Liberator

by Richard Harland

  Col pulled on a black jumper over his shirt. He put on a pair of dark breeches, not quite the same cut as the Filthies’ loose pants but hopefully not too noticeable. For blackening his face, he had to request assistance from Septimus and the Professor.

  Professor Twillip didn’t approve of wasting good black ink on such an unscholarly enterprise, but his benevolence was stronger than his disapproval. He and Septimus used blotting paper to dab all over Col’s face until there wasn’t a patch of white skin left. If Col didn’t look quite like a Filthy, at least he no longer looked like a Swank.

  He made his way back down to Thirty-First Deck. He had to tell himself to walk like a Filthy and resist the urge to lower his head.

  There was no one around in the corridors on Thirty-First Deck, and at first Col thought the attack teams must have already gone down in the scoops. Then he discovered they’d assembled in separate rooms. He hung around the doorway of one particular room where Dunga stood addressing her team. Her face was also blackened, but he recognised her voice and her close-cropped hair.

  She was demonstrating the way to work a rifle. She showed how to load a clip of bullets, how to flick the safety catch on and off, how to press the butt into one’s shoulder, aim and fire. Col remembered how he, Riff and Fossie had discovered the way to work a rifle at the time of the Liberation.

  There were about thirty members in her team. After a while, the Filthies began to practise with their own rifles. Not having one, Col stayed and watched from outside. Merging in was going to be more of a problem than he’d anticipated.

  When the practice was over, Dunga produced a sheet of paper and began calling out names. It was a rollcall for the members of her team. One Filthy after another answered ‘Here!’ Col was thankful he hadn’t tried to sneak into the room.

  Then the rollcall stalled. ‘Megra . . . Megra? . . . Megra?’

  Wherever Megra was, she wasn’t responding. A hubbub of discussion rose among the Filthies in the room. ‘Did anyone tell her?’ ‘I thought you had.’ ‘Haven’t seen her to tell.’

  Someone called out to Dunga. ‘Shall we go look for her?’

  ‘No time.’ Dunga shook her head. ‘We’ll be one short, that’s all.’

  She obviously wasn’t happy about it. As she continued the rollcall, a glimmer of hope lifted Col’s spirits. Dunga needed one more person to make up the numbers. Would she accept him as a volunteer?

  He liked Dunga, while she . . . well, at least she didn’t hate him. She was a moderate like Riff, and more sympathetic to Swanks than other members of Council. It was worth a try.

  He moved a little further down the corridor, and lay in wait. Five minutes, ten minutes . . . at last, the preparations were over and Dunga’s team streamed out from the doorway.

  He watched for Dunga out of the corner of his eye. As the Filthies brushed past, he let himself get swept up by the crowd and fell in alongside her.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  She looked at him, then looked again. ‘Porpentine?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Your team’s one short. Let me take Megra’s place.’

  ‘You’re a Swank.’

  ‘I’m on your side.’

  ‘You don’t have a gun.’

  ‘Do you want me to have a gun?’

  Dunga thought about it. ‘No.’

  A No for the gun, but a Yes for taking Megra’s place? Col couldn’t tell.

  Dunga remained tight-lipped as they marched on. She still hadn’t answered by the time they arrived at the entrance to one of the sorting trays.

  Col took the plunge. ‘So? Am I in?’

  ‘Okay. Just don’t make a show of yourself.’

  A single scoop lowered the Filthies to the ground, twenty at a time. Dunga’s team was the last to go down, and had to march fast to catch up with the others. Some of the team carried gunnybags as well as rifles, bags that made clinking metallic sounds as they marched.

  Dunga led them round by the stern of the juggernaut. By now, the sliver of moon had sunk out of the sky and twinkling stars were the sole source of light. The vast cylindrical shapes of the juggernaut’s rollers loomed high over their heads in the dark.

  Beyond the slipway, the ground turned into a glutinous paste of mud and coal dust, which sucked at their feet and made every step a struggle. Col marched close behind Dunga and ahead of the rest of the team. Only Dunga knew he was a Swank, and he aimed to keep it that way.

  The Botany Bay buildings and pyramids of coal were a jumble of indistinct shadows. They passed engines of some kind on their right, all lumps and domes, like quietly sleeping beasts. After a while, the ground became more irregular, until they were walking up and over a series of parallel ridges. Between the ridges, they splashed in and out of puddles. There were many stumbles and muttered curses.

  ‘Stop!’ Riff’s voice called out from the front. ‘We wait here.’

  The first team had reached a line of steel tanks, half-buried in the earth. One by one, the other teams came up and ducked down. Some Filthies found dry spots for sitting; the rest squatted on their heels and leaned back against the tanks. There were patches of black oil on the ground and a thick, oily smell in the air.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ Col asked Dunga.

  ‘Dawn.’ Dunga never used two words where one would do.

  She gathered her team and divided them into smaller squads of five or six. Col noticed there was one gunnybag in every squad. He stood with the members of his squad, silent and uncomfortable while they chatted among themselves.

  It wasn’t long before the first hint of dawn crept up into the sky. A dim light outlined a chain of hills behind the pyramids of coal. Riff called the attack force to readiness.

  ‘You know the plan,’ she told them. ‘We fix the barracks, move on to the Residence and take hostages. Especially the Governor and his wife – we want them captured and alive. You’ve got guns, but try not to use them. Minimal bloodshed.’

  They filed forward again, passing between the tanks. Ahead lay the rounded, corrugated-iron buildings of the barracks. They fell into the same order as before, with Riff’s team at the front and Dunga’s at the rear. Col wondered what Riff meant when she said ‘fix the barracks’.

  All was quiet and deserted, with no sign of any guards. The soldiers and officers must all be asleep in their beds. The teams moved with increasing caution as they approached the buildings. They kept to the bare soft earth and avoided the gravel paths.

  Then the teams split up into squads. Dunga pointed and whispered. ‘Take the window end there.’ ‘You take the door end.’ ‘Window end.’ ‘Door end.’

  Squad after squad glided away in the darkness. Dunga directed her last two squads towards a third building. ‘Window end.’ ‘Door end.’

  Every building was constructed to exactly the same pattern. Continuous curved sheets of corrugated iron formed the sides and roof, but the ends were filled in with brick. A window pierced the brick at one end and a door gave access at the other.

  Col was happy to see that Dunga had included herself in the final squad, which was also his squad. There were five other Filthies in it, including one with a broken pug-nose who carried a gunnybag.

  Dunga stepped up and pressed an ear to the door. A long moment later, she nodded with satisfaction; obviously there was no one moving or stirring within.

  She gestured to the pug-nosed man, who lowered his bag to the ground, undid the drawstring and brought out a metal clamp, a wrench and a length of chain. Dunga signalled to Col to come forward and assist.

  The pug-nosed man loosened the screw of the clamp, then pointed to the projecting frame that ran around the door. Col got the idea. He took the clamp and held it over the frame in the place indicated. The man used the wrench to tighten the screw, twisting and turnin
g until the clamp gripped fast.

  Dunga looked after the next part of the operation, fastening the chain tight around the clamp and the doorhandle. No one from within would be able to turn the handle, Col realised. They were locking the soldiers and officers in their own barracks!

  The chain was only the beginning of it. There were more items of equipment in the bag. The pug-nosed man and Col fixed another eight clamps onto the frame. Then Dunga took up a spool of wire and wound it back and forth from clamp to clamp, taut as a spider’s web over the doorway. A final clamp pinned it to the frame.

  The only miscalculation was when the pug-nosed man snipped off the end of the wire with a pair of pliers. The springy metal flew back and whipped against the door with a sharp swack!

  The other Filthies trained their rifles on the door. Had the sound been heard within? Dunga bent forward against the web, and listened. When she straightened, she was giving a thumbs-up.

  ‘Deaf as posts,’ she whispered with a grin.

  The whole operation had taken just five minutes. Already the other squads were reassembling around Riff in the centre of the barracks area.

  ‘Like rats in a trap,’ said the pug-nosed man, walking beside Col. ‘They won’t get out of that in a hurry.’

  Col only grunted agreement. He was afraid his Swank accent would give him away if he spoke more.

  Every door and every window had been webbed over with wire. Elated with success, the Filthies no longer bothered to keep their voices down. Riff called for hush.

  ‘What’s the need?’ someone objected. ‘They can’t stop us now.’

  ‘Quiet!’ ordered Dunga and the other team leaders.

  In the silence that followed, a faint sound could be heard. Music? It seemed to come from the direction of the Residence.

  ‘They’re havin’ a party,’ someone suggested.

  ‘Not much longer, they ain’t.’

  There were a few laughs, while others shook their heads and looked puzzled.

  Riff raised and swung her arm. ‘Makes no difference. Come on.’

  Emerging from the barracks area, they saw that there was indeed a party going on. Lights blazed in the upper-storey windows of the Residence; silvery notes of music floated on the air. Was it the tail-end of a party that had been going all night? But why hadn’t they heard it earlier?

  Between the barracks and the Residence, the ground was low-lying and boggy. They kept close to the embankment, where a line of wooden duckboards served as a causeway. Their weight on the duckboards made the mud squish and squelch as they walked.

  The light in the sky was spreading, but the sun hadn’t yet appeared. On their right was the storage area with its stacks of miscellaneous rusty objects. Everything remained indistinct in the gloom.

  As they advanced, the music grew louder and more martial. The party certainly wasn’t dying down yet. On the contrary, it seemed to be spilling upwards onto the flat-topped roof. Figures moved around lighting tiny coloured lamps that hung in strings from the awning. All very festive . . .

  The Filthies sped up to a jog. No need for any word of command; everyone understood the risk of being spotted from the roof.

  And the party guests were coming out on top. Not servants, but officers, ladies and gentlemen, laughing and talking in loud voices. Some carried drinks, others carried lanterns.

  They must be drunk not to have noticed the Filthies already. Faster, faster, Col urged the attack force on in his head.

  The marble steps were just a short dash away when Riff raised and swung her arm to signal the start of the assault.

  ‘Now! Fire at will!’

  For one second, Col couldn’t adjust to the fact that the voice was male. The command hadn’t come from Riff at all.

  In the next second, the lanterns on the roof of the Residence lined up and redirected their beams upon the Filthies.

  A second later, and there was a clatter of falling metal from the storage stacks. Ten, twenty, a hundred soldiers flung aside their cover and raised rifles to their shoulders.

  On the other side, even more heads and rifles stuck out over the top of the embankment.

  Then they were firing – flash after flash after flash, so many cracks of gunfire that it was like rolling thunder. Bullets sang through the air and smashed into flesh and bone. Filthies screamed and staggered and slumped to the ground.

  They had become the rats in a trap!

  Only Riff’s quick thinking saved them from total massacre. ‘Get down!’ she yelled. ‘Use the duckboards!’

  They threw themselves down on all fours and grabbed at the duckboards. They levered them up from the sucking mud and held them raised like a fence.

  ‘Double up! Double up!’ Col heard Dunga’s voice bellowing in his ear.

  They slid the duckboards forwards or back to form fences on both sides. Now they were better protected, but isolated in a score of separate refuges. The initial storm of gunfire died away.

  They knew we were coming, thought Col. We locked up the barracks with nobody in it.

  He supported one duckboard with his arms and the other on his shoulder. Crouching or kneeling in the same refuge were Dunga, the pug-nosed man and two other Filthies. The duckboards gave them cover to a height of three feet only.

  The soldiers held their fire, momentarily baffled. There were cries of disappointment from the roof of the Residence.

  ‘Don’t stop!’

  ‘Give them what for!’

  Col applied his eye to the nearest slot between the boards of the duckboard. The officers, ladies and gentlemen hung out over the ironwork railing and watched the fighting with obvious relish. The officers held and directed the lanterns; the ladies and gentlemen sipped from their glasses and nibbled party snacks.

  Unfortunately, the slots between the boards were not only a means of looking out – as the officers soon realised.

  ‘Aim for the gaps, lads! Pick them off! Show your marksmanship!’

  The shooting began again, more measured this time. Bullets splintered the wood of the duckboards – and, inevitably, some penetrated the slots. There was a howl of pain from one of the other refuges, then another.

  The ladies and gentlemen applauded and clinked glasses.

  ‘Oh, well done!’

  ‘Good shot, that man!’

  The shooting continued. Every now and then, there was a yelp, a shriek, a moan.

  Col turned to Dunga. ‘They’ll get us all in the end. We have to do something.’

  But Dunga was listening to something else. ‘What’s that noise?’

  Col refocused his attention. She meant a noise away to their left, a noise on the other side of the embankment. Dull and muffled, clamorous like an ocean . . .

  ‘Must be the convicts,’ he said.

  Dunga had already reached the same conclusion. ‘The fighting’s stirred ’em up.’

  ‘Sounds like they’re going crazy,’ Col agreed.

  The noise rose until it drowned out the applause from the roof of the Residence – though not the crack-crack of rifle fire. The convicts must be hollering at the tops of their voices. Col had a sudden desperate idea.

  He spoke to the pug-nosed man on his other side. ‘Have you still got your tools with you?’

  There was no reply. But Col felt around and found the shape of the gunnybag beside the man’s knee.

  ‘Okay if I take your tools?’

  Still no reply. Col looked again. The man was kneeling, leaning forward with his head against the duckboard. Was he propping it up, or was it propping him?

  Col pushed at his shoulder and his head lolled sideways. At first, Col could hardly see in the half-light, but then he did. There was a hole in the centre of the man’s forehead, round and red-edged. Blood trickled down the sides of h
is nose, over his mouth and chin. He had been shot, and died without uttering a sound.

  Col shuddered. They’d all be dead if he didn’t act fast. He picked up the bag and turned to Dunga.

  ‘The convicts,’ he said. ‘We have to get over there and set them free.’

  Dunga grunted. ‘A distraction?’

  ‘A new front in the fighting.’

  ‘We’ll be shot before we can go ten yards.’

  ‘Right. But if we can go ten yards – look.’

  He directed Dunga’s gaze back over the route they’d come. Dunga’s team had been at the rear of the attack force when the ambush began, and now they were furthest away from the beams of the lanterns. It was only a short distance before the light petered out altogether.

  Dunga nodded. ‘Go back around? Across the embankment?’

  ‘What have we got to lose?’

  ‘You and me, then.’ She looked along the passage between the duckboards. ‘Clear a way.’ She raised her voice. ‘We’re coming through.’

  She didn’t move, however, except for a sudden small jerk. She let out a grunt of surprise.

  Col didn’t need to see the blood to know she’d been hit. She was holding her leg above the knee, gripping hard. An artery?

  ‘You’re on your own,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘Go.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Go.’

  Col went. He clambered over her legs, and over the legs of the other two Filthies.

  At the end of the duckboards, he paused and looked out over the low-lying ground. The barracks buildings were straight ahead, the embankment to his right. But first he had to get out of the light.

  Every nerve in his body screamed at him not to do it. In his heart, he was sure he was going to die. But his head held to its merciless logic: stay where you are and you’ll die anyway.

  He launched forward and ran. One pace, three paces, five paces. Then the shooting swung his way. Bullets sang through the air around him, smacked and spattered in the mud.