Shelter

by Dave Hutchinson

  “This is a very interesting place, you know,” he said.

  “I’ve had a good relationship with your people for quite a long time,” she said. “But we don’t tell each other everything. That’s life, right?”

  “If I take this stuff to your friends, will you tell me where it’s from?”

  Betty shook her head. “But it would go some way towards bringing forward the day that I do.”

  Adam rubbed his eyes. “What kind of accident?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, and that’s irrelevant, really. They need the antibiotics, that’s what matters.”

  He sighed. “All right.”

  “They should be arriving sometime this evening. You can leave in the morning; you can take one of our horses and you’ll be back here by the end of the week.”

  “I’ll walk, thanks.”

  “Best you ride,” she told him. “You can ride?”

  He sighed. “Of course I can.”

  THE HORSE WAS named Roderick, and it was the size of a small cottage. Adam eyed it cautiously as Andrew walked it round the stable yard.

  “Good as gold, is Roderick,” Andrew told him with a smile. “Not a bad bone in his body.”

  “That’s good to know,” Adam said.

  Andrew fed the horse a carrot. “Loves carrots.”

  “That’s good to know, too.”

  “You’ve never ridden a horse, have you?”

  Adam looked at the young man. The horse twitched its head alarmingly against its bridle, bared its teeth at him. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I have.”

  “How can you never have ridden a horse?”

  “Boats,” Adam said. “I do boats. And I have ridden a horse.”

  “Long way from the sea, here,” Andrew mused.

  “Yes. Isn’t it.” Adam took a few steps forward and tentatively patted the horse’s neck. “Good horse,” he said. The horse looked at him and he got the impression that it was considering which part of his face to bite off first. He took half a step back.

  Andrew guffawed. “City boy.”

  Adam turned and fiddled with his gear. There wasn’t much, he didn’t expect to be gone long, but the Coghlans had lent him a very nice semi-automatic rifle. Belgian, Betty had said. “One of a kind, probably,” she’d said. “No more rifles coming from Belgium now.”

  He’d had a long conversation with Chrissie the previous night, weighing up the pros and cons of the trip. Chrissie had been enthusiastic about it.

  “Sure,” she said. “Take a look at the area, it’s all intelligence.”

  “And what about the intelligence about Thanet?”

  “There won’t be anyone there to debrief you for days,” she said.

  “Maybe I should write it down. Just in case.”

  “No. No, you don’t do that. Not around Betty Coghlan, anyway. She’s probably listening in to this conversation as it is.”

  He looked around the bedroom. Pressed the button on the radio. “I thought we were friends.”

  “There’s friends, and there’s friends you leave intelligence with, and Betty isn’t one of those. Not yet, anyway.”

  He wondered what that meant. “If you don’t mind me saying,” he told her, “this is quite an unusual way of doing things. Even for us.”

  She chuckled, a hundred and fifty or so miles away in her nice office in Guz. “When was there ever a usual for us? Listen, it’ll be a nice trip, nothing’s going to go awry. Deliver this stuff to Betty’s friends, have a poke around, come back to Blandings. Four days, tops. And if you could find out where she’s getting antibiotics from, that would be good too.”

  “I thought you said she’s probably listening to us.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She’d try to find out if we had antibiotics.”

  “Just for the record, and because someone ought to say it, I don’t think this is a very good idea. We should be working out what to do about Frank Pendennis rather than playing postman.”

  “And we will. Just go, Adam. Nice relaxing ride, meeting new people. How can it hurt?”

  HOW CAN IT hurt? Well, it could involve riding along on what was basically half a ton of mildly dangerous muscle and teeth. He felt himself swaying alarmingly as Roderick plodded along, every now and again craning its neck around to try and bite his leg.

  “I swear on my mother’s life,” he told the horse, “if you keep doing that, I’ll shoot you.” The horse whinnied but otherwise took no notice.

  On the other hand, it was quite a pleasant trip. The rain had stopped, the sun was fighting its way unenthusiastically through the clouds. He rode past fortified houses and farms nestling in the countryside, other houses abandoned and half-demolished for building materials. For all that there was no central organisation, the people here seemed to have their act together pretty well. When he encountered someone – on foot or horseback or in a wagon – they nodded hello cautiously but without threat. After Margate, it was nice to find people getting along without the encouragement of armed guards.

  There were a lot of people in Goring, apparently getting ready for market day or something. He stayed overnight at a boarding house recommended by Betty, pressed on across the river the next morning. He remembered how exhausted he had been when he came the other way, days before. Now he was rested and well-fed and even Roderick, who seemed mostly to know the way for himself, had given up trying to bite him.

  On the other side of the river, he climbed up into the hills again, following a broad path which Betty had told him had been a trade route as far back as the Bronze Age. He passed carts and wagons heading for market. The view out over the Vale of the White Horse was extraordinary, a vista of flooded fields and woodland that seemed to fade out into infinity. He pulled Roderick to a halt and sat in the saddle examining the distance through his binoculars. He could see buildings, farms, grey patches he presumed were old towns. In a few places, he saw smoke rising into the breezy air, what he thought might be large groups of people on the move down old lanes. Further off, there was a large pall of smoke hanging over what seemed to be a town. He wondered what was going on down there.

  The path he was using was obviously well-travelled and cared for, important to the locals for trade and travel. Betty had told him that it had once stretched from Dorset to the Norfolk coast, which seemed hard to believe. Here and there, at the side of the track, were black signposts, amazingly not toppled over by wind and hail, their white lettering all but worn away. He kept an eye out for the signs until he found one indicating the distance to something called Wayland’s Smithy, and he turned off the track.

  A mile or so further on, he noticed a group of people standing in the path. He’d been riding along more or less contentedly for the best part of two days, and the group didn’t seem particularly threatening, so he kept going towards them. It was only when he saw their weapons that he unslung his rifle, cocked it, and held it across his body.

  There were about ten of them, dressed in a motley of rain gear and old camouflage clothing. Some of them had shotguns, others had crossbows. None of them looked particularly welcoming.

  He rode up to them, drew Roderick to a halt. Sat looking down at them. “Hello,” he said.

  One of them, presumably the one in charge, looked up and said, “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Adam. What’s yours?”

  “Where are you going?”

  Adam told him. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said, suddenly conscious of the flask in his saddlebag containing the antibiotics which had been delivered to Blandings from who knew where. He shifted slightly in the saddle, making sure everyone could see his rifle.

  “Get down.”

  “No.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  HE FINALLY CAUGHT up with them not far from the Wren farm. Five of them, walking along the track laughing and joking, like they didn’t have a care in the world, Fred walking in front, shotgun slung over his shoulder. He watched them pass from the undergrowth beside the track, then
he stepped out into the open.

  They didn’t hear him, didn’t notice him. He could have taken them all down and they would never have known who did it, never known what hit them. But he didn’t want that, so he carefully arranged the Morty Face and said, “Hey.”

  That got their attention. They stopped and turned. A couple of them unslung their rifles, but they relaxed when they saw it was just one man standing in the middle of the track in a rain poncho that was too big for him. He pulled the hood of the poncho back so they could all get a look at him.

  “Hey,” said Fred, a big grin on his face. “It’s what’s-his-name. Monty. Monty boy who had my horse.”

  “My horse,” said Morty. “Not yours.”

  Fred shrugged. “Too fucking late now, anyway. Sold it. Didn’t get much for it, either, worthless pile of bones.” He stepped forward, starting to bring up his shotgun.

  Morty lifted the semi-automatic from under his poncho and fired. The rifle had quite a kick; it was a struggle to keep the muzzle down, but the effects were quite miraculous. All he had to do was pull the trigger and wave it back and forth a couple of times and everyone was dead or dying.

  It made a miraculous sound, too, echoing through the trees and off into the damp morning. Someone would be coming to see what had made that noise. He rifled the bodies for any useful items – food, ammunition, little bits of gear – and looked at their faces. One of them was a Wren, he was fairly sure of it. Another looked like one of the younger Khan boys – and that was all they were, really, just cruel boys out for a day’s fun, not caring who they hurt. There had been lads like this in Southampton, but that seemed so far away and long ago.

  Fred was still alive, barely. He was lying on his back, bloody foam on his lips and two holes in his chest, eyes blinking desperately and fists clenching and unclenching.

  Morty knelt down beside him and went through his pockets. Some shotgun shells, a roll of string, a ham sandwich wrapped in brittle old brown paper. Morty put them all in his satchel and then he looked down into Fred’s eyes.

  “My horse,” he said, and he let the Morty Face slip, let Fred see what he really looked like now, and Fred’s eyes widened and he died.

  A minute or so later three men came riding along the track. Morty shot them from cover, tumbling them out of their saddles and sending their horses cantering away in terror. Then he set off through the trees towards the Wren farm, a spark of cold joy in his heart that he had, finally, discovered something he was good at.

  AT A DISTANCE of almost two hundred yards through the trees, the scope of Big Keith Mercer’s hunting rifle made the figures patrolling along the top of the wall of the Wren compound seem almost close enough to touch. Morty rested the crosshairs on the forehead of one, breathed in, breathed out, and squeezed the trigger, was rewarded with a burst of reddish-grey mist. He sighted on a second and fired again, and a third, and then he was moving to another position.

  The people on the wall didn’t know what was going on. Several of them were just standing there, looking out into the surrounding woods, firing at shadows. Morty shot two more and moved on, and two more from another position, and by that time someone in the yard had seen some sense and called everyone down off the wall.

  Morty moved around until he was in cover beside the track leading to the farm. A few moments later the gate opened and four or five heavily-armed men emerged. Morty brought the first two down as they stepped out, killed a third as the others ran back into the yard and the gate closed behind them. Someone popped their head up over the parapet and took a shot into the undergrowth before popping down again. Morty fired but this time he wasn’t sure if he’d hit them.

  The last of the gunshots echoed away into the trees. Morty heard distant shouting from inside the farm, but couldn’t make out any more movement. He settled down in his nest of weeds and bracken. He reached into the satchel round his neck and took out the sandwich he’d taken from Fred, unwrapped it, and took a bite.

  He’d just finished the sandwich when he heard horses coming along the track towards the farm. Four riders. He waited for them to pass, then stepped out for a moment and shot them with the semi-automatic before plunging into the undergrowth again and making his way around the wall of the farm. At the back, he found three ladders and signs that a number of people had made their escape in a hurry.

  Morty climbed one of the ladders and looked down into the compound. Not a soul about. This was really too easy. He climbed over the wall onto the walkway, and from there down the steps into the yard.

  Ten minutes later, as he let himself out through the front gate and vanished into the woods, the house was already burning.

  BY THE TIME Morty was safely back in his bolthole, the survivors of the massacre at the Wren farm had reached the safety of the Khan compound and told a breathless story of being attacked by at least fifteen men armed with long guns and possibly automatic weapons. The Khans listened, and then sent out word to the neighbouring Thompson and Walsh farms, and before nightfall fifty heavily-armed riders set out northward.

  They didn’t really have a plan, as such, but they came upon the Croker farm, a small, lightly-defended place half a mile or so from the Taylor compound. Because the Crokers worked for the Taylors, and because it was an easier prospect than a direct assault on the Taylor farm itself, they burned it and killed everyone they found, and then they rode home.

  By the time the sun rose the next morning, five days after Max Taylor had returned home wounded and four days after Morty Roberts set fire to his own farm, the Parish was in a state of war.

  Wayland

  Chapter Eighteen

  “DON’T MOVE,” SAID a voice. “It’ll hurt if you do.”

  He did, and it did. He thought he went away for a moment.

  “Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” grunted the voice.

  He was an island of pain, out of which rose mountains of agony. His face felt huge and swollen, like a balloon overfilled with water. He tried to speak, but his lips wouldn’t work properly and the only sound that emerged from the awful ruined unknown country of his mouth was a faint sigh.

  “At least you’re not dead,” the voice said. “Although they did try. I’m Theresa Abbot. This is my husband, Paul.” A vaguely-sensed presence on the other side of him. “You’re at our place and you’re safe. For the moment, at least.”

  He couldn’t open his eyes. Or maybe he could. Maybe he already had and he was blind. It hurt just to breathe.

  “I’m not going to tell you how badly you’re hurt,” said Theresa’s voice. “That can wait; you’ll find out yourself, soon enough. Rest now.”

  Panic overtook him. He tried to raise his arm and the pain swept him away.

  “HELLO.” THERESA’S VOICE. “Are you awake?”

  Truth was, he was no longer certain, but he managed to force his right index finger to stir slightly in response.

  “Good. Okay. We’re going to sit you up a little bit and it’s going to hurt a lot, but you need to eat something. All right?”

  He thought about it, softly grunted.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Okay. Here we go.”

  Strong hands grasped him under the armpits – her husband? what was his name? – and lifted him. The mountains of pain shifted and there was a great ringing noise in his head.

  When he came back to himself, he was sitting up, his back supported by something soft. “You don’t have to do anything,” said Theresa. “I’ll hold the mug. Here comes the straw.”

  A smell of something hot and meaty below his nose. Something gently slipped between his swollen lips. He sucked gently, was rewarded with a teaspoonful of broth. He swallowed, choked a little. The straw was withdrawn, replaced with a softly-dabbing cloth.

  “Again?”

  He grunted and the straw returned. He sipped again, this time managed to swallow without mishap. The broth tasted very good. He sipped again.

  “Not too much at once,” said Theresa. “That’s good.” She let
him sip the broth for a while in silence. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

  He tried to turn his head and open his eyes to look at her, but the pain was too great.

  “Just eat,” she said. “Paul found you out on the road. I expect they left you there to die, if they didn’t think you were dead already. You picked a bad time to come here.”

  He let the straw slip from his lips and managed to murmur, “Horse.” The effort of that single syllable seemed almost impossible.

  “You had a horse? Well, that’s gone, I’m afraid. And any gear you had, too. I’m sorry.”

  “Who?” It was barely an exhalation, let alone a question.

  “Who did this? I don’t know. Right now it could have been anyone. Had enough?”

  He took a final swallow of broth, let the straw fall from his lips, and relaxed back against the pillows, exhausted.

  “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you’re doing here,” she told him. “I’m going to assume for the moment that you’re not here to do us any harm because we’re taking care of that quite nicely for ourselves. So you’re welcome to stay, so long as nobody finds out you’re here.”

  This seemed an odd thing to say, but he was too tired to unpick it. He managed to whisper, “Thank you,” and fell asleep.

  HE LEARNED, BY cautious experimentation, that if he lay very still, propped against the pillows, he could minimise the level of pain. Cautious experimentation also revealed that his chest was tightly bound and that his left forearm – a flaring knot of pain if he moved too abruptly but a sullen throbbing ache if he remained motionless – was splinted. His face was too painful to touch, but he brushed his fingertips across it enough to establish that it had taken on a new and frightening shape and that he now had the nose of a stranger.

  In time – he had no idea how long it took – the swelling of his eyelids subsided enough for him to be able to open his eyes, and he found himself looking at a small, neat bedroom with cheerful curtains and an oak wardrobe in one corner. He looked at his arm, splinted with lengths of wood, and his bandaged chest. He managed to lift the covers enough to see the bruises covering his legs.