With that she smiled sweetly, came over to me and put her arm around me. His men burst out laughing. I just stood there, then decided to join in. Paul looked a little taken aback, then realising Becky had got the better of him he grinned, saluted her and promised never to upset her again.
Reluctantly I handed the kit back to Paul and he removed the grenades. When he saw how wistful I was looking, he handed it back to me saying that after what I’d done today I deserved it. I received it with glee. Although Allan and I weren’t generally competitive, I knew he’d been seething with jealousy when he saw how much better my kit was!
At this, Paul seized the opportunity to praise me to Becky and began to tell her about how I’d saved some of them from getting shot today. Seeing the look on Becky’s face, I hastily interrupted, saying, “I think that’s enough about that for now. We don’t want to be upsetting my lovely wife now, do we?”
Paul asked us to wait while he went off to get changed, so that he could accompany us back to the main compound. A few of his men asked where we’d put the prisoner and I explained that Allan had probably locked him in the police cells. I pointed across the road in the direction of the police station and saw Allan and a few soldiers heading back from there.
I waved at him to get his attention and he walked over to us. He confirmed that the prisoner had been locked in a cell with a toilet bucket and some supplies and they planned to question him the following morning. He hadn’t revealed much yet apart from the fact that they were based near Redditch (a town just south of Birmingham), and used bikes to get around when they were out scavenging.
He was just off to find Jon and Pete, and discuss whether it was worth sending out a patrol to find the bikes.
Becky gave him a hug and congratulated him once again on getting together with Michelle.
Embarrassed, he walked off to find Jon and Pete, and once Paul had joined us we set off.
The road sang with the sounds of joy, laughter and happy conversation. We now had plenty of hands to help and with some rejigging, the plans to seat and feed over two hundred and fifty people were progressing nicely.
The kitchen was a hive of activity, with Anna, backed up by her loyal Sergeant, orchestrating all the men and women who had been roped in to help.
In spite of the unfortunate interruption, we were still on track for a half past three Christmas dinner. In the meantime Pete continued to coordinate the guard shifts so that they changed regularly and no one missed out on the fun.
A small group of soldiers appeared with what looked like portable lights and began to set them up. Spotting Harry, I asked what they were up to.
‘We’ve brought this bloody great generator with us and the engineers have rigged it up so that we’ve got power for heating the temporary accommodation you’ve given us. The generator’s got plenty of capacity, so I’ve given them permission to set up lighting in the street. I thought it would cheer the place up.’ He paused for a moment. “I’m sorry if it was a bit presumptuous, but I thought it would be a nice surprise.”
“How could we be upset by street lighting? We’ve only just got running water back to the road.”
“Oh I think there’s a lot we can help you with in the short term. But let’s leave all that till tomorrow shall we?”
Pete came up to me with a concerned look on his face. “What’s the matter?” I asked. Harry turned to leave, but Pete said, “I think we may have an issue and it does concern you, so if you could stay please?”
“What’s troubling you Pete?” asked Harry.
Pete shuffled his feet and looked uncomfortable. “We’ve just realised we’ve got swan on the menu. Yes, we have eaten it before, but we’re aware of the law that says only Royals and Fellows of a Cambridge College are allowed to eat swan and now we have a Royal present, people are worried.”
Amused, I looked at Harry, and was impressed by his ability to keep his face straight. Harry looked serious for a second, avoiding my eye, and replied, “I tell you what, when I get back from this little trip, I promise I’ll get an amendment or extension or whatever the law calls it, and get the residents of this road royal permission to eat swan. In fact, I’ll perform a Royal Duty and announce it at the dinner.”
“Well, thank you, Sir,” said Pete, looking relieved. “I’ll go back and tell them not to worry about it. But I won’t tell them what you’re going to do.”
I started to laugh and Harry looked sideways at me and grinned, “Thank you for doing that,” I said, “I’ve just had a thought, with that little proclamation, you’ve probably just added a whole chunk of money to the value of our houses. Shame money doesn’t matter anymore!”
As we walked over to join the others, we had a silly conversation about how future estate agents would fall over themselves to include the swan eating law in their sales literature.
The dinner was a resounding success and as everyone had a couple of quick stints on guard duty between courses, no one missed out on the opportunity to have some or all of their Christmas dinner with their family and friends.
Prince Harry’s announcement that Royal permission was to be given for everyone in the road to eat swans was greeted by wild cheering and applause.
Once the dinner was over, and before washing up duties began, Jon stood up and gained everyone’s attention by banging two metal cups together.
“It wouldn’t be Christmas without a visit from Father Christmas. So I had a word with the man himself and he’s decided to pay us a visit!”
A man (well you couldn’t quite tell but it must have been one of his subordinates) walked into view dressed in a not bad cobbled together Father Christmas outfit, complete with a large sack slung over his shoulder.
Jon continued, “Would all the children form an orderly queue please? I’m pretty sure he has something for everyone.”
I’m not sure if the resulting melee could quite be described as an orderly queue, but eventually order was restored. Soon all the children were excitedly tearing open presents that kept appearing from the sack.
Jon walked up to me and in a loud whisper explained, “One of the supply vehicles that was diverted to our location contained a pallet of toys. This seemed like a nice way of distributing them.” We were overwhelmed with gratitude.
Once all the children were happily sharing or playing with their new toys, Jon got our attention again. “Now, Christmas is not normally just about giving children presents. I apologise to the grownups, as Father Christmas clearly didn’t receive all your letters, but he did bring presents for a few of you.”
He waved his arm and a few soldiers appeared, carrying some boxes. One box was perforated with holes and he opened this one first and reached inside. He lifted out a very irate looking cockerel. “Now who asked for this chap?” he asked.
I shouted, “Me!” and smiling, I went up to Jon to collect my gift. Just before I got there the cockerel set about Jon and made a successful bid for freedom. Chaos ensued as residents and hardened, battle trained soldiers alike, attempted to pounce on McQueen (as the cockerel became known), then ran from his vicious attacks each time he was cornered.
By the time he was captured most people were helpless with laughter. Still squawking in outrage, he was taken to the chicken run and immediately perched himself on the highest point and announced his arrival by continually crowing at the top of his voice.
After ten long minutes of crowing, a number of people were reminding me that they were armed and threatening that if my bird kept them awake or woke them up early, he might well meet with an unfortunate accident.
All I could say was, “Keep thinking about fresh roast chicken, and forgive him.”
After everyone had calmed down, Russ was presented with a large container which, he was assured, contained most of the spares or parts he was missing for his next invention. Jerry and Fiona were each given a small box of medical and dental supplies, as requested, with the promise of more to come.
Finally Jon informed everyone
that his Quartermaster had brought a lot of sundry supplies with him and that he would be “opening up shop” tomorrow.
If anyone wanted to see if he had anything they needed, they were welcome to come and have a look.
The cheers and applause he received when he sat down continued for some time.
After we’d all quietened down, Paul, the SAS Captain, stood up and spoke, “As a regiment we don’t often give out awards. The things we do aren’t really talked about. But today something happened that deserves a mention.”
At this point I felt myself going red and Becky nudged me. A few of the others looked over at me and started to smile. “Today,” he continued, “someone stood up and faced odds that were stacked against them. They ignored the danger and triumphed over adversity.”
I looked up at this. Surely this is going a bit far? I thought.
“Ladies and gentlemen. I would like to present the Beret and title of ‘Honorary Member of our Regiment’ to someone who stood up against an entire platoon of us, defeated us all and won our hearts. …’ he paused and I started laughing, as it was now Becky’s turn to blush. “To Becky!”
The cheers, catcalls and applause for Becky lasted even longer, as she was presented with her Beret and a pair of underpants (clean!) signed by all of them.
The rest of the day passed amidst great companionship and shared laughter. At dusk, when the lights were turned on, nobody wanted the evening to end. Everybody wrapped up warmly and stood around the braziers (scavenged oil barrels with holes punched in them) that had been lit, enjoying the warmth radiating from the burning wood, and the friendships, old and new, which were being cemented by the occasion. Eventually the evening began to wind down, as people became conscious that they were up for guard duty in the morning, or would have other responsibilities to see to. Most people decided to turn in for the night.
Allan and Michelle came up to me.
I hadn’t had a chance to congratulate them privately about their new status as a couple, as they’d been surrounded by well-wishers for most of the day.
I seized my opportunity, gave Michelle a hug and shook Allan’s hand again.
They told me that Michelle was going to be moving to Pete’s house to be with Allan, as our house was very full and we didn’t have an available room for them. She was feeling bad about leaving after we’d been so kind to her. I told her not to worry.
Yes, we were going to miss her, but she was only moving over the road, so it wasn’t as if we were never going to see her again. Besides, I added, she and Allan would probably need more privacy than our house could offer them.
With that, I gathered up Becky and the children and wished everyone good night. I was due on the early morning guard shift and was feeling exhausted after the day’s excitement. A few neighbours and soldiers were still sitting around chatting and drinking and it looked as if a bit of a session was starting.
The soldiers must have been given permission, because Jon, their commanding officer, was present and didn’t look too worried about it. The neighbours were responsible for their own actions, so if they woke up with sore heads in the morning, it would be their problem.
Becky noticed me looking over at them, sighed and said, “Go on then. Get me and the kids to bed and you can go and join them.”
Boy, did I have a thick head in the morning!
CHAPTER NINE
The next morning the serious business began. After a huge breakfast of pastries and bacon sandwiches, courtesy of the army chefs, Jon asked for permission to address us all as a group. As there were no objections, his soldiers replaced our guards on the barricades and we all gathered in the kitchen area to hear what he had to say.
“Friends,” he began, “I‘d like to start by thanking you all for the welcome you gave us yesterday. It shows what a good group of people you all are. I know what you’ve all accomplished together and it’s nothing short of a miracle. The fact that you’ve also tried to offer help to others is also quite extraordinary. On behalf of the Government, I applaud you.” At this point, he and his officers and advisers stood up and clapped us (much to our embarrassment!).
“Considering everything you’ve been through, you’ve all earned the right to know what’s been happening to our country. I’d also like to talk about the recovery plans we’ve come up with, and gauge your reaction to them. A bit like having a focus group, I suppose.”
Some of us smiled at this, but I had a feeling we weren’t going to like some of the ideas. Still, as he’d just said, they wanted feedback.
I only hoped they’d be willing to listen to us if they didn’t like our answers.
Jon continued, “You all know why this has happened, so I won’t go into that. The country is now in a desperate situation. There simply isn’t enough food for everyone, and we don’t have the ability to produce enough without modern farming methods. As you can imagine, these just aren’t possible anymore since the event, so we have no way of producing enough food to feed us in the future. Nor can we expect help from anywhere else. Every country on the planet has been affected, and the few we have been able to contact, are all in the same boat.”
We sat in silence and he paused for a moment, then carried on speaking. “The Government has always had certain protocols in place to cover every possible crisis scenario, and I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise if I tell you that someone, in a small government office somewhere, wrote a paper on what to do if we were ever hit by a global Solar Storm Event. The title of this paper is ‘UK Dark’.
“When I read it, I don’t mind admitting that I was shocked and appalled at the proposals it made. But the more we all discussed it, the more apparent it became that whoever had written the paper, was right. The projections it contained are unbelievable.”
He explained that we were currently experiencing what the paper callously referred to as a “population readjustment”.
Within six months of such an event, the author expected the population to fall to just ten per cent of its pre-event level. In other words, a ninety percent reduction.
He paused to let that sink in. I did a rough calculation. The population of the UK had been approximately sixty million. So in just six months, it was likely that fifty four million people would be dead, with only six million of us left! That put us back to medieval population levels. Truly staggering figures.
He saw us beginning to stir, as we were probably all doing the same calculations, so he continued,
“Yes, the maths is appalling. We took the truly awful decision to follow protocol, lock down the base and protect the occupants. I’ll tell you more about our facility later, but let me assure you, as I said over the radio … ”he nodded at me and Jerry, “If there’d been another way of handling it, we would have done it. We simply didn’t have the resources to make a difference. We needed to protect what the facility contains for the sake of the future.”
Looking grim, he added, “A few of us weren’t able to handle the choices we had to make and initially, we did have a number of suicides. But eventually everyone realised that we still had a role to play in whatever recovery plan we decided was best.”
“As things currently stood,” he explained, “realistically the country had only ever had a few days of food available. As soon as the event hit, most people immediately found themselves in trouble, with only one or two days’ worth of food left in their cupboards. Once this was consumed,” he continued, “the first exodus from the main population centres began. Millions of refugees swarmed into the countryside looking for food, and many areas were completely overwhelmed. The timing of the event couldn’t have been worse. The main harvests were in, so unless people knew exactly where to look, there was very little food to be found.
“After only a few days, the Government’s initial humanitarian efforts were exhausted and it was unable to provide any help at all. I must emphasise,” added Jon, “that no one is to blame and everyone did their best. It would have been logistically impossible to feed
so many people even if we’d had the supplies, which we didn’t.”
In the meantime, he told us, the cities were becoming battlegrounds. The rapidly diminishing supplies were being fought over, and gangs were assuming control, and robbing and murdering at will.
This led to the second wave of refugees fleeing the cities. These were the people who did have food and had been preparing to wait the crisis out, but fled to the supposed safety of the countryside due to fear, or because they’d been robbed.
This second wave encountered the first, thousands of whom were already dying. The newcomers found nothing but starvation, disease and violence.
Some of the models used for prediction have stated that people living in the countryside are more likely to survive an event of this nature, because the local population is lower, and food, either grown or hunted, is more readily available. This would probably have been the case if the countryside hadn’t been overwhelmed by the masses from the city.
Minor wars began to break out as country folk, who normally have easier access to firearms, banded together to protect their properties and land. Thousands were killed before the ammunition finally ran out and the farming communities were overrun.
Although it was hoped that the more isolated rural communities might have escaped the worst of the crisis, Britain isn’t a big country so it was possible that nowhere had escaped.
“The Military did try to help,” Jon explained. “As you know, we set up refugee camps, but these were inundated and found it impossible to cope. There were also mass desertions, with many of the soldiers leaving to try to help their own families. The collapse was total. We believe one of the last camps to remain open was the one that your sister and brother in law were in, Tom. And that disintegrated over two weeks ago.”
Looking at each of us in turn, he carried on, “It’s winter, there are millions of people without food and shelter, all struggling to survive in the most appalling conditions. People are facing violence and death on a daily basis. Millions are already dead and unfortunately, over the next few months, millions more will also die. And there is nothing we can do to prevent it.
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