Flare (25 page)

“What, and risk warning the wrong person and being sent out to the fields, or worse?  No, let’s just worry about our own necks for now”.

I nodded and stood.  “Well, I’d better get back to my desk, I’ve been here too long already.  What are you going to do now?”

She shrugged and picked up her plate of half eaten food, placing it on the tray with mine.  “I’m to report to Captain Barnes, I’ll be working on intel coming in from the scouts to help plan
missions”.

“Well he seems like a good enough chap, I met him earlier.  At least we’ll be working in the same area, nice of them to put us together”.

She nodded but looked less than thrilled.

“Yeah, you could look at it that way, or you could think of it as them being able to keep an eye of us both with only half the manpower.  Doesn’t seem so nice that way, does it?”

I waited as she put the tray on a rack near the door, then we walked together down the hall to the command centre.  Once inside, she reported to Captain Barnes and was allocated a desk, while I returned to my own and the empty pad waiting for me to spin lies for a man I was coming to loathe.

Chapter
39

My friends, colleagues, comrades in adversity
, we find ourselves in a time of unprecedented upheaval and uncertainty.  Many of us have lost loved ones, our homes and our way of life but we must strive now for the future, putting those losses behind us as we look to our survival and that of our country.  Life has become hard, I know, but that hardship will strengthen us for the trials ahead…

I dropped the pencil onto the pad and stared at what I’d just written, resisting the urge to tear the page off and throw it onto the growing pile in the bin under my desk.  I was writing propaganda, and bad propaganda at that, the thought of the Secretary using my words to cajole the unwilling populace into servitude almost enough to make me physically sick.

Still, I reminded myself, if I finished the day with nothing to show for the hours at my desk I might very well find myself back out in the fields as a not-so-gentle reminder that my position was tenuous at best, so I picked up the pencil and got back to work as Captain Barnes strode past my desk for the fourth or fifth time since lunch.

Each of us here has our part to play, every job essential no matter how menial it seems.  Future generations will look back on our sacrifice and know that what we did, we did for them, indeed they will only exist because we did not sit down and…

I slammed the pencil down and stood, heading over to the coffee table and pouring a cup of the strong black liquid.  I stirred in three sugars just because I could, then crossed back to my desk and stared down at the half dozen lines that hadn’t yet found their way into the bin.

It was all starting to feel a little unreal, as if I might wake up in the tent next to Emily and realise this had been nothing but a bad dream.

I took a sip of the coffee and grimaced.  It had to be real, I thought, not even I could dream up coffee as bad as this.

I looked over to where Emily sat, poring through reports and making occasional notes on a pad of her own. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, but even so her dimples were still in evidence and it was all I could do not to cross over and rest my hands on her shoulders, ease the tension out of her stiff back with my thumbs.

“Writer’s block?”

I jumped, slopping hot coffee across my hand as Barnes appeared behind me, silent as a ghost until he’d spoken.

“Christ, don’t do that!”

“Sorry.  You were miles away.  How’s the speech going?”

I gestured towards the bin, scalded hand tucked it my armpit.

“As you can see, if there was a prize for starting again I’d be the only contender”.

“I understand.  I used to write poetry, you know”.

I stared at the officer, square jawed, broad shouldered and annoyingly handsome in his uniform as he admitted to something that was surely a rather un-soldierly pursuit.

“Really?”

He nodded.  “War stuff mostly, but a few love poems here and there too”.  He laughed and shook his head. “What a bloody disaster they were”.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been in the army?”

“About eight years.  Joined up and they put me through University, then Sandhurst for training.  Seen a lot since then, never expected to be watching the end of the world though”.

“It’s hardly the end of the world”, I said, “just not such good news for us.  For all we know this has happened dozens of times before and the world just kept going”.

“Perhaps”, he shrugged, “doesn’t help us much either way now, does it?”

I nodded and turned back to my desk, assuming the conversation was over, but Barnes touched my shoulder and leaned close.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?”  He said quietly.

“Of course not, ask away”.  I was intrigued, Barnes was the last person I expected to be sharing confidences with.

“The Colonel told me that when you and your friend Emily were rounded up, you were travelling up north to find your daughter, and that you’d been on the road for days, is that true?”

“Yeah, pretty much, why?”

He perched on the edge of my desk and gestured for me to take my chair.

“How bad is it out there, I mean really?  We hear things here, of course, and there are the reports”, he paused and waved a hand around the room, “but it’s hard to get a proper feel for what’s going on from those”.

I thought carefully before speaking, trying to put everything I’d seen into words.

“It’s bad”, I said finally.  “At first it was just a few people looting, those that survived the fires, but then the shops were emptied and people started fighting over what was left.  We’d reached Maidenhead before we were attacked for what we were carrying and…”, I looked over at Emily, “other things”.

He followed my eyes and nodded.  “That’s what we’re trying to avoid by doing this”, he said, but I wasn’t sure which of us he was trying to convince.  “Things might be tough right now, but at least we’ve got some kind of order”.

“Things are a damn sight tougher for those out there”.  The words came out before I could help myself and I flinched, waiting for the tirade that was sure to follow, but Barnes only nodded again.

“True, and that’s what…”  He stopped and shook his head, then stood.

“Anyway”, he said brusquely, “I’m sure you have plenty to be getting on with, mustn’t keep you”.

He smiled briefly and hurried away before I could say anything else, leav
ing me with the distinct impression that he was troubled by what was happening here and desperate to talk to someone about it.

Filing the information away for future use, I turned back to
my desk and began writing, only to tear off the piece of paper a few moments later and throw it in the bin.

Sighing, I
pulled the pad closer and started again.

My friends in adversity
…

Chapter 40

We stopped for dinner in the canteen before heading back to our room, Emily and I followed at a discreet distance by our ever-present guard. 

Emily had been distracted during the meal, and barely said a word on the way back to the accommodation block, which worried me.  I wanted to recapture the comfortable friendship we’d had on the journey when it had been just us, but I worried that too much had changed and I didn’t know where to begin.

We bumped into several officers in the hallways, a few of whom gave us strange looks but no one challenged us.

I opened the door and Emily stepped inside.  I went to follow but paused and looked at the guard. 

“Do you need a chair or something?”  I asked, but he shook his head.

“No, my relief will be along shortly, he can get one if he needs one”.

I nodded and closed the door, then turned to see Emily sitting on the edge of the bed with several pieces of paper clutched in her hand.

“What’s that?”  I asked, very aware of how small the room was with the two of us in it.

“Oh sit down”, she said as I hovered by the door, “I won’t bite”.

I shrugged and sat next to her on the bed, our legs almost touching.

“So what is it?”

She passed me the bundle of papers and I squinted down at the tiny words scrawled across the first page.  It was a list of sites that showed possible stores of food and water, with today’s date at the top.

I scanned the page and looked back at her.

“What am I looking for?”

“Turn the page”.

I did, and saw yesterday’s date with another list of sites, most of which had been crossed through in pencil.

“And?”

“Keep going”.

I flicked through to the last page and stopped as two things immediately caught my attention.  The first was that it was a printout.  That in itself was enough to make me glance at the door to make sure it was firmly shut, but when I looked back at the paper it was the second thing that made my eyes widen.

“This is dated the 12
th
September!”  It was an effort to keep my voice down.

Emily nodded.  “That’s right.  Two days before the flare hit”.

“But that means…”

“That someone knew about it before it was going to happen.  Did you not wonder how they got this whole thing in place so quickly?  It’s only been a week, but already they’ve got almost a thousand acres fenced off and nearly three thousand civilians under lock and key.  I thought this whole setup felt wrong, somehow.  Now
we know why”.

I stood and began to pace, only able to take a few steps before turning the other way.

“It’s not just wrong, it’s criminal!  How many people might have been saved if they’d known?” 

Emily shook her head tiredly.  “We’ll never know.  The question is, what do we do know we have that?”  She pointed at the paper clenched in my fist.

“It doesn’t change anything”, I said, “not for us.  We still need to get out of here as soon as we can.  Speaking of that, I think Barnes might be persuaded to help somehow”.

“Really?  How?”

I told her about the conversation we’d had that afternoon and she made a noncommittal noise.

“It could be true”, she said, “but it could be some kind of test, see if you’re committed, so to speak”.

I shook my head.  “I don’t think he’s that good an actor. I’m used to listening to people, remember.  I think he’s genuine”.

“So how does it help us?”

“I don’t know”.  I stopped pacing and dropped to the bed, making the springs squeak.

“Well at least you smell better than you did yesterday”, she said with a ghost of a smile, “can you believe they’ve managed to get the showers working?”

I nodded.  “Yeah, gas apparently”.

We both stared at each other as the words came out, the idea forming in my mind mirrored in her eyes.

“And what’s the problem with gas?”  She asked quietly.

I raised a warning finger and walked to the door, pressing my ear against the thin wood and listening carefully.  I couldn’t hear anything on the other side, but that could mean anything.

“Fancy a walk?”  I asked loudly, and Emily nodded.

I pulled the door open quickly, half expecting to find the guard with his own ear against the door, but instead of the man from earlier another soldier lounged against the far wall, a man in his twenties with arms like tree trunks and small, piggy eyes that were too close together under his shaven hair.

“I assume we’re allowed to go for a walk?”  I asked, stepping out into the corridor with Emily close behind, the papers no longer in sight.

He straightened and shrugged, a movement like boulders rubbing together.

“Don’t see why not”.

He followed us out into the yard,
keeping us in sight but allowing us enough privacy to talk, which put my mind at ease.  Had he heard anything suspicious when we’d been talking in the room, he would have been on our heels.

“Where shall we go?”  I asked, looking out over the playing field and seeing the crews hard at work while the sun was still above the horizon.

“Not that way”, she said, leading me towards the other side of the buildings so that we walked between them and the high fence that separated the base from the nearby village.

I nodded at the small houses.  “I guess they were the first ones to be brought under the Secretary’s wing”.

“Probably.  What do you make of him?”

“The Secretary?  I think he’s a self-serving, public school idiot with more power than sense”.  I stared at the empty houses as we walked, the blank windows looking uncomfortably like they were watching eyes, stripped of hope and left to do nothing but wait for the ravages of time.  I shivered at the thought.