Surviving The Evacuation (Book 15): Where There's Hope

by Tayell, Frank

  The swing doors were wide enough for a service vehicle, though barely high enough. The motorised hinges were rusting, and almost immobile. With a shove, the left-hand door swung inward. She pushed the cart inside, into an antechamber twenty feet wide and thirty feet deep whose purpose wasn’t immediately obvious. The dockside wall was covered in broad windows. Near them were a row of tables beneath which were a dozen fuel containers. Next to the tables were a rack of overalls and fireproof coats, beneath which were three sets of heavy-duty boots. At the far end was another door, windowless, with an Entry Forbidden notice in a dozen languages. It was locked tight. Quickly, but more carefully, she looked for a lever, a tool, anything with which she could force the door. She found nothing.

  Frustrated and dejected, she turned to the window. She could see the ships more clearly. Freighters and passenger vessels, a car ferry, a postal ship, and the Russian destroyer. None appeared to be occupied. Perhaps she was wrong, but she didn’t think so. With that mine in the harbour, those ships were trapped. It was unlikely that was the only mine. In which case, Rhoskovski’s only way out of Calais was overland. Most likely, they’d been living aboard until they’d spied the Courageous sailing so close to their lair. Now, he and his people were staying wherever they kept their vehicles. As to where that was, other than it wasn’t the school in which the prisoners were held, she had no idea.

  With no obvious and immediate method of escape, she began unloading the cart, lining the fuel cans up next to those beneath the desk. Rhoskovski had asked for someone who could drive a boat. From how well the man usually spoke English, that was proof he wasn’t a sailor. So did that mean none of his people were? Was that it? They’d collected over four hundred litres of diesel that morning, but the destroyer would burn through that like a blowtorch through butter. She peered out the window. There were some smaller craft secured at the waterfront some fifty metres away. She’d not noticed them at first, but she could see the mast of a wooden skiff, the bright red fibreglass hull of a speedboat, and at least six other craft besides. Even if there were fifty of the slavers, there’d be room aboard for the prisoners, too. From Calais, by sea, Dover was the logical destination. Except the harbour was mined. Unless the admiral had been mistaken in what he’d seen.

  The contradictory questions faded to silence as three people walked past the windows. Rhoskovski, Pietr, and one of the snipers. Rhoskovski looked through the glass, grinned, and raised a finger to his forehead. She unloaded the last of the fuel, pushed the cart to the door, but then returned to the window. She could see the sniper on the waterfront, her long rifle cradled in her arms. She couldn’t see Rhoskovski or Pietr, but she heard the engine. A blue-hulled fishing boat moved away from the jetty, and more clearly into view. Only one person was aboard. As the boat moved slowly out into the harbour, Rhoskovski climbed back up to join the sniper. The woman in white raised her rifle.

  Was that all they wanted? An opportunity for target practice? The boat picked up speed as it turned towards the gap in the seawall and the open sea beyond. As it grew level with the building from which she watched, the boat vanished. A plume of water and flames erupted from where it had been as the explosion shook the building, toppling half of the fuel cans.

  As she picked them up, Rhoskovski’s plan became clear. Rhoskovski would use the prisoners to clear the mines, and then escape by sea. How she would escape, she didn’t know, but she wouldn’t wait meekly for the same fate as Pietr. Rhoskovski turned around and saw her watching him. He grinned, and gave another mocking salute.

  Day 228

  26th October

  Chapter 2 - The Scottish Dane

  Calais

  The heavy chain padlocked to her ankle made sleep difficult. The foetid stench, the pitch-dark, the soft crying and softer whimpering of her fellow prisoners made it impossible. She was almost glad when the doors slammed open and two guards entered, shouting them awake.

  Flora kept her head bowed, waiting for an opportunity, but it didn’t come. The guards moved from prisoner to prisoner, manacling their hands, one at a time, while keeping a rifle aimed at their heads. The new restraints were heavier than the previous day’s handcuffs. Rigid plastic kept her hands two feet apart while restricting each hand’s independent vertical movement to a few inches. Only after everyone was manacled were the padlocks released. Dawn was breaking as they were punched and pushed out into the freezing courtyard, then beaten into three ragged lines.

  “Liam McDonald,” the man next to her said. “I’d offer to shake, but you know how it is.” He raised his manacled hands. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looked every inch the Viking. During her four days of captivity, she’d only ever heard him speak Danish, and that had reinforced the erroneous assumption.

  “Flora Fielding. You’re from Scotland?”

  “Aye. Shetland,” Liam said. “You?”

  “Aberdeen, all the way. How long have you been here?”

  “A month,” Liam said. “Ran aground in Denmark in the spring. Been wandering Europe since then.”

  She nodded. “I thought you were Danish.”

  “Learned the language over the summer. Learned a fair few languages this year.”

  “And you’ve been with those two since?” she asked, gesturing at the middle-aged woman and teenage boy in the frayed, but matching, yellow raincoats with whom Liam shared a corner of their assembly-hall prison.

  “No. I met them here. You’re the first Scot I’ve met in… in a long while. First person to speak English in a long while, too. Except for Pietr.”

  “Except for him,” Flora said. She hadn’t told anyone of the young man’s fate. It hadn’t seemed fair. Those midnight whispers she’d been able to translate were that he was now one of their guards, leading to a desperate hope that, somehow, their conditions might improve.

  “Don’t let Rhoskovski know you speak English,” Liam said.

  “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid,” Flora said. “But why?”

  “Because he only speaks English and Russian. Anyone who speaks Russian, he kills. If he knows you speak English, he’ll torment you until he gets bored. And then he’ll shoot you.”

  “Oh. And he’s in charge?”

  “He’s not the boss of everyone. That young guy with the scar, Paulo, reports to someone else. I don’t know who. Never seen them. You think Rhoskovski is bad, Paulo is worse. But don’t call him that name. It’s what Rhoskovski calls him. Drives the man mad. Call him sir, but if you want my advice, don’t call him anything.”

  “Good to know, thanks,” she said, and dared a glance upwards. A sniper stood on the roof, one of the women in white. From the noise she made, Flora suspected she was a decoy for another, better-hidden shooter on, or in, one of the houses overlooking the school. Those houses did appear close together. Escape would be possible, though a bloody affair. Out in the school’s courtyard, only two guards watched them, both armed with battered hunting rifles. Another guard lurked somewhere inside armed only with a pistol. Assume two snipers, so five guns in total, none of which were fully automatic. Probably. Their hands were shackled, but their legs weren’t. A mass escape would result in a third of them mown down before they reached the school’s gates, and perhaps another third before they disappeared into the ruins of Calais. The alternative was a slow death, one at a time. But a mass escape wouldn’t happen today. Her previous night’s attempts at starting conversation, in English, Spanish, and the little Arabic she’d learned last year, had fallen deafly on terrified ears. Even Liam had said nothing until now, when it was far too late. She’d try again that evening, unless the opportunity for her own flight came in the meantime.

  Six wooden handcarts had been added to the trio of rusting vehicles in the car park. Each handcart was brightly painted and adorned with a cartoon animal so poorly drawn it verged on the grotesque. Surely they came from a fairground, because she didn’t think Calais had a museum of horrors.

  “Good morning friends,” Rhoskovski said. Ha
ndcuffs clinked and ragged clothing rustled as everyone spun around. Rhoskovski stood in the doors to the school. She’d not realised he was inside, though she couldn’t see anyone else behind him. He wore the same fur coat, the same three-cornered hat, and carried the same rifle over his shoulder. “And it is a good and glorious morning, yes?” Rhoskovski continued. When no reply came, he growled, “Yes?”

  “Yes,” came a muted chorus in reply.

  “In fives. Five for each cart. You. You. You…” He pointed and pushed, shoved and kicked the prisoners until five stood by each cart, and three stood alone, in the middle of the car park, Liam, Magda, and Flora.

  “Ah, good,” Rhoskovski said, as if the selection had been anything but deliberate. “How fortunate. How lucky. For me.”

  Flora said nothing, keeping her eyes down as the other prisoners pushed the carts out into the streets, one long procession with a guard at the front, another behind.

  “They are clearing bodies,” Rhoskovski said. “A nasty job. Zombies, yes? Rotting corpses littering the road. Too many, left too long. A nasty job. No, you have a far easier task. Come.” He gestured with his rifle that they should walk in front of him.

  It was almost time for her to make her bid for freedom. Not yet, but when they got out into the street, beyond the sniper’s clear line of sight. It would be three against one, but she wouldn’t need any help to finish the man. But outside the gate were the two fur-clad bodyguards. They held their Kalashnikovs ready, the safeties off. She revised upward her opinion of the two women. She wasn’t sure which of them had been on the roof, but she’d not noticed the sniper move from her perch.

  For twenty minutes, they were marched through flooded and leaf-strewn streets, northwards.

  “Stop,” Rhoskovski said.

  He’d brought them to a two-storey garage. Sheet metal covered the ground-floor windows, while the truck-width gates were surrounded with stacks of unrolled barbed wire. At first, Flora thought ice clung to it. The morning was cold, sure, but not that cold. It wasn’t ice. It was quick-drying cement. She could make out the discarded sacks among the mud, and… and then she saw the bones. Someone had been hastily fortifying the building when they’d died.

  At the corner of the building, a ladder had been propped against the wall. The top was next to a window. The boards covering the window had been removed, the glass already broken.

  “It is simple,” Rhoskovski said. “Inside is a body in uniform. Bring the body outside. Go.”

  “It’s a zombie?” Flora asked.

  “No,” Rhoskovski said. “He is dead. I want his body. Ask another question, I put a bullet in your arm.”

  Flora walked to the ladder, Liam and Magda a step behind. She forced herself not to look back, half expecting Rhoskovski to shoot on a whim.

  “Do you speak English?” she asked Magda.

  “A little,” Magda said.

  “They’re watching us,” Liam said. “I say we go in, plan there.”

  “There’ll be zombies inside,” Flora said. “One of their people must have gone in there, been killed. I can’t think of any other explanation. So, be careful.”

  “Aye, story of my life,” Liam said. He climbed the ladder. Magda stepped forward, going next.

  Flora waited until Liam was inside, Magda on the topmost rung before she began to climb. The manacles made the ascent cumbersome, but she was almost eager to get into the building. No snipers perched on the rooftops here.

  The broken window led into an office. A battered desk, a sofa, an easy chair, a coffee machine, and a score of mugs; it was a place for relaxing more than working. More pertinently, there were no obvious weapons.

  Liam stood by the closed door, Magda close to him. They looked over at her.

  “Do you know how to pick handcuffs?” Liam asked, holding up a paperclip.

  “No, but it’s a garage,” she said. “There’ll be bolt cutters downstairs. I’d say this is our chance to escape. Are you both okay with that? With leaving everyone else behind?”

  “It’s not us or them,” Liam said. “Staying won’t keep anyone else alive.”

  “We go,” Magda said.

  “We’ll find a window on the ground floor and run north,” Flora said. “Lose ourselves in the suburbs, then keep running until we’re in the countryside. They won’t find us.”

  “Then let’s get this done,” Liam said.

  “Wait, me first,” Flora said. “I’ve had training for this.”

  “You’re a cop?” Liam asked.

  “Something like that,” Flora said.

  Beyond the door lay a narrow corridor. There were no windows or doors on the interior side. On the road-side were three doors before the corridor ended in a door that was nothing but window. It was battered and grimy but uncovered. She tried the handle. The door creaked ajar. She stepped to the side so her back was to the wall, manacled hands held out in front, and listened. The soft breathing of Magda, the more agitated breathing of Liam, the drip of a leaking pipe, a soft metallic clinking that she couldn’t place, but something else, too. A dry rustling wheeze.

  “Zombies,” Liam said.

  “Les morts vivants,” Magda said.

  “There’s light,” Flora said. “Coming from the rear of the garage. A window, I think. Not much, just a glimmer. Make for there. Head for the light.”

  Beyond the door, a set of metal stairs led down to a landing then curved back, underneath the upper storey. When she reached the landing, Flora paused, listening, trying to pinpoint the undead while she assessed the space. The upper floor took up a corner of the garage, supported on steel columns, leaving the ground floor entirely open-plan. The glimmer of light creeping through the bordered-up window glinted off metal, glimmered off glass, but left many more dark voids.

  She continued down the remaining steps, pausing again when her feet hit the dry but greasy concrete floor. Again, she listened, but Liam’s heavy breathing and heavier footsteps drowned out all other sounds.

  Something hard and thin brushed against her ankle, becoming fingers that gripped and squeezed. She tried to spin around, but the zombie was too great a deadweight. She lashed out with her foot instead, taking a guess at where its head might be. Bone cracked as her foot slammed into its ulna. She kicked again, this time hitting something more solid with a far meatier thunk. Her foot came free and she jumped back, her shoulder hitting something hard and metallic.

  “Go!” she hissed. “Run!” and did the same, running left around the bulky object, and straight into a waist-high obstacle. Metal rattled to the floor. She reached out. Her hand touched metal, then wood. Tools. A hammer? Yes.

  “Hoy, no!” Liam barked from behind her.

  She spun around, just as Magda reached the window. The woman tore a section of planking aside, letting a spear of daylight into the room. A zombie had a hand on Liam’s shoulder, another around the man’s arm. Liam turned in an increasingly rapid circle, the zombie turning with him, as he tried to reach his manacled hands around to grab the creature’s wrist.

  Flora dashed over to Liam, arms outstretched. She dropped them over the creature’s head so that the manacles’ plastic-coated chain fell around its neck. She heaved, pulling the zombie off of Liam, stepping back quickly as the zombie tried to turn. The same plastic that kept the manacles’ chain rigid prevented her from twisting the chain to break the creature’s neck.

  “The hammer!” she yelled.

  Liam grabbed it from her hand, and slammed it onto the zombie’s skull. Red-brown gore sprayed across her face as the corpse fell.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  Glass broke. Magda had smashed the now-uncovered window. She was already climbing through.

  “Go!” Flora said. By the time she and Liam reached the window, Magda was running across a loading bay outside. Beyond her was the rear of a supermarket, and beyond that, rooftops and the suburbs. Beyond that was freedom.

  “After you,” Li
am said.

  “Go!” she said, pushing him to the window, before turning around, scanning the floor for more of the undead, then spinning around again when she heard the shot.

  Magda lay face down, some thirty feet from the garage. Liam was on the counter, motionless with his hands on the window’s frame. “They shot her,” he said.

  Flora swore. “Can you see the shooter?”

  “No. Must be above us.”

  “Then let’s find this body,” Flora said.

  “Seriously?”

  “What other choice do we have?”

  “If there even is a body,” Liam said.

  But there was. There were three. One in uniform, two in civilian gear that had been ragged long before they’d been shot, and that had been long after they’d died.

  “Found a gun,” Liam said, picking up a sidearm.

  “It’s an MP-443 Grach,” she said, as she bent over the body. “They call it a Yarygin. Standard issue in the Russian military. And, yes, he’s got Russian tags.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Their tags don’t record names, just their ID number,” she said. “How many rounds in the magazine?”

  “I… I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve fired a few guns this year, but they were hunting rifles, shotguns. I never touched one before February.”

  “Here, let me. Empty.” She checked the corpse. “No magazines. Damn. Any ideas?”

  He shrugged. “There are no more zombies in here,” he said. “Why didn’t Rhoskovski come inside himself?”