“Army lives. But how many innocent people have been killed resisting you before they knew what was going on?”
He shrugged. “A few.”
“Even one is too many. Your job is to risk your lives to keep them safe, but you’re risking their lives to keep yourselves safe. And if you do that you lose what little authority that uniform gives you. The boy behind me is eleven. Look what this world has driven him to. Look what you’re driving him to. Someone is going to die here in a moment – you, me or an eleven-year-old boy – if you don’t start acting like a proper soldier. And I’d really, really like it if no-one else died today. So be a dear, Jim, and put the bloody gun down.”
“Him first,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. It was hard to know who was the bigger child, the soldier or the schoolboy.
I glared at him and said: “Rowles, lower your gun please.”
“But what if he shoots you, Matron?”
“He won’t.”
“I can take him, Matron. Just say the word.”
A momentary flash of disbelief crossed the captain’s face.
“Oh, he’s not lying, Captain,” I said.
“Listen, son,” said the soldier.
“No no no!” I interrupted, frantically signalling him to stop. “Don’t do that. Don’t.”
There was a long pause and then Rowles said: “I don’t like people in uniforms telling me what to do.” The emotionless calm in his voice told the captain everything he needed to know about Rowles’ state of mind and why it would be a really bad idea to patronise him.
“Rowles,” I said firmly. “you’ve never disobeyed a direct order from me, or moaned once if you don’t like an order I’ve given. As long as I let you say your piece before I make up my mind you let me make the call. Right?”
“You listen and you’re fair. I trust you.”
“Trust me now and put down the gun. That’s an order.”
After a moment’s hesitation I heard the sound of his gun being uncocked. That was half the battle. Now which way would the captain jump?
“He’s eleven years old,” I said quietly. “You’ve invaded his home and kidnapped his friends at gunpoint. He’s done nothing wrong, nothing you wouldn’t have done in the same situation. This is your fault, Captain. Your actions led us here. And your actions will determine whether this ends peacefully or not. I don’t think you want the blood of children on your hands, do you?”
The captain was staring at the floor, at poor dead Julie, his jaw clenched, furious and armed and eager to avenge the death of a soldier under his command.
“No, I don’t,” he said eventually. But it was an effort, I could tell.
“Good,” I said. “Then here’s what we’re going to do. Rowles, throw your gun over here.”
He did so.
“Captain, lower your gun and uncuff me. Then we’ll walk out of here, brew up a nice cup of tea, have some of Mrs Atkins’ flapjack and sort this out like civilised adults.”
The captain half laughed, a mixture of amusement and warning. Then he nodded.
I breathed a sigh of relief as he withdrew his gun from my stomach.
But I was a fool.
Quick as a flash he stepped sideways and opened fire at the staircase behind me. The noise was unbearably loud in that enclosed chamber. I whirled to see what was happening and felt something hot and sharp hit my left ear. I caught a glimpse of Rowles diving to his right, gun in hand, muzzle flaring. The light bulb was shot out and we were plunged into darkness, lit only by strobe flashes of gunfire.
I should have dived for cover, but I was frozen in place. I should have shouted for them to stop, but my teeth were too tightly clenched.
I don’t know how many rounds were fired, but I heard the captain give a low grunt and the gunfire stopped. All that was left was the ringing in my ears and the soft thud as someone hit the floor.
“Matron!” shouted Rowles in the darkness. It wasn’t a cry for help, he was desperate to know that I was okay, which meant that it was the captain lying on the ground.
“I’m here, I’m fine. Quick, find the keys to the cuffs, they’re in his top right breast pocket.”
“Okay.” I heard him fumbling about in the dark. There was no point shouting at him now, but something was going to have to be done about that boy. He was leaving far too many corpses in his wake. I worried what he’d be like without me to keep him in check.
I heard the jingle of keys and Rowles began feeling around for my wrists.
“Oi! Hands!”
“Sorry Matron.”
“Do you always carry two guns?” I asked as he unlocked the cuffs.
“Three. One for show, one in my boot, one in my trousers.”
I crouched, found the captain, and took his pulse. He was alive, just about. I grabbed his gun and stood up.
“How many?” I asked.
“Two in the courtyard, one at the front door.”
“I meant, how many did you kill?”
“Oh, um.” There was silence as he did a little bit of mental arithmetic. “Five, including this one.”
“Jesus, five!? How the hell did you manage that?”
“There were three of them on the perimeter, in the woods.” He sounded confused. Why was I asking such a pointless question? “I did them one at a time. Quietly. Then the girl, then him.”
“We’re going to have a very long, very serious talk about this when we’re done, young man.”
“Yes, Matron.”
“But for now, options?”
“You’ve got one option,” said a voice from the hall upstairs. “And that’s to walk up these stairs with your hands above your heads and surrender. Or I toss a grenade down there and blow you to pieces.”
I HELD THE scalpel in my hand and looked at the mess in front of me.
The captain had taken two bullets to the chest and there was massive damage. His breath was just a soft, raspy whisper, laboured and painful. I knew there was nothing I could do to save this man’s life. He was dead already.
I didn’t have any of the equipment I needed to try and stabilise him, but at least I had a blood donor – Green, the school’s senior boy and an avowed pacifist who never touched a gun, had volunteered.
I stood in the enormous kitchen and looked across the operating table, which was really just a big wooden kitchen table that I’d washed with alcohol and spread a clean sheet over. The sharp tang of the alcohol mixed with the iron smell of the captain’s blood and burnt my nostrils. The only light came from the window but the sun had come out and was streaming through the old mottled glass.
Green was lying on a couch that we’d dragged to the far side of the table, a tube coming out of his arm snaking its way into the captain’s. Beyond him, in front of the Aga, stood the young soldier who’d assumed command after his C.O. had been shot. His eyes were wild with shock, and his face was pale. He was only a kid, barely in his twenties, and he was nervous and twitchy. But he had Rowles kneeling on the cold floor tiles, with his hands handcuffed to a radiator, and a gun aimed at the back of his head. Rowles seemed only mildly concerned, as if this was a minor inconvenience rather than the last minute of his life.
“I mean it,” shouted the soldier, barely in control of himself, his thick Bradford accent sounding strangely out of place. “You said you were a doctor. You save the captain or I execute the boy right here. Then you. If he dies, you die.”
There was nothing I could do. I needed to buy some time, think of a way out of this. So I raised the scalpel and made the first incision.
And with a low groan, the captain died.
CHAPTER NINE
I REMEMBER THE day Kate decided to become a doctor. She was nine years old.
It was a cold, wet Sunday morning and her gran had taken her to the local swimming pool. It was a grotty, run down place with cracked tiles and graffiti on the doors of the changing cubicles, but she loved it there. There was a girl from her school called April, and they would
meet there and splash around every week. I remember that they were always giggling. Their shrill little voices must have echoed around that pool and driven all the adults nuts, but they didn’t know or care. Kate’s gran just sat there watching them with an indulgent smile.
The pool attendant was supposed to stop anyone running on the slick, wet tiles, but he couldn’t be bothered. He was too busy chatting up bored mums. That morning he was nowhere to be seen.
Anyway, that Sunday, April and Kate were having a splash fight in the shallow end. It wasn’t that busy, there were about ten or fifteen people in the pool and a collection of parents reading the Sunday papers on the hard wooden benches. There was one guy swimming lengths. He was fast and energetic, obviously there for exercise rather than fun. He was bald and slightly pudgy, and he was red in the face as he swam past them, gasping for air.
I remember Kate doing an impression of him – rolling her eyes up, pouting like a guppy and turning her face puce – and making April laugh. Then suddenly the man was thrashing about in the water, gurgling and trying to shout for help. Kate didn’t know what was going on, but April surprised her by shouting loudly: “Help! Someone get a doctor!”
Kate’s GP was Doctor Cox, a small sweaty man who smelt of boiled sweets. She neither liked nor disliked him, he was just a fact of life – the guy who gave her injections and took her temperature when she had flu. Kate couldn’t imagine how he’d be able help a drowning man.
Then this mumsy woman with short blonde hair came running out of the pool attendant’s changing room wearing only her bra and pants, and dived cleanly into the water. She swam to the man and wrestled him to the side, keeping his head above water. By the time she’d got him to the edge the attendant had joined her, pulling on his t-shirt as he ran. Together they heaved the man on to the side and the woman knelt down beside him. A little gaggle of curious bystanders gathered to watch.
“Give me room,” shouted the woman. “I’m a doctor.”
The man was blue by now, but she was calm and efficient as she took his pulse, massaged his chest and administered CPR.
“Call 999, this man’s having a heart attack,” she said. The attendant hurried away.
As she worked, the colour gradually returned to the man’s face and he seemed to stabilise. By the time the ambulance arrived it looked like he was going to be okay. The doctor kept working on him until he was stretchered away. And then, when they were gone, she was just a bedraggled middle-aged woman standing by a grotty pool in soggy, see-through undies.
But she was the coolest, most heroic person Kate ever seen.
April sniggered and said: “Her tits are all saggy.”
“I want to be just like her,” Kate said. Then she turned her back on April and swam away.
“HE’S HAVING A heart attack,” I shouted, dropping the scalpel on to the table.
The squaddie snarled at me through gritted teeth: “Fix it or the boy dies.”
He was serious, but Rowles didn’t look worried as he knelt there with a gun to his head, waiting to die. He just looked bored.
“I need help,” I said desperately.
“Get him to do it,” replied the squaddie, gesturing to Green, who sat beside the captain, auto transfusing to try and maintain his blood pressure.
“If I disconnect him, the captain will die. Now come here!” My tone of command worked.
Stressed and panicky, the soldier stepped to the opposite side of the table and laid his gun alongside his stricken C.O.
“All right, what do I do?”
Over his shoulder I saw Rowles, handcuffed to a radiator, miming to Green that he should tackle our captor. But Green just shook his head and stayed where he was. Rowles cast his eyes skywards, looked at me and shrugged. Green also looked at me, apologetically.
Green was a gentle boy, sensitive and artistic, but during MacKillick’s reign at the school he had been forced to do the most awful things. In the end he’d snapped and shot his tormentor to death, emptying an entire clip into him. Since then he’d been passive and withdrawn, totally refusing to take part in any of the patrols that defended the school. He looked at the gun on the table, within easy reach, but I knew he’d never make a grab for it.
So it was down to me.
But the soldier was on the opposite side of the table.
I started to massage the captain’s chest, pushing down rhythmically, one two three, making it look good. I considered the young man in the uniform. He couldn’t be more than twenty, so he’d probably only just joined the army when The Cull hit. His manner didn’t exactly scream high intellect. He was an uneducated, inexperienced, scared young man. Just the kind of person my school was intended to help. But he had a gun, a twitchy trigger finger and he was threatening my children. I didn’t think I could talk him down or overpower him. Which didn’t leave me many options.
“We need to shock him,” I gasped.
“With what?”
“I dunno, Sherlock. Improvise!”
“But there’s no fucking power, is there!” He looked around the room, frantic.
I pointed at a large battery-powered torch on the sideboard. “Get that,” I said.
He reached over and got it. If only it had been a little further away I’d have made a grab for the gun, but there wasn’t time.
“Now smash the bulb,” I instructed, “switch it on and when I say so, shove it into his chest.”
“But it’ll cut him.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I yelled, “do you want him to die or not?”
“Okay, okay.”
He cracked the glass on the table side and stood there, poised, with the torch in his hands, ready to save his captain’s life.
“No,” I said, leaning across the table and moving his hands so that the torch was over the captains’s left breast. “There.”
He nodded as I leant back over to my side of the table.
It took him a second to realise that I’d stopped working on the captain. Another half a second to notice the sticky wetness at his throat. Then he saw the scalpel in my hand.
“Torches don’t work like that,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“But...”
“You left me no choice.”
He stepped back and dropped the torch to the floor.
“But...”
“He’s already dead, I’m afraid.”
The young soldier reached up to his throat and his hands came away covered in blood.
“Benefits of medical training,” I said sadly. “It only takes the tiniest cut in the right place.”
He looked confused and upset, as if I’d said something that had really hurt his feelings. His face crumpled.
“I couldn’t let you hurt my children,” I explained.
His legs gave way and he crashed to the floor.
I walked around the table, knelt down, lifted his head and cradled it in my lap, stroking his hair.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Everything’s ok now. Don’t be afraid. You’re fine.”
“Really?” He sounded hopeful and relieved. “That’s good.”
His eyes glazed over, he wheezed, and he was gone.
There I was in my surgery, the place where I was supposed to mend broken people, with blood on my hands for all the wrong reasons.
And I wasn’t finished yet.
I STEPPED INTO the courtyard with my hands in my pockets.
It sits on the west, with the house on one side, stables on another, mews buildings on the third, and a wall with large wooden gates on the fourth. The floor was cobbled and muddy. In the centre of the courtyard stood all the children and staff of my school, lined up and standing to attention with their hands on their heads, watched over by two soldiers who kept their machine guns trained on them at all times.
There was Mrs Atkins, the dinner lady. With her florid face, ample bosom and floury apron she looked like a character from a Carry On film, but she was cunning and determined when she needed to be. The boys ado
red her unconditionally.
Beside her stood her husband Justin, a tall, stick-thin man with thick grey hair and a hawk-like nose. Quiet and soft spoken, I didn’t know much about him except that he used to be a customer service manager for BT, had lost a wife and two children in The Cull, and he made Mrs Atkins’ hair curl (her words).
Then there was Caroline, Rowles’ partner in crime. I’d never seen them hold hands or kiss, so I wasn’t sure if they were what you’d call boyfriend and girlfriend, but they were inseparable and she was almost as scary as he was. Almost.
There were also twenty-one surviving boys from the original St Mark’s, fifteen girls who’d joined me when I’d been hiding from MacKillick, the strays we’d rescued that morning, plus three teaching staff who’d joined us from the nearby community of Hildenborough.
These were my people, my responsibility, my family. I’d killed to protect them before and I’d do it again.
The two soldiers guarding them were young – a man about the same age as the one lying dead on the surgery floor, and an older woman, about twenty-five. I’d describe them, but in their uniforms and helmets, in that gloomy brick-lined square, I’m ashamed to say that nothing leapt out at me. They were just soldiers, that’s all.
Maybe I deliberately didn’t look too closely.
Mrs Atkins smiled at me as I entered, but her smile quickly faded when she saw how much blood had soaked into my clothes.
The female soldier saw me then and brought her gun to bear. She was to my left, about eight or nine metres away, at eleven o’clock. Her male colleague was hidden behind the hostages but I knew he was to my right at about one o’clock, in the far corner.
“Don’t move,” yelled the woman.
I stopped moving.
“Where’s Rich?” she asked.
“Do you mean the young man who took charge?”
“Where is he?”
“Dead. Your C.O. too. Sorry.” I meant the apology, but I can see how that wouldn’t have mattered to her.
“Why you...” She took one step forward. There was a sharp echoing crack and one of the cobbles at her feet splintered into flying shards. She froze.
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