Surviving the Evacuation, Book 17

by Frank Tayell

  “Really? Why?” I asked.

  “Because he’s been working on that play for three months,” Sholto said. “Him and Gloria together. That half hour he performed, that’s only a third of the play. He needs two more actors for the other hour, but he’s got the piece written. It’s something new, Bill. Something truly new under the sun, written since the outbreak.”

  “And you don’t think we can risk him dying on his way to Canada?”

  “The world’s last playwright? Maybe not,” Sholto said. “And a performance of a Shakespeare-inspired play is something you can invite the Faroese to. I don’t need them on this trip. I’ll miss them, sure. Reg is a great entertainer, and Gloria is a great counterweight to him. Together, they make a perfect team, and a valuable addition to any team. But they’ll be more use here. Anyone can carry a spear into a frozen, ruined harbour in Greenland. Those two can keep up morale until we’ve some good news to report.”

  “If you’re happy with it,” I said. “Something tells me we’ll need more than a play to entice the Faroese to cross their bridge. Did the admiral say anything about the Amundsen’s expedition north?”

  “Only that it’s been postponed since it can’t begin until we’ve got the Faroese on board. Figuratively and literally. I’m going to head back to the house, check my gear one last time. I’ll see you there?”

  “Once Annette’s tired herself out,” I said. “See you in a bit.”

  He left, and I leaned back, enjoying watching people enjoying themselves. The wedding had almost been a disaster. The weather, the exploding speakers, the dress change; there’d been a fire in the kitchen, but we’d only lost what was in three of the free-standing electric ovens. The guests of honour hadn’t arrived, but no one cared. Today everyone was happy. Today we were all alive. We had found safety, and at least until the first of March.

  But the chair was the wrong height for my arm and cast. Sitting wasn’t comfortable, so I went for a walk. The sports centre, despite serving the capital of a chain of islands, was smaller than many I’d visited in London. Usually, I’ll admit, not for exercise, but as part of the entourage for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The corridors were decorated with cups, plaques, and trophies, next to photos of the winning teams. Today, those corridors were filled with people seeking a quiet place to smilingly converse. Except for close to the main entrance, where I found Tuck, Nilda, and Locke, none of whom were smiling.

  “Bill, good,” Nilda said. “Can we talk?”

  “All of us? There’s an office… down that corridor, I think. Unless the weather’s cleared, I’d rather not go outside except to go home.”

  “In Faroe, I think sunshine is the exception rather than the rule,” Sorcha said. “But you know what they say, there’s no bad weather, just bad cab service.” She smiled. Nilda didn’t.

  The office was currently unoccupied, though it had the look of having been recently used.

  “We’ll have to do a lot of tidying tomorrow,” I said, picking up the desk chair. “I hope you don’t mind if I sit, my back’s playing up.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope?” Locke asked.

  “Just exhaustion,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Tell him,” Nilda said. “It’s your idea, not mine.”

  “Lucy and I are going to Ireland, not to the Arctic,” Locke said.

  “Lucy?” I asked.

  Tuck raised her hand.

  “Oh, right. Of course. Sorry, yes,” I said. “You’re going to Ireland, why?”

  “For preference, I’d spend my winter holidaying in the Azores,” Locke said. “But I can’t seem to get a ticket.”

  My brain dragged a memory to the forefront of my brain. “It’s Phyllis O’Reardon, isn’t it?” I asked. “The gravedigger Kim and I found near Killarney.”

  “Yes,” Locke said. “After Haderslev, I can’t risk going to any of our other redoubts. I can’t search for any of my old friends. And, indeed, yes, I know what fate had in store for them. But Phyllis is different. She was with me in Elysium. I… I can’t give up on her.”

  “Heather Jones sent a party looking for her,” I said. “Your friend had already left.”

  “I know,” Locke said.

  “So where will you look for her?”

  “At the gravesite, at her childhood home. Yes, I know that’s where Heather’s people went. So what? I have to do this for those I can’t seek, as much as I must do it for her.”

  “You’ll go with the Courageous?” I asked.

  “The admiral has given her blessing,” Locke said.

  “She gave her approval,” Nilda said. “It’s not the same thing.”

  Tuck shook her head. “There’s no point us going to the Arctic,” she signed, and Nilda reluctantly translated. “Two weeks aboard a ship, maybe three days ashore? You don’t need us. Nilda, you said, and we agree, our future is in the Mediterranean. This is an interlude. A holiday. It is the next expedition which is the critical one.”

  “She has a point,” I said. “My brother said much the same thing. I think it’ll be a few more than three missions ashore. Once on the Icelandic east coast as that’s the closest point to here. Then Reykjavík, somewhere in southern Greenland—”

  “Southern is as misleading as calling that land green,” Locke cut in.

  “But one or two days ashore at whatever large harbour you can enter,” I said. “Once in Labrador, then once on the western coast of Newfoundland, and again in St John’s. Six or seven trips ashore, but I can’t imagine more than that, nor that you’ll go that far from the harbour. You’ve got Sergeant Toussaint and Privates Petrelli, Gonzales, and Torres for backup.”

  “But not Reg and Gloria,” Nilda said. “The admiral just told us. They were with your brother in Belfast, and again here.”

  “What do you want me to say?” I asked. “You’ve got Norm Jennings.”

  “But not Viola Denby,” Nilda said.

  “But you’ve got the chief and his sailors. You’ve got my brother and Chester, and Dr Harabi. That’s plenty of people to go ashore to see whether a harbour has fuel in its storage tanks.”

  Tuck raised a hand. “And more people than can fit in that launch,” she signed. “That’s all that will go ashore. All that can. One boat-load. You really don’t need us.”

  Nilda sighed in defeat. “Then I surrender.”

  “Sorcha, if you aren’t going to the Arctic,” I said, “and speaking of Kempton’s redoubts, are there any in Greenland or Canada?”

  “None that ship will approach,” Locke said. “There are some extraction points in North America, and some supply dumps close to government bunkers, but our goal was to pull people out of a continent we were sure would be ground-zero.”

  “Supply dumps like in Birmingham?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” Locke said. “But they are inland and far beyond this expedition’s range. There are many legitimate businesses, of course, and a number of rather splendid homes. They all have firmer foundations, stouter doors, and stronger windows than necessary, however, after Haderslev, I strongly advise we leave those places to be forgotten.”

  “Make a copy of the addresses anyway,” I said. “It’ll be easier to avoid them if Nilda knows where they are.” I turned to Nilda. “You think we’ll make our final home in the Med?”

  “If what we really need is oil and warmer weather, yes,” Nilda said. “It’s closer to the Bay of Biscay. We’ll find oranges growing in Spain and lemons in Sicily, and other food between. We know what we’ll find in America. We saw those satellite pictures. We have the stories of your brother and the others who fled.”

  “Precisely,” Tuck signed.

  “But I won’t call this a holiday,” Nilda said. “And not a honeymoon. That will be when we go to the inland sea. I promised Chester we’d go to the pyramids.”

  “In which case,” I said, standing up, “I’m going to grab Kim and the girls, and go home to say goodbye to my brother. I’ll see you at the docks tomorrow.”

&n
bsp; “It was a good day,” I said to Kim during what’s becoming our ritual evening debrief. The girls were asleep. Sholto had retreated to his room, ostensibly to pack, but really to cut short the awkwardly emotional pre-departure conversation. Kim and I sat in the armchairs in the living room, enjoying the lingering heat from the trio of space-heaters we’d placed around the unused wood-burning stove.

  “A good day, yes,” she said. “I think so. In the end. Are you still worried about the Faroese?”

  “Not worried,” I said. “More a little frustrated. Had they come today, the ice would be broken and the negotiation could properly begin.”

  “Around here, when the ice breaks, it refreezes again pretty quickly,” Kim said. “Will you go up to the bridge tomorrow?”

  “I might leave it a few days,” I said. “Work out a new line of attack. Do you think Sorcha will find her old friend?”

  “Probably not.”

  “No, me neither. I can understand why she’s going to Ireland, but not why Tuck’s going with her.”

  “She’s looking for something,” Kim said. “Most people are. But we’ve found it, haven’t we?” She laid her hand on my unbroken arm. “Or I have.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “They’re right on one thing,” she said. “Our future isn’t going to be in North America, not while the Ukrainians and French survivors are in the Pyrenees. That has to be our next goal, to find them.”

  “And find oil,” I said.

  “But since we’ll find neither here, why don’t we go to bed?”

  Day 273, 11th December

  Chapter 3 - Farewell

  The Faroe Islands

  Why is it, as soon as you solve one problem, another rears its head? The departure of The New World went exactly as planned. I won’t record what we said in farewell, just that we’ll be glad when they return. We stayed on the dockside until the ship was gone from view, then lingered in the terminal’s departure lounge until the Courageous had also left the harbour.

  “And now you have to go to school,” Kim said.

  “Oh, come on? Seriously?” Annette asked.

  “If Mary is teaching the day after her wedding, showing up is the least you can do,” Kim said. “I’ll walk you.”

  “We’ll be okay on our own,” Annette said. “I am armed, and there’s plenty of people about.”

  Kim looked at me, then at the admiral, who’d disappeared after The New World had set sail, but returned to bid farewell to the Courageous.

  I shrugged. The admiral smiled.

  “You know the way?” Kim asked.

  “Follow the green painted line, I know,” Annette said. “C’mon, Daisy. We’ve got to go to school.”

  “Thad?” Daisy asked.

  “He’ll be back soon,” Annette said. “Now, we’re off to see the teacher, following the green painted line…” Singing an improvised ditty, she pushed Daisy into town, terrorising the other pedestrians as she weaved the pushchair between them.

  “There are a lot of people about, aren’t there?” Kim said.

  Quite a few were heading towards the already large group fishing on the quayside with the Duponts. On the other side of the harbour, now the large ships had left, two small launches, brought to Faroe slung to the side of the cruise ship, slipped out to sea.

  “People seem keen to work,” I said.

  “They want some meaning to their lives,” the admiral said. “As much as they want a distraction from them.”

  “Speaking of which,” Kim said, “Dean wants to put on a battle-of-the-bands.”

  “He does?” the admiral said. “How many bands do we have?”

  “None that I know of,” Kim said. “I suggested a talent show instead. He wasn’t so keen until I said he could be a judge. Him, Gloria, Mary, and you.”

  “Not me,” the admiral said. “But it’s a good idea. We need distractions. How are we for fish?”

  “The freezers are already a quarter full,” Kim said. “Assuming we want to substitute quantity for variety, we’ve three days’ supply. How much we’ll have after dinner tonight depends on what Sophia and Heather bring back in their nets, but the fish were practically jumping onto the quay this morning.”

  “And storage?” the admiral asked.

  “There I am worried,” Kim said. “We need more freezers. I was going to take them from the stores and shops first, then the unoccupied homes.”

  “I’d like to move some aboard the Ocean Queen,” the admiral said.

  “Freezers or fish?” I asked.

  “Both,” the admiral said. “Two of the walk-in ice-rooms weren’t keeping temperature. The freezers will be our backup. I’d like them cleaned, and installed. Enough freezers to store one day of fish for the entire community.”

  “I… right, of course,” Kim said, the only possibly response to an order, albeit one which was politely given. “Why, though? Or should I ask when? Is this a priority?”

  “A precaution,” the admiral said. “Do it at the same time as you’re arranging cold storage on land. Maintaining discipline is easier when we also maintain routine. Asking for volunteers will identify who is willing to work. Soon, we will allocate the rest to specific roles. Do you agree, Bill?”

  “Hmm? Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about the school. Jobs? I don’t know what we need, or how we’ll pay people. We didn’t solve that on Anglesey, but I’ll dust off my notes.”

  “Are you still sending the Amundsen north?” Kim asked.

  “Not until the Faroese agree to accompany us,” the admiral said. “I’ll propose it when I visit the bridge this afternoon.”

  “You can add an invite to our mid-winter talent show,” Kim said. “We’ll run the first round on mid-winter, the quarter-finals on Christmas Eve, the semi-finals on Boxing Day, and the finals on New Year’s Eve, and the winner will get to announce the beginning of the new year.”

  “Not a bad idea,” the admiral said. “We’ll ask the Faroese to provide a judge. We should hurry, I think it’s going to—” But the sky opened before she could finish her warning.

  We dashed the last few yards to the hotel, and found Mirabelle standing in the lobby, a roll of cable in her hands, an odd look on her face. “You’ve a visitor,” she said. “Admiral, he came to speak to you.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Markus,” Mirabelle said. “He’s… he’s worried.”

  “Where is he?” the admiral asked.

  “In the office behind the reception area,” Mirabelle said. “Dee-Dee’s watching him.”

  Markus sat on the desk, drumming his hands on the table. Dee-Dee stood by the door, a hand on her sheathed knife.

  “Thank you, Dee-Dee,” the admiral said.

  Dee-Dee shrugged, and couldn’t seem to get out of the room fast enough.

  “Doesn’t like me much, does she?” Markus said. “I’m getting used to that.”

  “What can we do for you?” the admiral said.

  Markus looked at me, then Kim. Clearly, he’d not wanted an audience. “There’s a mutiny being planned,” he finally said. “I’m not part of it, but I came to warn you.”

  “A mutiny? Who’s organising it?” Kim asked.

  The admiral raised a hand. “Tell me what you know.”

  “I don’t know who’s behind it,” Markus said. “And I’m very much not invited to take part. They’re going to steal the ship.”

  “Which ship?” the admiral asked.

  “Depends on how many people they can recruit,” Markus said.

  “And sail it where?” the admiral said.

  “Boston,” Markus said.

  “Why there?” I asked, but again the admiral waved the question away.

  “How did you hear about this?” she asked.

  “I was cleaning up the gutting-room last night,” he said. “Cleaning up and clearing it out. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty, never was, but there were easier ways to make a living. I’m not trusted for much now, so I was doing t
hat while you were all at your party. We had some boats out. When they came back, when they were unloading the fish, they got to talking. They didn’t know I was there, and I wasn’t going to volunteer to help, not after I’d missed a meal to spend five hours knee-deep in fish guts.”

  A thick layer of misery was concealed behind his protective wall of self-pity, but it’s going to take a lot more than that before I feel sorry for this particular man.

  “What were they saying?” the admiral asked.

  “About who to enlist,” Markus said. “One of them, who’d been in Elysium, he said they should ask Eamonn and Greta. The other said no, because they were Londoners. Invite the Londoners, and you’ve got to ask all of them. Which means the kids, and they’re more mouths to feed. They headed off after that.”

  “That’s all you overheard?” I asked.

  “Nah. I’ve heard stuff all over the place. On the ship, at the docks. I know what they’re talking about.”

  “And names. Do you know who was talking?” the admiral asked.

  “You know Michael Jollif? He was one.”

  “Who was the other?” the admiral asked.

  “You won’t like it,” Markus said.

  “Tell me,” the admiral said.

  “Commander Crawley,” Markus said.

  “He was with me in Dundalk,” Kim said.

  Markus shrugged. “I said you wouldn’t like it.”

  “Thank you, Markus. It truly means a lot you came to speak to me,” the admiral said. “Is there anything else?”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “Thank you,” the admiral said. “Let me walk you out.”

  In the lobby, Ken, Dee-Dee, Mirabelle, and a quintet of sailors were stacking and moving cables and wires. They paused to watch the four of us come into the lobby.

  “Again, thank you, Markus,” the admiral said, this time more loudly, and taking Markus’s hand as she spoke. “You don’t know how helpful that is. Truly.”

  “Er, yeah. Sure,” Markus said. He shrugged, and went outside.

  Ignoring the puzzled looks on the programmers’ faces, we went upstairs to discuss our spy’s report in private.

  The admiral had taken over a trio of rooms on the top floor. One was her bedroom, one was our radio room, the third was her office. The bed had been removed, a desk placed by the window, with chairs brought up from the lounge. It wasn’t the most comfortable of rooms, nor of furnishings, but the view was spectacular. After Markus’s warning, I barely noticed it.