I lowered my weapon.
"First aid kit?" I asked.
"Truck," he replied, and ran to get it while I knelt down to tend to Caroline.
She was barely conscious.
She had been lucky. When I rolled her over I could see that pellets had hit her from the waist up, including five that were embedded in her right cheek, one that looked like it had damaged her right eye socket, and a couple above the hairline. If I could treat her quickly, and if I could prevent any of the wounds from becoming infected, she should survive.
"Hold on sweetheart," I said, grasping her hand tightly. "Hold on."
We set up camp in a house near the centre of town. It had been lived in until very recently so it was clean and had everything we needed. I set up a workspace in the living room and did my best to patch Caroline up. Once I'd finished, I went into the kitchen and gratefully accepted the mug of hot tea that Sanders offered me. The kitchen had been installed some time in the seventies and had escaped renovation. The table had a chipped Formica top, like a greasy spoon cafe, and the chair was cheap moulded plastic.
"Well?" he asked.
"I got all the pellets out, sterilised the wounds, stitched the ones that needed it, dressed them, put her to bed. She should really have some antibiotics, but there's nothing I can do about that. The vodka you found helped, thanks."
"Any left?"
"No, sorry. I wish."
"You lush," he smiled.
"I couldn't save her eye," I said quietly, "and her face will be horribly scarred. Rowles refuses to leave her side. He's just sitting there, holding her hand and stroking her hair. I never really thought he had a tender side. Funny how people can surprise you."
"He's not people," said Sanders. "He's an eleven-year-old boy. Who you took into combat."
I laughed bitterly. "Like I could have stopped him! Trust me, Sanders, the boy's a law unto himself. I'm just trying to keep him contained and alive."
"And Caroline?"
"Goes where he goes. Always."
"And which of them shot Patel?"
Shit, that took me by surprise.
"Sorry?"
"I found his body where you told me," he said. "He wasn't killed with a shotgun, he was shot with a sidearm, and you three had the only ones in play."
"There was a fight upstairs at the bank," I lied. "One of the cleaners got my gun off me. Patel burst in and got shot. Then Rowles hit the cleaner over the head with a chair and in the confusion I snatched back my gun and ran."
Sanders shook his head slowly. "Nice try. If I thought you shot him trying to escape custody…" He left the threat unspoken. "But no, I think one of you shot him by accident. Caroline, at a guess."
I stared intently at the swirling patterns on the surface of my tea.
"He was a good lad," continued Sanders. "Would have made a good officer."
"Look, she just panicked, that's all."
"And that's why you don't take children into combat."
I looked up at him angrily. "What, like we seek it out? Are you joking? I just want to keep them alive and teach them to read. But people keep pointing guns at us. People like the cleaners and you." I jabbed him in the chest with my index finger. "We have no fucking choice. Do you think I like seeing what it does to them? You know, Rowles used to be the sweetest kid in the world. I mean Disney sweet, saccharine, cutesy. Now look at him! He's terrifying. But he's alive, and one day, maybe, if I can keep him alive long enough, he can stop fighting and grow into a man. That's all I want, to see him grow up safe, to see all my kids grow up safe. But as long as there are nutters with guns strolling around telling everyone what to do, that's not going to be possible. And now Caroline. I was supposed to keep her safe."
I stood up and threw my mug across the room, full of fury that had nowhere to go. It smashed against the wall and then, before I knew what I was doing, I was crying my eyes out and Sanders was holding me tightly as I pounded my fists against his chest and wept for the girl lying shattered in the bed upstairs.
Then there was kissing.
Then there was sex.
Then there was sleep.
When morning came I woke refreshed, warm and mortified.
Not because I'd slept with a guy who was about as far from my type as it's possible to get, but because as I lay there feeling him breathe, I replayed the night's events in my mind and realized something awful.
I felt guilty.
Which was, of course, ridiculous. I wasn't seeing anyone.
(Do people still 'see' each other after an apocalypse? 'Seeing' someone makes me think of flirty text messages, bottles of wine, dinner in fancy restaurants, making your date suffer through a romcom as a test of their forbearance. None of those things were possible any more. I found myself drowsily wondering what Sex and the City would say about the rules of dating in a post-viral warzone. Of course, with society entirely gone away, every woman who wanted Jimmy Choos could have them, as long as they were prepared to fight their way to a lootable store. And then I had a vision of Sarah Jessica Parker in a sequined dress, with an AK47, mowing down hoards of Blood Hunters, screaming "if you want the strappy sandals you'll have to go through me, motherfuckers!" That was Kate thinking. Jane told her to shut up and focus.)
I had no ties. Since that thing with Mac and the sixth formers last year I'd not been within arm's length of a man I felt like getting to know better. Still, there was nothing to prevent me bedding the entire male population of the UK if the mood struck me.
But as I replayed the night's exertions I realized that at a very particular moment I was thinking of a very particular person. It wasn't as if I was thinking of Sanders at any point. It was a comfort fuck at the end of an awful day; it wasn't about Sanders at all. Neither was I fantasizing about anyone else. It was all about me, about being alive while people were dying around me, about wanting to feel something other than pain for a moment.
Yet at one moment, as I arched my back and dug in my fingernails, I had a crystal clear picture of Lee in my mind, just for a second. And I lay there in the morning with a sinking feeling. I knew what it meant, but I refused to accept it. I banished it from my mind. As Lee was so fond of saying: "no time, things to do".
But, really, damn.
When he woke, Sanders was brisk, businesslike, unsentimental. He didn't want to cuddle or talk or any of that, which suited me fine.
Kate had never had a one night stand, but Jane had had plenty. Of course, Jane had never bedded a guy who knew Kate and that collision did strange things to my head. He was detached come daylight, the kind of behaviour that would have thrown Kate into despair and angst but which was a blessed relief to Jane.
He wasn't cold, though. He smiled and cracked a few lame jokes. Don't worry, his behavior said, I don't expect or require anything else. Ironically, that made me like him a whole lot more than I had the day before.
I checked on Caroline and Rowles. They were curled up on the double bed in the main room, spooning, fast asleep. They looked so peaceful and innocent lying there that I decided to let them sleep. Sanders found some tinned spaghetti and a calor stove, and we sat down to breakfast. We ate our food out of china bowls with old, dull forks and listened to the harsh wind battering the open doors and windows of this deserted little suburban cul-de-sac.
"You said you swept this town," I asked as I wiped tomato sauce off my chin with my sleeve. "What does that mean? What is exactly is Operation Motherland?"
"Our orders are pretty simple," he replied. "We're emptying every armed forces base in the country, gathering all the weapons and ordnance in a series of huge depots on Salisbury plain. The idea is to disarm the population, take guns out of the equation. Then, when we've got all the hardware, we can start to re-impose law and order, raise a new army, take back London, put the king on the throne, get back to some sort of normality."
I gaped. "You're just collecting weapons? That's it? That's your masterplan?"
He nodded. "Yeah, for now. We've
got more kit than we know what to do with, to be honest. Take this town for instance. There was a TA base nearby and a gang of kids had broken in, got themselves all tooled up, and they were running this place. It was ugly, what they were doing. So we rolled in, executed the worst of them, took all their guns away so it couldn't happen again. Job well done."
"And where is everyone now?"
He shrugged. Not his problem.
"Jesus, Sanders," I said. "Didn't it occur to you that it would have been better to arm the people here? The sane ones, the adults?"
"Our orders are to disarm everyone, Kate."
"It's Jane, and those are stupid orders. Obviously these cleaners came to town, found the people here defenceless and either drove them out of their homes or massacred them. And that's your fault. If they'd been armed, they'd have been able to defend themselves."
Sanders put down his bowl and stood up suddenly. "Time to ship out," he said brusquely, and he left the room.
Kate was always a good girl at school. She studied hard, got good grades, excelled at science, biology especially, and made her parents proud.
She only got in trouble once, and that wasn't her fault. Her friend April had started a fight – she never really understood what about – and Kate had tried to break it up. But in the struggle to keep the peace she ended up getting thumped, hard, by a nasty little bitch called Mandy Jennings. So Kate thumped her back – the first and only time she ever threw a punch. Well, until Moss Side. Unfortunately, her aim was true and Mandy wore glasses. So when the screaming and hair pulling finally ended, Kate was marched off to see the headmaster, who gave her all that guff about letting herself down. And Kate bought it, 'cause she was a good girl, and she felt ashamed and she cried and said "sorry, Sir".
As Sanders drove the truck through the gates of Salisbury HQ I felt an echo of what Kate had felt when she was about to be brought up before a figure of authority – a sick, hollow, butterfly ache in the stomach. The only difference was that Jane would have told the headmaster to go stuff himself. And the headmaster was unlikely to have Kate lined up in front of a firing squad.
Salisbury had been the centre of British Army maneouvres for decades, and all the facilities had recently been given a 21st century facelift, so the main base at Tidworth was modern and sprawling, with barracks aplenty and facilities for the maintenance of all sorts of vehicles. But there was so much stuff gathered here that it had spilled out of the base perimeter and on to the plain itself. Row upon row of trucks, tanks, armoured vehicles, jeeps, fire engines, both Green Goddesses and the conventional red ones, ambulances and police vans. Not to mention the hundreds of oil tankers, lined up in rows stretching off to the horizon.
Sanders had undersold the operation's ambitions. They weren't just hoarding weapons, they were collecting all the resources they could lay their hands on. After all, resources meant power. If they had all the service vehicles and all the fuel, married to a well drilled force in possession of weaponry vastly superior to anything else out there, they would be unstoppable.
As I looked out of the truck window and saw all that hardware I felt both excited and scared. All that power, just waiting for someone to give the order to move from preparation to implementation. Operation Motherland was a sleeping giant. When it awoke nothing and nobody would be able to stand in its way.
We drove past a parade ground where at least 400 men were doing drills, and groups of soldiers in full kit marched past us at regular intervals, heading for trucks or armoured vehicles, off to round up more guns, fuel, Pot Noodles or whatever. The place was buzzing, full of organized, purposeful activity.
So as we drove into that awe inspiring place I felt insignificant and afraid, and I wondered what the headmaster would be like. Because with all this at his command, he could do pretty much anything he wanted with me.
Sanders pulled up outside the medical centre and carried Caroline inside. We'd made her a little bed in the back and Rowles had sat with her during the journey. He'd not said a word to me since she'd been shot. I think he blamed me for letting it happen, and an angry Rowles was not someone I wanted to confront, so I left him alone to brood. Caroline herself was conscious and cogent, but complaining of sharp pains in her head, which worried me. There was a possibility that she was bleeding into her skull, and I wanted her x-rayed as quickly as possible. I let Sanders sort out the formalities and I sat in the truck feeling guilty, useless and scared.
I caught myself wishing Lee were here, but I banished that thought as quickly as it appeared.
Sanders emerged five minutes later and opened the cab door for me, indicating that I should get out.
"They think she'll be fine, but they're going to give her a full work up. Rowles is staying with her," he said as I clambered down. There was an awkward moment as he put his hands around my waist to lift me down. I stared at him, not unkindly, and he removed his hands and apologized with a smile.
He led the way to the regimental HQ.
"The doctors here have lots of practice treating injuries like hers," he explained. "The one I saw said to tell you that you'd done an excellent job on her."
I nodded, trying to take pride in the compliment, but I felt nothing but shame.
We came to the steps of the main building and Sanders put one of his huge hands on my shoulder. I stopped.
"Let me do the talking, okay?" he said.
I looked at him curiously.
"I think I can sort this out," he explained. "But you'll have to trust me."
"Sure," I said, allowing myself a flicker of hope.
We walked up the steps and through the double doors. There was a notice board on our left as we entered, plastered with timetables, orders, a poster for a karaoke night. It was so normal, it reminded me of school. Down the long corridor which stretched ahead of us men and women in uniform were bustling from room to room carrying clipboards and folders. A drink machine, actually powered up and working, was frothing a coffee for a bored looking army clerk. That corridor was the closest thing I'd seen to pre-Cull England in two years. Nobody was scared, nobody was hungry. There was an air of ordered, peaceful activity, like any office, really. I wondered if this was the way forward for us survivors, or whether the military machine was just hiding itself away inside a secure compound where they could pretend nothing had happened, that routine military life was just the same as it had always been, running like clockwork, all hierarchy and structure.
We walked down the corridor and Sanders knocked on the door at the far end. The nameplate read Maj. Gen. J. G. Kennett. This was the big man. I braced myself, but when a stern voice barked "Enter!" Sanders turned and pointed to a chair in the corner.
"Stay there," he said. "I'll only be a minute."
I nodded, aware that my life, and the lives of my kids, rested entirely upon what this man, who I hardly knew, was going to say next.
As Sanders opened the door, I sat down to wait. I'd only been there for a minute, twiddling my thumbs and staring at the patterns on the carpet, when a young woman brought me a cup of tea in a saucer, with biscuits.
"There you go, Miss," she said with a smile.
Cup and saucer, tea and biscuits. I shook my head in wonder.
About ten minutes later, long after I'd exhausted all the entertainment possibilities of sitting on a chair in a corridor, the door to Kennett's office opened and Sanders popped his head out.
"Jane," was all he said by way of summons.
I felt a pang of butterflies in my tummy as I rose and entered the office of probably the most powerful man in the country. The room was plush but not opulent. Regimental photos lined the walls, and there were even a few paintings – Waterloo, the trenches of the Somme. The floor was polished wood with a huge, deep rug laid across most of it. There were old wooden filing cabinets, upholstered wooden armchairs, a sideboard with decanter and glasses. The room was old school privilege and power; comfort, security and authority embodied in the trappings of tradition and duty.
/> Major General Kennett was standing in front of his desk, leaning back against it, his arms folded across his chest. He was about forty, plump, red cheeked and bald, with a strong square jaw, and was dressed plainly in green trousers and jumper. He regarded me with calculating green eyes. I was unsure whether his air of easy authority was innate or whether it was bestowed upon him by the room itself and all the cultural and social respect it represented.
Sanders stood to one side, hands clasped behind his back. He wasn't at attention, but he was formal. I think they call it 'standing easy'.
"Miss Crowther, welcome to Operation Motherland," said Kennett, leaning forward and offering me his hand. His voice was high and nasal, with a strong southern accent, kind of like Ken Livingstone. It didn't suit him at all.
I took his hand and he shook it once, firmly.
He didn't offer me a seat, so I stood there, unsure what was required of me.
"The lieutenant has been telling me what happened at your school and on the journey here. There'll have to be an investigation, of course." He folded his arms and pursed his lips, assessing me.
I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just said "right."
There was a long pause.
"I'm not entirely sure I believe everything he told me," added Kennett.
"Sir…" began Sanders, but Kennett silenced him with a look.
"But I've known him a long time, Miss Crowther. He's one of my most trusted officers. So I choose to believe him. And I feel sure that everything the investigation discovers will corroborate his story. Won't it, Sanders?"
"Sir."
"Yes," mused Kennett. "Thorough. I like that in a soldier. So I shall continue to believe him, and by extension to trust you, unless you give me reason to do otherwise. Do you think you're likely to do that, Miss Crowther?"
"No, Sir," I said, surprised by my instinctive deference.
"Good. In which case you are welcome to remain here while the girl in your care recuperates. After that you will escorted safely back to your school. We will, I'm afraid, have to disarm your merry band, but I'm sure you understand that's for the best."
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