training and looking as if they wanted to retreat at once. The humans had shown a positive gift for preparing the ground, with nasty traps and snipers scattered everywhere. If one of those human snipers happened to see a few dozen infantry without enough protection, he could wreak havoc without fear of retaliation.

  “Get moving,” he yel
led, again, pointing them towards the small cluster of large human buildings on the outskirts of a small town. The humans had hidden a small team there and if they moved quickly, they might manage to catch and kill the vermin before they escaped. Small human teams had hit the advancing force, inflicted some kills and then broken off, obviously trying to bleed the assault units without risking themselves unduly. “Kill the Karna-spawned devils before they kill you!”