The UnTied Kingdom (16 page)

Not to watch her move. Not at all. They’d been going an hour or so when he became aware of someone humming.

‘Eve?’

Her steps faltered. ‘Sorry.’

‘What’s that tune?’ He didn’t recognise it, but he was happy she was humming. Yesterday’s silence had been far too loud for his liking.

‘Oh … an old show tune.’

‘Show? What show?’

‘It’s called
Les Misérables
. It’s about–’ She broke off and sighed. ‘About something that probably never happened.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, since according to your history books France has won every war she’s ever been involved in and been a powerhouse of finance and industry for as long as anyone can remember, I doubt there was much call for a student revolt in 1832.’

And just when he thought she was becoming more normal, she went and said something crazy again.

‘What do you mean, “
your
history books”? What other kind are there?’

‘The ones … the ones I remember. It doesn’t matter. I’m crazy, take no notice of me.’

Beside him, Charlie shot him a warning look, but Harker pressed on.
Do you really believe she’s mad?
‘Tell me about this revolt?’

‘I don’t really know a lot about it. The script doesn’t go into detail. But basically the students in Paris stage a revolt against the government because of the way the poor are treated. It fails terribly and nearly all of them die.’

‘That sounds like a fun show,’ Charlie said dryly.

‘Er, yes,’ Harker said. ‘What was the song you were humming? Does it have words?’

After a few silent paces, Eve started to sing. Her words had a definite rhythm, as if they were intended to be marched to, and were about the songs of angry men.

Charlie shot him a look, and he knew what she meant. It sounded like a marching song, but not one the army might use. She was even singing about barricades.

Harker winced. She must be mad, because no spy would sing like that.

‘All right, that’s enough,’ he said, when Eve had exhorted them all to join in the fight that would give them the right to be free.

Eve stopped, and Harker felt like hell. Her voice had been gaining in confidence, singing made her happy, and she’d been so–

Bang
.

‘What the hell was that?’

Tallulah flinched. Charlie went for her gun.

‘Sounded like a shell, sir.’

‘Halt!’ Harker yelled, and the squad did so, the wagon rattling to a stop slightly belatedly behind them.

They all listened. Another shell exploded.

‘Hell,’ Harker swore, ‘bloody blast and damn.’ He fumbled inside his coat for his map. Coningsby was supposed to be a small camp, little in the way of defence. Were they under attack?

Or were they, as Harker suspected, the ones attacking? Sitting in trenches, taking pot shots at the Coalitionists, who were no doubt sitting in trenches taking pot shots back, as they waited for an opportunity to move on Lincoln.

As the aural smash of another shell boomed in their ears, the squad turned to look north.

‘Another battle?’ Eve said, her voice a little ragged. Beside her, Banks flicked off the safety catch on his gun.

‘I don’t bloody need this,’ Harker said. ‘Right. Eve, you’re back in the wagon. Rest of you, dump your packs, get your guns out, I’m going to try and avoid this but it might not be possible. Quick march!’

The camp at Coningsby had begun as little more than a base for the newly formed 17th. Now, what had once been a small village had turned into a huge, sprawling camp for what looked like half the army. Harker, bullying his way into the stone keep overlooking the camp, ascertained that it was now a base for several battalions, who had indeed dug trenches. But they weren’t shelling an opposing line of dugouts. They were shelling Lincoln.

The Coalitionists had taken the city, and now the army was having to attack to get it back.

The enemy was advancing all over the north. West of the Pennines there were entirely separate battles being fought to keep them away from Liverpool and the other ports, but over in the east, they were spreading fast.

The problem wasn’t just that they were marching from city to city. They didn’t always have a damn army on the move. They just sort of formed one right under everyone’s noses, and the next thing you knew, they’d popped up like a mole from underground and taken a city.

Harker gathered intelligence and supplies from the camp at Coningsby, and tried not to let his men see how rattled he was. Every time he looked at a map, there were more red splotches on it. Like the sort of rash that came with the plague. Death usually followed.

Time was running out.

Chapter Twelve

Taking a wide route to avoid the trenches, and any shells that fell wide of the mark, Harker led the squad east before going north, riding partway and marching the rest, annoyed because this new attack meant he was having to take a far wider route around Lincoln than he’d planned.

At least they were out of the damn fens and they could walk without fear of falling into a bog, which, since the mist was coming in low and thick, Harker was grateful for. Once the noises of the Battle of Lincoln had faded behind them, muffled by the creeping mist, some of his tension faded.

Things weren’t as bad as they seemed. Hell, they couldn’t be.

‘Hey, Eve,’ he said, walking up alongside her. ‘How about a little marching music?’

‘You didn’t like the last song I sang,’ she retorted.

‘Well, no, because it sounded to my ears like a rebel song.’

‘It was a rebel song,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you listening? About the student revolution?’

‘Aye, but in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re currently fighting
against
a bunch of rebels.’

‘So? Don’t you want to hear their point of view?’

Harker stared at her, but she didn’t seem to be joking. ‘No,’ he said clearly and slowly, just in case she was secretly an imbecile.

‘That’s very close-minded of you.’

‘Eve, they are the
enemy
. I ain’t paid to think about points of view.’

‘Why? Because you might start questioning why you’re fighting in the first place?’

‘Careful,’ said Charlie, ahead of her.

‘Oh, come on, I’m your damn prisoner anyway. If I can’t say it, who can?’

‘No one,’ Harker said. ‘So shut up.’

‘No, I won’t. Why won’t you even consider their point of view? They want – what, to join the French Empire? Okay, I know it’s abhorrent to you, and I’m British, too, I understand the whole Francophobe thing. But listen. They’ve got to have a reason. So far as I can tell, this whole country is on its knees. You’re rationing everything, from clothes to food, you can’t import anything much, because you can’t afford to, because what do you export?’

Harker opened and shut his mouth.

‘No, really, what do you export? What’s your contribution to the world economy? Because listen, if you actually joined the French Empire, then maybe they’d be obliged to protect you, and share trade with you.’

‘The hell they would,’ Charlie said evenly.

‘Why do the French even want to annex England? They must see something about this place that’s worthwhile. Because from where I’m standing, we’re broke and backwards, and it’s just not even worth their bother.’

‘They probably want to use us as a jumping off point to invade Wales and Scotland,’ Charlie said.

‘Why? What have they got? They’re no better off than we are,’ said Harker.

‘From here they could probably invade Norway,’ Tallulah opined. ‘And they’re a much more advanced country.’

‘How come? I mean, what do they have in Norway? Snow and pines.’

‘They have oil,’ Harker said. ‘Comes up out of the sea. Don’t ask me how, sea must be black over there, but–’

‘Wait,’ Eve said. ‘Oil? Gas and oil?’

‘How’re they going to get gas out of the sea?’ Harker said. ‘Don’t be daft.’

‘It can exist in bubbles under the seabed,’ Daz said. ‘I’d imagine they use some sort of siphon arrangement.’

‘Yes,’ Eve said triumphantly. ‘Look, don’t you see? It’s all in the North Sea. Gallons of the stuff. Right off the coast of England! And Scotland. You must have some rights – er, the whole International Waters thing? I mean, what are your fishing rights?’

Harker blinked at her.

‘Equal distance from both coasts,’ Banks said, unexpectedly. ‘Not much in the Channel or the Irish Sea, but probably a couple of hundred miles in the North Sea.’

This time Harker stared at Banks, and he wasn’t the only one.

‘Poacher,’ he reminded them. ‘Lot of money in fish, but all that boat stuff,’ he shuddered, ‘too bleedin’ cold and wet for me.’

‘Look,’ Eve said, ‘if you don’t even know it’s there, they could be taking it and you’d have no idea. That stuff is worth a fortune. I mean – where do you get your oil from? What do you power your cars with? I know you don’t have many, but what do you use?’

‘There’s oil under the ground,’ Daz said. ‘In some of the coalfields. Not far from here, actually.’

‘Sir,’ Charlie shot him a look, ‘doesn’t that come under the heading “classified information”?’

‘What, that we run our cars on oil?’

‘No, where we get it from.’

‘Oh, leave it off, they probably know that already,’ Eve said.

There was a short silence. ‘How?’ Harker asked.

‘I don’t know! Probably Google.’ She scowled at his look of incomprehension. ‘Look, oil refineries are big places, right? Fairly visible from an aerial view?’

‘Are you saying they’re flying over us and spying?’ Charlie said.

‘Well, yes, maybe. Or–’

‘Is that what you were doing?’

Eve stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. ‘For the last time,’ she said, ‘I am not a bloody spy. I don’t know how I ended up here or why it’s so different from what I know, but I am not a goddamned spy.’

‘But how do you know all this?’

She threw up her hands. ‘It’s common knowledge! Jesus Christ.’ She started walking again – stomping, to Harker’s eyes. He noticed Tallulah frowning, and realised that to a nicely brought-up young lady, Eve’s language might be considered a bit unnecessary. He grinned to himself. Personally, he loved a bit of unnecessary language, but it was always fun to annoy Eve. ‘I hope you are not taking the Lord’s name in vain,’ he said severely. And the look Eve gave him could have cut glass.

He lit up a cigarette, which went somewhat soggy in the heavy mist, and thought about what she’d said. There had to be a reason the French wanted England. They wouldn’t annex a poor, useless country, it’d cost them more than it was worth.

Harker belonged to England body and soul, but even he had to admit the place was hardly a land of milk and honey.

What did they have that France wanted?

If Eve was right, then there were reserves of oil and gas under the sea. He couldn’t quite understand that, but then he didn’t understand motorcars, and they existed sure enough.

What else? Well, it was a fertile land. Sunshine and rain, great growing for wheat and barley, vegetables, even fruits, although they had plenty of that in France, too. You couldn’t grow anything exciting, like oranges or grapes, or even tobacco, dammit. The Americans had become very rich on tobacco, and on cotton, too – although England imported her cotton from Egypt, thanks to some deal ex-Queen Diana had struck with her new boyfriend.

England had lots of coal. It ran most of the things that needed to be run, powered ships and mills, generated electricity for those who could afford their own generators and, ironically, ran the oil drills in Nottinghamshire. But was it enough, and good enough, to export? There wasn’t, as far as Harker knew, anything like silver or gold in the ground, although there was some iron and tin. Hard to imagine anyone invading for the sake of iron, tin and coal.

Hard to imagine anyone invading England for, well, anything. And yet people did. The Romans, the Vikings had settled here; even the French, a thousand years ago.

And that’d be the last time, if Harker had anything to do with it.

Late in the afternoon Charlie brought his attention to a ruined priory, in the shelter of which they made camp and burned a couple of large fires to fight the mist off. Banks made another of his stews, which were very hearty but Harker was getting a little sick of them, and Daz handed Eve her guitar.

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘I might play something seditious.’

‘Attempt not to,’ Harker said, still irritated over the
broke and backwards
comment.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said, sticking her chin out. ‘I didn’t think singing about something that didn’t happen more than a hundred years ago was seditious, but you decided it was.’

‘Eve–’

‘All right,’ she said, a mutinous gleam in her eye, ‘how about this? This isn’t inciting anyone to anything. It’s about silence. You should like it.’

And she started playing, just a couple of notes, up and down, up and down, and started singing about the sound of silence, which was a stupid thing if you asked Harker, because silence had no sound.

And then he listened to her words, and realised what she was singing about.

‘All right, you’ve made your point,’ he said, and she gave him a smug smile.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Banks. Tallulah patted his arm.

‘It’ll come to you,’ she said.

‘I’m going to bed,’ Harker said, chucking the butt of his cigarette into the fire. ‘Play what you want.’

Damn her, how did she do it? The words were meaningless, they didn’t make any sense.

And yet–

‘But silence doesn’t have a sound,’ Banks was still saying as Harker shut his eyes.

And yet, there was something pervasive about that song. Something that made him feel guilty, and he didn’t know why.

‘All right, all right, I’ll sing something normal,’ Eve said, and started singing some ditty about love. Harker listened for anything dangerous, found only vacuous sentiments, and settled down to sleep. He woke briefly when Daz came in, squinted at his watch and said, ‘Did Banks go on guard?’

Daz nodded in the darkness. ‘He’s watching Eve. The others have turned in, too.’

Harker nodded and tried to go back to sleep, but Eve was still singing. To herself, he realised, not for an audience.

And it was beautiful.

She was singing about wishes, about leaving clouds behind her, about troubles melting away. A fine sentiment, Harker thought as he closed his eyes. Wishing never got anybody anywhere. If you wanted something, in Harker’s experience you had to fight for it. Although lately, fighting didn’t seem to be doing much good, either.

Maybe that was what she’d done. Wished upon a star and woken up somewhere … how did she put it? Over the rainbow. Well, that was what you got for gliding over the river.

The longing in her voice was almost tangible, and being flippant wasn’t working.
I must be tired,
Harker thought,
because I’m beginning to believe her. She’s singing about a better world, and I’m beginning to believe it’s true.

Maybe because she sang it with such conviction. Such purity and strength. Probably the rest of the squad were feeling it, too. Probably it wasn’t just him who wanted to go out there and make her feel better.

He wondered if she’d feel better if he went out there and kissed her silly.

No, probably not.

Dammit.

The morning brought more mist, which burned off around midday. By which time the squad had been moving for four or five hours, and Eve’s throat was somewhat raw from singing.

Most of the things she sang were inconsequential, but every now and then she threw in something to annoy Harker. He didn’t seem to like the one about where all the flowers had gone, or the one about the bells of hell, although she noticed he didn’t stop her from singing them. He just complained.

‘Can’t you sing something uncontroversial?’ he said.

‘But all the best songs are controversial.’ Eve gave a mirthless laugh. ‘You want something bland, I’ll sing a Grrl Power hit, although they’re all so awful you’ll be begging me to sing about the glories of revolution.’

‘Go on, then,’ Harker said, ‘sing us one of those songs from your famous band.’

Eve sighed, and did, and about five bars in she could tell they all hated it. She didn’t mind. She hated it, too.

Into the following silence, she said, ‘See, I told you they were rubbish songs.’

‘Then why’d you join the band?’ Harker asked.

She sighed. ‘Because I was seventeen and stupid.’

‘Those two so often go together,’ Harker agreed, and Tallulah, who had until recently been seventeen, wrinkled her nose.

Eve said, ‘Okay. Here’s one that’s much more tuneful, I promise, and it’s by Sheryl Crow, and she’s an absolute poet.’

‘Is it one of your “protest songs”?’ Harker asked suspiciously.

‘No.’

‘What’s it called?’

Eve hesitated. ‘
Letter to God
.’

‘No.’

‘But it’s not–’

‘I ain’t bringing religion into this, Eve. No.’

‘It’s not about religion.’

‘Oh, aye? A song with the word “God” in the title? What’s it about, then?’

Another brief pause. ‘Well, it’s sort of protesting against–’

‘No.’

‘But–’

‘No,’ Harker said, more emphatically.

‘Oh, get lost,’ Eve snarled, and refused to sing any more.

When they broke for lunch, Eve pointedly avoided Harker, and found herself highly irritated when he didn’t seem to notice.