The UnTied Kingdom (13 page)

‘I know
of
them,’ said Harker, to whom the wonders of technology were a closed book. But Daz was nodding, so she addressed herself to him.

‘Right. What you’re sending down a phoneline is your voice, yes? You’re sending sounds. Do you … know how they do that?’

‘Yes,’ said Daz. ‘The voice produces acoustic pressure waves, which affect the electrical current being picked up by the transmitter contained in the telephone. The varying electric current is transmitted along a copper wire to the other telephone, making the coil in the receiver move back and forth to reproduce the sounds from the first person through a microphone.’

For a long moment, there was no sound above that of the fire. Even Eve looked stunned.

‘Yes,’ she said eventually, her voice a little weak, ‘that’s … right. Although I think you meant ‘speaker’ there, at the end, not ‘microphone’. A microphone is what you speak
into
. The speaker is where the sound comes out.’

Daz frowned. ‘Is it?’

‘Yes. Trust me on that.’ She cleared her throat. ‘All right. So a telephone can transmit sounds … in the way you said. What about if the signal could be modified to send pictures, too?’

‘How?’ Daz said, and Eve looked as if she was trying to work that out ahead of him.

‘Well, a similar … sort of … way,’ she said. ‘With … variations in the current.’ She looked at Daz hopefully. He looked back with a similar expression. It was almost comical.

Eve slumped. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I don’t know exactly how it’s done. But the basic principle of the Internet is that it sends information through a phone line. I don’t know how exactly, but it is to do with those current variations. I think.’

Daz looked a bit disappointed. Harker asked, ‘What kind of information?’

‘Well,’ Eve said, reviving a bit, ‘images, for one thing. Static images, but also moving ones. And there’s also a method of communication called email. Electronic mail. It’s basically a way to send private message online … er, on the Internet. You have to have a password, and then you can read it.’

‘And anyone with the password can read it?’ Harker asked.

‘Well, theoretically, yes. You have your own email address – like a phone number, it’s individual and specific. Say, if I wanted to send you a message, an email,’ she said to Daz, ‘I’d type in your email address–’

‘Type?’ Harker asked. ‘Do they use typewriters?’

‘Something very similar,’ Eve said. ‘I’d type in your address and send you the message. And when you wanted to read it, you’d log on – er, you’d type in your email address and your password, and then you could read it. So long as you keep that password private, no one else can read it.’

Harker looked at Charlie. She was nodding. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know. This could be what they’re doing.’

‘What who’s doing?’ Eve asked brightly.

‘Never you mind,’ Harker said.

‘Oh, cheers, I just sit here giving you the hotsheet on the Internet, which, by the way, is a very complicated thing and not easy to explain to people who’ve never even seen a television, and you won’t even tell me why you want to know.’

‘It’s a need-to-know thing,’ Harker said.

‘Well, I need to know!’

‘No, you don’t.’ He stood up. ‘Well, troops, I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody knackered. Time to turn in. Up at sunrise. See you in the morning.’

‘Wait,’ Eve said. ‘I haven’t even told you about Internet porn!’

‘You can use it to sell stuff?’ Daz said, and everyone else went po-faced.

‘Uh, no, not pawn as in shop,’ Eve said. Her cheeks were pink. ‘Porn as in …’

She looked around as if for help, and the rest of the squad suddenly found the canopy of trees fascinating.

All except Harker, who grinned at her. ‘I think I like the sound of this Internet,’ he said. Eve scowled at him, and he winked. ‘All right. ’Night, everyone. Sweet dreams.’

Charlie snorted, and Harker went to bed to fight against images of telephones and naked girls, who all seemed to look rather like Eve.

Chapter Nine

Morning came, and with it heavy mist and a hideously early start.
You’ve got up earlier than this,
Eve reminded herself.
Remember those days full of planes and rehearsals and interviews and performances? You’d be on the go from six in the morning until after midnight. You had the feet of a ballet dancer and skin like tracing paper.

She shuddered, and thought wistful things about coffee.

An hour after Charlie had barked her awake, the camp was dismantled, the only evidence of it a couple of rectangles of flattened grass and a burnt circle where the fire had been. Charlie and Harker spent some time conferring on their route, pointing and talking about roads on which she half-expected to encounter Bilbo Baggins.

‘If we follow this road until we get to the Peddar’s Way, that’s … thirty miles just to Downham Market, and if we want to change horses we’ll have to stop at the blockade on the Fen Causeway, which is another twenty-odd miles. Charlie, that’s another day’s travel. Whereas if we go cross country, we can get to the barricade by lunchtime, get fresh horses and be at Boston by nightfall.’

‘In this fog? Sir, we’ve been in that country before,’ Charlie said. ‘We’ll get stuck in the mud.’

‘Then we lighten the wagon, carry our packs, and hope we’ve all lost weight.’ Harker glanced up, saw Eve watching them. ‘Any bright ideas?’ he said.

‘Try the A10,’ Eve said, which he didn’t seem to find funny.

‘We go cross country, Charlie,’ Harker said, folding up the map with a sort of finality. ‘There are markers and things along the way.’ He gave Eve a humourless smile. ‘And how about this. We send Eve on ahead. That way, if the fen turns marshy, she can warn us.’

‘Oh,
thanks
,’ Eve said.

The ground squelched underfoot, but held. Fog crept in patches, sometimes obscuring her view to only a few feet ahead. Even when it cleared there wasn’t much to see. Around her the trees were sad, windswept affairs, huddling together in small woodlands here and there. For mile after damp, foggy mile, Eve trudged on, still chained, but ahead of the others, searching out the path, muttering about bloody Harker and the bloody marshes, until he called a halt for lunch and she muttered about bloody cold rabbit meat. On her back was a pack that apparently contained cooking equipment, but into which she was certain Harker had just piled a load of rocks. She fully expected to sink with every step.

At least she wasn’t handcuffed to anyone, although she was still attached to the long chain that Harker had put her on last night, like a dog. She’d even slept with it clinking coldly beside her.

Bastard.

Their progress was cautiously slow, so it was mid-afternoon by the time they approached what Harker called the Fen Causeway and which, Eve discerned, was a road running east from Peterborough. As they got closer, Charlie and Harker discussed earnestly how close they should go to the barricades, and whether the whole party should go, or just a couple of them, with the wagon, to change the horses.

As it happened, they didn’t get to do either.

The path they were following, itself not much more than a solid bit of ground between the marshes of the fens, had been empty for their entire journey. But within five miles of the Causeway, people started coming the other way.

Lots of people.

Carrying things.

After the third family hurried past, all burdened with suitcases and leading a pig on a piece of string, Harker stopped and said, ‘Okay, something’s up.’

‘You don’t say,’ Eve muttered.

In the distance, through the fog which had never entirely lifted, more figures were heading their way. Even when she squinted into the distance, Eve found it hard to tell if she was looking at a crowd of people or a huddle of trees. She eventually worked out that the static group was a wood. Harker took off his coat and replaced it with a blanket from the wagon. He handed his sword to Charlie, who hustled the rest of the squad, including Eve, out of sight behind the wagon.

As he walked, Harker’s feet trailed in the mud, and Eve thought he might be limping a little. His shoulders visibly slumped and he clutched the shabby, patched-up blanket as if it was his only friend in the world. Eve, who hadn’t really paid much attention to his military bearing, aside from noticing how broad his shoulders were, was amazed at the transformation.

He looks even more like a vagrant than usual
.

He approached a young couple. The woman was pregnant and the man, carrying a heavy pack, walked with an awkward gait that Eve later realised was because he had a wooden leg. Clearly, if the army was conscripting all able-bodied men, there weren’t going to be too many of them hanging around outside of the military.

‘Hold a minute, friend,’ Harker said, approaching them with an open smile. ‘What’s the hurry?’

The young man glanced backwards over his shoulder. ‘Fighting,’ he said. ‘The army’s fighting the rebels in March.’

‘March?’ Alarm showed on Harker’s face. ‘They broke through the barricades?’

The woman nodded. ‘Word got to us this morning. They broke right through, and they’ve been pushing back towards Downham Market. They’re taking the whole Causeway.’

Eve saw the line of Harker’s shoulders tighten, straighten a little. Beside her, Charlie’s movements mirrored Harker’s. Eve wondered if the Lieutenant’s ears were pricking up under her bushy hair.

‘Do you know how far they’ve got?’

‘We came from Tipps End,’ said the woman. ‘They hadn’t got there yet, but a runner came …’ She trailed off, tight-lipped and shaking.

Her husband put his arm around her. ‘A runner came from Christchurch,’ he said. ‘He said only a couple of them got out in time.’

The woman gave a sob.

Eve glanced at Tallulah and mouthed, ‘Is this bad?’

Tallulah nodded and whispered right in her ear, ‘The barricade was further west. If they’ve got as far as March, that means they’re pushing along the Fen Causeway towards the sea.’

She leaned back, and saw the incomprehension on Eve’s face. ‘If they close the gap between Peterborough and the sea they could cut us off from the north.’

‘They’ve got the whole of the Midlands?’

‘No, they’ve got hardly anywhere.’ Tallulah looked troubled. ‘At least that’s what they tell us.’

Charlie tapped Eve on the shoulder and frowned, putting her finger to her lips. Eve nodded and continued to watch Harker talking to the couple on the path, her mind racing.

The Coalitionists only had a little bit of territory.
That’s what they tell us.
But how well informed was Tallulah? Her sister was high-ranking – higher than Harker? – but how much had she passed on? How much did the average soldier know?

Propaganda. Tallulah and her fellow squaddies probably thought they were winning the war, that there were only a few rebel strongholds to overcome. But if the enemy already controlled Manchester and Leeds – her mind composed a quick map – then they’d already got a strong foothold in the north. Pushing east from Peterborough was probably only a localised part of the plan. Hell, they could hold the entire Midlands and the average soldier on the street wouldn’t know about it.

With any luck there was no such thing in this world as the M62, so crossing the Pennines would be–

Eve shook herself. This world. It was the same goddamned world as always. All of this was just a ... a dream or a nightmare or a hallucination. Not real. Even if the smell of the horses and the wetness of the mud and the fear creeping through her veins
felt
pretty damn real.

Beside Eve, Charlie silently took off her pack, quietly placing it into the wagon. She gestured for the others to do the same, drawing from a box several belts of ammunition. Charlie the gundog. She handed the belts silently to Martindale, Banks, and Tallulah, draped one over her own shoulder, and then handed Daz an armband with a prominent red cross on it.

He shook his head and pointed to her ammunition.

Charlie shook her head. Daz mouthed, ‘Lieutenant!’ angrily. Charlie shook her head again, then tilted it at Harker.

‘We’ve seen no trouble further south,’ Harker said. ‘Are there many more coming from your village?’

The woman shook her head. Her eyes were huge and frightened. ‘No,’ she said, ‘we were the last. They’ve all gone on ahead. They–’

A muffled boom from behind made her jump. All heads turned in that direction.

‘You,’ Harker said to the man, shaking out his blanket and straightening his shoulders, ‘you’ve seen service?’

The ex-soldier glanced once at the insignia on Harker’s newly revealed jacket and nodded. ‘Battle of Southwark, sir. 109th.’

‘Right. So you’ll keep your lady well out of it.’

He nodded determinedly. ‘We were heading for Ely,’ he said.

‘Good man. Good man. You have any arms?’

After a second’s hesitation, the man produced a pistol. Harker grinned.

‘Excellent. On your way.’

They hurried off, seemingly unsurprised by the squad hiding behind the wagon, and disappeared into the fog as another boom sounded, louder than the first but still muffled.

‘If we can hear that,’ Harker said, striding back towards them, ‘in this fog …’

‘Then it’s much closer than we think,’ Charlie said. She took Harker’s blanket from him, tossed it into the wagon, and handed him a belt of ammo. Harker took it and gestured for more, which Charlie, rolling her eyes, gave him.

‘And for me, Lieutenant,’ Daz said, holding out his hand.

‘How close?’ Eve asked, and was ignored.

‘With respect, sir, you’re a surgeon, and there’s no telling–’

‘What I might have to defend myself against,’ said Daz. ‘There aren’t many shots in my pistol.’

‘Neither should there be,’ Harker said, buckling on his sword. ‘Non-combat officers are not to draw arms except to defend themselves, General’s orders. Is that clear, Captain?’

Daz’s cartoon mouth closed tightly. ‘Yes, sir,’ he muttered.

‘Good.’ Harker handed him the ammo anyway. ‘Best line of defence is attack,’ he said with a faint smile.

‘Defence?’ Eve said. ‘We’re not going
towards
them, are we?’

Towards was bad. Very bad. Eve had seen
Saving Private Ryan
. She’d seen
Gladiator.
And she’d seen that man with the wooden leg.

‘What are we, Eve?’ Harker said.

‘Well, I’m a prisoner,’ she muttered.

‘We’re the army. We don’t run away from a fight.’

Daz climbed into the wagon to retrieve medical supplies, while all around Eve the rest of the squad checked and clicked and loaded things with an efficiency that frightened her.
They’re killers. All of them. Even sweet pretty Tallulah
.

‘So you’re just going to join in?’ Eve said incredulously to Harker, as he slung a machine-gun over his shoulder by its strap, then turned to unharness the front two horses.

‘No, I thought we’d take a picnic and sit and watch,’ he said, not looking up at her.

‘You don’t even know what you’ll find,’ Eve said, fear mounting in her.

‘Course I do. Smoke, mayhem, death, blood, the usual.’ He didn’t look too bothered by it.

‘And it’s really foggy! How can you even see anything?’

At that, Harker did look up. He grinned. ‘Do you know what fog is, Charlie?’ he said.

‘Ambusher’s best friend, sir,’ she said.

‘See, if we can’t see, then they can’t see,’ he said. ‘They don’t know how many buggers are sneaking up on ’em.’ He patted the top of her head, which Eve found immensely patronising, and said, ‘We’ll be fine. Done this before.’

Eve, not so terrified that she still couldn’t be bolshie, folded her arms.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Fine. While I do what? I’m chained to this damn wagon. Are you going to leave me here? In case they come this way? Bait? Or have I outlived my usefulness now?’

Fear was making her babble. Dammit, what if she had outlived her usefulness? They were using her as a pathfinder, weren’t they? She’d told them about the Internet – not enough, but did they know that?

‘I can tell you lots more about–’ she began, but Harker shut her up with a wave of his hand and a noise of disgust.

‘I ain’t gonna leave you here to get shot and raped,’ he said, which made Eve slightly nauseous. ‘You’re sticking with Daz.’

Daz brandished his pistol with a total lack of skill, and as Eve’s chain was fastened to him she thought she might be sick. He could as easily kill her with his ineptitude as the enemy.

I don’t think I can convince myself this is a dream any more.

There was another boom, and the spatter of automatic fire. It sounded hideously close. Tallulah’s lips got thinner.

Harker handed Eve an armband like Daz’s.

‘Um,’ Eve said, ‘I don’t know anything about, uh, field medicine or anything …’

‘Don’t need to.’

‘But … isn’t this a bit dishonest?’