by Cole, Robert
He was discussing this with Elaine one night in their room when she suddenly became very thoughtful. It wasn't like her to be silent, and Alex asked her what the matter was. For an answer she brought an atlas of the country from a bookshelf and laid it open on a desk. Alex joined her as she found what she was looking for.
‘Yes, that's it,’ she said. ‘Box. I thought I remembered the name.’
She had her finger on a small village about ten kilometres north-east of Bath.
‘Samuel was always quoting from those papers and maps he found in the citadel,’ she explained. ‘Some of them alluded to other citadels and to storage places like your mine in Wales. There was a huge repository near the village of Box.’
Alex remembered that much of the sandstone used around Bath had come from quarries in that region. ‘The Corsham quarries,’ he said, looking across at Elaine for confirmation.
‘That's right. There had been a lot of mining in that area for centuries before the war. The quarries were enormous. Samuel said they had been under military control for some time and had been completed re-fitted and upgraded with new equipment.’
‘And the entrance to these quarries is near Box?’
‘Yes, but there were no details as to where exactly.’
‘I see.’ Alex began to pace the room. In the chaos of the holocaust it was just possible that such a food dump could have been overlooked. ‘Did Samuel ever mention how many bombs had been dropped in that area?’
‘Hmm,’ Elaine frowned, trying hard to remember. ‘He did show us a map once,’ she said slowly. ‘As I recall, several bombs landed north of Bristol and a few to the east on Greenham Common. Box, I think, would have escaped. Why, do you think it's worth a look?’
Alex leaned over and studied the map further. ‘Yes, I do, very much so. And that may not be the only food dump in Great Britain. If the military lost its grip at an early stage, as we now believe, there could be thousands of tonnes of food just waiting to be found.’
‘Wouldn't it have gone off by now?’
‘Not necessarily. The Welsh mine had its own generators and enormous freezing and refrigerator capacity. I imagine that if the government had upgraded these quarries, as you say, they would have been bound to install similar facilities there. Besides, a lot of the food would be dried. Providing it’s kept in a cool place it should last for years.’
Alex was tremendously excited by this possibility and spent the following days debating with himself what his next move ought to be. His first reaction was to inform Peter and get him to send a convoy down to investigate. But he abandoned the idea as too risky given the tenuous nature of his links with the Scottish community. If something were to go wrong, if say the convoy failed to return, the relationship between the two communities would be seriously strained at a time when it had barely begun. He also could not imagine the Welsh committee, on his return there, sanctioning a mission of its own to Box on such flimsy evidence. More than likely they would refuse him. And if he were to go against their ruling, he risked being banished; others before him had been expelled for less. No, his only option was to investigate Box himself. He could join the next convoy heading south and leave it at the Welsh border. The whole trip would take less than two weeks.
When he confided his decision to Elaine, she naturally insisted on accompanying him. He had not even considered her up to that point and at first resisted strongly, but she made so much fuss that he eventually gave in.
After a month the delegation returned with three of the Welsh committee in tow. The Scots had been delighted with everything they had seen and delivered glowing reports on the friendliness and co-operation of the Welsh community. Without exception they raved about its efficiency and its numerous agricultural advances, which could be directly applied to relieving their own problems in the field. Alex noticed several agricultural advisors amongst the Welsh delegation. They were to remain in the north until the reforms they could suggest could be put in hand. In exchange, the Scottish community would send mechanical parts and machinery to Wales. They also had access to a huge range of weaponry and fuel reserves left behind by the military, which they were willing to have shipped south in exchange for surplus food.
The committee members made an enormous fuss over Alex when they saw him. They relayed the thanks and gratitude of Marcus and his associates and made him an honorary committee member. They even suggested that he could become a permanent member of the committee if he wanted. Alex was flattered, but was less inclined to accept when he learned that his old adversary Terry had also been nominated for a post.
For Alex this was both a sad and a happy time. During their stay, he and Elaine had grown very close, spending nearly all their spare time together. It was not, nor could it hope to be, given Elaine's temperament, a tranquil relationship. She was too intelligent, and at times too bloody minded, to knuckle under to him. She had an enormous capacity for ideas and defended them against Alex's attempts to reason with a ferociousness that sometimes brought him close to screaming point. They would talk and argue till the early morning, completely losing track of time. She verbally poked and prodded him until he was forced to defend even his most innocuous thoughts and assumptions. However, such a lively companion did something for him that Cliff had failed to do. She made Alex re assess and even amend his sullen view of life. In one short month she had re-moulded him and most importantly become an intimate companion.
Meanwhile, preparations had been continuing for the first shipment of fuel and machinery to leave for Wales. Alex broke the news of his little side trip to the visiting committee members. At first they had flatly refused, thinking he was asking their permission. But when they realised that he was going regardless of their objections, they softened their attitude and allowed him to load up with supplies, unhindered.
The day of their departure dawned, cold and misty. Alex and Elaine took their leave of Peter with their grateful thanks and climbed into their Land Rover. On a signal from the leading vehicle the convoy of armoured cars, Lorries and trucks moved slowly on their way.
CHAPTER 11
They reached the small village of Box on the morning of the fourth day after leaving the convoy. Thus far the trip had been without incident. The land was quiet, menaced only by clouds of insects and lean packs of dogs. Even the open wounds of cities were slowly healing as the march of vegetation overgrew them.
Alex shifted into second gear and cruised through the streets of the village, watchful and uneasy. They had stopped and searched several houses since their arrival and found not the slightest sign of looting and this struck a decidedly false note. He imagined every house in Great Britain must have been looted by now. When they made this discovery he had immediately begun monitoring the area for radiation, supposing that locally high levels may have had a deterrent effect. But their counters hadn't registered anything above background levels. And another aberrant factor gave cause for alarm. For the last thirty kilometres the usual smattering of communities had been completely missing from the landscape. It was as though this whole central region of England had been swept clean. For some reason no one had survived the holocaust and no survivors had ventured back into the area to re colonise it.
He pulled the Land Rover over to the side of the road and switched off the engine. They had reached the outskirts of the village for the fifth time. Despite searching every street, they had found no sign of a tunnel entrance. If access to the underground store, supposing that such a place really existed, was this well hidden it might be impossible to locate.
‘Are you sure you can't remember any detail as to the whereabouts of this store?’ he asked Elaine, who had a detailed map of the area spread over her knees.
She shook her head irritably, without looking up. He had asked her the same question many times in the last half-hour.
He sighed. ‘Well, at least we know it's not in the immediate area of Box, so we'll just have to widen our search.’
These words were hardly o
ut of his mouth when Elaine's head came up sharply.
‘Can you hear something?’ she asked.
Alex craned his head out of the window. There was a low rumbling noise that he identified immediately as coming from another engine, and not far off. They stared at each other in shock, for it was already too late for them to drive off without being heard. Urgently, they checked their handguns and waited for the vehicle to come into view. But the sound stopped directly behind a grassy hill to their right. When they heard the doors of another vehicle open they quickly climbed out of the Land Rover and crept up the other side of the hill.
A khaki coloured van had stopped in the middle of a field beside what looked like a large funnel. As they watched, two men came round the back of the van carrying tool kits. To Alex’s amazement both were dressed in military uniform, and not the tattered rags Alex had seen on gangs in the months after the holocaust, these uniforms looked clean, uncreased, and their owners well-fed with short hair and clean shaven chins. The men dismantled the top of the funnel, changed what appeared to be a filter, then re assembled it. Within a few minutes they had finished their work and climbed back into the van. They drove off in the direction they had come, leaving a clear set of tyre prints in the tall grass of the field.
Alex and Elaine watched and waited for a few minutes after the sound of the engine had died away, then climbed down and walked over to the funnel. It was a solid structure, flaring outwards from a square concrete slab and rising to about a metre before it bent horizontally, terminating in a fine wire grid. Alex walked around it, tapping it critically.
‘Must lead to some type of underground chamber,’ he speculated.
Elaine didn't answer. She had her ear pressed firmly against the wire mesh. ‘I can hear a faint hum,’ she announced.
‘Maybe an underground generator, like we have at the mine,’ Alex suggested.
‘We found funnels of this type in Carlisle,’ Elaine said thoughtfully. ‘They turned out to be the ventilation shafts leading to the underground citadel. Those men, who do you think they are? Did you see the uniforms on them?’
‘Yeah.’ Alex couldn't understand it. If this was a citadel, why should they still be living underground? The land was not cultivated in any direction, so he had to assume that they were sustaining themselves from a huge food store that should rightfully belong to the survivors. The thought, and their well-fed appearance, enraged him. ‘We’d better follow them,’ he said coldly. ‘I think we might find our food store after all.’
After some discussion it was decided to go forward on foot. They couldn't risk the noise of the Land Rover giving warning of their approach. Besides, if they were standing on top of the citadel the entrance couldn't be far away.
They hid the Land Rover in a nearby garage. Alex put together enough food and water for the day in a pack, along with a map and a compass. They took a handgun each and several clips of ammunition.
The tyre tracks went on considerably further than they had anticipated and soon they began to regret their decision.
In some places the grass reached past their thighs, concealing the uneven ground and making the going difficult. It was the hottest part of the day, too, with the temperature climbing into the high thirties. Soon they were exhausted and dripping with sweat. After well over an hour they sighted some spirals of black smoke. The tyre tracks tended in that direction, but another hour passed before they approached the source.
After climbing a steep gully, they found the grassy track merging with a broad, immaculately maintained bitumen road. It ran on straight for several hundred metres on a spur of land, before dipping into the valley beyond. Ready to spring for cover at the smallest sound or disturbance, Alex and Elaine cautiously climbed to the top of the last ridge.
Less than a kilometre away, in a valley, stood four chimney stacks, two of which were belching out smoke. Below these chimneys and close to a tunnel entrance, people, like ants, swarmed in their hundreds. Alex hadn't seen such a sight since before the war. The prevailing costume was either khaki, like that of the two maintenance men, or a kind of grey flannelette suit, which covered the whole body. But what amazed the watchers more than anything was the carefree behaviour of this vast crowd. They seemed to be strolling about, enjoying the outdoors, talking, reading, laughing and none of them looked skinny or half starved. Many were overweight, bouncing around playing volleyball or soccer, or even picnicking as if they hadn't a care in the world.
Alex felt totally bewildered by all this, and not a little angry. He felt like storming down there and demanding an explanation, screaming and ranting at them until they justified their extravagance. But instead both he and Elaine sunk into a nearby rock outcrop and lapsed into silence. Neither spoke or even moved for a long time. They sat amongst the rocks whilst these cheerful people consumed meat, vegetables, bread, salads, fruit, and cheeses, throwing the scraps carelessly away. Precious water was tipped onto the ground. Such behaviour was deemed criminal in the Welsh community and was punished by expulsion.
The light had faded before the celebrations died down. Then the crowd slowly filtered back into the tunnel.
Alex had hardly said a word the whole afternoon. Certain things, though, had become clear in his mind. The indulgence they had been witnessing pointed to a huge food supply and from the amount of fresh meat and vegetables being consumed it was obvious that they must have access to farm animals and growing crops. Possibly things had built up here very much as they had done in Wales. A rich store of food had provided the nucleus for a thriving community, which must have overcome, like them, the problems of soil contamination and poor crop yield. Yet everything here was on a much grander scale. All the people they had seen had been exceptionally well clothed and their bodies were soft and fleshy. They lacked the sinewy, slightly emaciated look he had come to expect from survivors. The whole atmosphere told of an easy lifestyle. Only the men dressed in military uniforms had any strength or leanness to their bodies, but even they were a far cry from the ragged, dishevelled soldiers who guarded the borders of the Welsh community.
‘I've been watching those buildings over there,’ Elaine said, pointing to a cluster scattered to the left of the entrance of the tunnel. ‘People have been entering them, but not coming out again.’
Alex focused on the same place and saw a constant stream of people disappearing into a small red brick building.
The last of the military entered the tunnel at dusk. A huge metal door was then drawn across the entrance. By the time night fell nothing stirred on the surface not even a solitary light betrayed what had gone on here during the day.
Alex and Elaine crept down and inspected the tunnel entrance and peered through the windows of the buildings. Their torch beams revealed nothing but empty rooms with dusty tables and chairs. When they came to the small red brick building, the door was ajar and the windows open. They ventured in and found themselves in a narrow corridor, which led into a large vinyl tiled room and two thickly carpeted offices. They began looking carefully for any concealed trapdoors, but they uncovered nothing more dramatic than scraps of food and empty drink containers. The walls appeared to be brick and the floors solid concrete. Alex was just contemplating tearing up the carpet in one of the offices when he heard a loud grating sound, like heavy slabs of rock moving past each other.
Elaine came hurtling through the door and pushed Alex against the wall.
‘Keep very quiet,’ she hissed.
The sound had stopped and they were aware of a white glow.
‘What is it?’ Alex whispered.
‘The floor,’ she breathed. ‘I was tapping it when suddenly a whole section started sliding apart.’
Alex could hear the hollow crack of leather boots, as though someone was emerging from a long tunnel. The sounds came closer and soon they could make out voices. Two men could be heard laughing and joking with each other. The footsteps stopped only metres away from where Alex and Elaine were hiding. Then the grating sound start
ed again and the light began to fade. When all the noise had ceased, the footsteps began to recede towards the front of the building. Alex drew his revolver and pushed past Elaine.
He shone his torch at the soldiers just as they were approaching the front door.
‘Back here!’ he yelled, waving his revolver in their startled faces. ‘Hurry!’ he continued, as they appeared to hesitate. The threat was enough to make them scurry back into the room.
He told them to throw down their weapons, which they did. When they were fully disarmed, he drew nearer and shone his torch in their faces. Both had short haircuts and were clean shaven.
‘What's down there?’ He gestured toward the floor from where they had emerged.
There was a pause. ‘It's an underground complex,’ the blond one said at length.
‘A citadel?’
‘Yes, that's right, a citadel.’
Alex nodded slowly, surprised at their cowed looks. He would have expected more spirit from the military. It seemed that just the appearance of Elaine and him had taken the fight out of them. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
The dark haired man tried to shrug the question off. ‘We're the same as you.’
‘You are obviously not the same as us,’ Alex responded sarcastically. ‘You are both dressed in military uniforms and you're very well fed. We witnessed your little party this afternoon.’
‘We weren't involved in that,’ the other quickly replied. ‘We’re just soldiers going out on guard duty.’
‘But whose soldiers are you? Who commands you?’
‘Are you members of the HUD?’ Elaine broke in, walking up beside Alex. ‘That stands for 'Home Underground Defence',’ she added, seeing their obvious confusion.
They shook their heads.
‘Don't move!’ a voice, shouted from the windows directly behind them.
