Brother in the Land (6 page)

You'd expect that when the news got round the scene would turn ugly. You might even expect some sort of revolt, a mass-attack on Kershaw Farm or something of that sort.

I expected it. I lay in bed that night and wondered what would happen when all the people in Skipley stormed the hill. Not if – when!

It never happened. All that happened was a lot of shouting and crying, and a few people set off up the hill with sticks and stuff. The soldiers had anticipated it and the marchers found themselves facing an APC. That's an armoured personnel carrier, like a little tank with machine-guns. They had no leader and no plan, so they chucked their sticks away and ran.

I was fantastically depressed. Everybody was. We'd waited and waited for someone to come and help us. We'd had our hopes raised, and now it was back to square one. It was worse than if it had never happened!

Even Ben was affected. He didn't know what was going on, but he found himself confined once more behind the wall. Dad said people would get desperate and he didn't want the kid running about.

He was right, too. There was a new feeling in the air – a tension, as though something awful was building up and might explode at any moment. When I went to the well, I carried a club and when I got there somebody had taken the bucket. I
had to scrat about in the rubble for something to tie to my own, and all the time I felt as though I was being watched, as though I was stealing somebody else's water. I found something in the end, a length of TV cable, and I got some water. I coiled the cable round my waist before I left the yard. Before, I'd have left it for the next guy, but if somebody had pinched the bucket they'd probably take that, too.

That wasn't the worst thing, though. The worst thing was when I found out that some people had known there was no hospital. It was a few days later, I was under the arch and I heard two blokes and a woman talking.

‘Well; it was pretty obvious, wasn't it,' one of them said. ‘I mean, it's like the Nazis. As soon as I heard it over the loud-speaker I said to myself, “Aye – it's like the Nazis with their gas vans.” ' The others nodded.

‘Yes,' said the woman, ‘We'd a fair idea ourselves but what could we do? She was covered in burns, and it's bad enough finding grub for two …'

That's the worst thing – you get so that you'll send your own folk off to die, thinking, sooner them than us.

Things were getting harder. For one thing it was October, and we'd had the first touch of frost. Tents and makeshift shelters had sprung up among the ruins. The last scraps of food had disappeared from the empty houses and now they were being stripped of bedding, carpets and bits of linoleum. Clothes were taken from the ruins and from the dead, and we presented a bulky appearance because of the many layers we wore.

The air of tension had intensified, and was made worse by the long silence from Kershaw Farm. We'd expected another visit from the loudspeaker and listened for it, subconsciously, as we went about our work. Nothing happened.

I hadn't seen Kim again. Fetching water had become a perilous chore and I didn't hang about. I kept to the middle of the road and moved quickly, with the bucket in one hand and a club in the other; watching the ruins on either side as I went. The length of cable was coiled about my waist, hidden under my clothes.

If there were people at the well I waited under the arch with my back against the wall. My evening trips got earlier and earlier as the nights drew in – I had to be home before dusk. Some people only made one trip now, in the mornings, and I'd have done the same if I hadn't always kept hoping I'd see Kim. There seemed more chance, going twice a day, but we were
never there at the same time. I began to think something had happened to her.

It wouldn't have been surprising if something had. More and more people were dying of the sickness, and every night some poor devil was done in for his clothes or any grub he might have about him.

The first new words emerged. One morning at the well I heard some man refer to the mad men and women who wandered through the ruins, talking to themselves or calling to lost relatives. Spacers, he called them. And I'd heard a few people call those dying of the sickness, terminals. They were only words, but they made me uneasy. If you call people things like that, it makes them seem less than human somehow.

A few mornings later I heard another, though I didn't recognise it for what it was. Badgers. This man said he knew where there were some badgers, and did the other bloke fancy helping dig them out?

The other guy said no, and they started arguing. Then they noticed me and one of them, the one who knew where the badgers were, came over. I gripped my club and eyed him warily.

‘How about you?' He growled. ‘D'you fancy giving me a hand?'

I shrugged. ‘I don't know,' I said. ‘Are badgers okay to eat?' He laughed. ‘We don't eat the badgers,' he said. ‘Not the badgers: we're not down to that yet. But we eat what they've got in their holes, don't we Ken?'

He glanced over his shoulder at the man by the well, who shook his head and murmured, ‘You do, Charlie, not me.'

‘Aye,' agreed Charlie. ‘I do. How about it, kiddo?'

I didn't know what to say. The man seemed to be offering me a chance to get food. I didn't need it, but I didn't want him to know that. On the other hand, I was pretty sure badgers didn't store food. ‘I don't know,' I said again.

He made an exasperated noise and spread his hands. ‘Look kid,' he said, ‘I'm making you an offer. Give us a hand you'll get your share of the stuff. It'll take us maybe an hour, and it'll be the easiest grub you ever won, okay?'

I held up my bucket. ‘I've got to take water home, my dad's waiting.'

‘Be my guest.' He stepped aside and indicated the well with a sweep of his hand. ‘Take the water home, and come back here. You'll be glad you did.'

The second chap had filled his bucket. He came out through the arch and as he passed us, his eyes found mine and he shook his head, ever so slightly. Charlie saw the gesture and laughed again. ‘Get on with you, Ken!' he bellowed. ‘You're soft, that's your trouble. You'll end up with your skull bashed in, or else you'll starve!'

Soft. Kim's words echoed in my head. We've got to be as hard as they are, Danny boy. I looked at Charlie.

‘Okay,' I said. ‘I'll see you back here as soon as I can.' He grinned. ‘Right you are, kiddo,' he said. ‘Only don't take too long, or somebody else'll find my ruddy badgers!'

I didn't say anything to Dad about Charlie. I told him I had to see somebody. He told me to be careful.

Charlie was waiting under the arch. He'd been off somewhere in the meantime, because he had some stuff with him; a bulging carrier-bag and a sort of canister with a nozzle.

‘What's that?' I asked.

‘For making smoke. Come on.' He set off at a brisk pace up the road. I followed with my club.

We made for the west end of town – a place of large, expensive houses and tree-lined avenues. Damage was light here, but there was nobody about. I thought we were going to Calverley Wood, where badgers were sometimes seen, but we weren't. Charlie led me into a road over-arched with scorched horse-chestnut trees and there, by the gateway to a house, we stopped.

‘This is it,' he growled. A concrete driveway led up to some garage doors. Charlie walked up it and I followed, feeling uneasy. It didn't seem likely to me that badgers would make their home in somebody's garden. I was beginning to wish I hadn't come. The other guy had refused, and he'd tried to warn me. Why?

I suppose I could have run off, but I didn't. I followed Charlie along a pathway between the garage and the side of the house.

There was a large garden at the back: lawns mostly, with a high wall and old trees round. It must have been nice before, but the grass was yellow now and the trees had a shrivelled look.

‘Where're the badgers?' I whispered.

Charlie had dropped the bag on the path and was doing something to the canister. He pressed a warning finger to his lips, then pointed across the garden. There was a lawn, then a sort of bank about three feet high and another lawn beyond that. Stone steps led from one to the other. In the middle of the far lawn was a slab of concrete about the size of a snooker table. Charlie had pointed to that. I looked at it, then down at him.

‘What is it?' I whispered. A dark suspicion was forming in my mind. He glanced up, fiddling with matches.

‘Shelter.'

I went cold. ‘You mean – ?'

‘Aye.' Smoke rose from the nozzle. He straightened. I backed off, gripping the club. He stuffed the matches in a jacket pocket and left his hand there. I shook my head.

‘No,' I whispered. ‘I can't. Badgers, you said. I'm going.'

‘Like fun you are!' His hand, wrapped round a small pistol, rose from his pocket. ‘It's a two-man job, kiddo. You do your bit, or die: it's as simple as that.' His voice hadn't risen above a low growl, but there was no doubting his earnestness. He nodded towards my club. ‘Drop that.'

I dropped it, and he said, ‘Get the smoker.' He backed away and I bent, lifting it by its handle.

‘Right.' He pointed to the thing with his free hand. ‘All you do is, you squeeze there when you want smoke to come out. You do it when I say, and you keep on till I say stop. And remember.' He held the gun under my nose. ‘I'll be watching you.'

He picked up the bag and we crossed the lawn to the steps. He made me go up first. Two short pipes protruded from the concrete; one at either end. Charlie thrust his mouth close to my ear.

‘You stand by that one. When I nod my head, you shove the
nozzle in and start squeezing. And whatever happens, keep on going; if you stop before I tell you, you're dead, right?' I nodded.

He moved to the far end and began pulling rags from the carrier. The pistol lay beside him in the grass. When he had a pile, he squatted and started stuffing them into the pipe. I stood, wishing I'd heeded the man called Ken.

He rammed in the last of the rags, dropped the bag over the pipe and picked up the gun. He held it up in front of him and closed one eye, peering along the snub barrel with the other. Then he lowered it, grinned across at me, and nodded.

I pushed the nozzle into the pipe and started to pump. Charlie came over and squatted on his heels, smiling to himself and toying with the gun.

For a while nothing happened and I began to think, maybe there's nobody down there. Maybe the owners were away when the bomb fell.

Then I heard a noise: a muffled exclamation, followed by coughing.

I looked across at Charlie and shook my head; a sort of mute appeal. He raised the pistol, gazed balefully at me along its barrel, and nodded.

Choking sounds came from below, like voices from the grave. My limbs trembled and I felt sick. Charlie was still pointing the gun at me and I went on squeezing, while cold sweat trickled down my back.

There was a new sound; a grinding, mechanical noise, and a square trap in the centre of the concrete lifted slightly. The choking sounds grew clearer and smoke poured out. Charlie crept forward till he was directly behind the trap.

It swung back, and through the smoke the head and shoulders of a man appeared. Choking, the man staggered out onto the concrete with his hands over his eyes. Charlie raised the pistol.

I didn't stop to think. If I had, I wouldn't have done it. I pulled the nozzle out of the pipe, ran across the pad and hit Charlie as hard as I could with the canister.

He toppled sideways and, flinging the smoker from me, I
grabbed his wrist and wrenched the gun from his grasp. I'd hoped he'd be knocked out but he wasn't. He rolled, making a grab for my ankle as I leapt clear.

‘Hold it!' The man spun round, his eyes streaming. His jaw dropped. ‘Stand still!' I cried, and glanced at Charlie. He was kneeling on the concrete with his hand pressed to his ear. ‘You!' I jabbed the gun at him. ‘Get up and stand with him. Move away from the hatch.'

Sounds of distress issued from the shelter. I looked at the man. ‘Tell 'em to come out.'

He was looking at Charlie and me as though we were ghosts. Maybe he'd expected no survivors on the surface. Without taking his eyes off me he called hoarsely, ‘Lynne. Come up here. Bring Rebecca.'

Smoke was still rising from the hatch. A woman's head appeared. She staggered up the steps, blind with tears, carrying a kid of three or so. The kid had puked down her jumper. When she saw me, the woman screamed and sort of turned, shielding the kid.

‘Okay,' I rapped. ‘Nobody'll hurt you. Charlie?'

He glared at me, nursing his ear.

‘Go on down and get what we came for. I'll watch these.'

‘Get 'em shot!' he growled. ‘Never mind watching 'em.'

‘No,' I said. ‘There's no need. Get the stuff and let's go.'

He shook his head. ‘I'm not off down there,' he said. ‘He can go.' He nodded towards the man.

‘All right.' I turned to him. ‘Go down,' I said. ‘Fetch up any food you've got down there – also blankets, clothes and anything else you can carry. Make it quick.'

The man moved towards the hatch. ‘Oh, and think on,' I said. ‘Any funny business and the woman gets it.' He nodded and went down.

Charlie's lip curled. ‘The woman gets it,' he sneered. ‘You're flamin' soft, kiddo; you couldn't do it!'

‘Maybe not,' I snapped. ‘To her. But I'll do it to you if you give me half an excuse.'

The child had been sick again and was crying. The woman set it down on the grass and worked on it with a tissue. The
man dumped a cardboard box on the pad, glanced towards his family and ducked down again. The last of the smoke had dispersed.

He made four trips. The fourth time he lugged an armful of bedding up. ‘That's all,' he said. I nodded and he climbed out.

I looked at the stuff. A few tins of grub, a radio and a torch. Blankets, clothes and batteries. Charlie had been prepared to kill three people for this stuff, and there must be a hundred times as much in our cellar. I shivered, then got a hold of myself.

‘Okay, Charlie,' I said. ‘Pick it up.' I covered the family while he sorted the stuff out. I'd no idea how the gun worked, I probably couldn't have fired it if I'd wanted to. They stood in a huddle on the lawn, watching me.

Charlie said, ‘Right, kiddo: now what?' He was half-hidden behind a pile of blankets. I jerked my head towards the pathway. ‘You set off. I'll cover you.' I turned from him and gazed levelly into the man's eyes. ‘If you try to come after us, I'll kill you.'

‘Kill 'em anyway!' called Charlie, halfway across the lawn. I started to follow him, walking backwards and watching the family. They gazed back impassively, not stirring. I turned away.

There was a loud bang. Charlie, on the top step, shot forward, arms outflung. I whirled. The family hadn't moved, but another man stood on the shelter-steps, a shotgun smoking in his hands. I dropped, and the second shot passed over me, knocking pebble-dash from the house-wall. Two barrels, two shots. I sprang up and leapt for the steps.

Charlie at the bottom sprawled among blankets, wetly red. Tins of beans on the grass. I ran.

That night, back on guard again, I couldn't get it out of my head. Standing there with Dad's gun, waiting to make a Charlie out of somebody. Would I, I wondered, if it came to it? Shoot 'em anyway, says Charlie in my skull. We've got to be as hard as they are, says Kim.

Anyway, that's what badgers were: people in shelters. Charlie wasn't the only one hunting them. One by one, they
were found, smoked out and shot for their stuff – for their selfishness too, perhaps, (‘You can lob 'em over now, Ivan, I've got a shelter.'), until there were none left.

Spacers, badgers, terminals. Three new species. Better than shooting people.