He watched as both men organised their equipment and rode away at low revs to maintain a lower noise profile. Shortly afterwards, Jack arrived with a fresh mug of coffee to relieve him.
“Blessings of God to you, friend,” he said quietly in his broad Belfast accent, a perfect mimic of the same first words he had ever said to Dan.
“And to you, Jack. Thanks,” he replied as he took the drink.
“You go on now and get some rest,” Jack said as he climbed stiffly up on a wheel to reach the top of the vehicle. “I’ll take it from here,” he finished as he settled himself down with his favourite large pump-action shotgun across his knees.
At this stage, neither Dan nor Leah needed to find a quiet spot to sleep. They were both so tired that they climbed into the back of their armoured truck, wriggled their way into sleeping bags in full clothing and were unconscious in minutes. Neither stirred at all until the high-pitched engine note of the two-stroke Hondas cut into Dan’s brain. He sat up, joints creaking and cracking as he moved, waking Leah as he did so. She sat up too, only far quicker and without the percussive fanfare brought on by age and a life of pushing physical limits, and both looked at their watches simultaneously.
They had slept for just over five hours, which was days short of what they needed but more than ample to carry on.
As they climbed out of the back of the truck, Dan cursed silently as he saw Henry duck back behind the larger of their vehicles only to reappear bearing two hot drinks.
Dan’s annoyance, while exasperated by their tiredness, was becoming almost intolerable. The boy was obsessed with him. With her.
With both of them.
Henry wanted nothing more than for the pair of them to like him, just not the dog. Henry reckoned Ash still recalled what he tasted like and wasn’t eager to repeat the incident.
A groan escaped Dan’s mouth and he was quietly chided by the girl.
“He’s only trying to help,” she said under her breath as the grinning boy strode purposefully towards them. “Don’t be an arse!”
Having been left insufficient time to answer her before the excited arrival of their coffee, he turned a wan smile towards Henry and thanked him for the drink before walking away as slowly as he could bear to be polite. This had the added bonus of giving him a small snippet of awkward and forced conversation as the boy, complete with his wispy chin sprouting the fuzz of which he seemed pathetically proud, tried to engage Leah in some casual conversation.
“Don’t be an arse!” He quietly mocked her in a whiny voice as he walked, earning a patented “ears up, head cocked” response from Ash who had rushed to his side as soon as the door of the truck opened.
“Don’t you start on me too,” he told the perplexed dog.
Glancing back, he saw that Leah, in spite of what he thought, was interacting with Henry and wore the most curious look on her face as she brushed a strand of greasy and unruly hair behind her ear.
Good God, he thought, she’s actually flirting with him. On reflection, it wasn’t that unexpected. He was almost sixteen, she was nearing fourteen and although they were either side of proper when it came to the age of consent, he guessed that Henry was her only real contemporary in the group. The thought of having to have “the talk” with her was more worrying than a firefight, but he was sure Marie could deal with that.
Marie.
As soon as he thought of her, he realised,, that he callously hadn’t given her a single thought since he woke. Crucifying himself for being heartless and trying to blame the tiredness, he promised to see her as soon as he had spoken with the returning Rangers.
Flicking away the end of the cigarette as though it were the remnants of his guilt, he strode purposefully towards the resting motorbikes as the two dust-covered men recovered from time in the saddle.
Placing both hands on the small of his back and leaning back to push out his gut, Neil looked suddenly like a travel-stained Santa Claus. The ridiculous posture made Dan’s face crack into a smile, which gave Neil a perfect opener.
“You’d do well to look happy, old boy,” he said, greeting him cheerfully in his favourite go-to character: the Wing Commander. “Barracks ready for inspection!” he crowed with a mocking salute. Too tired to spar with Neil, Dan turned and raised an eyebrow to Mitch.
The soldier shrugged as though to imply that the entertainment wasn’t that good so he had no concerns with the channel being switched over.
“Campsite. Wooden buildings, compost toilets, geothermic eco stuff according to him.” Mitch indicated Neil, who still grinned at Dan in character. “Set in a valley, thick woodland on two sides, topography is impossible to assault by vehicle and the main entrance is easily defended. If we were blocked in, we’d still have a hundred evac routes on foot.”
The succinct report of the defensive capabilities of the site gave Dan little cause to complain. If Mitch said it was safe, then it was safe. If Neil said it could sustain them temporarily, then he trusted that assessment too.
“How far?” Dan asked.
Sensing that the comedy act was no longer drawing a crowd, Neil answered him straight. “Hour on the bikes. Fairly easy roads.”
Dan nodded. “Any other movement?” he asked, turning to Mitch.
“Nothing I’ve seen. A few deserted towns with no signs of life and what looks to be a fire burning out in the city,” Mitch said.
“City?” Dan asked, looking around as though he would suddenly see something he hadn’t noticed before.
“Dijon,” Neil informed him. “The place is probably less than an hour south-west of it.”
Squinting his eyes as though that would help him recall the geography, Dan felt as though they had just driven in circles around Europe for a week. They still had hundreds of miles to cover until they had a hope of getting to the south coast without making a straight run on the major roads.
Pushing that thought away, he thanked the two men and asked them to stow the bikes before taking a break.
“We move in one hour,” he told them, eager to be in place before the sun began to set on another wasted day. He moved off, clicking his fingers out of autonomous habit and bringing the loping dog close to his leg. He walked along the convoy which seemed to have vomited people and equipment from everywhere he looked. He told the people to pack up their belongings, to be ready to move soon, and he did it wearing a relaxed smile and trying to exude the air of easy self-competence and reliability that they used to know.
He tried to recall the feelings of excitement, of adventure, of happiness he felt to be undertaking the journey they had followed him on. His smile grew as he made jokes with some, reassured others and wound his way circuitously to the large canvas-backed truck where the resting Marie was propped up on a throne of ration pack boxes padded out with coats and sleeping bags. She watched his approach as he climbed aboard and pointedly ignored Sera’s presence; when those two were fully rested, she thought to herself, they could have a fight over the colour of grass.
He was followed, with a total lack of dignity, by Ash who only gained the tail step of the truck on his second scrambling attempt.
Kneeling down at her side, he took her hand in his and stroked it as he looked up at her.
“You’re so melodramatic!” she said, mocking him and looking over his shoulder to pat the arm of her makeshift seat and invite the dog to spring over the obstructions to settle down awkwardly at her left hand. Dan fought down the Game of Thrones reference burning on his tongue and let out a small laugh at her levity. Of everyone he had ever met, she was the only person to have never taken him seriously.
Many others had little or no respect for him, but her mocking was different; it was as though she knew the world was a terrible, dark place but she refused to let that pessimism infect her. She laughed at him whenever he tried to be serious, and when he tried to show concern, she mocked him further for overacting the part.
“How are you feeling?” he said to her, moving past being the butt of
her joke.
“I fainted,” she said seriously. “I didn’t lose a kidney. I’m fine.”
He smiled at her light-heartedness again and told her they had to pack up and move for maybe two hours at the most. From behind him, the protests started in full surround sound from Kate, Sera and two others who were watching the show but Marie silenced them all with a raised hand to allow Dan to finish.
“Neil and Mitch have found somewhere we can rest up for a week. I want to be there before sundown.”
“OK,” she said simply. He rose and kissed her tenderly on the forehead, prompting a retching noise from her.
“Do your teeth before I see you next!” she said from behind the hand covering her mouth.
Backing away, he had to admit she had a point. Walking to the head of the convoy with Ash back at his heel, he looked to the dog.
“New low, eh boy?” he said to the dog, as though he expected a response.
“Yep,” he said, as though the conversation were actually happening two ways. “It’s definitely a new low when you can smell yourself.”
~
Three hours later, the convoy halted a quarter of a mile back from the big wooden entrance under guard while Dan and Leah went forward on foot with four-legged backup. Trees and grass had overgrown what looked like an impressive entrance. It had the feel of one of those traditional carpentry places Dan had seen in an almost forgotten past: all wooden pegs, hand tools and no metal fixings.
The entrance was at the end of a wide track with steeply sloped banks on both sides as it entered into the bowl of a valley. Thick woodland ahead loomed menacingly, but Dan had that hunter’s eye for terrain and knew it would serve well. He had been told that the stream running from high on his left went through the campsite and into a lake further down the green bowl of land they were in.
Daydreaming, he couldn’t understand why this place, which must have been a prime spot for a settlement when such naturally occurring things mattered so much, had not grown into at least some grand residence. The answer was only hinted at when Leah pointed to a faded sign bearing a striking red logo. Unable to read or decipher the lettering, he could only assume that there was some lottery grant or historical trust money involved in preserving this place.
A cobbled courtyard opened up to become a kind of village square, and at the far end of it stood the single largest building. Stables, large lean-to sheds and a series of smaller buildings surrounded it. They seemed to have walked into an overgrown set from some medieval film, and the results could not have been better.
The majority of the buildings were weatherproof and dry, there was a central well on top of the running stream Dan could hear, and thoughts of the fresh game in the woodland made this place look like a haven in their backwards world without the modern accoutrements to which they had all become so debilitatingly reliant upon. Systematically, they worked through every building until taking a full perimeter, one half-sphere each, until they met at the site’s furthest end where the stream ran downhill to the lake. Swinging the carbine behind his back, and seeming to signify to Leah that she could stand down, he took a packet of cigarettes from the battered pouch which had been custom-made and stitched onto the front of his vest. Lighting up and inhaling deeply, he was transported back months to when he stood looking out over another lake with a young girl wearing brightly coloured clothing and making pretty notes with her new pens as she ate sweets.
“What do you think then, kid?” he asked Leah.
She sighed, as though she too reminisced about the more simplistic past before she answered.
“Perfect location. Approach is easily ambushed but is the only vehicle access, emergency exits are situated hyah, hyah and hyah,” she said in passable mockery of Neil impersonating an air hostess as she stuck out one hip and made gestures with her hands at the surrounding woodland before continuing. “Cut back some of the trees for better line of sight on the approach and we can sit tight here for weeks. The bonus, obviously, is that there are no fresh bodies to burn,” she finished, finally letting him know they were both in mind of the same shared conversation.
“Yeah, but do you like it?” he asked with a smile.
“It’ll do,” she said, smiling back.
KICKING THE HABIT
For the last three days and nights, Steve had sat in his uncomfortable bed experiencing a maelstrom of emotions and sensations. His temperature never remained consistent; he raged from fever-like sweats to such deep cold that he felt as though his very bones were frozen.
The only consistent feeling was the agonising pain in his head and the sensation of having swallowed acid and having to feel it burn slowly through every part of him.
His reluctant nurse, Jan, spent most of the time with him, and although he seemed happy enough to talk in a quiet voice when spoken to, Steve was rarely in a lucid state to converse. The big South African just sat still and quiet, reading book after book.
His body rejected most of the food he was given, and as a result the drip had to stay in his arm. The only temporary reprieve was when he was given minute doses of opiates to ease the pain.
In truth, the injuries were no longer that severe, but the amount of morphine he had been given was way over the recommended dosage.
Steve was in withdrawal and suffering badly.
Jan knew this, and told him so, but Steve vehemently denied being addicted. He saw it as an insult, an affront to his character. He was a career military pilot, so how could he be an addict?
He pushed the thoughts away and lapsed back into a waking coma of pain and shivering.
Every day, he was half carried to the toilet block to clean himself and rid his skin of the dry film of sweat. His hands were still so unsteady that he allowed his constant shadow to trim the grey beard he had sprouted. He couldn’t bear the thought of someone else holding a razor to his skin, so he left the short beard and accepted a close haircut to match. Wiping the condensation from the cold mirror, he saw his reflection again and the shock of his resemblance to a prisoner of war brought him low once again.
Small snippets of information kept coming to him about the others; they had been mostly separated and given work details among the other “protected” civilians. The camp seemed to have close to six or seven hundred people inside, and at least one in ten were wearing some form of uniform as a kind of semi-legitimate militia.
Ostensibly they were there to guard Richards’s survivors, but the guards seemed mostly to be looking inwards, not for outside threats.
Jan worked him hard, never showing an ounce of sympathy for the pain he was in or the wretched feelings he had. Every time the physiotherapy he had to endure daily became too painful and he curled up in a foetal position, his nurse would berate him like a child and tell him he was weak. That he was giving up. That if he didn’t want to get better, then there was no point in him surviving the helicopter crash.
As Steve lay back on his bed, out of breath and sweating through exertion of his weak and atrophied muscles, Jan sat close and asked him why he thought he survived.
“The crash?” he asked, confused by the change of direction.
“All of it. The sickness, the shit you went through after that, the crash. Why didn’t you die at any point before now?” Jan asked seriously.
Unsure if the questions were rhetorical, Steve remained silent until the answers were given to him.
“Because you weren’t meant to,” came the eventual solution. “None of those times were your time, so there’s still something important you need to do with your life, otherwise why did fate spare you?”
The concept of fate and faith being raised by the big, scarred man in front of him who seemed simultaneously capable of a destructive rage and providing genuine care threw him again and sent his mind into a tailspin that no pilot could have recovered.
On his small walks around the immediate vicinity, he saw that the sprawling camp had been extended using buildings, shipping containers and some heavy-duty
fencing. Guard posts had been erected at intervals and everything seemed to be running like clockwork. A mirthless smile appeared on Steve’s face as he thought about Richards: this was the exact kind of order he wanted; the fact that it was achieved through fear and force wouldn’t bother him, just so long as there was order.
Auschwitz was probably a very orderly place too, he thought soberingly.
As the days wore on and his strength and senses returned to him piecemeal, he began to orchestrate a plan.
Whether that plan would work yet, he had no idea. He only knew that he would not live under tyranny, and he owed it to everyone he knew, and those he didn’t yet know, to free them from under Richards’s blanket of fear and compliance.
He would take control of Camp Bloody Bravo, somehow, and by God he would turn it into what it should be.
Free.
Which meant that Richards had to go.
NATURE’S BOUNTY
Dan’s happy band of adventurers settled in quickly, probably more to do with their eagerness to be stationary for more than a few hours than for any other reason.
Huts were claimed, beds hastily made and orders given to make the small settlement home for a short while.
Dan walked the perimeter again with Mitch, making mental preparations for some work they needed to do to increase their defences. Turning on Dan with red-ringed eyes, Mitch had clearly wound himself up to say something that Dan may not like.
Too tired to argue, and too trusting of Mitch to have to show dominance, he asked him what was on his mind.
“How long are we going to stay here?” he blurted out.
Sanctuary: After It Happened Book 5 Page 5
