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21
Danny and Sally kept in touch as best they could, sending letters with carters to each other, that usually got through, eventually. Whenever he could, he would go back to the village so that they could spend time together, but they were lucky if he was able to do this more than a couple of times a year. The countryside between Newmarket and the village grew emptier and more dangerous every year and the logistics of the journey more complicated and difficult to organise. Now Johnny, Sally’s younger brother, was old enough, she was able to leave the farm in his and her mother Daisy’s hands for several weeks in the quieter times of the farm year and come to Cambridge to stay with Danny.
In the late summer of 2051 a long letter arrived from Sally. She wrote to tell him her mother Daisy had died, peacefully, apparently in her sleep, in her own bed. Sally sounded sad, but not grief stricken. Daisy had spent the years since she had taken the pill offering it to others and leading a small keying group in the village. Although she was never entirely well, she seemed to have been content to wait patiently for the time when she would be with her beloved Geoff and Rachel again. More than anything, Sally was unhappy because she didn’t think she’d be able to get away from the farm as often, or for as long, now that there was only Johnny and her to look after it and she asked Danny if he could come down and see her soon and stay for a few weeks.
Cambridge’s influence began to extend in to the country around, out to Newmarket along the old A14, which they began to repair and maintain to carry heavier traffic. Meanwhile outside the “Pale” as they began to call it, groups of travellers began to appear. In the early years these had been relatively small, and survived mainly by scrounging in the larger cities, now largely deserted, picking up dried and tinned foods, machines, fuels of one kind or another. The group that had attacked the village when Danny still lived there had been the exception, wandering in the countryside, direct descendants of the travellers of the late 20th century, who were used to moving, and still knew about horses, and surviving in the countryside. They still existed, and largely kept to themselves. As the country emptied and returned to the wild they found it easier to survive, living off wild game and fruits, and if they interacted with the settled population, such as it was, it was usually simply to trade furs and things they had made for grain or livestock.
But as what was left to scavenge in the cities disappeared or rotted, the more urban groups began to move out, looking for new sources of food and machines. In the Darwinian struggle for scarce resources only the toughest and most ruthless groups were able to survive. In Cambridge they heard of pitched battles between groups several hundred strong, where the losers, if not killed or wounded, were robbed of everything, and sometimes, if they had nothing, enslaved by the winning side. Initially these reports came from some distance – around London, or in the Midlands – but by the early 2050’s it became clear to the council that sooner or later one or more of these bands was going to come their way, and Cambridge needed to do something more decisive to protect itself. Up to then a fairly simple town militia had kept watch on the main routes into the Pale and could muster enough men with guns to scare away the relatively small groups who were hostile.
A network of forts was built around the Pale, and heavier weapons – heavy machine guns, mortars and a few artillery pieces and anti-tank weapons – were scavenged from military stores and refurbished. The main problem was manufacturing reliable and safe ammunition and high explosives. Each adult, provided they were fit, was asked to give thirty days’ service a year to train and man the forts, and a permanent cadre of trained officers was set up.
Danny managed two or three visits a year to see Sally in the village. Whenever he could, he stopped off at the Bramwell’s farm just south of Mildenhall. The roads within the Pale were generally well maintained and he could get to Mildenhall and then on to Bury St Edmunds in an easy day’s journey on a flicker bike. Heading south from Bury to the village was the longest part of the journey although it was about the same distance. It usually took Danny two more long days of riding to get to Sally’s farm.
In the spring of 2053 Danny got word from Sally that a large horde of over a thousand fighting men was reported to be moving up the old A12 from South Essex. Sally sounded very frightened. She said in her message that many people in the village were planning to move to the Pale. Sally was on her own, trying to keep the farm going, and was reluctant to leave her animals and tools behind. She did not say so or specifically ask him to, but Danny felt she wanted him to come down to see her.
He borrowed a flicker bike and travelled as far as Stowmarket. East of Newmarket he reached the boundary of the Pale and an army checkpoint on the old A14. He was questioned by an army officer about his plans. Danny showed the man Sally’s letter and explained he made the journey quite regularly. The officer asked him to keep his eyes and ears open – they had also heard about the band moving up from the south and wanted as much forewarning of their whereabouts as they could get. After Newmarket he road got pretty rough and slowed him down but he got to Stowmarket by midday of the second day and was then able to swap the flicker for a good horse. Technically the flicker belonged to the council in Cambridge, but Danny gave the man he swapped it with a note for Henry in Cambridge who would pay the man for the flicker with money Danny was owed in wages. Although Stowmarket was outside the Pale it had close relations with Cambridge and the man expected to be travelling that way, or that someone else would would buy the flicker off him to make the journey. Flickers couldn’t carry much baggage, but they were light and fast and perfect for someone who just needed to make the trip in a hurry.
It took Danny another three days to reach the village. He rode as hard as he and the horse allowed, but was slowed by the need to find the horse forage, and shelter for them both, and picking a route that always gave him as clear a view to the south and as far as to give him plenty of warning if he saw any sign of the band or another coming up from Essex. Each day he grew more worried for Sally and the others left in the village – her message was at least ten days old by now, and he had no idea how quickly the large band she had told him about was moving.
He rode up the hill into the village after fording the Stour, the old bridge having long since fallen into the river. It was late afternoon, and the light was starting to go. He turned left as he passed the church, having seen no one, and crossed the grazed field to Sally’s farm. There was a faint light at the kitchen window. Something made him stop behind a line of trees. He tied up his horse, and stuck his pistol in his belt, and slung his bag across his shoulder, and walked up the line of trees, staying in sight of the farmhouse, but trying not to let himself be seen. He worked his way along a hedge, keeping his head down, until he could see into the yard at the back of the farmhouse. Everything seemed quiet. He approached, still trying to keep out of sight, looking all round him as he moved. It seemed too quiet, and where was everyone else? He reached the low brick wall that surrounded the kitchen garden and the yard, and crouched behind it, moving to the five barred gate that led in to the yard. Reaching down he found a few pebbles, and aiming as best he could from his crouch, threw one at the kitchen window. It hit the frame and fell to the ground. He threw another which made a satisfying crack as it hit the glass of the window. He thought he heard the scrape of a chair and saw a figure, or rather the head and shoulders of someone looking round the edge of the window. In the gloom of the early evening he couldn’t tell – was that Sally? Then he saw a flash of blond hair as the head withdrew from sight. It must be. He pulled his pistol from his belt, looked back to where he had tied up the horse, which he could just see quietly grazing behind the trees. It was about a hundred and fifty metres away across an open field, but if he had to turn and run for it there were very few windows on this side of the house, and he would be covered by the wall for the first few metres. He stood up and threw another pebble at the window. This time he remained standing, his hand holding the pistol out of sight below the wall. He took off his hat. Again the head and shoulders appeared. He raised his arm and waved his hat. The figure disappeared again, and then the door opened a crack.
“Danny, is it you?” – he recognised Sally’s voice.
“Yes” he said. “Are you OK?”
She opened the door wide, saying nothing, and waved him to come inside. Danny picked up his pack and slipped round the wall through the gate and ran across the yard. As soon as he stepped through the door, Sally closed and bolted it behind him and threw herself in to his arms, sobbing soundlessly. He dropped his pack and hat and flung his arms around her, holding her shaking body, murmuring soothingly. After a minute or so, she calmed a bit.
“What’s happened Sally?” he asked.
She looked at him, her eyes wide, reddened and wet with her tears. “I’ve been so frightened, Danny. Two days ago, practically everyone left. We heard the gang I told you about, did you get my message? Well they had got to Mark’s Tey” – a village about ten miles south – “and set up a sort of camp and they had sent raiding parties out. One of them attacked Fordham, I think they killed practically everyone they found and took all the animals. We had a village meeting and pretty well everyone thought we would be next on their list, there’s nothing else between here and Fordham, and if Fordham couldn’t defend itself we certainly wouldn’t be able to, so everyone just upped and left.”
“Why didn’t you go with them?” Danny asked.
“Well Johnny’s not here and I didn’t want to go without him. And I didn’t want to leave Ma and Pa and Rachel, I know it’s silly they’re all long dead but . . . or the farm, it’s all we’ve got. And I was hoping you would come . . . I know it’s stupid, but I just couldn’t . . .” Her voice tailed off.
“Where’s Johnny gone?”
“He went off to Sudbury to try and get some guns, three days ago. He should have come back within a day, I’m desperately worried about him, he’s all I have left.” Sally started sobbing again.
Danny had approached the village well to the east of Sudbury. It was quite possible another raiding party had headed up that way from Mark’s Tey, following the old railway line. Johnny could have been caught by them, or cut off, or simply been driven away to the north.
“Look Sally, we’ve got to get away from here. I’m on my own, and I’ve only got a pistol in any case. Have you got a horse you can ride?”
“But what about Johnny?” Sally wailed. “I can’t leave him.”
“We’ve got no choice – if we stay here, and they do come, we’ve had it, and so will Johnny if he comes back. If they haven’t got to him already, with a bit of luck he’ll start heading towards the north and Cambridge and we’ll meet up with him, or hear of him. But we can’t hang around here, they could already be moving up to Ipswich and Sudbury and we could get completely cut off. We should go now and try and put as much distance as we can between us and them. If we can get to Stowmarket or Bury we should be safe enough. And if they are moving north, we need to warn Cambridge and Newmarket.”
“But what about all the animals? We can’t just leave them.”
“We’ve got no choice, we can’t take them with us, they’d slow us down. Just let them out, and they’ll have to forage for themselves. At least if they get away, the raiders might not get them. We can take the horses; if we have spares we can move faster.” Danny was getting increasingly impatient, and starting to get angry with Sally. The feeling he had had when he approached the farm was getting stronger with every passing minute, he wanted to be out of here and away, in the open country where the chances of meeting the raiders was less, and they had some hope of escape in the woods and the dark. “Please, Sally” he pleaded “we must go now, before it’s too late” he said, in quiet desperation.
Sally looked at him, distraught. Her whole life had been in this village. Danny looked back at her, willing her to make a decision. Then she smiled, wanly. “It’s so good to see you Danny. I so wanted you to come. All right then, I suppose we must.” She turned, and went into the other room and up the stairs. Danny shouted after her “Where are the horses and tack? I’ll get them ready while you pack.”
“They’re all in the stables, I brought them in this afternoon, and the tack’s there too, on the wall. Take a lantern, it’s dark in there” she called back down the stairs.
Away to the west, they could see a bright orange glow, and hear the sound of shots. Mount Bures church, which had stood for a thousand years, was going up in flames. They led the horses down in to the valley and across the ford, then mounted them and rode across and up the other side and into the shelter and darkness of Arger Fen. Only when they had passed Assington and were well on their way to Waldingfield did Danny start to relax, and talk quietly to Sally, riding just behind him. The moon was out, nearly half full, and by its light they were able to make easy progress down the overgrown lanes, always heading north east, away from any large settlements that might have seemed attractive to the raiders. Apart from the occasional bark of a muntjac or the high pitched cry of a vixen, and the hooting of owls, they heard no sound. Now the decision was made and they were on their way, Sally seemed more cheerful and started wondering what might have happened to Johnny and how they might track him down.
After four hours they were on the outskirts of Lavenham. Danny started to look for a way round the village. He didn’t want to meet hostile or frightened villagers and start trying to explain they were simply on their way to Cambridge. Sally said “Look Danny, there’s a light in the church”. Danny could see a glow behind the tall glass windows of the magnificent church, its tower a beacon that stood out for miles around. As they looked the lights grew brighter, and they could see men on horseback in the churchyard. “Not lights, Sally, they’ve set it on fire” he almost shouted “we’ve got to get out of here!” He turned the horses and began to trot and then canter up the hill behind them.
They heard shouts, and a shot fired, and they spurred their horses on. In a few seconds they had reached the cover of some trees. Danny pulled his horse up and dismounted. “Quick, Sally, saddle up your fastest horse” he said, as he started to unbuckle the girth on his own mount. When they had left the farm he had deliberately saddled up the two shires that Sally used for ploughing, to keep his horse and hers fresh if they needed to make a run for it. They might lose a few precious minutes changing horses, but if the riders in the churchyard were serious, they could be in for a long hard chase.
As soon as they had saddled their mounts, they set off again at a canter, the shires blowing behind them, and headed north across open fields. They kept going for twenty minutes and then Danny looked behind. The church was now completely ablaze, the roof and tower burning furiously, sparks and flames reaching up in to the moonlit sky. There was no sign of any pursuit.
“I can’t understand it, they’re miles from Mark’s Tey, what the hell are they doing here?” Danny said.
“Perhaps they’re not from the Mark’s Tey band” said Sally.
“Bugger it, we’re in trouble if they’re not. If we don’t know where they’re from or if there’s a bigger group somewhere nearby, we’ll have to be really careful. We don’t want to just blunder in to them by accident. I thought we were getting away from trouble – it just seems like it’s all round us.”
“Well, if we stick to open country and keep heading for Stowmarket or Bury we should be OK, shouldn’t we?” said Sally.
“We don’t have any choice – but I’d really like to know what we’re dealing with. They might have come from anywhere, down from Norwich way, or up from Sudbury, or even from the west. And I really don’t know the lie of the land round here, I mean, these open fields are all right, but if it gets woody or boggy further north, I’d rather not be trying to find our way in the dark.”
They continued on, picking their way through open fields, finding gaps and gates in hedges under the moon. At about three o’clock in the morning, the moon was low on the horizon. “We’d better find somewhere to lie up until daylight, we’ll just get into trouble trying to keep going without the moonlight – look, over there, we’ll head for that copse and see if we can find somewhere.” Danny pointed to their left where an acre of woodland lay.
They led their horses into the the copse. Once through the dense growth at the edge of the copse, the mature trees opened out and they were able to move easily between them. “Look Danny, what’s that?” Sally said in a low voice, pointing to a darker shape through the trees to their right. They turned and found the tumbledown remains of an old cottage. The walls were still standing, and enough of the roof to keep them dry and out of the wind. They led the horses into the open part of the cottage and tethered them, and made a bed for themselves under what was left of the roof.
In the morning they could still see the smoke rising from Lavenham church. To the north, in Bury direction, the sky was blue and clear. They made a quick breakfast and set out. “Sally, I’m going to ride as far ahead of you as I can, so you can keep me in sight. If I get into any trouble I’ll try and shoot my pistol, or shout or something, but you should be able to tell if something is wrong. If you have to run for it, and have a choice, either go north east to Stowmarket, or west and then north to Newmarket and Cambridge. If you can lay up, I’ll try and circle round to meet up with you, but I might not be able to. And if you have to run for it, don’t let the pack horses slow you down, just let them go . . . don’t look so worried, it may never happen.” Danny smiled encouragingly at her.
They rode steadily all morning heading north north west, staying on the high ground to the east of the old road north from Sudbury to Bury St Edmund’s. When they approached hamlets or farms they rode close together, and then spread back out again in more open countryside.
They stopped around midday and had a brief picnic. They could see what was left of the old silos of the sugar factory at Bury; Danny guessed they were three or four miles south of Bury, and after they had eaten he set off more or less due west. With a bit of luck he thought they might make Newmarket by nightfall and they could relax inside the Pale. As before Danny rode out well in front of Sally, looking for anything on the horizon that might give them warning of trouble.
After about an hour, they crested a ridge, breaking through a copse of trees to look down on to a wide valley running south west. Danny spurred on his horse and trotted down the open slope, looking all the time at the ridge on the other side of the valley, which was wooded for several miles in both directions. He was so absorbed in looking hard along the tree line in their direction of travel he didn’t at first hear Sally’s cry. Then she shouted, again, louder, and he turned in his saddle to see her cantering and then galloping towards him. At first he could not see anything, and then he saw a flash in the trees about half a mile behind them on the far side of the valley. In seconds more than fifty horsemen burst from the trees and began galloping across the open side of the valley. Danny spurred his horse on and looked up to the ridge on his left. It was open with little cover and anyway in the wrong direction of travel for them. He glanced back at Sally who had nearly caught up with him, and then across at their pursuers. Could they get up the opposite slope and in to the trees before they had caught up with them? Or just keep riding as fast as they could along the valley and try to out-run them? Neither option looked promising. He wished he knew how far they were from the Pale and the first of the forts.
“Come on Sally, fast as we can – we’ll head for Newmarket and hope we meet up with someone friendly before that lot catch up with us”. He tried a reassuring grin but Sally just looked terrified. Danny looked back again at the horsemen, and tried to gauge whether or not they were closing the gap, and then galloped on to a gap in the hedge at the valley bottom, before angling up the slope on the other side. He could hear the drum beats of their hooves, and the occasional shout, but he wasn’t even looking back now, just glancing out of the corner of his eye to make sure Sally was still with him, and looking ahead to the trees for a quick exit from the open scrubby field. He saw what he thought was a gap and gestured to Sally to head for it. Although they were now climbing the slope and the horsemen behind were following the contours, he felt they could make it in to the trees well before the others could catch up with them. He felt a rush of air and then heard the crack of a rifle shot and glanced back to see two or three of the horsemen had dismounted and were aiming rifles at them. There were two more cracks, and then a cry from Sally, who fell forward on to her horse’s neck. Somehow she hung on as they galloped into the gap in the trees, the horsemen now only five hundred metres behind them.
Danny almost laughed with relief as he saw that the gap in the trees was the beginning of a rough track through the wood. It did not run straight which meant their followers would find it hard to get another clear shot at them. He looked at Sally who had managed to get upright again. There was a vicious gash across her forehead and it was bleeding, but not too heavily. “Can you hang on? If we can just keep going for another two or three kilometres I’m sure we’ll be inside the Pale.” “I think so” she said, “But my head’s agony, I can barely see for the blood.”
There were shouts from behind and more shots but they were out of sight and now ahead Danny could see a break in the trees. A few moments later they burst into open ground and Danny saw, across two kilometres of open ground, the old A14. He knew that somewhere along it, before Newmarket, there was a heavily armed and manned fort guarding the approach to the town. As they galloped across the field he pulled his pistol out – perhaps if he fired a few shots he might attract someone’s attention. On the other hand he might need the ammunition if their pursuers caught up with them on the open ground. But apart from shooting himself and Sally he didn’t see what real damage his pistol would do to the large group. He turned to see if there was any of them yet in sight and when there wasn’t raised the pistol and fired two shots. How far the sound would carry he had no idea. They turned now to head straight for the A14. In five minutes they had reached the embankment and were scrambling up through the thickets of hawthorn and birch and onto the old carriageway. It was still rough here but there was evidence of maintenance. He looked back to the east to see if there was any sign of the fort but he could see nothing so they turned and galloped west along the verge. The horsemen were now riding parallel with them across the fields about two hundred metres to the south. He saw a smaller group had split off and were following their track up to the road. Both their horses were now covered in sweat and Danny did not know how long they could keep up the pace. He fired two more shots from his pistol, hoping against hope there was someone up ahead who might raise the alarm or summon help.
He heard a cry and the sound of Sally’s horse neighing in terror and pain and turned to see Sally flying from her saddle to land on the verge as her horse collapsed beneath her, blood gushing from a deep wound in his neck. Danny pulled his horse up and round the now still body of Sally’s horse. She lay groaning a few metres away. The riders were now a bare hundred and fifty metres from them, galloping at full tilt. Danny opened the chamber of his pistol and replaced the four empty cartridges. He lay behind his horse’s belly, and aimed the pistol at the foremost of the oncoming riders. Still a hundred meters away, and he knew his chances of hitting the man or horse at more than fifty were slim at best. He breathed in and held his breath, aiming squarely at the chest of the man in the saddle, then exhaling slowly, he squeezed the trigger. The pistol kicked and to his surprise and relief the man’s arms went up and he seemed to have been swept back off his horse as if by an invisible hand. In the melée that followed one of the five other riders was thrown from his horse, which bolted across the broken tarmac of the old roadway, dragging his rider behind, still with one foot in a stirrup. Danny took aim again, this time at the head of the lead horse, and squeezed off another shot. The horse seemed to stop mid stride, and then its forelegs buckled and the rider flew over his head to land with a sickening crunch on the unforgiving verge. Danny fired two more shots without finding a target and was getting to his feet to make the best of a last stand when he heard the staccato rattle of a machine gun. He flung himself back down behind his horse and saw the remaining riders and horses tumbling to the ground. One man got up and half hopped, half ran into the cover at the side of the road, more bullets kicking up the dirt around him as he fell or threw himself down the embankment. Then Danny heard a hollow whop, and another followed by two explosions off to his right in the field where the rest of their pursuers had been riding. He crawled over to Sally. She was lying on her back, pale, fighting for breath.
“Are you OK Sal?” he almost whispered. She looked up at him. “I think so, just winded” she said and rolled over on to her stomach and then on to her hands and knees. He heard more explosions, and the cries of injured men and horses, and now the machine gun was firing off into the field as well. He got gingerly to his knees, and then to his feet, shielded from the field by a small stand of hawthorn. Of the hundred or so horsemen who had been following them there were now only twenty still mounted, who had turned and were riding flat out to the south and the tree covered ridge. Loose horses milled about in the field among the bodies of others kicking and screaming on the ground among the dead and wounded riders. Danny looked back along the road to the west from where the machine and mortar fire had seemed to come. At first he could see nothing. Then he heard a shouted “Cease firing, cease firing” which seemed to come from the other side of the road, about three hundred metres away. A small group of men, all carrying rifles or automatic weapons crossed the road, keeping their heads low and started to move towards him and Sally.
“Drop your weapons, now, and put your hands up” – this shouted by what sounded like a familiar voice. Danny threw out his pistol as obviously as he could and raised his hands, confused and now frightened that they would shoot him and Sally as casually and efficiently as they had dealt with their pursuers. “Now lie down!”. Danny and Sally threw themselves face down, flat on the verge.
“Who are you, and where are you from?” the familiar voice asked. Suddenly Danny recognised it as the voice of the officer he’d met briefly on his way through to go to Sally, it seemed a lifetime ago, yet it was barely three days. “I’m Danny Stearman, and this is Sally Chisholm. I’m from Cambridge. I was here three days ago on a flicker, heading for my village to find Sally – I spoke to you.”
“Turn over, and let me see your face”. The voice still sounded tense. Danny rolled over and stared up at the face of the speaker, who visibly relaxed. “I remember you. What were those guys then?”
“We don’t know, they caught us out a few miles to the south. I think they’re a raiding band from down south, in Essex. We managed to avoid them at Lavenham, but whether they’re part of the same group or not . . .”. Danny’s voice tailed off, the delayed shock beginning to take its toll.
“Yes, we’ve had reports from patrols of a large group making its way up from Ipswich, but we don’t know in what strength. How many do you reckon were chasing you?”
“I’m not sure, a hundred maybe?” said Danny.
“Yes, that looks about right – they must be part of a much larger group, they have no baggage with them, unless they dropped it when they gave chase after you. Come on, we better get you back to the fort and send back a report. We’re short handed here if a really big group comes our way, and if those guys who got away get back to their main group, they’ll be forewarned about our position and weapons, if they decide to make an attack.”
Danny turned to Sally, who was now sitting up. “Are you OK? Can you walk?”
“Yes, I think so” Sally said shakily. She looked a mess, with the blood from the gash on her forehead, and on her clothes from the wound in her horse’s neck. She stood up and reached out to Danny to steady herself.
“Would you like to ride on my horse?” Danny had gathered up the reins, while his horse had started grazing on the verge, apparently none the worse for being used by Danny as his shield.
“I think I’d rather walk, I’ve had enough riding to last me a lifetime” Sally said, smiling ruefully and then, looking at the officer “Is it far to the fort? Can I walk there?”
“Oh yes, it’s only a few hundred metres back up the road”, the officer assured her. “I’m Bill Potter by the way, from Newmarket” and he held out his hand to shake theirs. Then he turned and started walking west up the road, calling out to his men to re-assemble. He detailed two of them to escort Danny and Sally back to the fort, and then led the rest of them out onto the field towards the dead and wounded men and horses. They spread out in a line abreast, their weapons at the ready, cautious in case any of the wounded might decide to carry on the fight. No one did however, and they began to check each of the men on the ground, and to shoot the wounded horses. About a dozen of the raiders were lightly wounded, more shell shocked than anything, and these they rounded up and sent back with an armed escort to the fort. A few others were more seriously wounded but Potter reckoned with their limited medical supplies they might be able to be helped. The remainder were dead, or would be soon and Potter ordered the first aid man to give them what little pain relief he had in his pack. He then sent a runner back to the fort to get a stretcher party to come out and retrieve those of the wounded he thought they could treat. His remaining men he told to wait until the stretcher bearers arrived and then escort and help them back. He then set off for the fort himself.
By the time he reached the fort, Sally was having her wound cleaned and dressed, and she and Danny were enjoying mugs of hot sweet tea.
“Well you were lucky to make it” Bill said to them. “Those men obviously meant business, although I can’t think why they went to so much trouble to try and get you.”
“Perhaps they thought we had seen them and were worried we’d give away their position” said Sally.
“That implies a plan of some sort” said Danny “and if there are a lot more of them, perhaps a full scale attack.”
“Yes” said Bill “but where? And when? I’m going to have to interrogate our prisoners and see what they know, or are prepared to tell us.”
He turned to another man, who was sitting at a desk with maps on the wall behind, and an old telephone. “John, have you managed to reach headquarters yet?”
“Yes sir, about half an hour ago - I told them we’d beaten off a raiding party of about 100, but that we thought they were part of a much bigger group.”
“And what did they say?”
“They said they would get back to us.” At that moment the phone jangled and John picked it up. “Yes, he’s right here, I’ll put him on” - John handed the receiver to Bill Potter.
“Bill Potter here, who’s that?” A voice muttered at the other end of the line. “Oh good, hello Frank”.
Bill talked to Frank for ten minutes, and then put down the receiver.
“Well they’ve already sent reinforcements and more weapons and ammunition – they should be here within a couple of hours. They’re sending out mounted patrols north, east and south of here, to try and find out where the main party is. We’ve heard nothing from Stowmarket or Bury St Edmunds for a few days, but that may not mean anything. From what you’ve told me the main body may be coming up from Sudbury or Ipswich way and you bumped into one of their forward patrols.”
There was nothing more to be done that night and a little later Danny and Sally had been found beds and given something to eat, and they both fell asleep more or less as they lay down.
* * *
Danny woke at dawn. He looked across at Sally who was still fast asleep, and quietly got up and went out in to the yard. He saw a light on in the canteen and walked across to make himself a mug of tea. He took the mug back out into the yard and walked across towards the sunrise. He slipped between two huts and climbed the bank behind. Standing on the bank he could now see the whole layout of the fort. It was surrounded by the bank on which he was standing, an area about the size of a football pitch, its long sides running more or less south-west and north-east. He was standing more or less in the centre of the south-east side. The bank or bund was about ten metres high, the inner slope fairly gentle, the outer much steeper, with a deep ditch below it. The bottom and inner slope of the ditch was covered in a mixture of metal tripods and sharpened wooden stakes making it impassable for a mounted man. There was one break in the bund, near the northern corner, barred by a heavy wooden gate reinforced with steel bars. At intervals of twenty meters along the top of the bund were sandbagged gun emplacements. Beyond the ditch, the ground had been cleared to a distance of about 200 meters away from the fort. The whole fort was on a small rise, with its southern corner about 100 meters from the northern edge of the old road, giving a clear view in both directions along the road for two or three kilometres.
The sky was almost completely clear of cloud and the sun was well above the horizon, and already warm. The fort itself was quiet, the only sound the last of the dawn chorus. Danny breathed a deep sigh, feeling safe and relaxed for the first time since he had left Cambridge a little over a week ago. He started to think about their next move.
A little later he saw Bill Potter come out of one of the huts and walk towards the canteen. Danny stood up and gave him a wave, which Bill acknowledged, and Danny walked down the slope to join him.
“Morning Danny. Sleep OK?”
“Yes thanks, like a log. Can you give me a minute?”
“Sure, just let me get myself a drink” Bill replied and went off to put the kettle on.
When he had made himself a brew, they sat down at a table.
“I don’t suppose you’re any the wiser this morning?” Danny asked.
“No. No reports back from any of the patrols. Our reinforcements have arrived, so we should be able to hold an attack off here, for a while anyway.”
“I’d like to try and get Sally back to Cambridge if I can – would it be OK to take her out today? And do you need me for any reason?”
“Well, I’d really like to keep you here. We need everyone we can get hold of, and you know the lie of the land out there better than most of us. Couldn’t Sally make her own way to Cambridge?”
“She doesn’t know the way or the place. This is the first time she’s left her village, and she’s been pretty shaken by what’s happened. She’s lost her brother, and the rest of her family. By the way, d’you know if anyone has come this way from Sudbury in the last few days? Her brother Johnny set off for Sudbury just before I got to her, and she’s really worried about him.”
“I don’t know of anyone by that name, but I wouldn’t necessarily have heard, and we have had a lot of refugees from all over the east and south coming through in the last few weeks. Mostly they get sent back to Newmarket. That would be her best bet I think, to go to Newmarket and ask at the town hall. How old is he?”
“Oh, twenty two or so” said Danny.
“Is he fit? Can he ride? Can he shoot?” Bill asked.
“Yes, he’s pretty good.”
“Let’s go and meet the reinforcements then. If he’s any good, we’ll have done our best to persuade him to join us, so he might be with them, or someone may have come across him.” Bill got up from the table with his mug of tea and started walking across the open area in the centre of the fort towards some low buildings near the northern entrance. Speaking over his shoulder, he said “They got in just after dawn, and are having a wash and some breakfast before I brief them.” Danny followed Bill into the first of the buildings they came to. It was filled with about 50 mostly men, although he spotted a dozen or so women. All were wearing a mixture of camouflage and dark green and brown clothing, and most had small side-arms. A mass of rifles was stacked neatly by the door. They were seated at trestle tables tucking in to what looked like a substantial breakfast. The atmosphere was relaxed, even jolly – a lot of laughter and loud conversations across the tables. Most of them looked to be in their late teens or twenties, although Danny spotted one or two older men and women amongst them.
“Come on” said Bill “I’ll introduce you to their commander” and led Danny over to a table at the far side of the room where four men, older than most of the squad, were sitting quietly eating their breakfast.
“Hullo Peter” Bill said to a tall, grey bearded man “this is is Danny Stearman, he came in last night” – Bill turned to Danny – “from Lavenham, wasn’t it, Danny?”
“Yes” said Danny “although we set out from further south, near Colchester, two days ago.”
Peter stood up and extended a strong hand. “Peter Blackstock. Good to meet you. It’ll be useful to talk to you later on – we’re mounting a patrol down that way. Don’t suppose you’d consider coming with us?”
Hesitating, Danny replied “I would but . . .”
Bill cut in – “He’s a bit worried about his girlfriend”. Bill looked questioningly at Danny, and then continued as Danny gave him a confirmatory nod, “He wants to get her back to Cambridge, and help her find her younger brother. Danny, what’s his name?”
“Johnny Chisholm. He’s about twenty two – he headed off for Sudbury about a week ago, and she’s had no word of him since. He’s the only one of her family she has left.”
Peter laughed and stood up looking across the room to a table full of young lads. “Johnny Chisholm” he shouted “there’s a friend of yours here, and your sister.” The youth who got up looked familiar, and then Danny recognised him. He’d changed a lot, taller and broader shouldered since Danny had last seen him but with the same look of Sally about him.
“Hello Danny” said Johnny as he came over, “am I glad to see you! And is Sally with you?”
“Yes she is, and she’s fine. She’s still asleep, I think, in the dormitory over there” said Danny pointing across the open ground to the hut they had slept in. “She’ll be very pleased to see you, she’s been really worried.”
Johnny looked at Peter, who nodded, and Johnny sprinted from the room across to the other hut.
Danny turned back to Peter and Bill. “Well that’s a weight off my mind. I really didn’t think we’d be seeing him again, and I didn’t dare to think what it would do to Sally. She’s been through a lot, and I think losing Johnny would have been the last straw. Look” he continued “I’ll talk to her about Cambridge. With Johnny safe, she might feel up to making her own way there, and I can give her contacts and a place to stay. If she’s prepared to do that I’m very happy to stay here and help you out.”
“Thanks Danny” Bill replied “we’d really appreciate that, and I’m sure we’ll be able to arrange some form of transport for Sally. Mind you, from what I saw of her yesterday, she looked pretty good on a horse. Can she use a gun? She might be more use to us here, if she’s prepared to stay.”
“Yes, she’s a good shot all right, but she was pretty shaken yesterday. Let me talk to her and see what she wants to do. With Johnny here, she might be happier staying here too.”
“OK” said Peter. “We’re going to have a keying session after they’ve finished breakfast” he looked around the room “and then a briefing from Bill and a planning meeting before we decide how many we’re going to send out on this patrol, and where to. To be honest, with your encounter yesterday and what you saw on the way here, I’m a bit nervous of leaving this place under-manned – we’re the only strong point between here and Newmarket, and I’m not sure when or how many more reinforcements we can expect from there or Cambridge – we’re pretty thinly stretched all over.”
Danny looked at him in surprise. “How come? I thought we had several hundred ready for duty?”
“We do, and most of them have been called up in the last few days.” Danny whistled in surprise – this must all of happened since he set off to see Sally. “The trouble is this is not the only place where we’ve had reports of these large armed bands – there’s been trouble north of Ely, at Stansted, and to the west over Bedford way, so it’s been difficult to know where to send anyone, or in what sort of strength. And we don’t just want to abandon the outlying areas – there are a lot of people out there, and farms. If we let these gangs sack the farms there’ll be terrible destruction – they don’t seem to leave much behind. Whatever they can’t carry away they try and destroy.”
Peter continued “Look, Danny, why don’t you go and talk to Sally now, and perhaps you’d like to join our keying session before the briefing?”
“Yes, I would. Would it be OK to bring Sally along?”
“Of course, no problem at all. See you there – we’ll be in the next hut along. In about twenty minutes?” Peter looked at him, his eyebrow raised questioningly.
“Yes, we’ll be there” said Danny as he headed for the door. He crossed the open ground and went into the hut where he and Sally had spent the night. He knocked at her door and opened it as she called out. Sally and Johnny were sitting side by side on her bed, smiling and laughing. Sally looked up at Danny. “Oh Danny, I’m so relieved, I can’t believe Johnny’s here and OK. I was certain he’d been killed, or injured, or captured by those bastards, I’ve barely dared think about it since he left.” She looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears of relief and happiness.
“How are you, Johnny? What happened to you?” Danny asked.
“Really pleased to see sis, and that she’s OK. And thank you, big time, for coming out to get her. I’ve been really worried ever since I left - I managed to get to Sudbury but couldn’t find any help or guns anywhere, everyone seemed to have cleared out, and then when I tried to get back to the village, I just couldn’t get past the raiders – they seemed to be everywhere, and heading north all the time, so I just high tailed it to Newmarket. I never had any trouble, at least not like you guys. And when I got here, they made it pretty clear they wanted me in the army, or whatever it is. And to be honest that seemed like the best chance of finding or helping Sally – at least these guys are trying to do something to stop the raiders and I think we’re heading out to the south or east soon.”
“So they tell me, but I guess we’ll find out more at the briefing” said Danny and then, turning to Sally, he continued “Will you come to the keying session? They’re having one in ten minutes or so.” Danny turned to Johnny as well “and how about you?”
“No choice” said Johnny “we’ve all got to be there. Every day, morning and evening for half an hour – it’s pretty strange, but I think most of us like it, it does seem to bring us together, and it’s a good preparation for briefings and such – I seem to absorb more information somehow. And everyone says it’s a real help at target practice.”
Danny laughing said “Really? How come?”
“Something about being really still and calm, not tensing up, not letting the desire to hit the target get before actually taking aim and making the shot – it does seem to help.” It made Danny think of the Zen archer stories he’d heard at Cambridge, and it made sense. He wondered what it would be like when aiming at a live human target, and remembered back to the shooting in the village all those years ago with George. And he certainly hadn’t felt very centred and calm yesterday when he and Sally were being chased and shot at – perhaps he’d have coped better if he had.
“So will you come?” Danny asked Sally again.
“Yes, of course” she smiled up at him, “it sounds interesting.”
“Not really sis – a bit boring really, just sitting there for thirty minutes” Johnny said with a laugh.
“OK then, let’s go” said Danny, and led them out of the room and back towards the hut Peter had pointed out earlier.
The door was open, and they walked in. The hut was more or less square, a single large room, with padded bench seats set around all four walls and then two rows of chairs arranged in concentric circles. In the centre was a low table with a single candle and a small gong. In all there were about seventy people sitting in the room. Danny and Sally found two empty seats, and Johnny went off to the other side of the room to sit with a group of men and women from his company.
A grey haired woman stood up and walked to the centre of the room. She struck the gong once. The low murmurs of conversation stilled, and she read a short passage from a small leather bound volume. Danny thought he recognised it from a commentary on the Ten Zen Ox Herding pictures. The woman struck the gong again, twice, and returned to her seat. For the next thirty minutes there was silence, apart from the sound of breathing and the occasional cough or rumbling tummy. Danny repeated the key silently in his head and let the memories of the last three days pass and drift away.
When the gong sounded again, he came too as if from a deep sleep, feeling rested and lightened. Quietly, everyone in the room got to their feet. Danny and Sally followed Johnny and his companions out into the bright sunshine and back into the hut where they had had breakfast.
The trestle tables had been arranged in rows, with chairs facing a blackboard at the far end of the hut. Peter Blackstock and Bill Potter were standing beside it. When everyone had taken their seats, Peter spoke.
“Good morning everyone.” There was a murmured response from the room. “This is Bill Potter who’s the commander here. He’s going to give you a situation report and then I’ll be talking about our plans for the next few days. Bill, over to you.” Peter sat down and Bill Potter stood up.
He pointed to a sketch map on the blackboard with a length of cane. “This is us” he said, pointing to a red square. “Newmarket is ten miles west, Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket here and here. We have three small patrols out at the moment - one here to the south east, where a party of raiders chased in Danny Steadman and Sally Chisholm yesterday.” Bill pointed out Danny and Sally with his cane. “We sent them out after we’d attacked and chased off the raiders, to try and make contact with the main band – we’re still waiting to hear where they are and in what sort of numbers. A second patrol is working its way east of Stowmarket, and the third is up here, north of Bury. They should be sending back reports later today. We also know there is a large group of raiders back here, north of Ely and the stronghold there is doing the same as we are – sending out patrols to try and assess in what sort of strength they are. And we think there is another group to the west, over here in the Bedford area. Until we can establish their relative strengths, and whether they are part of a single group, or acting independently, it’s difficult to know how to act for the best. The temptation is to concentrate and try and knock out one or other of the bands quickly, but that may leave us very exposed to attack from another of the groups . . . yes, you have a question?” Bill looked at a woman towards the back of the hut, who had raised her hand.
She stood up. “Yes, I was just wondering, if they are planning some sort of coordinated attack, how they are communicating with each other? I mean, it’s nearly fifty miles between Bedford and Stowmarket and we certainly don’t have any means of communicating apart from a couple of landlines.”
“Good point, and the short answer is we don’t think they can be, but they may have agreed a co-ordinated plan of attack some time ago” said Peter. “That’s why these patrols are vital – if we can establish what strength they’re in we may be able to attack one of the groups before the others realise what’s happening.”
“Meanwhile” Bill continued “we have to keep our options open. That means making sure we can defend and hold our strongholds, here and at Ely, Bourne and Saffron Walden, while getting together in a sufficient concentration to deal with whichever of the bands seems the weakest or closest target. Peter’s company has brought up two 12 kilogramme field guns and a heavy calibre machine gun. We’ll set those up here, with their crews. We also have a certain amount of explosive which we’ll use to mine the approaches to the fort. We need to build some outwork obstacles – ditches, stakes and so on, to try and funnel any mounted attack into the mined areas, so we’ll need to keep enough of you here to do that work as quickly as possible. We estimate that will leave about thirty of you to mount patrols and screens out to the east and south which Peter will talk about in a minute. And we also hope to have some kind of aircraft to help with reconnaissance.”
There was an audible gasp at this – no-one in the room was old enough to even remember seeing anything flying.
“The engineering department at the university has been working on a new kind of flying machine for some time and they’ve told us they might be able to let their prototype fly soon. Not soon enough from our point of view – but if we do have some kind of aerial reconnaissance it’ll make a huge difference – one plane could cover the whole area from Bedford to the coast in a day, and give us some idea what we’re up against. Anyway, that’s enough from me, I’ll hand over to Peter now.” Bill sat down, and Peter stood up.
Danny could see from the reactions of the people around him, that they liked and respected Peter.
“It would be a great help if this aircraft does appear” Peter said, “but we cannot rely on it, and frankly, even if it makes it in to the air, it’s still only a single plane, and is more than likely to crash or be shot down. So the priority is to get these patrols out, now, and try and find out as much as we can about what we’re up against. So,” and Peter now pointed to three of the older men in the room, “Jack, Frank and Ahmed, please pick ten each of the best horse riders and marksmen for your patrols and wait here for a detailed briefing on your planned area and routes. Meanwhile, I want the gun crews to report to Bill and he’ll tell you where to set up the guns and the machine gun. Everyone else, go and join the working parties on building the obstacles and mine laying – we want this place secure and ready for anything by sunset. OK, you’re dismissed. Good luck, and don’t waste any time. Once the patrol members have been selected, please assemble here in ten minutes for a briefing.” Bill looked at Danny and Sally. “Would you two mind joining us? It would be good to have your input.” Danny and Sally nodded their assent.
Ten minutes later, the three patrol leaders and the thirty or so they had picked out were assembled in the hut. Johnny Chisholm was with Ahmed’s group.
Peter Blackstock stood up. “OK, ladies and gentlemen, pay attention. Ahmed, I’d like you to patrol down towards Lawshall and Cockfield” He said pointing out two small villages a few miles south of Bury St Edmunds. “I’d like you to head out due east from here along the A14 and then head south east of the Sudbury Bury road, then return in a wide loop south and west. I reckon that’ll take you two good days if you don’t meet any trouble or get distracted. The objective is definitely not to engage with the raiders – if you can keep out of sight that will be best. But we need numbers, and if they have any kind of base camp. If you get the chance, I’d like you to bring back a prisoner or two that we can interrogate, but don’t expose yourself to risk – I want you back here in good order, if at all possible.” Then looking at the other two patrols he said “The same goes for you all – defend yourselves if you have to, but if you can avoid a fight, do so. Equally, if you can take a prisoner, so much the better. Danny and Sally – would you be prepared to go out with Ahmed?”
Danny nodded, and looked questioningly at Sally. She looked nervous, but nodded also.
“Good, I’m sure you’ll be very useful to Ahmed, he’s never been outside Cambridge” Peter said with a smile, and Ahmed laughed. “Actually, that’s a lie” Peter continued “Ahmed is one of our most experienced troop commanders, but he hasn’t been this far east before”.
“Right, now, Frank, I want you to scout to the north – Mildenhall, Walsham, Woolpit, then back along the A14. Jack – you head east with Ahmed and then explore east of Stowmarket to the Norwich road and down to Needham Market, and then back across country south of Bury. Any questions?” Peter looked around the group.
“Jack, yes?”
“If we do manage to capture a prisoner, do you want us to question them immediately, or wait until we’ve got them back here?”
“Well, get as much information as you can from them. Not least about other forces in the area, for your own protection, if nothing else. In any event, you may lose them on the way back if you’re ambushed or have to make a quick getaway – don’t sacrifice anyone just for the sake of bringing the prisoners in. OK, is everyone happy?” Peter looked around the room, and got a series of nods and murmured assents. “Good. Well, good luck then, and, God willing, see you all back here the day after tomorrow. Oh, one more thing – keep a good rider as far from your front as possible at all times, ready to head for home if you hit really serious trouble. It’s vital that we get news from your patrol, even if some of you don’t make it back. And make sure whoever is ready to run knows where the hell to run to! Whoever will also be useful cover if they manage to get round behind you. ” Peter finished, laughing and serious at the same time.
Everyone got to their feet and shuffled out to get their packs and horses ready and to collect ammunition and stores from the stronghold’s quartermaster. Danny and Sally walked together back to to the hut in which they had spent the night.
“Are you sure about this Sally?” Danny asked as they walked.
“No Danny, I’m terrified, but I’d rather be doing something useful, than staying here worrying about you and Johnny. And at least we won’t be on our own this time. Anyway, I want to do something, to get back at those bastards. Running away or sitting here like a frightened rabbit isn’t going to help anyone.” She sounded resolute and not terrified at all, and made Danny proud of her. He reached across and squeezed her hand as they stepped into the hut.
Within the hour, all three patrols were mounted and ready to ride out. They left in a group from the main northern gate. Frank’s patrol immediately set off to the north, while Jack and Ahmed’s patrols set out together for the A14 and the east. It was now about midday, and there was real warmth in the April sunshine. Ahmed had already asked Sally to be the runner if they met trouble, so she and Danny stayed at the tail of the column as it rode along the hard shoulder of the road. Ahmed and Jack rode together about a third of the way back from the head of the column, nearly two hundred metres ahead of Danny and Sally. After two hours they reached the old sugar factory to the north of Bury, and split up, Ahmed’s patrol heading south east towards Cockfield, while Jack’s group continued along the main road. In ten minutes they were out of sight of each other.
Ahmed now sent two pairs of riders to the left and right of their track, and another pair on point fifty metres or so ahead. He and the remaining four members of the patrol stayed together, and Danny and Sally took up the rear, staying between fifty and a hundred metres behind the main body of the patrol.
They passed through several long deserted villages. At about four o’clock the bell tower of Cockfield church came in to view. Ahmed waved them to a halt, and then signalled to the riders on point and the flanks to give the village a wide berth as they moved east and clockwise around it. The village gave no more signs of life than those they had passed earlier, no smoke, or sounds of livestock. At the point riders crossed the road running east out of the village towards Felsham, Ahmed waved another halt. He sent two of the riders with him down the road and back in to the village. Danny and Sally sat on their horses looking at the village, a kilometre or so away across some fields and hedgerows. As the two riders disappeared from view behind the first of the houses, they heard shots, and then shouts, and two riders appeared, going at full tilt, heading straight for Danny and Sally. Danny immediately brought his rifle up to his shoulder and chambered a round – from the corner of his eye he saw Sally doing the same. “Aim for the horses, try and bring them down” he half whispered, and they both fired, almost at the same instant. One of the horses seemed to hit an invisible wall, threw his rider and crashed to the ground, neighing and whinnying in pain and fear. The other rider now turned directly towards Danny and Sally, and Danny realised he had not seen them. “Don’t shoot Sally, let him come on. If we can bring him down we might be able to take him prisoner”. Sally nodded, keeping her rifle sighted on the oncoming rider. At the last minute he spotted them and hauled his horse round to head off to their right, due north. Danny and Sally both fired, and his horse collapsed beneath him, seemingly stone dead. The rider’s leg was trapped under his immobile mount and he struggled fruitlessly to try and pull his gun from the scabbard on his saddle. Danny and Sally both had their rifles trained on him.
“Don’t move” Danny shouted, “and leave that gun alone!” The rider raised his hands above his head and looked at them sullenly as they walked toward him. “Sally, keep him in your sights” said Danny, as he walked cautiously forward. The man was in obvious pain, and it looked as if he might have broken his leg in the fall. His horse was clearly dead. “Lie down, and keep your hands in clear view” Danny shouted. The man did as he was told. Danny walked forward and pulled the rifle from the scabbard and looked around for another weapon. There didn’t appear to be one. By now the two men who had entered the village had come up to them across the field, and under Sally’s watchful eye and gun, they managed to free the raider’s leg from beneath his fallen mount. The leg appeared to be sprained at knee and ankle rather than broken, although the man was clearly in considerable pain, and found it hard to remain standing.
Danny waved at Ahmed, who waved back and started to ride back towards them.
Danny told the raider to sit on the ground, with his hands on his head. The man did as he was told.
“What’s your name?” Danny asked in a low steady voice.
“What business is it of yours?” the man replied.
“Because you are our prisoner, and we are going to interrogate you, and it would be easier if we had a name for you.”
“Jed, Jed Dyer” the man almost grunted.
“Where are you from?” Danny asked.
“All over. South Essex originally.”
“Who are you with? Where are you based now?”
Jed’s eyes narrowed, and he thought for a minute or so.
“Who wants to know?”
“We do. We are part of the Cambridge and Newmarket defence force. Yesterday a party of bandits attacked me and my friend here”, Danny gestured at Sally “and damn near killed us. Three or four days ago bandits attacked Lavenham and burnt down the church there. Do you know anything about that?”
Jed said nothing.
“Is that a no?” asked Sally. Jed remained uncommunicative. By now Ahmed had ridden up and dismounted. As he approached, Jed snarled “Fucking Paki”.
Ahmed smiled. “No actually, my family is Iraqi. And you are . . ?”
“Fuck off, I don’t talk to your sort.” Jed snarled again. Ahmed turned to Danny –
“Has he told us anything useful?”
“His name, and he comes from South Essex” said Danny.
“OK, Danny, carry on questioning him. And if he gives us nothing more, shoot him in the kneecap. Then the other one. Then the elbows . . . then we’ll leave him to the crows.” Ahmed turned away and walked across to his horse.
Danny looked down at Jed. He was shocked by what Ahmed had said, and not sure whether he believed him or not. He was quite sure he wasn’t about to shoot anyone’s knee or elbow. It would leave Dyer crippled for life, and out here, now, probably dead within hours. And in agony. He almost pleaded with Dyer – “Do you know anything about the raiders around here?”
“Why are you taking orders from a fucking Paki?” Jed looked up at him, seemingly genuinely confused.
“Because he’s my commander. Now please, answer the question, if you don’t want to get hurt.”
Dyer looked at the ground, then at Ahmed’s back, and then back up at Danny and Sally. Danny looked across at the two men who’d ridden up from the village and gave them a questioning look. To his shock and surprise, one of them raised his pistol and fired a shot into the ground throwing up earth centimetres from Dyer’s injured leg. Dyer could not stop himself rolling to the side, away from the shot. The other rider now fired his pistol at Dyer’s other side, as close to his head as the first shot had been to his leg.
“Answer the fucking questions” one of them said “and stop calling our skipper a fucking Paki. A fucking Iraqi if you insist, but it won’t help you.”
Something in Dyer’s expression seemed to shift, a decision made, a logical shift.
“OK, OK, I’ll answer your stupid questions. Yes, I was in Lavenham, and yes, I was chasing you two yesterday” he said looking up at Sally and Danny. “You were lucky to make it.”
“We know” said Sally. Dyer looked surprised, as if women in his experience did not usually speak.
“How many of you are there?” Danny asked.
“Two thousand horse, eight hundred on foot”. As he said this, Danny got the distinct feeling he was not exaggerating or making the numbers up, and he could not suppress the fear those numbers produced. There were a hundred of them scattered all over mid Suffolk, to hold back nearly three thousand armed thugs.
“Where are they all?”
“Spread out between Lavenham and Diss, foraging and collecting cattle and horses.”
“Where’s your base?”
“We’ve got a big camp across the road from Needham Market, dug in on the hill there.”
“Have you come from there? What are you doing here?”
“Yes. Waiting and watching out for you. You caught us napping, we’d only just ridden in to the village from the west or we’d have been waiting for you.”
“How would you have got word back to your base?”
Dyer looked sly, and kept quiet. Another shot cracked into the ground beside him, if it were possible, even closer than the last. “Answer the bloody question!”
Danny looked up at Ahmed, who just nodded at him.
“How were you going to tell your base if you saw anything?”
“Pigeons” Dyer almost spat.
“Are you in contact with any other groups?”
“What do you mean?” said Dyer, seemingly genuinely confused.
“Do you co-operate with them? Is there a plan to attack us together?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. The last time we met up with anyone else, we beat the shit out of them, that was two months ago now. There was a big pow-wow a while back, and I think some men from Norfolk came to that, but I don’t know what they talked about. We don’t generally get told anything.”
Danny looked up at Ahmed again, who shook his head. Danny took that to mean there was nothing more to ask.
Ahmed said “Can you stand?”
Dyer looked up at him, and then rolled onto his hands and knees and slowly got to his feet. He took a step forward and his injured leg buckled underneath him, and he fell to the ground, heavily, and grunted with pain.
Ahmed told one of the others to tie Dyer’s hands behind him, and help him on to a horse. He beckoned to Danny to follow him and they walked out of earshot of the others.
“I don’t think we’ll get much more useful information from him” said Ahmed. For a grim moment Danny thought Ahmed was going to tell him to get rid of Dyer, particularly after his earlier threat to shoot him in the knees and elbows.
“Were you really going to shoot him?” Danny asked.
“I had to believe I would when I told him” Ahmed replied, “but no, I don’t think so. That’s not what we’re about, is it? Still . . . in the heat of the battle and all that. And things may get a lot worse. I don’t think these people take prisoners.” Ahmed turned to look back at Dyer, who was now mounted on one of their spare horses, his hands tied behind his back. “Tie his hands in front, to the pommel. Make sure it’s secure.” Then he turned back to Danny. “Danny, I want you and Sally to take this one back to the stronghold. We’ll continue the patrol, we may find other potential informants with a better grasp of their overall plan. Assuming they do have one . . .” Ahmed’s voice tailed off and he looked south and west, towards their next destination. “On the way back, see if you can get him to open up a bit more, he may know more than he’s told us, or realises himself . . . and it would be good to get an idea what these guys are like, how they organise themselves, whether they have any master plan . . . if we can maybe negotiate with them.”
“OK. We’ll see you back at the fort in a couple of days. Keep out of trouble” Danny said with a smile.
Danny and Sally mounted, and set off to the west, leading Dyer on his horse. They still had an hour or two of daylight, and Danny wanted to get as far from Needham Market as they could. At the same time he was uncomfortably aware that they were now riding back in to the same area where he and Sally had been spotted and chased only two days earlier. Danny turned and spoke to Dyer as they rode. “What happened to the rest of your group, after we got away?”
At first he thought Dyer wouldn’t answer, but then he said “Went back to base. We’d lost a few killed and too badly wounded to bring back, but there were several others who needed some first aid, and we’d lost our pack animals and supplies in the fight.”
“What were you supposed to be doing?” Sally asked.
“Raiding farms, looking for cattle and horses, grain, anything to eat. But we couldn’t find shit, everywhere’s empty, seems to have been for a while. You were the first people we’d come across since we’d left the camp.”
Danny knew that this had happened, over the past few years, as Cambridge had developed, and the Pale had been set up, more or more of the isolated villages and farms had been deserted. There was plenty of land within the Pale that needed to be cultivated, and people felt safer there. With the arrival of these large bands that process had accelerated, and extended, so that Sally’s and Johnny’s leaving of the village along with those few others hanging on was part of that process. That in a way was causing these large bands to appear and grow – they needed strength in numbers to survive in what had become a no man’s land around the Pale, to be strong enough to mount an attack on the Pale to get food. He wondered if as Ahmed had suggested there was any way to negotiate with the gangs, some form of compromise. As things stood, from the gangs’ perspective, assuming they knew how relatively powerful they were, how weak the defenders of the Pale, there was little enough reason for them not to attack. On the other hand, they only had Dyer’s word for the numbers, although he didn’t seem to be lying when he answered the question.
They found a deserted farm, still in reasonable condition, just as darkness fell. Danny helped Dyer off his horse and led him into the farmhouse kitchen. He looked around and found a solid enough looking pipe to tie Dyer to.
“Sally, can you start a fire? I’ll see if I can black out the windows” he said, as Sally came in with their packs. He went in to the next room, which seemed to have been the living room. There was an old sofa, which looked like it had become a home for rats, and a couple of stools. Otherwise the room was bare. Either whoever had lived here had had time to pack up and clear out with everything, or others had been by and taken whatever had been left behind. He went up the stairs and looked in the rooms off the landing. One had a large heavy cupboard, too heavy to move, he supposed. In the drawer in the base he found three moth eaten blankets, enough to cover the windows in the kitchen at least, and took them downstairs.
Sally had lit the fire and put a pan on to boil water. Danny got a blanket from one of their packs and offered it to Dyer, who was looking cold and grey.
“How’s your leg?” Danny asked, gently.
“Fucking agony, since you ask. I think my knee’s had it” Dyer replied, but somehow with less aggression in his voice than earlier. Danny knelt down to look at it. The knee was very swollen, and Dyer’s lower leg seemed in an odd position. He wondered if you could dislocate a knee.
“I’m sorry” Danny said “there’s nothing we can do about it until we get back to the fort. There’s a doctor there who should be able to help you, and maybe give you something for the pain.”
They made a stew from dried meat and vegetables in their pack, which cheered Dyer up. Danny began to get the feeling that Dyer had not been eating much for a while, and he made short work of the stew.
After their meal, they began to talk. They asked Dyer how long he’d been with the gang, where he had come from originally. He had grown up in a small village in South Essex. When he was about ten (he was unsure exactly how old he was) a gang had attacked the village and killed most of the adults. A few had managed to run away. The gang killed any of the smaller children that were left, and took Dyer and a few others of the same age away with them. To begin with they were treated as slaves, doing jobs around the camp, fed scraps if they were lucky. In time some died, or were killed, but Dyer was tough, and when he was about sixteen he became a foot soldier in the gang. The gang was about sixty strong. There were about a dozen women and girls. A few were wives of the gang leaders, the rest were treated as common property by the rest of the gang. Danny got the impression they did not last long, and were regularly replaced as the gang raided other villages.
Over time, the gang amalgamated with other groups. Sometimes it was relatively friendly, at other times there was more or less fierce fighting, with the losers being given the choice of joining the winners, or taking their chances on their own, with nothing to survive on. Most accepted their lot. Dyer’s gang seemingly never had to make that choice, and Dyer said that some of his gang leaders were now part of the inner circle of the group based at Needham Market. He had been with his gang for he thought about ten years, although he had never kept track.
Danny asked him what he thought the gang was intending to do. Dyer appeared to have accepted his lot – he had lost and was now part of Danny and Sally’s gang, so he seemed happy to talk freely about what little he knew. Times had got tougher, and there were fewer and fewer opportunities to raid or plunder small settlements. The big fight he had talked of earlier with another gang was really about trying to get hold of the other gang’s supplies and cattle, in which they had been more or less successful. He knew there was another large gang to the west and north (Danny guessed this was the one they had been told about that was threatening Ely) but as far as he knew there had been no contact with them. As best he could figure it out, the gang leaders were simply feeling their way around the Pale, working out if there was a weak point, or anywhere they could break in and steal supplies or weapons. Whether there was anyone with a more sophisticated strategy he had little or no clue.