The Exodus Plague | Book 2 | Imprisoned

by Collingbourne, Huw

  All he had to do? How the heck was he going to persuade someone to do that? He had no idea.

  And then he met Teddy.

  *

  “Yeah, well there’s one up North, I think. Or maybe two. And I think they got one in Wales too. I don’t do the refinery jobs. I just drive the local routes.”

  Teddy and Sebastian were sitting in the bar of the Gnarly Ferret pub. It was one of three pubs in town that were still open for business. The pub had been reopened so that the soldiers and the Camp staff would have somewhere to relax of an evening. It sold beer from barrels which was brewed locally, plus a decent range of wine and spirits from bottles. It even had its own generator, which powered both the lights and a small jukebox. The Sex Pistols’ ‘Anarchy In The UK’ was blasting from the speakers at that moment. The record had been Teddy’s choice.

  “So, the refineries are working?” Sebastian said, “How about the power stations? Are any of those back in action?”

  Teddy shrugged. “Beats me. I’m just a delivery man. Anyway, I don’t think the refineries are working, exactly. Not refining and stuff. What I heard is that they got big storage tanks of oil and petrol. So our lot drives our tankers to one of the refineries, fill ’em up and drive them back to the depot in Norwich. And that’s where I pick up a tanker and drive it to wherever it’s wanted.”

  “Not just to the Camp then? Where else?”

  Teddy sniggered. “Can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”

  But secrets and Teddy were soon parted. All it took was a few pints of beer. Sebastian got in another round. You could either spend Credits, which were issued by the Army, or you could spend the old money. Not that the prices made much sense any more. A loaf of bread cost £5 or 10 Credits, a bar of chocolate (if you could get one!) cost anything up to £15. But you could drink beer all night and still have change from £1.

  Sebastian discovered that the nearest Army bases were in Colchester and Cambridge (Teddy delivered to both of those) and he’d heard that they were setting up some major bases further south, on Dartmoor and in the New Forest. Teddy delivered petrol for the Army vehicles. He also delivered diesel for the generators at a prison on the coast and there were rumours that the Army planned to move some of the ‘campers’ from Camp Jollity to the prison in the near future. Which, Sebastian thought, made it all the more urgent to get the escape plan underway as soon as possible.

  “So,” said Sebastian, “sometimes you deliver petrol and sometimes you deliver diesel.”

  “And sometimes kerosene and sometimes heating oil.”

  Sebastian smiled. “Have you ever delivered the wrong stuff?”

  “Nah. What, you mean kerosene instead of petrol?”

  “Or petrol instead of diesel?”

  “Nah. They wouldn’t work. See, if you was to put petrol in a diesel engine, well, I wouldn’t like to say what would happen.”

  “It wouldn’t work probably.”

  “It might blow up, for all I know. Oh, I got warned about that before I ever done a delivery. You put petrol in a diesel generator, chances are you’d wreck it.”

  “Oh, really. Have another drink, Teddy…”

  *

  It had taken Sebastian quite a while to get to know Teddy. Hanging around by the main gate of the Camp, he’d noticed that there were three regular delivery men – Sam, Chalky and Teddy. Sam was a fat, middle-aged bloke who had a pinched, woeful look about him as though he was constantly sucking a lemon. Chalky was Sam’s opposite: a thin, smiling Yorkshireman who went around whistling old pop ballads. Say “Hello” to Sam and you’d be lucky if you got a grumble in return. Say “Hello” to Chalky and he’d start telling you funny stories about his childhood. Sebastian quickly concluded that neither Sam nor Chalky would do for the job he had in mind. Sam was too sour. Chalky was too honest. The third delivery man, Teddy, was altogether more promising.

  Teddy was a punk. As far as Teddy was concerned, the ’70s had never ended. Not that Teddy really knew much about the ’70s – just the music. His musical gods were the Sex Pistols. Though he also indulged in Sham 69, The Clash and The Stranglers for a bit of variety. He had a short Mohican-style haircut that was sometimes orange, sometimes pink and sometimes Day-Glo green depending on what colour hair dye he could get his hands on. In Teddy’s opinion, the Great Plague was the best thing that had ever happened to Britain.

  “Bring down the Government, man, anarchy on the streets, that’s what this country has always needed. Well, that’s what it’s got now, ain’t it.”

  Teddy was the ideal candidate for the job that Sebastian had in mind. Teddy always did the evening shift and when he’d finished for the night he parked his truck in a nearby side-street where it would be safe on account of its proximity to the Camp and its watchtowers. Then he walked down to Pam’s Bed & Breakfast, which was a nondescript terraced house in Shoreline Terrace, close to the promenade overlooking the bay. At half past eight, regular as clockwork, Teddy would leave Pam’s Bed & Breakfast and stroll down to the Gnarly Ferret pub. All Sebastian had to do was arrange to be in the pub when Teddy arrived. He went over to Teddy, said, “I’ve seen you at the Camp, haven’t I?” and that was it. Teddy didn’t care who Sebastian was or what his motives might be for talking to him. Teddy was glad enough to have someone of more or less his own age to talk to.

  Anarchy was Teddy’s big interest in life. Not that he had much idea of what anarchy was all about. He knew it was about having a good time and destroying things. Teddy liked having a good time and destroying things so what was there not to like about anarchy?

  “It’s just a shame about the Army,” Sebastian said.

  “’Ow’d you mean?” said Teddy.

  “Well, I mean, they are in control. Everything we do can only be done with the say-so of the soldiers. They are like a military dictatorship, if you ask me.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Bad? It’s worse than what went before. The Government, I mean. The Army has become the Government.”

  “You reckon?”

  “They tell you what to do, don’t they? Tell you when you have to go to the fuel depot, when you have to deliver the diesel. They’re worse than the police used to be.”

  “Yeah, they are. You got a point there.”

  “Now, I reckon real anarchy would be to mess things up for the Army without them even knowing you did it.”

  “Yeah. But how would you do that?”

  That’s when Sebastian gave Teddy the idea of delivering petrol instead of diesel.

  Calm Before The Storm

  Twilight was falling. It was a warm night with just a light breeze coming in over the sea. The sky was overcast and it was due to be a night with no moon. Matteo had planned it all in advance. He knew this would be the darkest night of the month and, therefore, the best night for their escape. For days beforehand they had been making their preparations. With all the painting and repair work that was going on in the Camp, there was no shortage of ladders. Matteo had already selected a ladder that he’d seen lying on the ground at the back of the First Aid Room. It was an extensible ladder, the sort that exterior decorators and window-cleaners might use. Perfect for their requirements.

  Matteo had stolen some old climbing ropes from the store room in the gym and hidden them in his room. Leila had found some planks at the back of the Kiddies Play Room. They were lying on the floor in a heap along with tins of paint, paint brushes and rollers, dust sheets and a couple more ladders, the sort that open up into an A shape for indoor use. The ladders were of no interest. The planks were. She didn’t bother trying to hide them. The Kiddies Play Room was a minute’s walk away from the First Aid Room and it was never locked so it would be the easiest thing in the world to take the planks when they were needed.

  Sebastian and Matteo had made all the other arrangements between them, talking, as they often did, through the bars of the perimeter fence. Matteo would keep his back to the fence and Sebastian would stand a few yards away, apparently payi
ng no attention to him. They were rarely noticed. Once a whitecoat walked past and snapped briskly, “What are you doing there, boy?”

  Matteo had just looked up, smiled blankly, chuckled and said, “Doing there boy.”

  The whitecoat had muttered something about a red-eyed cretin and walked away with giving him another glance. It had all been so very easy.

  Matteo and Sebastian had agreed on the date and the time of the escape. Sebastian just had to make sure that Terry did the petrol delivery on the agreed date. Terry had said that there were always tankers of petrol and diesel ready to do deliveries from the fuel storage bases to the various Army camps and it would the simplest thing in the world to do a swap. Sebastian hoped he was right. Maybe Terry had been overestimating the simplicity. Maybe someone would notice that he’d taken the wrong tanker that night. Maybe the entire plot would be discovered and stopped before it even got started.

  But at nine o’clock that evening, dead on the dot, the tanker wheezed up to the front gate. Terry leant out of the window, said a few words to the guard on duty, the guard said something back, Terry laughed, then the gates were opening and the tanker came along the road into the Camp. It turned left between two lines of chalets. Terry opened the cap on one of the fuel tanks next to the generator. He always filled the tank that was not currently in use. He unwound the fuel pipe attached to the tanker and placed the other end into the top of the open tank. Then he got back into his cab and started the pump. Five minutes later, it was all done. He withdrew the fuel pipe and wound it into its compartment on the side of the tanker. He put the lid back onto the tank, then he got back into the cab, reversed down the narrow road between the chalets then headed back for the main gate. He waved to the guard. The gates closed behind him.

  “What now?” said Geoff.

  “Now we wait,” said Jonathan.

  “And then it’s up to me?”

  Jonathan nodded. “You and the dog.”

  *

  By 11 o’clock it was fully dark but the nightlife of the Camp was in full swing. The sounds of ’70s music could be heard coming from the Pig & Whistle Bar, situated in the Jollity Building. In the Old Time Ballroom, which was situated in the King’s Building, they were playing dance-band records. The bouncing glam-era rock’n’roll of Showaddywaddy mingled with the more elegant strains of Victor Silvester and his orchestra.

  Jonathan and Leila were strolling around the Camp, apparently aimlessly. In the Camp, unlike in the town, there was no curfew so campers could come and go as they pleased. Most of them – the ‘patients’ as Jonathan called them – stayed in their chalets, having no interest in the various entertainments on offer. But a few liked to sit in the bar or the ballroom and stare at the people around them.

  In truth, the entertainment facilities were principally used by the management and staff of the Camp. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Digby and Captain Archibald Smedley could often be found sipping pink gins in the shade of a plastic palm tree. The whitecoats, guards and off-duty clowns tended to form a rowdy beer-swilling crowd clustered around the bar.

  The ballroom was little used. Leila and Jonathan glanced through the windows. Only two people drifted over the highly polished ballroom floor. They had been dancing there for the most of the evening. They had danced the Valetta, the Military Two-Step and, when a mood of wild abandon suddenly overwhelmed them, the Cha-cha-cha. These were Mrs Mildred Angstrom-Kiddington and Jerry Snickles. In her youth, Mildred had both sung and danced in some of the finest theatres in the land: The Alhambra in Bradford, the Birmingham Hippodrome, even on one memorable occasion in ‘The King and I’ in London’s West End, though when she told that story she was never entirely clear on which role she had played. One assumed it must have been the part of Anna which was played by Deborah Kerr in the film. But whenever anyone broached that subject, Mildred was prone to change the topic of conversation with some rapidity.

  Mildred’s dancing partner, Jerry Snickles, had specialised in young, boyish roles and had played several seasons in ‘No, No Nanette’ and ‘The Boyfriend’ in Margate, Bognor Regis and Bridlington. Sadly the boyish roles had tended to dry up when he was no longer boyish. Now, aged somewhere in his upper sixties, he had given up all hope of returning to the musical theatre. For the last few years he had been teaching ballroom dancing to anyone who cared to learn. Very few people did. So when the Army had started recruiting entertainment staff for Camp Jollity, it was a dream come true. He and Mildred were put in charge of all the choreography for the whitecoats’ musicals. In the evenings they went to the ballroom to dance. Some people said the plague had been the worst thing to happen to humanity. Mildred and Jerry disagreed. As far as they were concerned, it was quite the best thing that could have happened.

  “I wish I was old like them,” Leila sighed.

  “Why on earth would you want that?” said Jonathan.

  “So at least I’d have had the chance to get old. Somehow I don’t think I will.”

  The King’s Building which housed the Old Time Ballroom also contained the Games Room where Matteo had found the climbing ropes. As the time for the escape attempt was approaching fast, Leila and Jonathan headed to the Games Room. When they arrived it was in darkness but they didn’t turn on any lights. They used torches to locate a big coil of rope stored in a cupboard. The rope was heavier than they’d anticipated. It took both of them to carry it. They took the coil of rope to the exit nearest the road that ran through the centre of the Camp. Then they went to the Kiddies Play Room, in the same building, and retrieved the wooden decorators’ planks that Leila had found. They didn’t take the planks or the rope outside for fear of being seen. Then they waited. Now it was all up to Geoff and the dog.

  *

  “Fetch! Go on, boy, fetch!”

  Geoff threw the red rubber ball at the wall of an empty chalet. The dog ran towards the wall, then the ball bounced back and the dog switched direction seemingly in mid-leap, caught the ball in its jaws and trotted back jauntily with its tail in the air to drop the ball at Geoff’s feet. Geoff picked up the ball and threw it again.

  The soldier in the watchtower at the end of the line of chalets turned to look at them. He was used to watching the loonies (as they called the campers). It passed the time. Standing up in that damned tower for hour after hour with nothing to do was incredibly boring. Nothing ever happened. Nobody wanted to break into the Camp and nobody wanted to break out. All the security measures were, in his opinion, a complete waste of time. Still, there he had to stand for hour after hour. And anything to break the tedium was welcome.

  “Come on, Bobby, catch this one!”

  This time Geoff bounced the ball so hard off the chalet wall that it bounced right back again, hit the opposite chalet and bounced back yet again. The poor dog ran one way, then another, then almost skidded as it turned sharply to catch the ball on the rebound.

  The soldier in the watchtower laughed to himself. He liked dogs. He’d had a dog of his own when he’d been a kid. He thought to himself that maybe one day when this whole mess was worked out, he’d get a dog again. He’d settle down in the countryside somewhere with a nice wife and they’d have nice kids and he’d get a nice puppy.

  “Come on then, Bobby. Bet you can’t catch this one!”

  This time Geoff bounced the ball at such a wide angle that it bounced right away down to the end of the road between the chalets, heading towards the perimeter fence just beneath the watchtower. The dog scurried off at great speed and Geoff ran after him. Where they ran to was out of the reach of the lights that illuminated the road between the chalets. Out of the reach of those lights, it was so dark that it was almost impossible to see anything. It was just as well that Geoff had brought a small torch. With the help of the thin beam from the torch he found the two diesel tanks that fed the generator. The generator itself stood some yards away chugging to itself. Geoff had studied the tanks and the generator in daylight and he knew exactly what he had to do so in only a matter of secon
ds he had turned the little tap that switched the fuel feed from one of the diesel tanks to the other – the tank that contained petrol.

  A bright light dazzled Geoff. He put his hand up to shade his eyes.

  An amplified voice boomed: “Get away from the fence.”

  “What?” Geoff looked towards the light. But it was too bright. He couldn’t see anything but dazzling whiteness.

  “Get away from the fence. Move back towards the chalets.”

  Geoff looked around. The light had left an afterimage in his eyes which made it difficult to see. He squinted and vaguely made out the lines of chalets where he’d been playing with Bobby. The dog was already back there holding the red rubber ball in his mouth. Geoff walked towards the dog. “Good dog!” he said, “You found the ball. Clever doggie.”

  In the watchtower, the soldier smiled and shook his head. “Kids,” he said, and he flicked a switch to turn off the spotlight that he’d shone onto Geoff. “Oh well,” he thought, “that’s the most excitement we’ll be seeing tonight.” But in that he was quite wrong.

  Into The Dark

  “OK, so we’re going to be going somewhere soon. You’re cool with that, right?”

  Freddie nodded, “Whatever you say, Matteo.”

  “You’re going to be seeing Sebastian again. You remember Sebastian, don’t you?”

  “Sebastian?”

  “Your friend, Sebastian.”

  Freddie smiled, “My friend, Sebastian.”

  Matteo was having serious doubts about this whole adventure. If it had been up to him, they’d have dumped Freddie and Ben. Left them behind. There was no saving them anyway. They were beyond any cure. What was left of their minds wasn’t worth saving. They barely even knew who they were – or who they once had been.

  But it wasn’t up to Matteo. Sebastian was calling the shots. Without Sebastian’s help, the escape plan would have been a non-starter. It had been Sebastian who’d managed to get the petrol delivered. And once over the fence, they’d need Sebastian to help them get away to somewhere safe.