Before the Storm

by Sean McMullen

  ‘Ya have me over,’ Barry pointed out.

  ‘Daniel has you over, not me. Besides, Fox may be a bigger criminal than you.’

  ‘Just about everyone’s bigger than me. Well, okay. Wot ya want done?’

  ‘Can you pick locks quickly?’

  ‘Yeah, can I ever!’

  ‘Good. Pick the lock to Fox’s room, and we shall go in and look around. If we find nothing suspicious, we shall just leave as if we never went near the place.’

  They sat together in embarrassed silence until the train arrived, then boarded and found seats away from the other passengers.

  ‘This is daft, and probably dangerous too,’ muttered Daniel as the steam train rattled and chugged its way to the city.

  ‘It is nothing of the sort!’ insisted Emily. ‘We shall just go to the building and find out things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Important things.’

  ‘What if there’s nothing to find out? What if Fox returns while we are there?’

  ‘Well then, we shall leap out and demand that he explain everything.’

  ‘But what if he has a gun?’

  ‘He will not shoot us.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He saved our lives, silly. Someone who saves your life will be too noble to shoot you.’

  ‘He didn’t save my life!’ exclaimed Barry nervously.

  ‘Well, you can stay hiding while I step out and surprise him,’ declared Emily.

  ‘If there’s somewhere to hide,’ said Daniel.

  ‘It’s easy to hide,’ said Emily.

  ‘How would a girl know that?’ demanded Daniel. ‘Have you ever tried to hide?’

  ‘Of course. I have hidden under the table in the parlour and listened to Mother and Father talk about all sorts of things.’

  ‘Such as what?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘Well … I heard them say that Henry the groom reduced Martha the maid.’

  ‘Reduced her?’ responded Daniel. ‘You mean made her smaller?’

  ‘How am I to know? Anyway, Father was all for sending her away for being a loose woman.’

  ‘You mean she did naked poses, like in Barry’s postcards?’

  ‘We two gotta have a serious talk ’bout some embarrassin’ stuff if we live through the next couple of hours, Danny Boy,’ muttered Barry, wiping his forehead with a grubby handkerchief.

  ‘Martha would never do a thing like that,’ insisted Emily, ignoring Barry. ‘Anyway, Mother said good maids are too hard to find, so Father agreed to give her another chance.’

  ‘Reduced. Do you know what that means, Barry?’

  ‘I think he said seduced,’ said Barry unhappily.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Somethin’ rude.’

  ‘If it is anything to do with those French postcards, you would be sure to know!’ snorted Emily. ‘I don’t want to hear any more on the subject.’

  Barry literally sagged with relief. Judging from his reaction, Emily decided that either she or her brother had just managed to make complete fools of themselves. She resolved to look up the word ’seduced’ next time she was within reach of a dictionary.

  At Flinders Street Station they left the train, and Daniel led the way to a four-storey building in Flinders Lane that was all peeling paint and rotting woodwork. The outer door was closed, but it yielded to Barry’s picklock.

  They ascended the stairs to the top floor, exploring as they went. All the rooms on the first three floors were empty and open, and Emily began to suspect that her brother had made a mistake. They communicated by gestures, even though the floorboards creaked louder than a whisper with every step they took. There was a pile of crates on the landing of the top floor, and nearby was a door that was closed. Barry pointed at it and whispered, ’That’ll be it.’

  Just as he spoke they heard the outer door creak open far below, then came footsteps on the stairs. They slipped behind the empty wooden crates and huddled down out of sight. The newcomer’s footsteps continued on the stairs, and it was soon clear that he was going to come all the way to the top. He had the same brisk, military step that Emily had become used to hearing when Fox was on the stairs at home.

  Emily heard a rapid but oddly purposeful series of taps on the door. A half dozen taps replied from within, then the visitor responded with several more. There is another person in the room, she concluded, blind panic suddenly paralysing her limbs. Fox seems noble, but he might have associations with criminals who are not. The door creaked open.

  ‘Reporting …’ began Fox’s voice.

  ‘Sensor, scoping, intruders!’ barked a voice that should not have existed. ‘Three, bearing, zero zero. Profile, concealed. Armament, knife, one. Status, crouching!’

  Emily felt light-headed and on the verge of fainting as the seconds ticked by. Both she and Daniel had made the floorboards creak as they had walked across the landing to hide behind the crates, but the person who glided into view and loomed over them had somehow made no sound at all.

  Emily recognised one of the stubby fire-rifles from the scene in Fox’s image machine. She was now seeing it from the most disturbing angle possible, however. The person holding it wore black trousers, a strip of white bandage around his stomach, and had a blue shirt caked with dried blood under an unbuttoned military jacket. His face was familiar; in fact, his face had been etched indelibly into Emily’s memory two days earlier.

  Fox stepped into view. The instant that he saw Emily and Daniel he sighed, then raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘BC, threat status, zero,’ Fox explained to the youth.

  ‘Identify,’ ordered the bandaged BC.

  ‘Emily, Daniel, railway official,’ he said, then turned to the crouching, terrified trio. ‘Knife?’ he said as he held out his hand.

  They stood up slowly, holding their hands high, then Emily surrendered her letter opener. With a flicker of an expression that might have been contempt, BC thumbed something on his weapon, then gestured to the open door and said, ’In.’

  At first glance there was only rubbish in the room, but BC had a bed of blankets and newspapers set up behind some boxes in a corner, so that any watchman casually checking the room would see nothing suspicious. Beside the bed were several bottles of water, some fruit and sausage, and other small, bright things that Emily did not recognise at all. An open window looked out onto a gutter between two roofs. The word toilet floated through Emily’s mind. After all, Daniel had once been in the habit of peeing through his bedroom window into the guttering because he was too lazy to go downstairs to the toilet – at least until the vicar, the deacon, and half a dozen members of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Council of the parish had observed him in the act from their tea party next door. That had ended his pocket money for so long that he had had to ferry suspicious packages for Barry the Bag on his bicycle to earn his own money.

  ‘Sit,’ ordered BC, closing the door and pointing to a corner.

  Emily, Daniel and Barry sat on the floor, their arms still raised. Suddenly BC seemed to weaken, then sway. He sat down hastily on one of the boxes. For the first time Emily realised how very small BC was; in fact, he was shorter than Daniel. He was of a curiously slight, almost frail build, yet his eyes blazed with authority.

  ‘Railway official, state name,’ said BC in a tone that demanded an honest answer on pain of death.

  ‘Barry. Barry the Bag, er, like, Barry Porter, that is. I’m a mate of Dan the Man.’

  ‘That’s me,’ explained Daniel.

  ‘BC, status?’ asked Fox with concern that bordered on alarm.

  ‘Benzothoractine, myself, for use of, depleted,’ replied BC. ‘Pain, severe.’

  ‘Why’s the young cove called BC?’ whispered Barry to Daniel.

  ‘Battle Commander,’ said BC, who had somehow heard the whisper from right across the room. ‘Parade name, Liore-BC. Battle standard name, BC. British Imperial SYS-IK Cadets.’

  Truly exceptional hearing, thou
ght Emily. Now she noticed that a spot of blood had appeared on the bandage at the centre of BC’s stomach.

  ‘Excuse me Master BC, but you seem unwell, and um …’ Emily’s voice trailed away as her mind finally caught up with her tongue and pointed out just how utterly ridiculous her words were probably sounding.

  BC looked to Emily, then to Fox. ‘Joking, is?’ asked BC wearily.

  ‘Sixteen,’ explained Fox. ‘Young, naive.’

  ‘Sixteen?’ exclaimed BC, casting a suspicious glance back at Emily before pointing to himself. ‘Three, explain, more. Am fifteen, am Battle Commander. After twelve, naive, nobody is.’

  More was said in the ensuing minutes, but Emily’s mind had gone blank through absolute and complete mortification. BC, the youth who had been her obsession over the two days past, was alive. Emily should have been overjoyed about this, yet she could not recall ever being so unhappy. BC, her idol, her god, had caught her armed with a letter opener, wearing a pink dress with white ruffle frills, and cowering behind a packing case between her younger brother and Barry the Bag. Worst of all, the deadly, courageous, dynamic BC now knew Emily’s age … and Emily was a year older than BC.

  Mrs Lang had always said that people should do what they did best, and not try to be what they were not. For all of Emily’s mortification, one thing was all too clear to her, and that was BC’s condition. He was sick, injured, and in pain. Further, he was certainly not being looked after properly. Blood was seeping through his bandages, and quite possibly the wound was infected. He had no proper bed, and his food did not look at all nourishing. Worst of all, there was nobody to care for him. Attempting to gather some dignity together, Emily took a deep breath and opened her mouth. Fox and BC immediately focussed on her. Emily lost her nerve for a moment, exhaled with her mouth still open, then took another breath.

  ‘BC, you need to be looked after properly,’ Emily managed.

  ‘Am soldier,’ said BC, as if this explained everything.

  ‘Even soldiers need to be looked after.’

  ‘Fox, medi-tech,’ declared BC.

  ‘Er, Fox is too young to be a doctor,’ guessed Emily.

  ‘Medi-tech!’ insisted BC, gesturing to Fox with a bloody hand before clutching at his stomach again.

  ‘You need someone with you all the time. You need to come home with us.’

  ‘Home?’ asked BC, turning to Fox. ‘Define?’

  ‘Small courtly-house,’ explained Fox.

  This answer did not appear to satisfy BC, but events suddenly overtook the youth. His eyes lost focus, the gun fell from his hand, and he began to topple. Fox caught him and laid him out on the bedding on the floor. His manner was efficient and brisk, rather than caring and gentle. Emily began to get up, but Fox turned on her.

  ‘Back!’ he said in a soft but urgent voice. ‘BC, my charge.’

  ‘He’ll die if he’s not nursed properly.’

  ‘Soldiers die,’ responded Fox, looking down at BC with what might have been sadness.

  ‘But he doesn’t have to die!’

  ‘Battle status!’ insisted Fox.

  ‘This is not a battlefield!’ retorted Emily.

  ‘Battlefield, is!’ snapped Fox. ‘World, all, battlefield is. BC dies. Am left. Will fight. Sometime, will die.’

  ‘I reckon the cove with the gun wins the argument,’ said Barry, who had spent his life trying to convince people who were bigger and stronger than he was that they should not bother hitting him.

  ‘If BC is dying, than it should not matter what happens to him!’ declared Emily defiantly.

  While Fox’s battle language was very effective for quick, clear communications in desperate, deadly situations, it was not particularly effective for arguments.

  ‘I …’ began Fox, then he stopped. ‘BC, must protect,’ he finally managed. ‘Battle Commander, clearthink.’

  ‘I want to protect him too!’ declared Emily. ‘We must get him home.’

  ‘No! Dangerous!’

  ‘Why is home, where he can be cared for, more dangerous than here, where, well, anyone may walk in while he lies in a faint?’

  The truly good thing about arguing with Fox was that he argued strictly by logic. Defeat his logic, and he was convinced. He stood in silence, then thumped his fist to his chest in some sort of salute.

  ‘Suggestions?’ he asked.

  Emily caught sight of some familiar-looking items from home. Among them were jars, bandages, ointments, and even needles, tweezers, a scalpel and waxed threads.

  ‘You have been trying to treat BC’s wound,’ observed Emily.

  ‘On target. Infection, returns. Benzothoractine, cannot stop.’

  ‘From what I have heard, things left inside wounds support infection. Bullets, arrows, those sorts of things.’

  ‘PLR, no bullets.’

  ‘PLR?’

  ‘Plasma Lance Rifle. Fires shaped plasma, electroinductive field collapse, utilising. Armour, k-mail interlock, of uniform, stopped shot, almost.’

  ‘Fox, I did not understand any of that, but what I want to know is whether you have checked in the wound?’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘So you have not.’

  ‘Irrelevant!’ snapped Fox, suddenly agitated.

  BC’s eyes flickered open.

  ‘FoxS3, attention!’ said BC hoarsely.

  Immediately Fox snapped to attention and gave his odd salute again. BC shook his head, then sat up.

  ‘Consider. Myself, holding wound, forcing, k-mail interlock cloth fragments, into wound, from uniform, possibly. Target: clean wound.’

  ‘Target acquired!’

  ‘Miss Emily?’ asked BC.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Emily breathlessly.

  ‘Yourself, battlefield surgery, training, have?’

  Emily was nearly wrenched in two, partly by pride at being mistaken for a battlefield nurse, and partly by the shame of what her answer had to be.

  ‘No, but I know how to make fires, and that one should sterilise things in boiling water for an operation.’

  ‘Do so,’ wheezed BC, laying back.

  Emily turned to Daniel and Barry.

  ‘You two are going to help,’ she stated.

  ‘Me?’ asked Barry.

  ‘Blood makes me faint,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Who are these coves?’ asked Barry. ‘I mean, I know some dodgy rogers, but these two are bloody dangerous.’

  ‘They are soldiers who are on our side, and they need our help.’

  ‘Our side?’ asked Daniel. ‘I thought Fox is Norwegian.’

  ‘You heard what BC said. They are from the British Imperial SYS-IK Cadets.’

  ‘Talks like a foreigner,’ observed Barry.

  ‘That’s to fool spies,’ improvised Emily. ‘Look, we have to save BC! Understand? He needs help now!’

  ‘But what can we do?’ asked Barry.

  ‘Fetch, carry, and follow orders. You can go out and find a cooking pot. A large cooking pot! Go! Move! Daniel, not you.’

  ‘What should I do then?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘Start a fire. I know you can do that.’

  Over the course of the next hour Daniel got a fire going in a grate in a corner of the room, using broken pieces of packing cases. Barry returned with a cooking pot that he appeared to have stolen from somewhere nearby. While the improvised surgical instruments were being cleaned, and the waxed thread was soaking in an iodine solution, Fox made an operating table out of packing cases. The room echoed oddly, allowing distant conversations to be overheard, Emily now realised. She listened to Daniel and Barry whispering, and she did not like what she heard.

  ‘Dan Man, did we say we’d help?’ asked Barry.

  ‘Ah, can’t recall agreeing to.’

  ‘Then what are we doin’?’

  ‘Following orders. Emily’s orders.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because when Emily says jump, you just say “How high?”, whether you feel like jumping or not.’

&
nbsp; ‘Those coves ain’t British.’

  ‘Emily thinks they are.’

  ‘She’s daft.’

  ‘Perhaps she knows something that we don’t.’

  ‘Ya reckon?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose.’

  ‘Secret British soldiers. Er, suppose we’d better give a hand then, but I still don’t like it.’

  At last, kneeling beside the packing case platform, Fox began to cut through the bandages, all the while listing things that he needed.

  ‘Medicinal alcohol, jars, pot of boiling water, bandages, tincture of iodine, potash of permanganate, bicarbonate of soda, darning needles, wax thread, twelve candles, three mirrors,’ he said slowly and clearly. ‘Emily, Daniel, Barry, lay out, have ready.’

  Fox had the last of the improvised bandaging cut away and had cleaned BC’s abdomen by the time Emily returned. Revealed was inflamed flesh and charred skin, along with tatters of cloth and congealed blood. Emily reeled. Barry caught her and guided her to beside Daniel, who was sitting on the floor with his hands over his eyes. The ashen-faced Barry knelt beside Fox, and began passing things as they were needed. Only BC’s stomach was visible.

  ‘Must operate,’ said Fox. ‘Emily, on target. In wound, char, cloth, causing infection. Must remove.’

  ‘Why did you not do that earlier?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Diagnosis wrong,’ said BC. ‘Thought, benzothoractine alone, enough. Operation, last resort. Thought, needing, only last, to NineFive.’

  ‘Water, boiled, needing,’ said Fox.

  ‘I shall fetch it,’ whispered Emily, who then got up, dashed out to the window and vomited her breakfast into the guttering space between the roofs. After five very deep breaths she had a grip on herself again, and slowly tottered back to collect the pot of boiling water.

  To Emily’s considerable surprise, BC made no sound at all as the charred cloth and dried blood were soaked and eased away with damp swabs, then the dead skin was cut from his wound. Emily kept thinking that a splinter in her finger from the firewood was her worst injury for as long as she could remember. A messy pile of debris slowly built up in a tin pan beside Fox. Barry began to feed it into the fire. The scent of burning cloth and flesh hung heavily on the air, and the steam from the hot water condensed on the peeling wallpaper. Finally Fox took out a kit no bigger than Emily’s thumb and began mixing tiny amounts of crystals into some type of lotion.