Flare

by Grzegorzek, Paul

  The soldier, a man in his thirties with the two stripes of a corporal on his chest, sighed and looked to the heavens.

  “Why do I keep getting the misfits?” He complained. “Fine, leave him with me; we’ll keep him busy alright”.

  The guards nodded and about faced, heading back to the comfort of the admin building. I watched them go, but turned sharply when a hand seized the front of my overalls and began to drag me towards where the group was working.

  “Daydreamer, eh? We don’t have time for that. What’s your name?”

  “Malcolm King”.

  “Well, Malcolm, welcome to Work Group Seven. It’s our job to reinforce the perimeter, something which I suspect we’ll be doing for weeks, so I hope you’re used to getting your hands dirty”. He let go of me with a final shove and began to make notes on his clipboard. “Well go on, get working!”

  I looked at the rest of the group. They were a mixture of men and women from sixteen through to sixty, and all of them wore matching expressions of hopelessness and bone-weary tiredness. I looked back at the corporal, trying to decide how best to tell him that I needed to find Melody, but one look at his stony expression convinced me that conversation would most likely end in a beating.

  Sighing, I picked up a plank of wood and approached the fence, seeing how several of the group were creating a wooden framework with hammer and nails, while others attached the planks to this framework and a few, myself included, brought fresh material from a large pile nearby.

  Everyone else wore their own clothing, my overalls marking me apart. At first I thought they weren’t talking to me because of that difference, but after a few minutes I realised that the only conversation was about the work, a muttered word here and there or a request for a different piece of wood.

  Despite the cloud cover the day was hot and within minutes I was soaked through with sweat, my arms burning from the unaccustomed exercise. I suddenly realised why everyone looked so tired and I wondered how long they’d been working like this, keeping up a constant, plodding pace while armed soldiers hovered nearby.

  As the day wore on we moved further and further from the woodpile, each trip taking longer as my arms turned to jelly, my fingers raw with splinters. I lost count of how many times I considered throwing down my load, refusing to do any more work until I had a rest, but the first time I made to put down the plank I was carrying, one of the other workers, a woman in her thirties wearing a filthy pair of jeans and a faded t-shirt, shook her head at me and motioned for me to keep going as she threw a worried glance at the guards.

  “Don’t”, she whispered frantically as she passed me, putting a world of fear into that one word, enough for me to shoulder the plank again and keep walking.

  We carried on like that for hours as the sun crawled across the sky, the only breaks a very brief stop for water that was passed around by the guards and another some hours later to relieve ourselves in a nearby pit that had been dug in full view of everyone else still working.

  It began to remind me more of a concentration camp than a new world order, and it was only by sheer strength of will that I made it to the end of the day, the halt finally being called when it became too dark to see properly.

  The walk back to camp was short but painful. My stomach was cramping from hunger and my arms hung at my sides as if made from lead. The guards pushed the group into a huddle and led us back, one in front and two behind to make sure that no one tried to slip away in the dark.

  I was starting to think that we would be locked away overnight without food, but instead we were taken to a large tent lit by the soft glow of battery-operated lamps hanging from the ceiling.

  There were trestle tables inside, crammed in with barely enough room to walk between, while at the far end several women were serving food from large metal containers kept warm over gas burners.

  I followed the rest of my group, picking up a tray as I reached the counter. We shuffled along, trays held out while first a plate, then dollops of unappetising looking food were slapped onto it.

  I looked up to thank the women for the food and almost dropped my tray in shock. There, stripped of her uniform and wearing overalls similar to mine, stood Emily, ladle in hand as she scowled and slammed mashed potato onto the waiting plates.

  I shuffled closer and our eyes met as she filled my plate.

  “What are you doing in here?” I whispered, the sound of food hitting plates covering the sound.

  She glanced over my shoulder and looked back at me, brow furrowed in anger.

  “This place is a fucking joke”, she whispered back, “I’m a fucking engineer, not a dinner lady!”

  The woman next to her frowned and pointed at the person behind me. Emily scowled back but obediently put a scoop on the empty plate.

  The pressure of the people behind me forced me onward and I looked back to see Emily still watching me, but too far away now for any conversation to go unnoticed in the almost silent tent. I gave her an apologetic shrug and moved down the line, having a scoop of peas and a lonely frankfurter added to my meal before I followed the rest of my group to a set of tables in the middle of the floor.

  We ate in silence, too tired to do more than chew mechanically as the ever present guards stood by the entrance and watched us. My stomach began to complain as long-denied food overwhelmed it, but I forced the rest down anyway, unsure when my next meal would be. If I could, I planned to escape that night, to somehow find Emily and get through the fence. I’d seen a few likely places that afternoon, dips in the terrain that were hidden from the guard towers that stood watch over the perimeter, and I hoped that with a little luck we would be able to use one of those to our advantage.

  My fork had just scraped the last of the potato from my plate when one of the guards came in and looked around.

  “Time”, he called, “curfew, come on”.

  Several people hastily shovelled the rest of their food into their mouths even as they were standing, then filed out. As I left the tent, I was again pushed into a large group and we were herded towards another tent about a hundred feet away from the mess, this one made of heavy canvas with only one entrance and the sides firmly pegged down, and a white W-7 stencilled to the side of the entrance flap.

  It could comfortably have slept ten, maybe fifteen people, but all twenty one of us were shepherded inside, everyone else groping towards a set of blankets and a pillow set on the ground in the dim light. I stood there at the entrance, looking around for a spare set of bedding.

  “You waiting for an invitation?” It was the corporal, appearing at my shoulder and making me jump.

  “No, but I don’t have any blankets”, I said hopefully.

  He shrugged and put a hand in the small of my back, propelling me further into the tent.

  “Well you can either find someone nice enough to share, or you’ll have to do without tonight. I haven’t got time to send someone running off just to make sure you’re nice and cosy”.

  I stumbled form the shove and turned to protest, but the flap was closed and zipped in seconds. A few moments later I heard the sound of a padlock snapping shut, and I turned back into the gloom, hoping to hear someone, anyone, offer me a space in their blankets.

  It was a long, cold night.

  Chapter 35

  I woke, shivering and cramped, from the few hours’ exhausted sleep I’d fallen into on the hard ground. Even with the days being hot, the earth under the tent was hungry for more and had leached most of the heat from my body.

  No one met my eyes as the tent flap was thrown back, allowing morning sunlight to stream through the east-facing entrance. Despite the light, the sun was only just over the horizon as we were chivvied out and into the mess tent to be served a breakfast of stale bread, baked beans and black coffee.

  As with the previous evening, we were barely given time to finish the meal before being ousted once more, first to the latrine ditch where we all stood or squatted next to each other in embarrassed silence
and then on to the pile of wood.

  Everything ached, even my bones. I didn’t know how I’d get through the first hour, let alone the day, but midmorning found me still carrying wood and setting it in place while others hammered nails in, making a piecemeal barrier that shut off my view of freedom piece by mismatched piece.

  The sun beat down ferociously, making me feel like one of the nails being beaten into the wood, almost a physical force that made my head droop as I walked back and forth.

  A little after midday, the pile of wood was finally gone, just a few offcuts too small to be of any use strewn in the grass. I expected us to be put to some other task, but instead the corporal ordered us to sit down and passed out a bottle of water each.

  I almost cried as the lukewarm plastic was pressed into my waiting hand, my fingers trembling as I unscrewed the lid and poured water down my parched throat.

  “Careful, you’ll be sick if you drink it too fast”. The woman who had given me the warning the day before sat next to me, her bottle still almost full as she sipped at it slowly.

  I glanced around warily to make sure the soldiers weren’t too near, and seeing them busy talking to the corporal, I inched closer.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked quietly.

  “Since Tuesday, I think. What day is it now?” She shrugged. “Not that it matters much”.

  I thought back over the days, trying to get it right in my head. I’d met Emily on Monday, the morning after the flare, and then we’d headed off to find Melody the next day. It felt like a different lifetime. We’d travelled together for three, or was it four days since? I was so tired I couldn’t remember, the days on the road together seeming to blur into one.

  “I think it’s Saturday, or maybe Sunday”, I said finally, looking up at the sound of a vehicle coming towards us across the field.

  It was one of the four tonners, the canvas stripped from the back so that it could hold more wood, taken from god only knew where and piled haphazardly so that bits were occasionally shed like unwanted skin.

  It pulled up nearby and the driver jumped out, beckoning us over. With a collective groan, we stood and began to help in getting the load off the truck and into a pile so that we could continue our work.

  And so the day continued. I expected to stop for lunch, but the bottle of water was all we were given, so I made it last, pulling it from my pocket whenever my hands were free and taking tiny sips to stave off the hunger. By the end of that day I had decided that whatever order The Secretary was trying to bring to the chaos, I wanted no part of it. I’d seen animals treated better than we were, and as the sun set on my second day working on the fence, I knew that I had to get out of here soon. Every day I was here was another day that I wasn’t on my way to Melody, and I knew that when the fence was completed it would be even harder to escape.

  Throughout the day I’d been keeping an eye on the other work groups, tiny figures in the distance that scurried to and fro like ants as they built up their parts of the perimeter. From what I could see, the fence would be complete in another few days so the sooner I acted the more chance I had of winning free.

  With that in mind, on my last trip to the woodpile I searched for a few seconds until I found a wood-shaving barely an inch across. Pocketing it, I picked up a large piece of wood and half carried, half dragged it to the fence. While I helped the man with the hammer hold it in place, I crouched to help keep the bottom of the wood against the frame with one hand while the other cast around until it closed around one of the nails. This quickly went into the same pocket. I didn’t dare look up to see if anyone was watching me, although I doubted they’d know what I was intending even if they had seen anything, but no one raised an alarm or came hurrying over.

  Once the last piece of wood was in place we were herded together and marched back towards the mess tent. I squirmed and elbowed my way into the middle of the group, using their bodies to hide my hands from the searching eyes of the guards. Those hands worked frantically in the few seconds I had, using the nail to scratch and re-scratch two symbols into the wood-shaving before I pushed it as far into the crease of my palm as I could.

  As I’d hoped, Emily was in the serving area again, her eyes catching mine the moment I stepped into the tent. The long, slow shuffle towards her was torturous, my hands sweating as I worked out how I was going to pass the shaving over to her. Of course I could have tried whispering to her, but if anyone overheard there was a risk that they would pass that information on, and after my talk with the Secretary I had to assume that everything I might say or do was being observed, and most likely the same for Emily. Why else would they have an Engineer, and a sergeant no less, serving in the mess tent?

  As I approached, I kept looking down at my hand and then back at Emily, hoping she would get the idea, but if she did then she gave no sign.

  Finally it was my turn, and I lifted my plate towards her, the shaving on my very fingertips under the plate. She took the edge of the plate with her left hand while the right shovelled food onto it, and for a split second I felt her fingers brush mine before she pushed the plate back towards me and I moved on. I could no longer feel the shaving against my fingers, and I prayed that she had it rather than it having fallen to the floor in my clumsy attempt at a pass.

  It was all so cloak and dagger, so old prisoner-of-war movie, that I would have laughed had it not been so horribly real. Instead, I tucked my head down, went to my seat and ate mechanically, knowing that what happened next was now out of my hands, and hoping that Emily had more freedom than I. If not, I suspected that we would both be stuck here for a very long time.

  Chapter 36

  The next morning dawned without any night-time interruptions, despite my staying awake most of the night to listen out for even the barest scratch against the canvas.

  I’d been given my own blanket and pillow, but even with the added comfort they brought it was still uncomfortable. Of greater concern, however, was my worry over what had happened to Emily. Perhaps she was on a curfew as rigorous as mine, or maybe she’d been caught sneaking out to find me, or had even been locked in.

  I hoped to catch a glimpse of her at breakfast, but only one woman was serving this morning with ill grace as she slammed scoops of already-loathed baked beans onto our plates. We ate in the usual silence, but as we formed up to head out to the fence, a pair of soldiers appeared from around the mess tent and spoke quietly to the corporal. He conferred with them for a few seconds and then scanned the group, his eyes coming to rest on me.

  “Malcolm King, front and centre”.

  I stepped forward as the others melted away from me, hoping not to catch whatever bad luck was pulling me from their ranks.

  When I didn’t move fast enough the corporal grabbed me by the arm and shoved me towards the waiting soldiers.

  “Come on, don’t dawdle. Just because you’ve got somewhere else to be doesn’t mean we’ve all got time to stand around. There’s a world to rebuild, you know”. Chuckling to himself, he led the crew off, a few of them throwing curious looks back over their shoulders.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, and to my surprise one of the men answered.

  “The Secretary wants you”. He pointed towards the building, just visible above the sea of tents that now covered the field, and without further prompting I set off, the guards trailing me.

  It felt good not to be shoved, grabbed or otherwise manhandled, but the walk was still far from pleasant. There was a churning in my gut, a fear that Emily had been discovered on her way to find me last night and now we were both going to pay for it. Bile rose in my throat at the thought, and my overactive imagination ran through scenarios that all ended with me being placed up against a wall and shot.

  By the time one of the soldiers knocked on the door to the conference room, I was pouring with nervous sweat and could barely stand still. A voice called us in from the other side and the door was opened long enough for me to be pushed through before closing a
gain.

  Inside, time seemed to have stood still. The room was exactly as it had been two days ago, except the pile of paperwork on the large table was now threatening to spill over onto the floor. The Secretary sat in the same chair, wearing the same rumpled suit, although he’d managed to find a clean shirt from somewhere.

  He didn’t look up as I entered, merely gesturing me towards a seat while he carried on reading the report in front of him. I sat, more to stop my legs from shaking than out of any desire to be at the same table with this man, my inherent dislike of him amplified a thousand fold by the experiences of the last forty eight hours.

  “Have you changed your mind yet?” He said finally, looking up from the paper and frowning at me from behind his glasses.

  So that was it. He was hoping that by now I’d had enough to crawl into his pocket and accept my place. Damn him if he wasn’t a hairsbreadth away from being right.

  “Why me?” I asked plaintively. “There must be a hundred other people out there who could do the job. What have I got that they haven’t?”

  He pushed the report away and stared at me for a long time.

  “I’m sure you recall me saying that I’m not a people person”, he said at last, “but I do pride myself on being a fair judge of character”.

  He poured himself a glass of water, letting me watch as he drank it slowly before topping it up again.

  “You’re right”, he continued, “there are other people here who could do it, but they’ve only seen a hint of what might happen. You’ve been travelling for days, and I think you realise just how bad it will get out there without order, without some kind of structure to rebuild. Am I right?”

  I nodded reluctantly, coming to a decision. If I continued to say no, I’d remain in the work group, spending my days shuffling to and fro while Melody was subject to her mother’s dubious care. If I said yes, however, it would give me more freedom and therefore a greater chance at escape.