“Don't you talk like that Nat! Of course, it won't get that bad.”
“Maybe it will, if we fight. I need you to go with our daughter for that reason only. Of course, I'd want you here with me, but we have to think of her. I'm sure it won't happen like that, but they were not messing around today.”
“Well,” Esme turned away, head down, her fingers pinching her lips, deep in thought. “Ok, ok, let’s see how this thing pans out over the coming days. If things get worse, I'll go with Amber...Ok?”
“Ok, but as soon as things escalate, you both leave, agreed?”
His wife looked into his eyes and whilst shaking her head, voiced her agreement. Neither believed that this could happen - that their home could be taken away from them. But they were fully aware that the NSO knew about their farm and had made many visits now. Something would change at some stage; the Regime would have to go through with their promises. Or, could it be that they would leave them to live in peace?
FOUR
Two weeks had passed since Nat had beaten the NSO operative, and there had been no further contact from the Regime. Reports over the internet were proving that the government had underestimated the rural landowners’ will to resist the land reforms. Farms across the length and breadth of the country were refusing to co-operate and everything had gone very quiet from the NSO's side. Nat was beginning to think that it had been a nightmare, or that the regime had simply floated the idea to see if it would work and had now given up the ghost since there was so much opposition. This was a belief that even old man Rowell held.
Nat was out tending their sheep. They were in the thick of lambing and the barn was full. The weather this year was showing mercy. There had been no recent snow, and very little frost. He stood in the top field, above the wood at the northern extremity of his farm, and there were three new lambs with their mothers. The sun was out in an ocean of blue above him; a fresh and optimistic morning, he thought, as he grabbed a lamb and swung it roughly through the air to kick start its breathing. Life seemed back to normal.
Esme stepped out of the bath; she stopped for a minute, as the heat from her soak and sudden rise had made her light headed. She rested her slender fingertips on the edge of the bath as the dizziness faded; she enjoyed the feeling. Then she padded naked through their bedroom. Passing the full-length mirror, she stopped and moved back to look at her reflection. A woman in her forties, she was proud of her body and an active life that had maintained her firm round breasts, the curve of her backside and her flat stomach highlighted by visible hip bones.
She pretended to smack her bottom and whispered to the mirror, “Still got it, Es!”
She walked over to her dressing table, wringing her thick curls out over one shoulder. She sat and paused for a moment, looking at the photo under the glass on her dressing table as she always did when she sat there.
In the photograph it was a hazy summer’s evening, and Nat was sitting across from a six-year-old Amber. His face was slightly contorted, explaining some important facts to his daughter, who sat head cocked to one side listening intently to her father. Esme adored that snapshot and how it captured their relationship.
Suddenly she jumped as the heavy bell at the back door clanged. 'Shit,' she thought, then, as the shock waned, ‘Jean and Betsy.’ She grabbed the first thing that came to hand, one of Nat’s heavy woollen jumpers, and she pulled it over her head as she ran downstairs calling out, “Coming, Jean!”
She had forgotten that friends were coming over to have a look on Amber’s tablet at the latest news. She rushed to the back door, her hair soaking wet and dripping onto the jumper that hung to her upper thighs.
As she clunked the heavy steel latch, she spoke apologetically, “Guys, I forgot all about you coming, I've just got to throw some...”
As she opened the door, her words stopped. She immediately tried to slam it again, but a heavy palm hit the other side of it.
“Don't worry, don't worry, my lovely, it’s all right, I'm from the government,” came a heavy South African accent.
Esme stepped back from the door and pulled the loose neck of the jumper across her chest. “What are you doing here? What is this?”
Her breathing was shallow, and her heart pounded. Behind the man who occupied her doorway, there were at least ten armed men. Most were, at this point, violating her with dirty eyes caressing her flesh; she was naked other than the short jumper, and she wanted the ground to swallow her whole she felt so vulnerable.
The South African spoke again, a smirk appearing across his heavy jaw and eyes darting across her body. He indicated to his men, “Don't you be scared of this lot, that's security you know. Last time we came here one of my boys was pretty roughed up by your old man. Is he here?”
Her pupils dilated, and her eyes flickered, “Yes, he's in the other room with four farm hands, they're about to go out shooting rabbits.”
“Oh, I see,” said the South African with a menacing grin. “So, your old man is through there armed to the teeth, and we're out here looking all armyish.”
Esme nodded, uncomfortably fully aware that the man had seen through her lie.
He carried on, "You better let me come in and speak to him then, we have business to sort.”
“He's not here.”
“What?”
“I said he's not here, you'll have to come back.”
The man did not move, so she added, her voice losing confidence, “He's out with the sheep.”
“Why'd you lie to me, lady?” He said with venom growing in his voice. “I'm not the enemy - we all have a job to do. Now, you step back and let me come in and wait for him.” The South African pushed against the door to open it more; Esme held it as best she could and then she saw the look in his eyes. She had seen that look before; she knew it was the look of a man who was about to do something he knew was wrong, but couldn't help himself.
“C'mon, back up, little lady.” As he pushed harder, the door swung open knocking Esme back against the kitchen table. She tugged at the jumper, pushing it further down her thighs. He broke the threshold of the door and entered the warmth of the room. His fingers trailed along the sideboard as he skirted to the side of Esme.
"It's lonely for a man up here, you know? Constant quarrels, taking people’s homes, kicking them out on the street, hurting them, you know?” As he spoke, the colour drained from Esme's face; she looked forlornly at the men outside the door but their eyes darted away when they met hers. The South African turned and brushed past Esme once more. His hand reached out to the door as he said "Would be nice to feel the touch of a woman, you understand me? Maybe even buy you and the family a bit of time in your home..." Their eyes met as a tear ran down Esme's face. He began to shut the door slowly behind him when a man ran up to the door and called after him,
“Boss, we got company, two cars coming up the drive..."
“Ok,” he replied. His gaze lingered on Esme as he calculated, annoyance flashing across his face as he opened the door again. Then he turned back to Esme, “Tell your old man we're coming tomorrow. We take control of the farm with you in it or without you.” He turned to leave the kitchen, but at the last moment turned back to Esme and whispered, “I'll definitely be seeing you again too, my lovely.” And he kissed into the air.
Esme sat down in a kitchen chair and burst into tears, shaking uncontrollably with fear. A few minutes later, four of her neighbours burst in and wrapped her in their arms.
It was after lunch by the time Nat was powering down the hill towards the farmhouse astride his quadbike. He saw eight cars on the drive and immediately he turned the throttle as far as he could, and the engine roared. He stopped short of the bottom gate, jumped off the bike and over the gate, running to the house he slammed through the door. Everyone in the kitchen leapt in shock as the door flung open, but Nat had nothing to fear as he saw the faces of old man Rowell, Jean, Betsy and their husbands staring back at him. Rowell’s oldest son Barty was there too. He approached Na
t and said,
“They came this morning, Nat. Shook her up pretty bad like.”
Nat pushed past the young man and knelt down in front of Esme, who was still sitting at the table.
“Did they touch you?” he exclaimed.
“No, Nat, no, I'm ok, Hun, I – I” and the tears welled up again she put her arms around him and sobbed into the small of his neck. As she fought for composure, the rest of them told Nat about the visit from the NSO.
The fat old man who had spoken in the barn that stormy night in Wooler piped up solemnly,
“You gotta get both of them off the farm, Nat. Jesse took the boys’ wives up to the cousins in Kielder yesterday. The wife won't budge, but she’s got fifty years on you, Esme.” Turning back to Nat, he added “You've been targeted now. You know the Youngs over Whitfield?”
Nat nodded, “Aye, I know him.”
“He's dead, Nat; they fucking killed him and four labourers including Sammy Clough, who was two weeks off eighty! This is the Wild West, Nat. We are being run off our properties.”
“What are you going to do?” Nat asked Rowell.
“We're getting organised. We need you; we need men. We're talking to the Scots, and they are getting weapons over the border to our men. We're gonna fight back.” His eyes shone with the grit and determination that fuelled him, and he continued, “You need to get Amber and Esme North or up to Scotland, it’s getting too dangerous...”
Nat gathered his thoughts. “Right. You and Amber are leaving tonight. I'll take you up to Stuart’s, and then I'll be back to meet these bastards in the morning.”
“We had the same visit, Nat; we are blockading the farm now. We have refused to comply, and they are coming to move us out. They haven't said when, but...” Rowell looked at his son. “Actually, we better get back, boy.”
The young man nodded at the old, and they both shook Nat’s hand on the way out. They left to tend their own troubles. Shortly afterward, the rest of the visitors followed the Rowells out.
Nat sat with Esme, quietly waiting for their girl to get back from college. Esme watched her husband as he fell under the spell of deep thought. She saw the farmer in the hard man working out a solution to the problem that had befallen him. Working the land you couldn't let problems stop your progress, you had to find a solution. The cocktail of brains and force was a farmer’s best asset. And right now her husband was working out how to stop this nightmare. She left him to think and went upstairs to pack a bag.
As soon as Amber bundled clumsily through the kitchen door, throwing her bag on the floor as she did every day, and heading toward the Aga, Nat jumped up from the table and intercepted her. He gripped her shoulders and said, “Go pack a bag. As much as you can for a few weeks, but only one bag, ok?”
He saw a faint cloud cross her face as she began to reason but then it passed, and she moved without speaking. She trusted her father; she didn’t question him. As the door was closing, he shouted after her “Tell your mother to be ready in a few hours.”
Nat’s mind was spinning; he had to prepare himself for the NSO arriving the next morning since he would be travelling with the women into the night. He had no idea where to begin with a plan, but he was sure that if all else failed he was not going to allow his house and barns to fall into the NSO's hands.
With fatalistic sabotage in mind, he spun around and grabbed his coat, whipping it over his thick shoulders. The familiar smell of his wax jacket provided some comfort as he charged into the dusk. He moved along the side of the house using what light was thrown out from the windows to help him through the shadows. The weather had been deteriorating throughout the day and was closing in quickly now, the clouds in the sky swirled like a madman's mind and the wind howled through the yard.
Nat reached the trap door to the cellar, and with rigid joints and ripping arms, he threw the heavy double doors to either side. The adrenalin was pumping. He needed this job done, so he sank deep into single-minded concentration. He didn’t even feel the rain hitting his face like a thousand pins being pitched at point blank range. He turned from the cellar and ran across the farmyard to the small bothy where he stored propane gas bottles. There were plenty. He used the quad and trailer to transfer all of them to the cellar.
Next, he grabbed his pick axe and crossed to the oil tank which housed the domestic oil for the central heating. He faced the tank, then turned to look over his shoulder assessing the job ahead. It was a good forty feet across the yard to the diesel tank for the farm machinery. He breathed a deep breath, looked at the dirt at his feet and hit it hard with the pick axe. He worked like a metronome, breathing hard, dripping with sweat, but showing no sign of pausing or even slowing. His mind was on the job; he could rest later.
The fear, the anger drove him through the pain - in some corner of his mind he enjoyed the pain. He was calling on the same reserves that sent him head first into the snow drift to save his lambs or into the slurry pit to rescue his wayward collie. He hacked out a rough trench from oil tank to diesel tank. While he worked he boiled; as soon as he stopped, he felt the wind biting at his sweat sodden skin, the temperature was dropping fast, and the wind was picking up. Once the shallow trench was complete, he stepped back into the kitchen.
“What are your plans, Nat?” asked Esme, as she swept her locks away from her face.
“Get you two to safety and make sure that no-one sits at our table uninvited,” he replied as he left the room. Esme could hear his footsteps stomp down the cellar steps.
He laid demolition fuse, which he had made some months before to create space in the quarry for a shelter. Now he laid it in the shallow trench that he had hollowed out, carefully placing it from the far end to where the oil tank stood. He covered the fuse over with the loose dirt. He punctured a hole in the diesel tank and fed the end of the fuse through, securing it with a rag.
He checked his work briefly in the unkind light and heartless weather. It was an elementary set-up; few variables meant few margins for error.
He turned and ran back to the house and down the cellar steps. The dusty room was large but full of bits and pieces that a family collected over time. With the remainder of the fuse, he took one end and pushed it between the floor boards above. The rest of the length he laid out across the floor, reaching the gas bottles which he had shoved through the external trap door.
He threw the rest of the coiled fuse to the floor next to the bottles along with anything else that would burn. When he had set the bonfire, he ran to the barn and wheeled back sacks of AN fertilizer and plastic fuel oil bottles. They joined the heap in the cellar.
When he had finished, he clapped the dust off his hands and stood back from his handiwork. He shook his hot head in sadness as well as in uncertainty; he had no idea what he was doing, but he reassured himself it was failsafe. If everything else were lost, if he lost, his home would not fall into their hands now.
Nat returned to the kitchen where Amber stood with her back to the warmth of the Aga and Esme sat in the armchair next to a roaring fire. Both were wide-eyed with nerves, waiting to leave. His wife looked at him sadly, “I've seen what you've done Nat. Whatever happens, Nat, promise me you will get out?”
“Of course, I promise Es, I'll be up on the hill watching the show.” It was half-hearted bravado.
He told them to go and get in the car and wait for him. Then he picked up the phone and dialled a Scottish number. He waited as the ringing tone resonated back down the line. He pictured his old friend sitting in his kitchen listening to the phone ring, thinking ‘Who’s that?’ and ‘If I leave it long enough, they’ll go away.’ But Nat knew he didn’t have an answer phone, and it would just ring eternally if necessary; so, he waited it out. Finally, the receiver at the other end was lifted - there was no “Hello?” - only silence.
Nat spoke, “Stuart, it’s Nat. I need your help.”
“Ah, Nat, it’s you, tell me, no problem,” returned the borders drawl. “Are the girls ok? What’s happening
down there? The news says it’s a fucking riot, the countryside is at war, farmers killing government troops and vice versa. There's a big debate up here whether we should intervene or leave you English to kill yourselves.”
“Yeah, Esme has had a scare, and they'll be back tomorrow, so I want to get Amber and Esme to you if that’s ok?”
“No problem, but the border is locked down; the Scottish are massing military there as we speak. Forget the Carter Bar - I don’t think you’ll get through, or, if you do, you’ll be stuck for hours. Take the Kielder Road and skirt the eastern side of the reservoir, about three k from the head of the reservoir there is an old stone bridge on a right-hand turn. Park up there and follow the burn north. It’s called Bell’s Burn so that should be lucky! After about one k the burn corners in an easterly direction around the northern edge of woodland. Follow it all the way - it leads straight over the border and under a wooded track. When you get to the track, follow it east, and I’ll be there.”
“How long before you can get there”
“Couple of hours at the outside”
“We’re leaving now. Thanks, eh.”
“Leave it, Nat, and be careful, ok.”
Nat downed the receiver with a slight feeling of reassurance; he didn’t feel quite so alone. Once Amber and Esme were safe, he felt he would be able to concentrate on the task in hand much better. He hurried out to the car. Esme and Amber were waiting: Esme in the passenger seat and Amber behind her. The engine was running, and there was already heat emanating from the blower.
“Ok?” he asked as he climbed in; both women nodded. He gunned the accelerator, and they hammered down the long drive. They had travelled less than a hundred yards when Nat’s heart sank once more. Rushing up the drive to meet them were a set of headlights. His mind racing, he thought there could only be five in the car, more likely four. Esme was looking at him, and he nodded down to the foot well where she sat; she leaned down and felt around until her hand appeared with a short-handled axe.
The Border Reiver Page 3
