by Vance Huxley
“He was her fella, and they’re having a baby. Not smart but it mattered to them.”
Sarge nodded, watching the rest file through. As the last went out of sight he sighed. “If you ever breath a word that I said this, I’ll accidentally shoot you. We’ve been told to arrest gardeners on any pretext.” He hesitated. “We’ve also been instructed to detain women who might be promiscuous or abused. That’s the criteria for accepting female refugees, though we’ll also accept anyone who appears to be badly psychologically damaged.”
Harold stared, trying to make sense of that. He found a worrying reason for the gardeners, but, “Why the women?”
“You worked the gardeners part out? I’ve got my own suspicions as well, based on the lack of fresh greens in the NAAFI.” Sarge stood for a few more moments, visibly wrestling with a problem. “My unofficial, never ever spoken suspicions about women have to do with the new comfort facilities for troops.” Harold stared, because he still couldn’t make sense of that, but Sarge continued. “The sort that squaddies in foreign parts go to on a Saturday night when there is no female company. There are murmurings those sort of facilities are opening near the barracks soon, because there’s a distinct lack of young female company in the Army camps.” Sarge gave a wry smile. “In my assessment your beer and chips girls don’t come under that heading, but take care if a new squad takes over.” He looked pointedly at the gap in the sandbags and jerked his head.
“On my way sarge. Thank you for not telling me.” By the time Harold reached the gate to Orchard Close he’d decided, no women at all on mart runs. After a heated exchange with a succession of annoyed women and a tearful Emmy, the rest agreed with him. After really thinking it through Harold came up with a reason for someone to target Emmy. Harold, Alfie and Emmy could all shoot well with either of the two big rifles. If someone killed Harold the other two would go after whoever did it or their gang boss.
If Emmy had already been killed then Harold’s deterrent had gone because the gangs, the Hot Rods especially, knew Alfie couldn’t take over. They wouldn’t consider a seventeen-year-old a serious threat, but the gangs all knew Emmy had enough standing to run Orchard Close. Harold became even more determined to keep Emmy safe, and not to train anyone else as an expert shooter and therefore potential target. The bastards had already killed Holly, another rifle trainee, and Orchard Close already had more shooters than big rifles.
Chapter 2:
Soggy Mudpuppies
Deep under rolling countryside, the UK cabal members had their own worries as they eyed the new man taking a seat at the polished table. He used Nate’s seat, or it had been Nate’s. The distinguished looking chairman gestured towards the innocuous looking middle-aged newcomer. “This is Maurice. Unfortunately a roaming gang of miscreants ambushed Nate’s car. They were wiped out of course, but not before one of them reached him.” Owen shrugged. “A salutary lesson about getting complacent. Maurice is replacing Nate, and will deal with information collection and dissemination in the future.”
“Spying and propaganda.” Vanna narrowed her eyes. “Which were you doing before, Maurice?”
“Information retrieval. Joshua in particular is, I believe, grateful.”
“Very, and welcome Maurice.” Joshua looked around them. “Maurice is responsible for the efficiency with which some successful gang leaders have been removed by an unseen sniper, one wearing Army uniform.” Joshua smiled happily, nodding towards the tall Asian woman before sweeping his gaze across the rest of those present with a wry smile. “Despite my reservations, Vanna’s civilian contractors are training up well while controlling the breakout attempts from York and Gloucester. We can probably clear the population from about a third of each city while they are flooded.”
“Good, because the pork content of spam is down to a half now, so any reduction in demand is a plus. We really need the food from Argentina, especially Corned Beef or something similar to give the scum their fat intake. After all, the UK had to import over half our food before we acted. Despite the culling so far, we still can’t support what’s left.” Ivy frowned. “How is the petrol situation? I’d heard somewhere that fuel spoiled over time.”
“Not with additives, or not as quickly. Diesel for my lorries might be more of a problem because of the amount used in food distribution, though we should be getting fuel from the Falklands soon?” Gerard looked questioningly at Owen, the chairman.
“Keris tells me that is coming along slowly but surely. We’ve had compatibility issues while building the new refinery because the parts are coming from several different ruined ones. The crude oil is flowing from the underwater wells and that’s being stored, though crude oil has never been a problem.” Owen glanced over at Grace. “How is the recruitment coming along for the brothels? Ah, we’d better vote first.” He looked around the table. “The motion is to create a system of brothels to service the Armed Forces, and the civilian contractors guarding the marts and work camps.”
“Can we find enough prostitutes?” Henry looked up suddenly. “I’m not objecting, just looking at possible problems.” He glanced towards Maurice, seated where the only serious objector to brothels used to sit before his fatal misadventure.
“The recruitment from the work camps has gone very well, with the incentives I am able to offer. Moving to anywhere but another camp is usually enough to get volunteers.” Grace smiled. “Those rescued from the cities by the Army are generally compliant once my people explain the options. If not, a visit to a work camp and a look at their alternative bunkmates does the job.”
“Good. Then are there any objections?” Owen looked around the table. A couple of people glanced towards Maurice but didn’t object. “Good, we’ll put the brothels on an official footing, then Grace can increase her recruitment drive.” He glanced at his paperwork. “The next item is farms. How will the continuing rain affect food production, Henry?”
“All the crops will genuinely be late. Even the mechanised farming has been affected because the land is truly sodden. The teams of workers on the hand tilled areas might get started sooner, though that will be brutal work in the mud.”
Ivy scowled. “Probably the first time in their lives the scum have earned their keep. That is providing they actually are growing food instead of ruining it? How is the gardener recruitment going Henry?”
“We have some but as Grace warned most of those in her work camps are city scum, not gardeners. The system is working though, with the scum quickly getting the idea and doing as their supervising gardener says. It’ll become more useful as the growing season really gets under way. The Army have arrested a good few gardeners for one reason or another, but the soldiers could try harder? Perhaps be a little more proactive?” Henry glanced at Joshua. “The guard posts should have an idea of which enclaves have the best crops.”
“I’ll send a memo round them all, pointing that out, though we could do with the surveillance photographs. That or a list of enclaves with good crops?” Joshua glanced at Maurice who nodded acquiescence. He glanced back down at his papers and frowned. “The Army has also collected some very badly traumatised men and women. Are they what you wanted, Maurice?”
“Yes Joshua, we want to test some treatments. After all, your soldiers will be traumatised by some of what they find going into the cities and we’ll want them cured, won’t we?” Maurice smiled. “If we can fix these, we can fix your squaddies.”
Joshua smiled and relaxed. “Ah, I did wonder. Excellent. There’ll be more of all the target types from York and Gloucester when the captives from the flooded areas are processed.” He nodded towards Vanna. “Vanna’s people are dealing with that.”
The discussion spread into details of numbers arrested and processed, then moved on to how the late arrival of new crops would impact food supplies. Grace would divert some of the work gangs currently unable to get onto flooded fields into scavenging. There were still many areas of depopulated housing, villages and small towns, that would contain food.
Eventually the meeting had dealt with all the important topics and Owen rapped with his gavel.
“Before we adjourn, I have another person who you should all meet.” Owen pressed a button on a control. A few moments later a slightly obese woman with short dark hair entered. “This is Irina, the woman who will be in overall charge of the brothels. She has considerable experience in women’s prisons, and young offender’s institutions. Please, treat this as a job interview. Ask any questions you wish.” Owen sat back to let those with any qualms have their say. He took careful note of attitudes, in case any harboured the same convictions as the late Nate about utilising young women to amuse soldiers.
* * *
Almost two weeks after the cabal discussed possible employment for women from the cities, a woman who would definitely be trying to avoid that fate tapped on the door of Harold’s study-bedroom. “Harold, Harold.”
“Yes Sharyn.” Harold stood up from the chair, one of two he’d brought into the converted study, and opened the door.
“No guns, no panic. We’ve got a refugee but she’s running around on the exclusion zone. So far the soldiers haven’t shot her.” From in here Harold could hear the Army bullhorn, but not what sarge said.
“Hasn’t anyone told her to come this way?”
“Yes, now come on.” Harold went out of the back door, heading towards the group looking over the wall at the bottom of his garden.
Casper turned as Harold came up. “She’s not tracking right Harold. She’s frightened of us, of the soldiers, of the shadows under the bypass, everything. Sarge has told her to ask for sanctuary five times but it’s not getting through.”
“Cripes.” Harold whispered because he’d just seen the refugee. A thin, painfully thin girl anything from a tall ten to a late developing teenager, dressed in a torn, dirty shift but barefooted. Even as he looked the girl stumbled over the rubble towards the bypass, then swerved and went towards the access road.
“Stop her Soldier Boy. Don’t let her come up here.” Sarge sounded desperate.
“He won’t shoot her. Will he?” Casper stared up at the bypass. “Surely not.”
“He’s trying to avoid arresting her.” Harold looked over the group. “Jeremy, you can run fastest I’m told. Get to the end of the access road and wave your arms, scare her away. Alfie, Casper, follow him.”
“She won’t come near enough to grab, Harold.” Emmy looked up to the bypass. “We have to go and get her.”
Harold cupped his hands. “Sarge, can we come on there to get her?” As he shouted the girl stopped and stared at Harold, then staggered towards the access again. She saw the men racing past and swerved towards an archway supporting the road.
“Clearly unarmed. Before she reaches the wire under there or I’ve got no options.” Sarge sounded desperate as well.
“For Christ’s sake!” Harold glanced at Emmy then away as her blouse came off. Even as Emmy climbed over the wall in her underwear, Sharyn and June were stripping.
He cupped his hands and shouted. “Clearly unarmed sarge. No photos.” Stripping was the quickest way to prove they weren’t armed, but Harold didn’t want the three women decorating some squaddie’s wall.
“No photos. Be quick.” Harold could hear sarge shouting at his squaddies, hopefully to put any bloody camera phones away.
Even with three obviously harmless women coming for her the girl tried to get away. She veered away from the bypass, from the shadows underneath, stumbling off across the rubble until Sharyn caught her. She kept struggling until Emmy and June arrived as well, then went limp. Harold and the rest of the men studiously ignored the three women as they carried the girl to the wall where Matti, Liz and Patty were now waiting.
“OK little brother, you can look now.”
“You should give me warning before streaking. Thank all and any gods this sergeant is a decent sort. Some of the ones we’ve had up there would have shot her out of hand, or arrested her for the camps.” Harold looked towards the girl club where Liz carried the still figure inside. “How bad is she?”
“Starving for a start, she’s skin and bone. We can probably sort that, but she’s off in some nightmare, Harold. We can’t do much but hope.” Sharyn patted him on the back. “Patricia is on the way. We’ll try and sort her out in there. She’s bloody terrified of something. Leave it with the girl club.”
“And the coven. You might need all thirteen.” Harold waved his arms, beckoning Casper, Alfie and Jeremy back from the bottom of the access road. From the way the girl had run away when she saw the men, the girl club might be a really good place. Whatever her story, the girl had just been incredibly lucky.
Much later, after Daisy-story at bedtime, Sharyn gave Harold the first verdict. “Starving but no abuse. The cuts and bruises just look like living rough with no other clothes or shoes. Lenny came to look at her but the lass almost passed out so he didn’t go near. She said Elise when we asked for her name, but that’s all we’re getting.” Sharyn’s little smile showed more sorrow than humour. “Everyone with a dog might be volunteering their furry friend, since she wants to be near Thandia in preference to any human. Though it might be Thandia’s size that’s comforting.” The Mastiff would certainly be a reassuring guard.
* * *
By Easter Harold knew the girl’s name and age but only that. Thirteen year old Elise wouldn’t or couldn’t say any more, though Liz confided that Thandia probably knew. The painfully thin girl spent hours murmuring to the big dog but shut up as soon as anyone came near.
Harold spent the Easter dance on guard duty because an Easter dance would be too bitter-sweet with memories of Holly. Rob and Susan still wanted to babysit Wills and Daisy so he couldn’t stay at home. Practice they said but no rush to go for the real thing, a rugrat. After all with the current lack of medical facilities and Susan being in her thirties, babysitting might be as near as they got. Harold turned at a noise and stared. “Cripes, are you a guard now Sooty?”
“Not that dopey lump, he’d open the door and offer a paw. I told Finn to get to the dance because June and Janine are both there. He laughed when I told him its good for a man’s ego when women fight over him which proves my point.” Emmy put a crate containing six bottles of beer on the floor. “I’m not sitting on that this time.”
“One of those nights, is it? I should break a window, and set fire to something.” Harold and a wounded Emmy had once spent a night keeping watch after yobs had done both.
A shadow of Emmy’s smile flitted across her face. “Yeah, just to set the mood. Though I’m not sure who’ll be sogging on who this time.”
“Mutually absorbent?” Harold moved another chair over near the firing slots and Emmy sat.
“Maybe. I sat at home with Sooty, and started thinking about Curtis, and that’s not good.” Emmy put a hand on Sooty’s head as his tail thumped. “Then I thought who else might be sat thinking of someone absent.” She picked up two beer bottles. “A name came to mind.”
“I do a lot of thinking, and some of it with beer. Is beer all right?” Harold gestured towards Emmy’s tummy.
“Don’t you start! Anyone would think a woman has never been pregnant before.” Emmy sighed. “I haven’t. Now I’m thinking this was a stupid thing to do.”
Harold’s first reaction had been that Emmy must be crackers to get pregnant in the current situation, but he’d never tell her. “You’ll be fine. Whoever is in there will have lots of friends, Uncle-this and Aunty-that and a Mummy-Casper.” Harold flipped the infrared viewer down over his eye to carefully scan the open ground and the nearest ruins. “There could be a bloody army in those houses.”
“The six big ones? Come on Harold, let it go. Those houses are barely damaged so it would be a terrible waste if we just pulled them down. They’re not much over three hundred metres away and in a year or three we might need extra housing.” Emmy looked out of the nearest loophole. “They’re boarded up now which should stop any army getting inside.” She laughed. “T
hey’re full of furniture, plywood and window frames we’ve taken out of storage here, so we can use these houses for people.”
“True. Though now I think about it I’ll get Finn to run electricity out there, a buried cable. We’ll put a heater in each room so nothing goes mouldy, and a light. Then I’ll drill some little holes in the ply over the windows. If the lights go out, or something moves behind the holes, we’ll know my paranoia is right.” Harold smiled. “Though I’m willing to be proved wrong? Better still, that’ll keep the houses dry and aired until we do need them because Elizabeth is right about planning ahead.”
“Cripes, listen to us talking about two or three years in advance. We never thought this would last six months.” Emmy sniffed. “Though Curtis had plans for longer, for a real farm and orchard. Do you think he’s all right, that he made it?”
“Yes. I said gardener and that sergeant bust a gut to get an ambulance. I told you all about the Army arresting women and why, but I worked out something else.” Harold reached out to put a hand on Emmy’s shoulder, then squeezed gently. “The rubbish on the TV is at least partly true. The government are having trouble growing food. They’ll have taken Curtis to a proper surgery, and he’ll get proper aftercare, because the bastards need him.” Harold chuckled, more or less. “We’ll ask every new squad of soldiers if they’ve seen him, because I’ll bet you’ve a got at least one picture on a phone fit for public viewing. It’ll be a hell of a shock for Curtis when you arrive to bust him out and his first job is to change a nappy.”
“Better wait until he or she is toddling and can carry them. That’s me reassured and all that, what about you? Last Easter, ending up with Holly gartered and all that.” Emmy sighed. “I went through something close when I lost Davey, and now with Curtis.” She actually giggled. “Cripes, Harold, we were all trying hard not to laugh. We think of you as, I don’t know, an older Uncle even if you’re my age, and then Holly turned you into shy sixteen.”