Surviving the Evacuation, Book 16

by Frank Tayell

  “Shush,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”

  “Oh. Oh. Um… That’s… that’s good,” he said, uncertain what to say. “That’s good news, right? That’s why you wanted to find a pharmacy today?”

  “I was reasonably sure,” she said. “But I wanted to be certain.”

  “Well… um… congratulations to you, to us,” he said, his mouth switching to automatic as his brain went blank. “We’ll have to think of names. Jason, maybe. Jay and Jason. Or Jacinda if it’s a girl. Or Jane.”

  “Not Jane,” Nilda said. “I worked with a Jane. And there are plenty of other letters in the alphabet, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. There’s more.”

  “What? Is it twins or something? Is there a test for that?” he asked.

  “No. It’s… it’s complicated. Or it might be. After I left Penrith, all those months ago, I ended up on that island off the Scottish coast with all those people who died of radiation poisoning. I don’t know what kind of dose I got, but when I reached Anglesey, when I saw the doctor, she… well, she wasn’t sure what effect the radiation would have. But she warned against having more children. Not that it mattered, then.”

  “Ah.” He stalled, unsure how to ask the question. Uncertain what the question even was.

  “Exactly,” she said. “I spoke to Dr Harabi last night, but she doesn’t know much about obstetrics, or radiation poisoning. The admiral is the woman to ask, but I don’t want to do that over an open channel. I don’t want the world listening in, and they would be. And that would mean the admiral would have to be reassuring even if she didn’t mean it. What Dr Harabi did say is that it might all be fine. It might not, and we might not really know for years.”

  “So you’re not telling anyone?”

  “Tuck knows, and Dr Harabi guessed the reason I was asking, so I’ll have to let her know what the test showed. But we won’t tell anyone else. Not Jay. Not yet. So no names. Not for a few months. Faroe will have a hospital, and if they can get the electricity working, the admiral can run a few scans. I don’t know what they’ll tell, but they’ll give me some peace of mind if nothing else.”

  He stood up, crossed to her chair, sat down, and put his arm around her. “I’m going to assume the best, if that’s okay. I’ll keep it to myself, though.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “When are you due? Or am I meant to say us?”

  “July,” she said.

  “Near Jay’s birthday.”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, that’ll keep the cost of parties down. They can share a cake.”

  Nilda smiled.

  “And we’ll be on Faroe,” he said. “In the summer, it won’t be too bad.”

  “If they get the power station online,” she said.

  “And if they can’t, we’ll rig up some wind turbines, take them up from Ireland or somewhere. We’ll work it out. Jay and I were talking. Or he was, about how he saw his future. Moving from port to port, looting whatever we needed. Shows how wrong he was.”

  “We might still do that,” Nilda said. “We might have to.”

  “No, I’m going to assume the best. Faroe for a year or two, and then somewhere warmer after the zombies are all gone and the weather’s settled down. That’s our plan now, and as much as we need to plan, so I say we enjoy ourselves as much as we can between now and when we get to the islands. We’ll scavenge and shop, eat— Oh, are you allowed to eat fish?”

  “When the alternative is starvation, I would say yes,” she said. “But shopping would be a good idea. You really do need some new glasses. And some new clothes. Perhaps not a suit, but at least something clean.”

  “Why would I need a suit?”

  “For the wedding,” she said, forcing a smile. She ran a hand across his cheek. “And you’ll be clean-shaven, mister. No claiming that’s designer stubble.” She stood, took his hand, and led him across to the window. “Life will get hard,” she said. “From here on out, for us, and for the rest of our lives, it’ll be hard and tough. We’ll have to think differently, not that I gave much thought to what we’d do after London. Who could have planned for the way things turned out?”

  “We’ve got each other,” he said.

  “And that will help, but we have to start thinking longer term. But maybe not right now. Maybe now, we can enjoy the moment.”

  “Not much of a view,” Chester said. “All I can see out there is a… what is it?”

  “A water tower, I think. About a mile away. But it’s not the view that matters, but the company which counts.”

  Chapter 20 - Foreign Duty

  Nieuwpoort

  When they finally stepped back outside onto the street, they found Tuck and Jay had scored a board on the muddy pavement, and were using buttons as pieces in a game of checkers. Tuck made a point of tapping her watch. She frowned, shook her wrist, and then took the watch off.

  “Broken,” she signed. “Again. And you win.”

  “Three games to me, five thousand to you,” Jay signed. “Shall we head back to the ship?”

  “We found some supplies upstairs,” Nilda said. “Most had turned to mulch for a thriving colony of mould. We got a few jars of herbs, some tea bags, a small jar of coffee. Not enough to go around, but enough to show that there will be enough, town-wide, if we get a few more people to help with the search.”

  “You missed the zombie,” Jay said.

  “Only one,” Tuck signed. “Came from inland. No I.D.”

  “It was pretty ragged,” Jay said. “Think it’d been undead for months, so not one of Captain Fielding’s people.”

  They pushed their shopping carts back towards the harbour, eyes alert for more of the undead. When they reached the harbour, it wasn’t zombies they saw, but a large group of passengers, loitering on the quayside. Kim detached herself from the group, and walked over.

  “You’ve been shopping,” she said, smiling.

  “Mostly clothes for the children,” Nilda said. “What’s happened?”

  “Bran found fuel,” Kim said. “Diesel! In a tanker. We haven’t checked it for purity, but he brought back a sample. We tried it in that motor launch, and the engine didn’t clog.”

  “A tanker? Like a truck-tanker or a ship-tanker?” Jay asked.

  “A truck,” Kim said. “There’s enough diesel to move the Courageous a hundred miles or so. Maybe twice that. Captain Fielding is doing the calculations now.”

  “Not enough to get to Faroe, then?” Jay asked.

  “Not yet,” Kim said. “We’ll look for more fuel after we’ve retrieved the tanker, though that won’t be until tomorrow morning. There are sections of road that need to be cleared first.”

  “Where did they find the tanker?” Nilda asked.

  “A few miles north,” Kim said, taking a folded map out of her pocket. “They found these maps there, too. The tanker was parked in an agricultural supplies store, here, where the A18 meets the N3, just inland of Ostend. Two zombies were skulking underneath, another three were within a few hundred metres, and four attacked them on their return. They brought back photographs of the zombies as well as the tanker. That’s what everyone is looking at.”

  “Photographs?” Tuck signed. Jay nodded. Tuck walked over to the group of soldiers and sailors. Jay followed.

  “A hundred miles of fuel?” Nilda said. “We’ll need a lot more than that.”

  Kim glanced over at the group, but they weren’t paying any attention. “It’s a bit of an albatross, isn’t it? We’ve plenty of other uses for that diesel, and if it can’t get the Courageous to Faroe, should we waste it travelling a few miles up the coast? If I had to pick, right now, I’d rather use the fuel in a generator so we could run some pumps to gather river water. Of course, we’d have to find a generator first, and the pumps, unless we take them from one of the ships.”

  “You’ve had problems gathering water?” Chester asked.

  “Many problems, and each solution brings up a new difficulty,” Kim said. �
�It’s a logistical nightmare. I don’t mean gathering the water, not as such. Now we’ve gone nearly an entire day with no bad news, and even some good, everyone has become an expert, with their own brilliantly contradictory ideas. Managing it all is…” She glanced back at the crowd. “It’s difficult. It’d be easier if Mary could come ashore, but that would be a logistical nightmare in its own right.” Unspoken went the words that she’d prefer it if Bill was ashore.

  “Each day, we’re each learning we’ve got to be someone different to meet this odd new world’s demands,” Nilda said. “But as far as water goes, we saw a water tower to the southeast of the town. I think it’s a water tower. We’ll go there tomorrow, see if there’s water inside. We’ll look for a fire engine, as well. That’s the sort of vehicle we need, something with its own pump, reservoir, and hoses.”

  “That would help,” Kim said. “And we’ve got the diesel now. We can certainly spare a few litres for running a fire engine.”

  “You said there’s good news,” Chester said. “You mean more than us not being shot at?”

  “From Faroe,” Kim said. “They’ve gone ashore in Tórshavn. It’s utterly abandoned. There are no people, and only one zombie. So far. There are no ships in the harbour. Radiation’s low. There are some signs of battle, but no barricades in the streets. The town is virtually intact.”

  “And electricity?” Nilda asked.

  “None yet,” Kim said. “They’re going to the hydroelectric plant tomorrow. Siobhan was quite cheerful. At the very least, it’ll be a safer harbour than Dundalk. Unless Thaddeus discovers something different in the next few days, the admiral has more or less decided the cruise ship will head there. It’ll be a stopping point if nothing else. Somewhere they can clean out the cruise ship, attempt any repairs needed, and it will get everyone away from the increasingly radioactive Irish Sea.”

  “Yep, I’d call that good news,” Chester said.

  Kim glanced at the crowd on the shore-side. “I’m worried that Siobhan wasn’t sharing everything. How could she have been, since the call was only a few minutes long? And I think she was being deliberately optimistic because she knows precisely how bad Belfast got. But, yes, on balance, everything is looking up. Maybe we’ll find another fuel tanker tomorrow. I hope we do. So does Bill. He’s adamant we should keep the Courageous with us.”

  “He’s feeling better?” Nilda asked.

  “Not really,” Kim said. “But he can’t sleep. Each rising wave jolts his arm. He’s planning as a distraction. I…” She shook her head. “Sorcha is sitting with him now, infuriating him with tales of the past, which is a distraction, I suppose.” She glanced over at the group of soldiers, where Jay was relaying something Tuck was signing. “We could strap Bill’s arm up, tight against his chest, make it completely immobile, but the bone wouldn’t set correctly. He’d lose forty-percent mobility, maybe more. To correct it, the admiral would have to operate. She gave me a list of what she’d need, and it’s… it’s impossible. The resources, the time, could save a dozen lives, assuming we found them in the first place. He’s got to put up with the pain, but… but anyway.” She forced good cheer back into her voice. “I found some chicken wire. I’m going to try a new cast. We’ll see how that goes.”

  “I had a look in a pharmacy,” Nilda said. “There’s one opposite where we found these clothes. There weren’t any painkillers left. We found some vitamins, though.”

  “Bill needs dry land, that’s all,” Kim said. “The next month or so will be unpleasant, but we’ve all been through worse. But you found vitamins? That’s good.”

  “Only a few thousand pills, and a few odd jars in the apartments nearby,” Nilda said. “But I get the feeling we’ll find more supplies further south. I think the obvious, easy-to-spot places were looted, and that deterred others from making a more systematic search.”

  “Someone coming here would have hoped to find a boat,” Kim said. “When they saw the harbour was empty, they’d have continued north, or south. The Duponts have continued their fishing lessons, so we won’t go hungry, even if we do get sick of fish. But we’ll be here a while, so we might as well search everywhere. Fuel and water first. Tomorrow, though. It’s already getting late.”

  Nilda and Chester hung back as Kim slowly brought order to the group, ushering them aboard the small boats.

  “Is that good news?” Chester asked.

  “It’s not bad news,” Nilda said. “Let’s assume the best. Tuck’s coming back.”

  “I’m going to the Courageous,” the soldier signed, when she reached them.

  “Why?” Nilda asked.

  “Because of the photographs of the fuel tanker. I think it might have been left there by Captain Fielding’s people. Possibly on their way east, more likely on their way back.”

  “You think they returned here?” Nilda asked.

  “Some of them, yes,” Tuck signed. “The plates are German. The truck has a live battery, so it hasn’t been there for long. There are no tracks in the mud, so it arrived before the last storm.”

  “And there’s that zombie we found in Ostend,” Nilda said.

  Tuck nodded.

  “There’s the bad news we were waiting for,” Chester said.

  Day 263, 1st December

  Chapter 21 - Paintings of Ghosts

  Nieuwpoort, Belgium

  Dawn was still a few hours away when Chester eased himself out of the narrow bunk. Nilda was finally asleep, but he’d only managed a few hours himself. The storm hadn’t helped. Howling rain had lashed their porthole throughout the night. Arriving without warning, the storm had turned the waves into hills. For hours, the ship was a nauseating rollercoaster no one could escape. Even Chester had felt sick, and though Nilda had it worse, the children had it worst. It was one a.m. before Tuck had relieved him from child-minding duties, and he’d returned to the small cabin. Unable to sleep, he and Nilda had tried to talk, but had nothing but anxiety to share. They’d lain in the dark, together, waiting for the minutes to turn into months, but time kept passing at its infuriatingly regular pace.

  Chester picked up his boots and left the cabin, slipping them on outside, then made his way down the dim corridor towards the rear of the ship. He didn’t want to go up on deck, not until it had stopped pulsing with each heaving wave. If he went to the galley, he’d have to prepare breakfast for everyone, and when it was such meagre fare, the same as the dinner last night, there would be little joy in that. He thought of visiting Bill, but even if he was awake, Kim might be asleep. Instead, he found his feet taking him towards the rear of the ship, and the glass-walled observation room. Sorcha Locke was already there.

  “Can’t sleep?” Chester asked.

  Locke smiled. “This ship was always Tamika’s toy, and I can see her ghost walking every corridor. I considered this vessel an indulgence. A gift from Lisa to a woman who didn’t value jewels or fine clothes.”

  “You’ve been remembering your friends?” he asked, sitting on the bench seat next to her.

  “It is hard not to in these surroundings,” Locke said. “I can’t help wondering what Lisa would have made of the ship’s current passengers. Tamika would not have approved of these new decorations.” She gestured at a crayon and paint landscape daubed on the bulkhead. “Lisa would have. Never having children of her own was one of her secret regrets. Considering what we were facing, she couldn’t afford the time, the risk. None of us could. But she would have approved of them decorating the walls. That is why this glass chamber is here. It was to be her painting room.”

  “She was an artist?”

  “Not a very good one, she’d be the first to admit it. Perhaps the second, after Tamika, but she enjoyed it. Tamika had this chamber added to the design. Her gift to Lisa in return. As it happens, painting served an alternate purpose. When the artist is at work, she is not to be disturbed, not even to meet a dignitary at the shore. Visitors would be brought here, to where she was working.”

  “So she could disor
ientate them, maintain the advantage in negotiations?” Chester asked.

  “Not really. Lisa never held a meeting where she didn’t hold the advantage. No, it bought time. Even if the purpose of the meeting was to ensure a politician or gangster would fly into a rage and storm off, travelling through the ship would buy enough time to bug their car or clone their phone. Even here, in this chamber, there were many different reasons behind her actions. Ah, yes, considering what failure accompanied all their other plans, yes, I think this ship’s new mission would have pleased them both. Congratulations, by the way.”

  “Congratulations?”

  “You’re getting married.”

  “Oh. Yes. Thanks.”

  “You don’t seem happy.”

  “I’m just distracted,” he said. “It seems a little soon to be celebrating.”

  “You refer to last night’s merry mood?” Locke said. “Yes, I was thinking the same.”

  Chester hadn’t meant that, but didn’t want to share what was really on his mind. “Yeah, a day when no one dies, and we’re treating it as a triumph,” he said. “That fuel almost certainly belonged to Admiral Popolov.”

  “Even if Captain Fielding was unable to identify any of the zombies, it appears so,” Locke said. “And that, I’m afraid, is why the mood was approaching jubilant.”

  “Because it means we don’t have to go looking for him?” Chester said.

  “Indeed,” Locke said. “Nor do we have to worry that Captain Fielding might keep the Courageous here, refusing to scuttle it, or fret about other soldiers joining her in a search of northern Europe. It would be sailors, rather than soldiers, I suspect. Particularly those from the Royal Navy like that submariner, Jennings. Leon, I think, would accompany the expedition.”

  “And you think that’s making people happy?”

  “Special Forces and submariners? Their presence would be sorely missed, but if they wanted to leave, no one could stop them. No one would want to be seen trying. Searching for those missing people is the right thing to do. It is what everyone feels they should do. No one wants to, of course. They all want their personal interpretation of security, but will settle for a small cottage on Faroe. Yet while they might choose safety, how can they actively pursue it while others are in need? Partly, it is your own fault.”