Sarah-Kelly looked wary.
“What are we going to celebrate?”
“Happy families!” Donald smiled.
*
A flash in the sky to the east caught Donald’s attention as he was settling back at his desk. After several seconds of staring at the sky beyond Duddon Hill, he made out a faint trail of smoke ascending led by a silver speck. The flash must have been the sun on the wings of a banking aircraft. Gradually the speck grew into a dogfish-shaped fuselage beneath long, thin wings. It could only be Nightminster’s flying boat. It rumbled directly over Brent Cross and made a long swing to the north, turning back on itself to fly west out towards the Thames Estuary. Donald watched it, furious with envy at the freedom of that glorified pig-farmer relative to his own condition buckled into the leash of the National Party.
The Party had abolished Naclaski and Frite within the Republic. Any aircraft was at liberty to fly across the Republic of the New Nation, provided it displayed no hostile intent. It typified the breathless idealism with which the old was being slung out. No one had stopped to consider that while glory and sovereign aircraft could overfly the Republic, the Republic had no aircraft with which to return the favour.
The glory garrisons of the Central Enclave had simply dissolved after the Bloomsbury Massacre. In effect, they had handed London to the rebellion. It was a disgraceful record their corporate masters could only repair through a stunning counter-attack against the Republic. General Wardian alone employed one hundred thousand people, General Parrier and Guards to the People would each be just as large. Together they could easily field a counter-attack of tens of thousands against the Republic. Then there were the Night and Fog held within ultramarine compounds scattered all over the Republic. If the Ultramarine Guild swung against the Republic, thousands of Night and Fog could be amnestied and armed to join the fight. Farkas could ban rubbishing all he liked, any realist could see the Republic’s position was hopeless unless it could pull a political rabbit out of the hat. The wise developed their own escape plans in such circumstances.
That afternoon, Donald had to focus on an idea Farkas had dreamed up. The Republic needed gold. It could not touch the balancing houses because they were heavily defended by fanatical garrisons and the Ultramarine Guild would have declared war. Instead, the Party was going to confiscate the gold and silver of the residents of the Central Enclave and issue new wealth in the form of fiat paper i.e. Free Dollars. The Party was also going to open the doors of the Central Bank to offer low-interest loans. The residents would then be encouraged to go on a spending spree to fill the order books of the industrial asylums. Farkas was a fan of getting the professional classes into ‘proper’ motor cars, rather than the lumbering oil-fired chuggers they currently used. It was true the petrol-fired, sheet-metal cars used by Party big-wigs had attracted great admiration due to their sleek looks and amazing speed. A campaign to get the townies ordering new cars would certainly fire up the factories.
Donald had grave doubts about the whole scheme—quite apart from personal objection to losing his treasury to the Central Bank. Already two citizens had been killed by Party cars. The bashed wrecks were outside, the irreplaceable windscreens and headlights smashed. He had no idea where the cadavers were—taken for rendering? If hundreds of people started tearing about in these things, it would turn the Republic into a butcher’s yard. He now recalled his father’s economics books had discussed at some length the absurdly powerful motor cars of the Public Era. These vehicles had caused more deaths than all the wars of the Public Era combined, yet extensive study of the free press and government documents revealed little objection, or even much concern, about a wartime scale of killing going on every year for well over a century. Modern historians had developed a rationale that nation states tacitly legitimised warfare between their citizens using motor cars as weapons. This dissipated aggression that could otherwise have been discharged against the rentier classes that controlled democratic governments. It was an interesting idea, if so, Farkas probably had the same thought in mind—let the people kill each other whilst the Party took their gold and silver. All in all, Donald thought it a pretty shabby deal.
He was confident most of his fellow town professionals would agree with him when they heard about it. This thought stirred the beginnings of an escape plan.
*
At just before three o’clock, President Farkas tapped Donald’s shoulder and beckoned him follow. General Yelcho fell in with them as they left the office. This man Yelcho had all the swagger and brashness of a sixth-former just appointed as a prefect. Donald considered all the ‘generals’ buffoons. They had appointed themselves to a rank that had not even existed in the glory trusts and still had no formal definition.
“You’re about to see a real treat,” Yelcho said. “This is something I’ve been looking forward to for years.”
Farkas led them down the main stairs, past the Reception desk and out through the front doors. He got in the front passenger seat of his motor car and Donald sat with Yelcho in the back. Rather than the vroom and surge of speed, the driver took them on a languid trip through the gates of a nearby factory premises. They drove down a narrow lane between towering warehouse walls. The lane opened into a dirty yard surrounded by gantries, industrial tanks and the impersonal walls of brick sheds. In following the others getting out, Donald noted that a trench had been dug across the top of the yard.
“I’m aware you had a disheartening morning, Donald,” Farkas said. “We’ll talk about it later. First, I thought it would cheer you up to see that our Republic can be decisive.”
They waited for several minutes. Donald’s attention wandered. During the afternoon, he had picked up some angry talk over the stubbornness of North Kensington basin in refusing to use Free Dollars. He was worried there could be a plan to attack the basin.
An account-captain of the National Army walked into view from a nearby warehouse leading a shabby-looking man with his hands tied behind his back. He wore nothing but his underpants. He had been beaten all over, leaving one side of his face swollen with an eye shut and his back covered in bruises and gashes. He shambled along on the verge of collapse. Another officer—a grade lieutenant—followed with an easy gait, swinging a pistol. There was a gruff order, which Donald did not hear clearly. The beaten man kneeled at the edge of the trench. The grade lieutenant stood behind him, aimed the pistol and fired into the back of his neck. A quiver and the body flopped from view with a rattle of stones. The two officers walked back through the doorway. They emerged with a second, taller man in underpants. This one had a gashed forehead and dried blood splashed down his chest, his shins had swollen white knobs on them. He too kneeled, got shot in the back of the head and disappeared into the trench. Yells came from within the doorway. A couple of basics walked out backwards dragging a flabby character by the ankles writhing and shouting he was innocent. The account-captain got sick of the racket and shot him in the jaw and then in the forehead as he was still being dragged. The basics threw the body heels-over-head into the trench. A fourth man, skinny and round-shouldered, stared at the sky in wild hope before getting kicked to his knees and shot.
It went on and on. The executioners shifted the location of shooting along the trench as it became filled with cadavers. Some men went with defiance, yelling curses and promises of vengeance from beyond the grave. A few carried themselves with an ethereal dignity and left in silence. Not a few had to be dragged out screaming, some so violent in their terror that the basics had to beat them with steel cracker pipes to shut them up. Donald watched with clenched teeth, pinioned by the invisible cage of the hierarchy around him. To run forward yelling at them to stop this foul work would have been idiotic and pointless. He was not armed, he could not have achieved anything even if he had been armed. He was locked into the hell of witnessing a stream of executions that went on for almost an hour. By that time he had passed beyond his endurance of horror and was simply numbed, fight
ing off waves of faintness from having stood for so long.
“It’s a shocking thing to see instantaneous justice for the first time,” Farkas said, turning to him. Donald was white with a green tinge like mould. He tottered back to the car and sank inside it. Yelcho was full of spring and gusto.
“Nothing like a little execution in the afternoon—fifty less social vermin in the world. My men combed them out of Camden asylum this morning.”
Farkas joined them in the car and turned himself half about, laying an arm over the back of his seat.
“Honest glory officers reserve a special hatred for corruption, Donald. All of our careers we’ve watched coteries of reprobates enrich themselves plundering the stores of the corporation and the lands of clients. Anyone who tried to expose them would themselves be framed up by senior officers and sent to the Night and Fog—often never to return.”
“How did you court-martial fifty men in one morning?” Donald asked in a voice thinned by stress.
Farkas just shook his head, rather dreamily.
“It would not be responsible use of our resources to put such people on trial. I lay poison against rats, I do not put rats on trial—what a terrible waste of time!” He affected an imperious voice. “How do you plead, little rat?” Eyeing Donald, he continued: “Through effective action, we’re going to achieve a social hygiene not seen in decades.”
There followed some minutes of silence. A couple of troopers with shovels came out and started to refill part of the trench. Farkas uttered a long sigh.
“You know, it’s so peaceful here that I don’t want to go back. Your president is having a skive! The last forty-eight hours have torn my mind apart—the greatest dream of my life has come true like a firework exploding in my head.”
“I’m enjoying the ride so far,” Yelcho said. “What do we do about North Kensington basin?”
Farkas turned around and looked at Donald.
“What do we do about North Kensington basin, minister for trade?”
Donald had known the matter had to come up sooner or later. The Republic could not tolerate a zone of defiance within its frontiers. It simply encouraged other groups to resist.
“I know the barging business,” Donald said. “It runs on personal relationships passed down through the generations. Outsiders just don’t get a look-in. If you start neck-shooting bargees, you’ll cut off the arms of welcome we need to reach up into middle England through the barging network.”
While he was talking, Donald came to a decision. He reached the decision easily, despite the likely fatal consequences if his plan failed. After a man has seen fifty executions right before his eyes, he no longer holds much faith in the specialness of his own life.
“Suppose we decimate them; just shoot one in ten like Romans?” Yelcho suggested.
“The Republic must win the passions of all citizens if it is to succeed,” Donald said. “Exterminating trash like that—” He nodded towards the trench. “—is all well and good, our citizens admire effective action against vermin. Its wholly another matter when it comes to dealing with honest business.”
“We can’t allow North Kensington to disobey our laws,” Farkas said.
“This is Day 1 of the Republic of the New Nation. Let us be patient and take the long view. My experience of mediation—which is long and varied—is that time is the ultimate solvent. Time will soften their attitudes provided they are treated decently.”
“OK. I’ll leave that in your hands. Just make it happen fast.” Farkas yawned and turned to his driver. “Take us back to HQ, please, Friedrich.”
As Friedrich got them moving, Yelcho leaned towards Donald with a sly smirk and said:
“You’ve got a strong stomach for a town rabbit—most of your crowd would have collapsed.”
Donald just shrugged.
“It’s not the first time I’ve seen effective action.”
“When the Pres said you’d be working with me on the next great campaign of the Republic, I must say I was pretty doubtful. But now I’ve seen what you’re made of, I think we’re going to make a great team.”
He smiled with what was apparently genuine camaraderie.
Now Donald was one of the boys.
Chapter 22
The future of the minister for trade of the Republic was plain enough. He would lead the confiscation of gold and silver from town society and Yelcho would do the necessary shooting to enforce the theft. Well, that was one mystery cleared up. Donald had been made a minister because of his pedigree; he knew how to go about the task.
Once he stood with Yelcho’s murder squads, Donald welded his future to the Republic. There was no way back after that.
This thinking plagued him as he returned to the cabinet office shared by the Provisional Cabinet and its secretaries on the first floor of the headquarters building. Mail had already accumulated while he was away witnessing mass execution. One letter had not been opened as it was marked “Confidential—Strictly for the minister for trade’s eyes”. Donald cut it open, to find another envelope within together with a typewritten page signed by the Basin Council of North Kensington basin. There was nothing much in the typewritten page, just fluff in acknowledgement of what Donald had sent them. On the other hand, the small envelope contained a message in decent roundhand. It was from Bartram Newman. He must have sneaked his message into the larger envelope while his fellow councillors were looking the other way. He had taken a hell of chance to assume his instruction on the outside would keep out nosey parkers.
Dear Skay (& Donald, but mostly Skay),
FIRST ITEM: We’re so missing you, Skay. I’m not going to spin it out, because I’ve got so much else to say. Just know this: there are no other people who love you as we do. That damned party of radicals will just use you and then dump you when they’re finished. I implore you to come back here until this mess is over. If not, get away from those radicals somewhere safe, anywhere safe, until they’ve been wiped out.
SECOND ITEM: I’m so glad you’ve been in touch about Lawrence. It’s been a nightmare keeping him secret. He’s hiding out on our island at the moment. Once Prentice has gone, I’ll get him back and send him up to see you. Lawrence has told me some things that have completely done my head in. I’ve been thinking about what he said, though, and I’m certain he’s telling the truth. So get ready for some shocks.
Prentice is an ultramarine, and not just a grunt but a full owner. The Value System is his estate. How do I know these things? Because Lawrence escaped from the Value System, that’s why! He won’t say much about it, but from his tone I can sense Prentice is running something pretty gruesome, exploiting slave labour far worse than the Night and Fog gangs. From what I can tell, the poor bastards are stuck in it for their whole lives. That’s the kind of person Prentice really is! All these years, and we never even suspected.
Lawrence arrived here in boots, overalls and so on that were made in the Value System. They were well worn and obviously not something he just picked up somewhere in the last few days. And his reaction when he realised we did business with the evil person he had escaped from was too real to be faked.
Methinks there’s a connection. It’s you, Skay. Prentice snatched Lawrence into his Value System out of spite. I’m convinced of it, otherwise it does not make sense. Maybe he was behind what happened to Lawrence and you in Oban. Who can say what goes on at that level?
I know there’s been a lot of talk about senior glory officers all being criminals. Lawrence comes across as hard as hell, but dead straight. I don’t believe he was involved in any of that. He’s had a brutal time and I hope you two can help him find a safe situation until things settle down. [signed] Bartram.
Sarah-Kelly returned to her desk a few minutes later hugging a stack of files, which she deposited with a thump and a sigh on her desk. She had been exhorting Atrocity Commission teams in asylums south of the Central Enclave.
“We need to talk,” Donald said
in a low voice.
“Oh, not now Donald. I’m up to my ears. I’ll have to go into town again. It’ll take all night.”
“This is important.”
“This is important.”
“Bartram sent a note in response to ours. You need to read it.”
As he edged back to his own desk, he glanced up to see Andrew Kalchelik staring at him from the doorway of the office. Donald ambled his way out to the corridor and followed Kalchelik into an empty meeting room. He shut the door.
“It’s about your brother, Lawrence,” Kalchelik said. He passed over a couple of sheets filled with closely-spaced handwriting. Donald merely skim-read the contents, his heart starting to thump and a quailing, shivery feebleness coming over his whole body. The sheets themselves were visibly shaking by the time he passed them back.
“Thank you for showing me. I see the statement was made by a sergeant. Have you seen his service record? The last statement I saw was by a character sought for petty theft and desertion—not really the most credible of witnesses.”
“This person has a sound record.”
“He could still be lying—anyone could make this stuff up from the rumours that are flying about now.”
“There’s details that ring with the first statement. And it’s not a small thing to sign off a statement for the Atrocity Commission—there’s no way back. We tell witnesses in the strongest terms they’re going to be put up in a public box like a preacher and they’re going to have all manner of questions fired at them.”
Donald overcame what came perilously close to an outburst of temper. After calming himself, he said:
“I owe you for this, Andrew, and I will not forget your help.”
In making his way back to the cabinet office, he waded against the unbearable destruction of what had been a slowly rising confidence that Lawrence was one of the good guys. If the statements were true—and he scarcely credited them—then the glory trusts must possess some kind of diabolical power that transformed normally decent people into killers. In that case, the man he met at 5 pm—if that man was crazy enough to present himself to the Atrocity Commission—would be a complete stranger.
Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 1 Page 27