The Carhullan Army

by Hall, Sarah

  On the last night of reconnaissance I stood in the streets and the rain hissed down around me. Litter blew along the gutters, empty containers, foils, and the little broken ampoules with silvery deposits inside. Faith cards lay rotting on the side of the road and rats scuttered along the filthy viaducts. I saw a thin dog slinking past the end of the terrace with a ragged grey scrap in its mouth. From inside a building I could hear the cries of a woman, and they went on and on, as if she could not stop, as if she were complicit in her own despair.

  I had no love for the place. There was no residue of affection for the town in which I had been raised, and where I had seen out the country’s swift demise. I did not feel bad for its fate. I was not sorry for what would be my part in it. Everything had fallen too far. The people were oppressed, just as they had been hundreds of years before; they were the slaves of Megan’s imagining. The government had long ago failed them, and it would go on failing them. It was a place of desperation and despotism. Like the rest of the country, Rith was already a scene of ruin; nothing worse could have befallen it than its current state.

  Once I had barely believed what I was living through. Now I believed deeply that the wrongs committed were tantamount, that the lives of the people within were worth saving and taking, that we had a duty to liberate society, to recreate it.

  *

  I was not among those who escorted the non-combatants off the farm. The original unit was issued that task. Over the course of two weeks that March small groups climbed into the back of the Land Rover and were taken down the fell, then on over to the Pennine towns. Jackie’s network was slim, but she seemed to trust those she had contact with inside the zones. Though they would not fight, the women had agreed to spread word of what she was doing, and attempt to raise local support for any action that might occur there later, after the operation in Rith.

  The separation was more painful than I had thought it would be. Though the unit had become hardened in its conviction, and a line had been drawn through the community, there were friendships over a decade old being severed as the other women left. Watching them embrace and draw apart I wondered briefly if what we were doing was the right course after all; whether it would have been better for us all to remain in Carhullan and pray that we would be left alone, just as some of them had wanted. It felt as if we were sending them towards absolute danger, towards the terrible internment camps of the last century, though I knew it was us who would face the worst of it.

  Helen held Stella in her arms. She cried and struggled and tried to get down. Her mother attempted to comfort her, telling her they were only going for a ride, but the rumble of the Land Rover’s engine had scared her, and she twisted about, looking at the vehicle with fear, then hiding her face away from it. One by one the women came forward and kissed the wet bloom of her cheek, and she knew something was wrong, and the pitch of her wailing increased. She was the youngest of them, the last daughter of Carhullan, and she was being given up for adoption, given over to a world which would not love her as she had been loved here. The women knew it, and some of them turned away, unable to stand witness to the casting out of an infant. Helen cradled her head tenderly as she climbed into the back seat. The door was shut, and the child’s cries were muffled.

  On the second evacuation I said goodbye to Shruti. She stood holding a small bag, looking in my direction, then she came to me, held me to her, and whispered in my ear. She spoke in her first language and I did not understand the words. I felt her warm hands on my scalp, supporting the flesh and bone above my neck, and it felt as if she were holding the full weight of me. I felt heavier than I ever had, full of lead and brass chattel, like the pouches we had carried on the long drag. I wanted to say something to her, but could not. I put my arms round her waist and carefully slipped the necklace back into her pocket. I could not keep it. We had not been intimate for long but she leant up and brushed my mouth softly with her own. I knew I would not see her again. Whatever the success of our campaign, it would not be of sufficient degree to give me the chance to be with her, even if we had desired it.

  She climbed into the Land Rover with the others and Jackie took the driver’s seat, started it up, and pulled away. I watched the vehicle tracking over the steep ground, its tyres biting in to the earth as it hauled across the bields. And then she was gone.

  At the side of the remaining group, Chloe had her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She was crying. Her forehead was buckled and her cheeks sucked in and out. I knew she was upset about more than the departure of some of the colony. She had never been convinced by Jackie’s interpretation of the events to come, nor her strategy, thinking her involved in a deception or conspiracy of some kind. She had never approved of the transformation of Carhullan, or the strong-arm tactics being employed. She felt bullied, and at Jackie’s mercy. The panic showed in her. She was emaciated, her yellow hair was greying, and her once-brown skin looked pale. Even her eyes had been leached of their original hazel. Now they had the trapped, sallow glitter of citrines.

  Since the gorse cutting she had been skittish and furtive, whispering with her husband whenever they were together and looking as if she might break down. Every day she walked out on the fell to look for monitors, and every day she came back and told whichever of us she came across first that there was no sigh of invaders. I was sorry for what had become of her. She was full of fear and paranoia. It made me uncomfortable to see her shouting at Jackie and being pulled back by Martyn, or pleading with the women to listen to her, making a fool of herself. Mostly people avoided her.

  She saw me looking her way. I quickly dropped my eyes so as not to set her off, and tried to walk past, but it was enough of a connection for her to try again. She lunged and caught hold of my wrist as I passed by. ‘Please, Sister, please listen to me,’ she whispered. ‘She’s using you.’ Her breath smelled sour, as if she had not eaten anything that day. Her hand was shaking but her grip was tight. ‘You’ve been groomed by her,’ she said, ‘ever since you got here. Can’t you see it? She’s lying about everything. What you’re doing isn’t right. You’re going to get killed. All of you. And she doesn’t care. She’s so bloody-minded. Please!’

  She looked wildly about her at the women in the courtyard and raised her voice. ‘Why won’t any of you believe me?’ I heard somebody close by snort and then murmur under her breath, ‘Maybe because you’re such a damn hysteric, you stupid bitch.’

  I unfastened Chloe’s grip and took her hand away. I couldn’t bear to have her close to me when she behaved like this, and I could feel anger rising in me, the urge to lash out. I pushed her back and walked across the courtyard towards the house. ‘You’re a fool, Sister,’ she shrieked after me. ‘She’s got into your head! She’s pulling your strings. And you don’t even know it, do you?’

  That night Chloe and Martyn disappeared. Nobody heard them leaving, but in the morning they did not come into the farmhouse for breakfast. When Jackie found out they were missing she checked the storage sheds for a break-in, then gathered the unit in the courtyard. ‘I would really appreciate seeing Sister Chloe and Brother Martyn back here,’ she said, ‘and if that means cutting their fucking feet off and carrying them back, then do it. If they’ve gone, they’ve gone. It doesn’t change anything for us. We’ve worked too hard to have this jeopardised.’ Her tone was even, controlled, but I could see her jaw was tense, and her face was bloodless. Her eyes were unblinking, stark and lashless as a jackdaw’s.

  She took a rifle from the store, saddled one of the fell ponies and took off in the direction of the croft settlement. The pony cantered away in the low cloud. About a hundred feet out on the moor she spurred it into a gallop and disappeared.

  Lillian leant over to me. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘Chloe must have snapped. She’s well and truly asking for it now. What the hell was she thinking? And what are we supposed to do? Break her legs and haul her back here?’ I shrugged. ‘Yes, we are. If they’re planning a tip-off, or if they get picked up an
d they let something slip, it’ll be us paying the price. We can’t afford to let her go.’ Lillian arched her eyebrows. ‘You’re sounding a lot like Jacks these days,’ she said, but she was nodding in agreement.

  I set out with her, Nnenna, and the fourth in our patrol, Corinne, who had worked at the hives before joining Jackie. We had been together for the last eleven months, stationed on point at night, running mock fire raids and demolitions, or sniping at another patrol from the cover of the long blond grass. We could anticipate each other’s timing and I was used to the musk of sweat buried in their clothing, seeing them undressed, showering, or defecating near the foxholes we had dug. I felt as unselfconscious around them as I ever had. I knew them intimately, elementally, almost as well as I knew myself. And I understood that my life would depend on them when we attacked Rith.

  We walked towards the tarn, ran a circuit of its glinting granite edges, and then followed the dry-stone walls as they descended into the valley, keeping a distance from each other, communicating with hand gestures. Scouting with them had become second nature and I was used to this procedure, but it had not been vested with immediate purpose or consequence until that day. It felt different. It felt essential and important. The adrenalin made me tense and sharp, and I was glad to have something other than Shruti’s absence to think about. I knew that after months of training, we were finally being mobilised and activated. It was sudden and it was a difficult prospect, not how we had expected to commence with the plan, but we were all keener and quicker over the rough ground because of it.

  There was no sign of the couple anywhere. They had several hours’ head start and were perhaps as far as the reservoir if they had been heading to Blackrigg in search of someone to contact, or were following the overgrown tarmac roads further into the district. We continued down into Vaughsteele. The village was almost submerged by bushes, creepers and rhododendron. Wild dog roses were out already, vying for space in the earth. After the barren expanses of the fells, the landscape of heathers and bracken, the valley’s green interior looked overdressed. The birds flitting between the forked twigs were red-beaked and unrecognisable. I checked each abandoned cottage, forcing the doors and windows if they were locked, and moving rapidly through the damp musty rooms. In each of the houses I put my hand into the grate of the fireplace to feel for heat, smuts still alive from a fire the previous night. They were all cold.

  Part of me could not blame them for trying to get away. Jackie had offered us few choices within her scheme, and Chloe did not have the stomach for conflict. Nor did she want to leave the fells. It was obvious that Martyn would have been happy to remain in the mountains, eking out an existence; catching fish, growing turnips and cutting firewood, living like a pauper, and remaining independent and Unofficial until that status too was revoked. I was not without sympathy. But in my gut I knew what they had done was small-minded, and inexcusable. I knew they had failed to see the importance of Jackie’s operation.

  We circled the village a final time and made our way back to Carhullan via the long southern route. We found the two of them sitting behind a small hummock, leaning close together. One of Chloe’s boots had been taken off. Martyn had his arm around her. She was weeping softly. He looked up as we approached. ‘She’s twisted her ankle,’ he said. ‘She can’t walk any further.’ His eyes were glassy and disconnected. I could see that any determination he had had was spent. Corinne and Nnenna left to find Jackie while I waited with Lillian. Martyn crooned to Chloe, soothing her, and after a few minutes she became quiet and seemed to be asleep on his shoulder. Nobody spoke. On the banks of the grassland all around us were small orange flowers. I stared down at Chloe’s white foot, thrust out in front of her, until it looked like something other. Until it was abhorrent, and did not seem human.

  An hour later I heard the dull thump of hooves. Jackie rode up behind us. The pony was lathered with sweat and looked exhausted. She wheeled it round on the spot and then dismounted. ‘Go back to the farm,’ she said to us. ‘I need to speak to them alone. Go on now.’ Chloe was crying again, and cowered against her husband. Lillian hung back but I walked off, and after a few moments she followed me.

  As we were neared the ridge, I heard two gunshots. The sound echoed at a distance, the rip of its tail left long around the hills, but it was unmistakable. Lillian had stopped dead, and was rooted to the spot. Her hands were linked at the back of her head, her elbows almost touching in front of her face, and I could not make out the cast of her features. I walked on again. By the time we returned to the compound she was composed, but for the rest of that day there was a short lag between what was said to her and her responses. When Jackie got back the unit reconvened in the courtyard. She said nothing more about the episode, nor did anyone else. It was apparent that the matter was closed.

  Before we were loaded into the back of the wagon, before we left Carhullan for the final time, I went to the spot where we had found Chloe and Martyn. I saw a mound of newly turned earth. It was a large grave, almost too big for two bodies. I knew I was complicit in their deaths. I knew it, and I did not feel any guilt. I did not feel remorse. I knew that it had needed doing. But in the nightmares I have had since then, the pit has been filled with the bodies of all those who left the farm, all those I have loved. My father, and Andrew. Shruti.

  *

  There was no other collateral damage at Carhullan. A small contingency stayed on to cater for those involved in the operation, Ruthie and Lorry among them. There was a dwindling store of food. The turkeys that had once roosted at night in the orchard trees, purring to each other and folding their beaks into their plumes, were now gone. There had been no breeding season for the livestock, and much of it had been slaughtered. Only the hefted sheep had been allowed to produce young, and they had been left up on the tops. We’d seen them as we hiked, ragged and virile on the summits, peering haughtily at us from the edge of the bluffs.

  We still ate well, but there was a sense of rationing, of counting out the stocks and calculating how long they would sustain us. Every meal felt as if it might be our last, but every mouthful of mutton and venison tasted better, the early greenhouse currants were tart and exquisite on our tongues. The visits to the men occurred more often and were more thrilling. The bouts of wrestling were more spirited, and the fights continued on after the end of a round had been signalled. I could see it in everyone’s eyes: the polished glitter, the ephedrine of anticipation.

  And I felt it too. I could look at the gashes on my hands and see a grotesque attraction in them. I could put the tip of my tongue into the open red slit and taste the salt of myself there. When Calum and I fucked, it was without restraint, it was base and raw, and I left marks on him. We were living at the edge, and everything was amplified; it was beautiful, and it was rancid.

  On my birthday, as I undressed beside the copper tub, I looked in the mirror and saw the change in my body, the metamorphosis that had occurred. My head was bald, newly shaved again, and a shadow of follicles ran the reverse globe of it. My skin had darkened almost to beech. I was leaner, had lost weight and gained muscle – there were lattices along my arms and back, docks around my shoulders and above my knees. Along my collarbone was a tattooed blue line. I had sat sweating in front of the dormitory stove while Megan scored my skin and rubbed the ink in.

  It was the anatomy of a fanatic. It was the same body the rest of the unit had fashioned for themselves. They had seemed wild to me when I’d first seen them, Corky, Megan and the others, like creatures, both natural and rarefied, but now I was no different from them. If we had stood together on the shoreline two thousand years before, facing the invading ships with fire in our hands and screaming for them to come, they would have called us Furies, and they would have been afraid.

  I liked what I saw in the clouded mirror and I was shocked by it. She was a stranger to me, this woman opposite, and yet I saw the truth of her. She moved when I moved, bent to turn off the taps as I did. Her face resembled the one I had s
loughed off when I came to Carhullan, but it was newer, stronger. She was my anima.

  Lorry knocked on the door while I lay soaking. She came in to the room, sat on the edge of the bath and looked down at me, smiling, her brow pinched in. I could see that she was in pain. She was sixty-three, and looked much older than she had. In the year and a half that I had known her she’d become more arthritic and less mobile. She crooked herself forward when she walked, favouring her bad hip. She continued to care for us as she always had. But we were stronger than we had been, fitter, hardy of constitution; we knew how to repair ourselves in the field, and in this respite she had allowed time to catch up.

  ‘This is yours,’ she said, and held out a small metal pin on her palm. I lifted my hand from the warm water and took the coil from her. ‘You had it? I wasn’t sure who did. I thought it was long gone.’ She nodded. ‘I borrowed it. I needed something to remind me of why I came here too, Sister, while all this was going on. I hope you don’t mind. I thought it was about time I gave it back. But you haven’t forgotten anything, have you?’ I shook my head. The memory of its implanting was still vivid, as was my escape from Rith. I could remember the first days in the house, being given the oatmeal with butter, and the apple, the wonder of it as I bit down into its flesh. I remembered ghosting to the bathroom, the soiled sheets in my arms, and the strained concentrating face of Lorry as she took the regulator out. Holding it between my fingers, it was hard to believe that I had ever had it inside me.

  Lorry was still smiling. ‘Yeah, you’re ready.’