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25
Soon after their second child, Daisy, was born, in 2057, Danny and Sally asked the Town Council for permission to take over a derelict house on the old Trumpington Road. It had a large garden leading down to the river, overgrown and full of mature trees. The roof was in a bad way, but Kevin Cooper, a builder and surveyor, and an old friend of Danny’s from their university days, had looked it over and pronounced the walls sound and that the house was certainly worth restoring, although, as he warned them both, it would be a long job.
Technically, no one owned any real property – that is, land, houses or farms – within the Pale. You simply found a place that was either unoccupied, or which the current holders wanted to leave, and asked the Council to approve your taking it over. Where it was already occupied, you might come to a private agreement with the outgoing holder about paying for fixtures, fittings and equipment that the holder either did not want or which could not sensibly be removed. Where more than one person was interested in a property, the Council would arbitrate between the different claims and try and give the property to whoever was most in need and best able to look after it or put it back in to good order.
Fortunately, no one else had the remotest interest in ‘The Elms’ and Danny and Sally had no difficulty getting the Council’s approval for their taking it over. For a while they stayed on in Danny’s old flat – Daisy had been born in February and there was no question of trying to camp in the middle of winter in an almost roofless wreck of a house. Danny got leave of absence from his post at the University and from his part time job developing control systems, and set to work with Kevin and a few of his workmates and sub-contractors to repair the roof and install one of the new slime mould solar generating systems. Doors and windows were renewed and repaired and by April Danny felt able to announce to Sally they could all move in to their new home. At first they were literally camping, moving from room to room as each in turn was repaired and decorated. Meanwhile Danny and Johnny Chisholm felled most of the trees in the garden and found a large enough plot, once the underbrush, briars and brambles had been cleared, to start the all important vegetable patch, which was to be Sally’s responsibility. So while little Daisy lay in her pram beside her, Sally dug and hoed, planted and weeded and soon was able to proudly present to Danny and young Frank her first crop, of lettuce and new potatoes.
Danny returned to his work full time and, with Johnny’s help, continued the restoration of the house in the evenings and at weekends. By the onset of winter, the basics were all but done. Their solar generators on the roof were producing all the electricity they could use, with the excess being fed in to the new grid the Council had recently installed. The new insulation materials developed at the university were so effective, they barely needed to heat the house. When they did, or just for comfort in the evenings, they lit a small wood burning stove.
Danny was now lecturing in the University Computing department, as well as continuing his group’s research into the applications of the White Knight software system. This in turn led him into a new field, inspired in part by the work of Sally, the sociologist, which she called, a bit pretentiously he felt, Social Physics. This was an attempt to use White Knight and the parallel processing computers developed by Lee and the bio-technologists to model how societies evolve and develop, particularly their ethical and moral systems. It was really trying to use mathematical modelling and computing to describe, analyse and experiment with different social anthropological structures and see where, given an initial starting point, these led to. At the same time they were attempting to reverse engineer particular social systems where they felt these were well described and understood. This was broadly true of global culture in the early part of the century, just before the collapse, based on all the work and research carried out by Sally’s group of social science and humanities students and teachers during the 2040’s.
By in effect trying to unwind the development of culture, ethics, morality and, indeed economics, from this fairly well described end point, using the computing systems developed by Danny’s department, Sally and her group were able to build a reasonably robust model of how global society had developed through time going back to the rise of Christianity and the collapse of the Roman Empire. This in turn enabled them to identify crucial points in time across the globe where significant branches or changes of direction had occurred. Some were dramatic – the Reformation in Europe, the discovery of the New World – others more gradual, harder to identify and harder still to establish where and when the changes in direction started and the factors that prompted them – for example, the gradual intellectual stagnation in the Islamic world from the late Middle Ages or the decline of the great Mughal Empire in South Asia.
What made the model so powerful and so useful, which could only be achieved with the sophisticated computing tools developed using White Knight, was the way it integrated and mapped the effects of the confluence of different cultures across the globe – the effect for example both of the deliberate isolation of Japan by the Shogunate in the sixteenth century and then its forcible opening up by Americans in the nineteenth. Both the absence and then dramatic reappearance of Japanese culture and mores had hitherto unnoticed, yet subtle and dramatic effects on other cultures and societies.
One of the first models Danny had set up to test his new systems was based on work he had read about in old journals on evolutionary psychology. It was a simple rule based model that tried to see what patterns of behaviour led to the success over time of human societies. The model simply used a initial population of virtual humans, consisting of two groups, evenly divided. In one group, the only rule was to be friendly to anyone they encountered. If they in turn received a friendly response, they would then breed and produce another generation which continued to follow the same simple rule. If however they received a hostile response, they then attacked the other person and tried to repel or destroy them.
In the second group, the rule was reversed. Individuals in this group were always initially hostile to others they met, and only became friendly if the other responded neutrally or in a friendly way.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first group very soon dominated the population, which is to say it was more successful at producing successive generations than the hostile-first population. This seemed to be a fairly simple but effective demonstration of the utility of altruism in human social evolution – that societies consisting mostly of individuals who trust each other, if not to be kind, at least not to be hostile without provocation – do better than societies where the reverse is the case.
As Danny became more involved with the work that the social scientists were doing, his interest in pure computing gradually diminished and he became much more an experimental social and cultural theorist than a software engineer. He continued to lecture and offer tutorials and seminars on basic computing and the principles of White Knight to first and second year undergraduates for several years, however. It kept his hand in, and he liked the contact with the undergraduates. It also gave him a reasonable income which he badly needed while he and Sally continued to restore their home.
Daisy was followed soon enough by two more children – another girl, Rachel, named after Sally’s youngest sister, who had died of a fever in the village in 2043, and finally in 2062, Joseph, Sally’s smallest and most delicious, as she always referred to him, although he was never called anything other than Joe from the day he was born.
In 2072, Frank, their eldest, was ready to start at the University. He had followed his father’s footsteps into computing and, at first, seemed very happy with life in college and with his course. Although Frank had never said anything to Danny, Sally told him that Frank had had a passionate affair with another student, half way through his first year. Sally was never quite able to get to the bottom of what went wrong. Although Frank confided in her about the girl, Kate, he found it very hard to articulate what had gone wrong or why. Danny suspected Frank had probably come on a little too strongly to Kate, and frightened her away, or that she simply didn’t want that sort of commitment just as she was starting her degree.
Whatever the reasons, after the affair had ended, Frank grew increasingly disenchanted with university. Both Danny and Sally could see how unhappy he was but they hoped in time he would get over his heartbreak. He sat his first year examinations and then, in June, the university broke up for the long summer vacation.
Danny himself had decided to take a few weeks leave at the end of the term. His work at the control systems group had quietened down, and he wanted to do a bit of thinking and writing on his own. The first thing he wanted to do was to write a review for Granta, the University magazine, of a book he had just read and been intrigued by. He didn’t know if they would publish the review, as the book itself had been published in 2008 – hardly fresh off the presses – but he felt there was enough he wanted to say of contemporary relevance to give it a chance. In any case, he was writing it for his own benefit and interest as much as for the possibility of publication.
He was sitting in the garden in an old deck chair, writing, not very comfortably it had to be said, in a hard backed notebook. A battered pewter tankard of beer sat in the long grass beside him. It was usually Frank’s job (if he couldn’t persuade Joe to do it for him) to cut the grass, but with his exams and revision going on for the past few weeks, he had left the grass be. Danny didn’t mind, in fact he preferred a hay meadow to a bowling green, but Sally liked to see the lawn neat and green.
“Hi, Dad” Frank called out, walking around the side of the house.
“Hello son, how are you? Exams all done?”
“Yes, thanks, just finished my last paper this morning.”
“How do you think they went? You happy?”
“Yeah, I think so . . . one or two papers were hard going, but I think I’ve done OK. Good enough anyway.”
“You staying? Would you like a beer?”
“Yes, thanks” said Frank. “I thought I’d cut the grass before Mum gets back, but it would be a good to have a break. I feel like I’ve been tied to my desk for the past two weeks. How’s yours? Do you want a top up?”
“No, I’m fine thanks. Bring another deck chair with you when you come back.”
Frank went back in to the house and came back a few minutes later juggling an over flowing tankard and a deck chair. He put the tankard down and erected the deck chair and sat down with a sigh.
“Are you OK?” Danny asked. “That sigh sounded a bit down.”
“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine really. But I’d like to talk to you – have you got a minute?”
“Of course, this can wait” said Danny, dropping his notebook and pen on the grass. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, uni really. Umm . . . I’m thinking of jacking it in . . .”
“This is a bit sudden isn’t it?” said Danny, although given Frank’s low mood for the past two months, he wasn’t as surprised as perhaps Frank was expecting him to be.
“Not really, Dad. I’ve been thinking about it a lot the last few weeks . . . the thing is, I enjoy the course right enough, but I don’t think I want to do it for another two years . . . I mean, and please don’t be offended” Frank looked at Danny for reassurance, and Danny just nodded to him to continue “well, I’m really doing it because of you . . . I’ve always been really interested in all the stuff you’ve been doing, and I think it’s really important, and I think you’re brilliant, but it’s not really what I want to do . . . do you understand?” Frank paused.
“Yes, I do” said Danny. “But what about another course? Isn’t there something else you’d prefer to study?”
“Not really . . . I just don’t think I’m cut out for uni . . . and anyway, changing to something completely different after one year is a bit tricky. And all my subjects at school were really aimed at doing computing, so I’m not even sure they’d accept me on to another course, at least not without me going back to school, and I definitely don’t want to do that” Frank said with a laugh. “The thing is, I want to stand on my own two feet, y’know, be independent . . . and do something practical . . . something that makes me feel I’m making a contribution . . .” Frank said, hesitantly.
“Well, that’s good, I can understand your feeling that way” said Danny gently. “When I came to Cambridge, I was really interested and excited about what I was going to be studying, and glad to be getting out of the village – not because I wanted to leave your grandfather or your mum or anything, but just see more of the world. And I knew how much it meant to my dad that I was coming here; he’d have been very unhappy if I’d decided to stay in the village, or come back after a term or two. But I can see it’s different for you. Have you thought about what you’d like to do?”
“Yes, I have actually.” Frank said, suddenly sounding much more confident and positive, as if by telling his father the bad news and Danny not trying to talk him out of it, he’d jumped the biggest hurdle. “I want to be a soldier. What do you think?”
“Really?” said Danny, genuinely surprised. He couldn’t ever remember Frank displaying the smallest interest in the army, other than asking him and Sally about their adventures in 2053.
“Yes, really. I’ve been talking a lot to Uncle Johnny about it” said Frank, sounding a little defensive. Johnny Chisholm had a small farm south of Ely, but he was also a part time officer. Most of the Pale’s army and air force were either part time, or on the reserve. Danny himself, although he was now fifty three, was still on the reserve and did his regulation two weeks a year of training and exercising. Pretty much everyone who was still fit enough to ride or fly stayed on the reserve, regardless of their age. There was a small cadre of full time soldiers and airmen, who provided the training, looked after logistics and stores, and commanded the frontier posts – the actual garrison troops were made up from the part timers like Johnny and reservists doing their annual service. Younger reservists were expected to be on duty for up to six weeks a year, so as to provide a degree of continuity.
“What,” said Danny “full time d’you mean?”
“Yes, I think so, at least to start with” Frank replied, a bit more confidently. “I mean, it’s not as if I have a farm to worry about, like Uncle Johnny, or a job to go to. And if I am going to join up, I’d rather do it full time, get properly trained, see how I like it and how I get on” he continued. “If it’s not for me, well I can go on to the Reserve, like everyone else, and look around for something else to do.”
“Have you said anything to Mum?” Danny asked.
“Well, not in so many words . . . but she knows I’ve been talking to Uncle Johnny about it, and that I’ve been out with him a few times, when he’s been on duty. So I hope she won’t be completely shocked by the idea, or against it.”
Danny felt a little hurt that he’d been kept so in the dark about all this. Sally seemed to know a lot more about Frank’s feelings and plans than he did. He realised how tied up with his work at the University he had been over the past few months. And Sally had told him all about Frank’s unhappy love life.
“Well, we’d better all sit down together this evening and have a good talk about it” said Danny. “You haven’t done anything about it yet, have you? Not signed up for a commission or anything?”
“No, Dad, of course not” Frank replied hotly, “I wouldn’t do anything without talking it through with you and Mum first.”
“Good, good. And look son, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not against it at all – it’s just a bit of a shock, a bolt from the blue. I really didn’t see it coming” Danny said with a rueful smile.
“I’m sorry Dad, I didn’t mean to keep it a secret – I just wanted to get my exams out of the way before I talked to you about it” Frank said, finishing the last of his beer and wiping the foam from his mouth. “I’ll do the grass now, before Mum gets back” he said, getting up as he did so and walking off to the shed at the bottom of the garden by the river bank.
A few minutes later, Frank was walking slowly back and forth across the lawn, pushing the mower. It was an old petrol rotary which had been modified to run off one of the new high power electric batteries. The shed had its own solar generator which charged all the equipment they stored there, the chain saw and hedge trimmer and the rotavator Sally used on her vegetable patch, as well as the mower. Danny looked at him, feeling a sudden sense of pride in his eldest son, mixed with a kind of regret – he was an adult now, no longer Sally’s and his little boy, and it was time to let him go.
Frank had almost finished cutting the grass when Sally came home. With Joe now nearly eleven, and at school all day, she didn’t have enough to keep her busy in the house any longer. Daisy and Rachel both helped her with the chores and looking after the vegetable patch and even young Joe made himself useful, so with time on her hands, she had found a part time job looking after troubled families in their part of town. Mostly it involved visiting the families and seeing what they needed. Sometimes it was just a shoulder for a harassed young mum to cry on, at others more practical help was needed. Not everyone found growing and preserving food easy to manage; others had trouble looking after their houses, or didn’t have the skills or resources to install new fangled generators and the like. So Sally would supply food from the local ward food bank, or practical help and advice in the garden, or would contact one of the other volunteers to help with household maintenance and repairs. Occasionally, although rarely, there were more serious problems to deal with – an alcoholic or violent husband, a sudden death of one or both of the parents, troubled adolescents who had run away, or who had got into trouble with the authorities. Whenever possible, the ward itself took care of these problems, finding homes for children who needed to be separated from abusive or inadequate parents and so on. Sometimes the Council had to be involved. In theory, in cases of the most serious abuse or criminality, an offender could be jailed or even expelled from the Pale altogether. Jail was really the last resort and generally only used to protect people from themselves or from harming others. Danny had never himself heard of anyone actually being expelled from the Pale. Apart from anything else, it just meant another renegade outlaw to be added to those still living wild beyond the writ of the Council of the Pale.
Sally waved at them both from the back door and went back inside to start preparing dinner for the family. Daisy, Rachel and Joe would soon be back. After their lessons were over, they all went off to play sports, or do their club activities – at the moment Joe was a passionate and enthusiastic member of the model aeroplane club and, Danny was delighted to see, a remarkably capable and handy model maker. He might yet become an engineer like his grandfather.
A short time later, the whole family was home and had gathered in what they called the Quiet Room for evening keying. Not everyone did this, but Danny knew a lot of keyers who made a point of keying as a family, if not every day, then at least fairly regularly. The quiet room was a bright airy room at the back of the house, on the first floor. It was deliberately reserved for keying and for quiet activities like reading or writing – definitely not for any kind of work – and although there was no actual family rule about it, not a place for talking or playing games. As a result, perhaps, it had an air of tranquillity and repose, and the pictures on the walls, the decoration and furnishing was deliberately chosen to reflect and enhance the sense of a place of quiet retreat.
This evening it was Rachel’s turn to lead the session. She had chosen for the reading a poem by the Sufi mystic Rumi, which she recited, rather than read. Danny was impressed that she had taken the trouble to learn the poem by heart. Then she truck the gong, gently, three times, and they began the silence. As so often, Danny had lost any sense of time when the gong sounded again and he came back to the room and his family with almost a feeling of regret. Rachel recited another poem from Rumi. They got up quietly and filed out of the room and down the stairs to the big kitchen looking out over the freshly mown lawn and the river beyond.
“How long ’til supper, Mum?” asked Daisy.
“Oh, forty minutes to an hour I’d say” Sally answered from the range, without turning round “I’ve put a pie in. Why?” Sally looked over her shoulder at Daisy, who was standing by the back door, the early evening sun haloing her blond hair. Danny was suddenly reminded how much like Sally she looked, when he saw her that morning in her mother’s kitchen, twenty years before. Although she was still only sixteen, she looked suddenly womanly.
“Oh, nothing, I was just going to go for a walk” Daisy answered, but it seemed to Danny her apparent carelessness was a bit too studied. He wondered where the walk would take her and, perhaps, who to. As far as he knew (although after talking to Frank this afternoon, that probably meant very little) Daisy had never had a serious boyfriend, or a boyfriend at all, but she certainly looked ready for one now. He hoped she had chosen well, if that was what she had done.
“All right love” said Sally “if you’re not back in time, I’ll put some by in the oven for you.”
They had sat down to eat when Daisy came back, a little out of breath and looking flustered. “Sorry I’m late, I lost track of the time” she said, taking her place at the big deal table.
“Did you go far then?” Danny asked.
“No, just down to the Ridleys” Sally said “I was talking to Josh and just forgot.”
Danny vaguely knew Josh. He was a bit older than Daisy, he thought. He knew the parents quite well – Matt had been on the Town Council with him for a time and they got on well together. Although Matt had not gone to university, he was an intelligent and well read man and had a dry wit Danny rather enjoyed.
After supper was over and they had cleared the table, the three younger children dispersed to different parts of the house and garden, as if by arrangement, leaving Sally and Danny alone with Frank. They sat back down at the kitchen table with cups of coffee.
“Frank, do you want to start?” Danny asked.
So Frank repeated to Sally what he had told his father in the garden that afternoon. Danny noticed that Sally did not seem very surprised. If anything she seemed relieved that Frank had already talked to Danny.
“What do you think, Sal?” said Danny. He wondered if Sally was worried about Frank being a full time soldier, first in the line of fire as it were, if anything happened, although everything had been pretty quiet since the battles in 2053. There were occasional incidents near the border, skirmishes with small groups of outlaws, but Danny couldn’t remember the last time one of the Pale’s soldiers had been killed in anything other than a training accident.
“Well, I think Frank’s made his mind up” Sally said with a smile “and I know he’s been talking to Johnny, so he must have a pretty good idea what he’s letting himself in for. I don’t want him moping at uni if he wants to be out doing something useful.”
“Well, that seems to be settled then” said Danny smiling at Frank. “What’s your plan? When do you plan to join up?”
“I thought I’d go and talk to Johnny’s CO, first, and see what he suggests” Frank said, looking more relaxed and happy than Danny had seen him looking in a long while. “Uncle Johnny says they have an admissions board every three months or so, so I’ll need to find out when the next one is, and see if I can sign up for it. They might be full up already – they don’t like to try and process too many potential recruits at once.”
“Where’s Johnny’s commander based?” asked Sally.
“Up at Mildenhall, I think. I’ll probably need a horse to get to him, I don’t think there are any usable roads up that way. Although I suppose I could walk up from Newmarket, it’s only ten kay or so north of there.”
The old A14 that ran east from Cambridge had been repaired and cleared nearly all the way to Ipswich some years before, and with a good flicker bike or spring cycle, Frank could get to Newmarket in a couple of hours. He would then have a two hour walk to Mildenhall, and another two hours back again, a six hour round trip in all.
“Perhaps you could get a horse in Newmarket” Danny suggested.
“Yeah, the army might be prepared to lend me one, if I’m going to see the CO” said Frank. “I just need to make sure he’s actually there before I set off.”
“Is there anyone in Cambridge who would know?” asked Sally.
“Well Army HQ ought to be able to tell me, and they can get a message to him, warning him I’m on my way.”
“Good” said Danny. “Let me know if there’s anything you want me to do, won’t you?”
“’course, Dad, and thanks, thanks to both of you” Frank said, looking at them both and smiling broadly.
“Why are you thanking us? What have we done?” Sally said.
“You’ve just been the best Mum and Dad I could ask for” said Frank, his voice cracking with emotion.
Sally got up from her chair and went round and gave him a hug and kissed him on the forehead.
* * *
Frank was called to the admissions board in the first week of September. The board convened at Newmarket barracks, and Frank was away for five days. When he came back, he told them he had been accepted and would start his training in Newmarket at the end of the month. Although he would be allowed home at Christmas for his first leave, he probably would not be able to see them before then – the training regime was intense and was not meant to be interrupted except in cases of dire emergency, such as a death in the family. Sally tried to hide it, and wiped a tear from her eye, but she found the prospect of Frank being away so long daunting – in his nineteen years he had never been away from them for longer than a week. Danny gave her a hug.
Although he found the separation from his home and family hard, Frank took to soldiering like a duck to water. When he came home at Christmas it seemed to Danny he was several centimetres taller. He was also clearly very fit and full of stories about his basic training, although they had heard a lot through Johnny Chisholm, who saw Frank quite regularly, which was just as well, as Frank was an unreliable and not very forthcoming correspondent.
By June the following year, Frank had completed his training and had been commissioned as a junior officer in the permanent establishment of the army. Danny and Sally and the three children attended his passing out parade at Newmarket and the formal banquet that followed it. It was a modest occasion – there were only twelve cadets receiving commissions, and even with their families attending, only sixty sat down to dinner in what had been the indoor riding school of one of Newmarket’s largest studs, when it was the centre of the horse racing industry, seventy years before. The commander of the course made a speech, and gave out awards to cadets. Frank received two awards, one for being the best rider and another for best shot, which it seemed to Danny covered all the bases. Another cadet received an award for winning the tactical exercise, and a third for best all rounder.
Thereafter, they only saw Frank from time to time. In his first few months he was moved all around the Pale, getting to know the other permanent members of the army, the different bases, and to understand how the logistics, communications and training systems functioned. Whenever he passed through Cambridge, which he did once a month or so, he came to see them, and if he could, spent the night with them. Each time they saw him, he seemed to have grown in confidence in himself and about his decision to make a career as a soldier.
Early in 2075, Johnny Chisholm came to see them. They had not seen Frank for several weeks, nor had they had any word from him, so it was good to get a chance of news through Johnny.
“He’s been sent on a long range patrol” Johnny said “up north somewhere, towards York. And I’ve been put on notice to be ready for a long stint of duty. Something’s up, but I’m not quite sure what. They’ve been sending out a lot of air patrols to the north and west in the last few weeks. I’m guessing some sort of trouble’s brewing, but I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything more definite.”
Johnny Chisholm was now a tough and experienced forty five year old; although technically only a part time soldier, he was one of the relatively few who had seen active service in the battles of 2053, and would almost certainly be given a significant command if the army went in to action.
A few days later he came back to see them again.
“Well Frank’s back safe and sound” he said, to Sally’s evident relief. Since his news about Frank being sent into what most people in the Pale thought of as the bad lands north of Lincoln, Sally had been desperately worried, and longing for news of her son. “He’s in March, resting up, but he should get some leave in a few days so I’m sure he’ll be down to see you soon enough. I think by all accounts they had a pretty tough time. They got up to Doncaster, and the weather was atrocious, and supplies pretty well ran out before they made it back to the Pale. And they saw some action too, although I don’t know what casualties they took.”
“Well, I just thank God he’s safe” said Sally “and thank you so much for coming and telling us, I was getting so worried about him.”
“Do you have any better idea what’s going on Johnny?” asked Danny.
“A bit. It seems intelligence got word a few months back that a large band of renegades had assembled at York. As you know, north of Lincoln has been a no man’s land for years – we think there’s some sort of enclave in Scotland, but we’ve had no real contact with anyone there. Anyone who could has long since either come south to us, or gone north to Scotland. So that whole area to the north and west has been a sort of black hole to us. We don’t know what’s been going on there or how many people might be living there. How anyone has managed to survive I can’t begin to guess. We think some of the bands that disappeared after the battles at Thetford and March back in ’53 headed north, and if they met up with any other groups they would have told them about the drubbing we gave them, so they’ve kept away from us ever since. So they’ve either become desperate, or more confident, and we don’t know which, but intelligence think they are planning to attack us, probably when the weather improves. So that’s why Frank’s patrol was sent out, and why they’ve been sending out air patrols as well – to try and establish where the renegades are, and in what sort of strength and, if possible, to gauge their intentions.”
“So did Frank’s patrol find out anything useful then?” Danny asked.
“Oh yes, a lot I think. They managed to take a few prisoners, who they’ve brought back, and made contact with what they thought must be the main body, just north of Doncaster. The renegades seem to be in winter quarters, about five thousand strong, according to the reports I heard, but I’m sure Frank will be able to tell you a lot more.”
Johnny stayed the night with them, but left early in the morning. He had been given command of a flying column of two hundred cavalry which was being formed from young reservists and part timers, based at Ely. He wanted to start training with them as soon as he could as he thought they would be sent into action by April at the latest. Sally gave him a tearful goodbye and begged him to be careful. He hugged her, and gave her a cheerful laugh, telling her not to worry about him, as he had two hundred young troopers to keep him safe.
Frank came home to them two days later. In spite of his four days resting up at the camp at March, he still looked drawn and thin, but also almost too bright eyed, even manic. Danny remembered the state he and Sally had been after the battles they had been involved in – it had seemed like days, weeks, before life began to seem normal again. He guessed Frank had been living on his nerves and adrenalin, perhaps for weeks.
He arrived in the early evening. Sally wanted to ask him everything, but Danny gave her a look, so she just sat Frank down at the table and gave him a simple meal. When he had finished eating, barely able to keep his eyes open, he asked if they’d mind him going up to bed, to which they murmured no objection, just gave him a hug and a kiss and sent him off up the stairs to his old room.
“Oh, Danny, he looks awful” Sally said.
“Yes, I know. I think they must have had a rough time of it. Perhaps he’ll feel up to telling us about it in the morning” Danny agreed. “But don’t mind too much if he doesn’t want to talk about it. It isn’t always easy, unless you’re with the people who’ve been through it with you.”
“I know. I remember what it was like when we got back to Cambridge, and people kept asking us about it all, it was the last thing I wanted to do, to try and tell them how it was, when they hadn’t been there. But Danny, he’ll be all right, won’t he? I’ve never seen him looking like that before . . . as if he’s been through a nightmare, and he still hasn’t woken up . . .” Sally trailed off.
“I’m sure he’ll be OK Sal. After all we survived didn’t we? And he’s been preparing for this sort of thing for months, we were just dropped straight in it. And look at Johnny – he was only Frank’s age when he first saw action, and there he is, raring to go off with his column and do it all again. I think Frank’s probably exhausted as much as anything. Let’s see how he is in the morning.”
They stayed up for a little while longer and then went up to bed themselves.
In the morning, Frank came down for breakfast at ten. Although they would not have described him as bright eyed and bushy tailed, he looked much better for a night’s sleep and ate a hearty breakfast, “a proper Mum’s fry up, just what I needed” he said with a grin when he’d cleared his plate.
Danny had called his department and explained why he wouldn’t be coming in that day, so after Frank had finished eating, they took their coffee out into the spring sunshine and sat round the table in the garden.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Danny asked quietly.
“Well, Dad, I’ll tell you anything you want to know . . . just ask” Frank said.
Danny and Sally asked him some simple questions, about how long he had been away on patrol, what conditions had been like, if there had been any fighting, how many casualties his patrol had suffered. Frank’s answers were brief and to the point but it was obvious to them both that the patrol had been much tougher than anything Frank had experienced up to that moment, and much more so than the men on the patrol had been briefed to expect before they went out. The column had left the camp at March in early December and moved carefully north following the old Great North Road. In all the column was about one hundred mounted men. Frank had been in command of a squad of twenty and had spent most of the journey north out on either the left or right flank, acting as a screen for the main body and the supply train, but also on the look out for any signs of renegade activity. The weather was cold, but dry, and the going fairly easy, but they had to move relatively slowly as the old road north was often blocked or so broken up that the supply wagons had to be manhandled around obstructions or taken off the road altogether, and on several occasions, emptied and hand carried to the next bit of usable road.
Frank’s squadron went as far as twenty kilometres to the east and west of the main route scouting for any signs of the renegades or for signs of any human presence at all. It was not until they reached Newark that they encountered anyone. There may have been others along the way, but if there were they had kept a low profile, which was understandable – Frank’s patrol probably looked no different from a party of renegades and anyone who was surviving in this hostile and empty country would have given them a wide berth, or kept a low profile.
The usual pattern was for the flanking patrols to range widely during the day and then to return to within a kilometre or so of the main column at dusk, at which point they would set up camp and post sentries, and Frank would ride in to the main column to report to the commanding officer on the day’s events.
They had found a suitable bivouac site just before sunset, screened to the north and west by copses of dense woodland. Frank’s second in command had selected the first four sentries and sent them out through the woods to give them a clear view across the open ground on the other side of the trees. Frank was mounting his horse ready to ride back to the main column, when a young trooper ran across the camp site waving at him. Frank stopped and waited for him to come to him, noting that the trooper had not made a sound. “What is it Ibrahim?” he asked when the breathless trooper came up to his horse. Ibrahim was a young farmer from Ickworth, just west of Bury St Edmunds.
“Sir, look, over there” and he pointed to the north east. Frank looked, but at first could see nothing. Then he saw in the deepening dusk, a thin column of blue grey smoke rising in the still air.
“Here, Ibrahim, hold my horse for a minute will you” Frank said as he dismounted. He strode off to find his second in command, John Smethwick.
“John, can you let me have a couple of men? I want to check out that smoke out over there” Frank said pointing it out. “Make sure they’ve got plenty of ammunition and all their kit, and be quick – I want to try and get there before it’s completely dark. And tell everyone to keep quiet.” This last was really unnecessary as it was a cardinal rule when out on patrol to make no unnecessary noise at any time.
John nodded and stalked over to a small group of men who were putting up tents, and quietly called two of them out.
Within five minutes Frank and his two companions were riding away from the small encampment. Frank had taken a compass bearing on the column of smoke in case they lost it in the dark, but in the event they came up to within a couple of hundred metres of its source while it was still light. They saw a small cluster of thatched buildings, a little ramshackle, but obviously maintained and occupied. Frank could see a chicken enclosure and what looked like pig sties, as well as a large stone built barn with big double doors, still open. He signalled his companions to dismount and they tied up their horses to trees out of sight of the farm buildings. Signing to one of the troopers to stay with the horses, Frank and the other walked casually across the open paddock towards the buildings. Both of them had sidearms, but they had left their rifles in the scabbards on their horses. Frank unclipped his holster and tried not to make it too obvious as they walked that his hand was never too far from the pistol. About fifty metres from what looked like the back door to the farmhouse, they stopped by a low drystone wall.
“Hello, is anyone at home?” Frank shouted. A dog started barking somewhere and he heard voices from inside the house, then silence. He shouted again, adding “We’ve come from Cambridge, we mean you no harm.”
Although he could not see anyone, a man’s voice shouted back in a broad Nottinghamshire accent “Put your hands up where I can see ‘em, and step over that wall.” Frank nodded at his trooper, and they both raised their hands above their heads and stepped clumsily over the wall. As he did so, Frank thought this was the moment when he would take a shot, if he was the man inside the house and he had any suspicion of their intentions.
“All right now, come forward slowly five yards or so, and kneel down” the man’s voice instructed. “And keep your hands up.” Frank was confused for a moment – no one had used the old measures in his lifetime – but they both stepped forward and then carefully knelt down on the tussocky grass. He could see now the twin barrels of a shotgun poking out of the back door.
“Right then, tell me your business and what you want with us. We don’t like strangers round here, they’re mostly trouble, so make it quick and keep it simple.”
“My name is Lieutenant Frank Stearman. The man with me is Trooper Harrison. We are soldiers on patrol from the Cambridge Pale, looking for renegades . . . bandits . . . outlaws” Frank wasn’t sure what the man in the house might think or know of renegades. For all he knew the man was one himself, although it didn’t seem likely.
“Are there just you two?” the voice said, disbelievingly.
“No, we have a large column a few kilometres away.” Frank kept it deliberately vague about where, how large and how far away the column might be.
“What do you want with us?”
“We’d like to talk to you, ask you a few questions, if you’re willing.”
“Well, go on then. Ask away.”
“May we come in?”
“If you’re prepared to throw me your weapons, yes. Otherwise you stay where you are. And be careful how you do it – one at a time, and hold them by the barrel. I’ll shoot you if I see any nonsense.” The man’s voice sounded quite calm, and he clearly meant what he said.
Frank turned to Harrison. “You first, and go easy, we don’t want to spook him” he said. Harrison tipped up his holster and his pistol fell to the ground. He reached forward slowly and picked it up by the barrel, checking the safety was on, and threw it in a low arc in the direction of the open door.
“That’s good” said the voice “now the other one, same way.” Frank did as Harrison had done.
“All right now, lie down on your fronts, the pair of you, arms stretched in front of you.”
Frank nodded at Harrison and they both lay down, stretched out on the damp grass. Frank heard steps and then a clatter as the two pistols were gathered up.
“All right. Stand up now, slowly, and keep those arms in the air.” Frank and Harrison did as he asked.
They could now see, standing in the doorway, a stocky but heavily built figure training the shotgun at them. To Frank’s surprise and confusion, the figure appeared to be dressed in a skirt.
“All right, come forward to me slowly” the ‘man’s’ voice continued, in the same even tone. As they approached the figure stepped forward from the doorway and gestured with the shotgun for them to enter the door. Frank glanced at the ‘man’ – she very clearly wasn’t. A strong unsmiling face, framed by blond hair under a scarf, startlingly blue eyes. He also realised the stockiness and heavy build had more to do with the amount of clothes she was wearing although it was hard to guess at her figure beneath it all.
As they entered the door, the woman spoke over their shoulders to someone inside “It’s all right Kath, you can turn up the lamp now.” Her voice was no longer that of a man, but clearly feminine. The room was filled with the light from an old oil lamp, which Kath presumably had lit or turned up somehow. The door had been shut behind them before the lamp had lit the room. Frank immediately noticed how heavily curtained the windows were. The room was also pleasantly warm.
“Sit down over there, on the settee” the woman behind instructed. Frank and Harrison sat down beside each other on the large, low and somewhat lumpy and misshapen settee. They still had their hands above their heads.
“All right” the first woman said “you just look silly like that – put your hands on your knees where we can see ‘em, and keep ‘em there.”
“You know Kath, now” she continued. “My name’s Jen. And we know your names. So what do you want to know?”
Frank had a dozen questions, none of them relevant to their patrol, but he suspected time wasting enquiries about their hostess’s acting abilities and marital status would not be welcome.
“We have come north from Cambridge because we have heard reports there’s a large group of renegades gathering in the York area. I wanted to know if you had seen any sign of renegades around here, and if so, in what numbers, where headed, how heavily armed and so on” Frank said, trying to keep his tone cool, but friendly.
“How d’ye know we’re not renegades oursels?” This from Kath in an even broader Notts accent.
“We don’t, although if you were, I think you’d have shot first and asked questions after.” Frank looked at Kath.
“True enough” Kath replied, sounding a little less hostile than before.
“Well, have you seen any? Or anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary?” Frank asked, almost pleadingly.
“How did you find us?” This from Jen, still holding the shotgun at the ready, although she had put their pistols down on the table beside her.
“We saw the smoke from your chimney.”
“How far away were you?” Jen again.
Frank looked at Harrison. “About a click and a half” Harrison replied.
“A what and a half?” snorted Kath.
“A click, a kilometre” Harrison said, looking puzzled.
Kath and Jen looked at each other and then Kath said “Must be about a mile I guess.”
Frank said “Yes, that would be about right – about sixteen hundred yards or so.” Intrigued again by the use of old measures.
“Bugger” said Kath “that wood must’ve been damp, or green. Sorry” she looked at Jen. Jen shrugged.
“We like to keep our heads down here” Jen said. “We’ve managed to survive on our own, mostly, by being quiet, and not wandering too far about. We’re a fair bit off the beaten track, and the farm is hard to spot, mostly, unless you know what you’re looking for. So we don’t go looking for trouble, if you understand me.” Frank nodded. “That said, Kath spotted tracks of a large group of horses” Jen looked at Kath “about two weeks back, headed north.”
“Any idea how many? Any wheel marks?” Frank asked.
“Hard to say” Kath answered “it had been raining a fair bit and the ground was all chewed up, you know what horses are like, especially if they’re heavy laden. Definitely no carts or wagons, you’d never have got them through the muck. I’m guessing, but there could have been as many as a hundred, and as I said, heavy.”
“So they might have been pack horses?”
“Some, certainly. But I’m not much good at reading tracks, that’s Jen’s job. I look after the farm and the animals and such, Jen does the hunting” Kath explained.
“And that’s all?”
“Well we saw some camp fires awhile back, up on the hills over there” Jen said, waving an arm to the north west.
“How many? How long ago?”
“’bout the same time wasn’t it Kath? Two weeks or so?” Jen looked at Kath.
“Aye, but after I’d seen the tracks.”
“So not the same group, you don’t think?” Frank asked.
“Dun’t seem likely – they were in a different direction altogether. Unless they went round in a big bend, and can’t see why’s they’d do that.” Kath said.
“Avoiding you, maybe?”
“Why would a hundred men avoid two women?” Jen laughed, although she didn’t sound like she thought it was a joke.
“So how many camp fires do you think?”
“Hard to tell, from this distance. A fair few I’d say. It’s a good two mile away, and the sky was all lit up like bonfire night. And they were spread out over a fair space, a hundred yards or more I’d say” said Jen.
“So there might have been as many again in that group” Frank said, more or less to himself.
“At least” Jen added.
“So, are you pretty much on your own round here then?” asked Harrison.
“Nay” said Kath “there are a few others about. We’ve got neighbours about two miles west of here, and some more east across the big road. I suppose there are a couple of dozen we know and have something to do with, from time to time.” Although from the way she said it, Frank got the impression that time to time meant a lot more than a month or two.
Jen confirmed “We don’t like to wander around too much, it can be risky. We have a get together every so often, to swap things, and trade, and maybe a bit of a party.”
“And we leave messages for each other” Kath joined in “we have post boxes at the half way points, so we’s can make arrangements and such.”
“So how long have you been here?” Frank asked.
“We was born here” said Kath, sounding almost surprised, as if no one ever moved from anywhere in her experience. Looking at them both, Frank guessed neither was more than thirty, possibly younger.
“Are you sisters then?” Harrison asked.
“Of course we are” Jen almost barked, seemingly offended at the suggestion that they might not be.
“And what happened to your parents?” asked Frank.
“Ma died of a fever four year ago” said Kath and then, in an oddly matter of fact tone of voice, “and Da shot himself. He said we were old enough to look after oursels and he wasn’t interested in living wi’out his Judy.”
“And are you happy here? You could come back south with us if you wanted” said Frank.
Jen laughed. “Why would we want to leave here, with our farm, and animals and all? We’ve everything we need, what would be the point of going somewhere strange?”
“Well, you’d be safer, and I’m sure you’d find life a lot easier in the Pale.”
“Mebbe easier, tho’ we never had no bother looking after oursels here. And we’re just careful, allus ‘ave been. Da was born here, and Ma close by, and in all the time they and us ‘ave been here, we’ve never ‘ad no trouble from strangers or these renegades of yourn” said Kath.
“Maybe so” continued Frank “but if our people are right, a lot of those renegades may be heading south soon, to attack the Pale, and you could be right in their way. If you came back with us, you’d be a lot safer than here on your own.”
“And get attacked in the Pale?” Jen laughed. “I think I’d rather take our chances here – if we keep our heads down, as we always do, I reckon they’ll just pass us by – let ‘em pick on you, I reckon, and leave us be.”
Frank laughed too, Jen had a point. And there was in any case no guarantee the column would be returning this way, and it might very well be in headlong retreat.
“You’ve been very helpful” Frank said, “and I’m sorry if we alarmed you. But we better be getting back now, if that’s OK with you.”
“That’s OK” said Jen “I’ll walk you out. Did you walk here?”
“No, we left our horses back by those trees” said Frank.
“All right, well if you two just get up nice and slow and walk to the door”, Jen turned to Kath and motioned with her head at the lamp. “When the lamp’s covered, open the door and walk out. I’ll follow you with your guns.”
Frank and Harrison got to their feet and walked over to stand by the door. Kath did something with the lamp, and the room went pitch black. Jen told them to feel for the door handle and open it and then step outside and walk five yards and stop. They heard the door close behind her and she told them to walk to the low wall fifty metres away. There was enough light from the stars for them to find their way across the now frosted grass of the paddock. When they reached the wall and stopped, Jen told them to keep their backs to her. They heard a couple of soft thuds just the other side of the wall. “There are your guns” Jen said in a low voice. “Pick them up and keep walking. I’ve got my gun on you and I don’t miss, so no funny stuff if you know what’s good for you.”
They stepped over the wall and scrabbled around in the long grass for their pistols, picked them up and holstered them. As they walked away from the house they heard a faint “Goodbye”. Frank raised an arm in a gentle wave.
When they got back to the trees, Frank turned to look back. There was no sign of Jen, and the house and buildings were just a dark blur. Not a chink of light could be seen.
“Whew, boss, they were a pair of toughies” Harrison whispered.
“Weren’t they just?” Frank laughed quietly. “And I reckon Jen was right – they probably are better off here. Seems like a tough and lonely life though. Rather them than me.”
They walked behind the trees and Frank gave a low whistle. Trooper Walker came round from the left, leading their three horses. Frank thanked him, and they mounted up, and picked their way carefully through the dark, back to the camp. Frank’s heart sank slightly at the prospect of now having to ride back to the main column to report, before getting himself a badly needed hot meal and a drink.
An hour and a half later, he rode back into the small camp. He could smell some sort of stew and his mouth started to water. He had reported to his CO, Jack Corbett, on his interview with the two women. Corbett had also had news from the other flank patrol – they had crossed the trail of a large number of horses which appeared to have been heading north east towards the Great North Road. They thought the trail about a week old. Again there were no signs of wagon or cart tracks and they estimated the group must have been at least a hundred or more in strength. Corbett decided to place two more smaller flanking patrols to their rear, in case further groups heading north caught up with the column from behind. He left Frank with the distinct impression that he was very nervous – they seemed to be in the middle of a substantial buildup of renegades coming from all quarters, and running a real risk of being surrounded or cut off from their line of retreat back to the Pale.
Frank was sat down at a small fire, eating his stew from a billy can with a spoon, a mug of whisky at his side. John Smethwick sat with him, drinking a coffee, and two of the senior troopers in the patrol.
“What I don’t understand” said John “is how they communicate. They seem to be bringing people from all over the place, coordinating them, but as far as I know they have no telecomms or any other kind of comms – how are they doing it?”
“Pigeons?” asked one of the troopers.
“Could be” said Frank. “That’s what they were using last time, when my dad was fighting them.”
“But in a sense” John said “it doesn’t really matter how they’re doing it. The point is they are, and we know they can, so we just have to work on the assumption that they can conduct well organised and coordinated attacks on us.”
“That’s true” Frank replied “but if we knew how they were doing it, we might be able to disrupt their comms, and we’d have some idea what the limitations might be. I mean, if say they’re using relay riders, we could try intercepting them, and we’d know over a given distance, how long it would take them to get messages from one group to another. As it is, we’re in the dark.”
“And the other thing that’s bothering me” John continued “is they seem to be spread out over such a wide area. You know, I always thought these groups were just separate little tribe like units, operating independently, rampaging around raping and pillaging, but chaotic, anarchic. This seems like an organised state, or at any rate, an army.”
Frank took a swig from his mug of whisky, and sighed with pleasure at the warming burn in his throat and stomach. “Well, that’s what we’ve come all this way to find out. If we can only get some half decent prisoners to interrogate, we might get some answers. Meanwhile” he looked at each of the troopers and John Smethwick “everyone has to understand just how exposed we are here. Absolute quiet at all times, and vigilance. I don’t suppose these chaps move at night, but they might, and I don’t want to be woken up by a column of renegades riding over my tent.” Frank turned to John. “How many sentries have you put out John?”
“Four, plus a fifth on walkabout to make sure they’re awake. Some of these young ones are dog tired, and they don’t find it easy staying awake at three in the morning.”
“So are we covered all round? How far out?”
“Yup. They’re between fifty and a hundred metres from here, depending on the ground. If they’re awake, no one should be able to surprise us, unless it’s a singleton, and he’s crawling, which would sort of imply they know we’re here.”
“Good – although that’s a possibility we shouldn’t discount” said Frank. “If we’d been spotted today, and trailed, we might well be ambushed. Is everyone ready for action?”
“Yes – everyone booted and fully dressed, horses saddled, and they’re sleeping with their rifles. If we get any warning at all, we can be up and out of here in a minute, or ready for a fight.”
“Good – and what about lines of retreat?”
“Well, assuming we’re not surrounded, in which case we’ll just have to stand our ground, I’ve recc’eed two lines of escape and briefed everyone with the signal for whichever one we’re going to use, and if there’s no signal, it’s every man for himself and hightail it back to the main column.”
“And they all know where that is?”
“They should do, but in the dark . . .” John did not bother to finish his sentence. They both knew a well planned surprise attack in the dark was liable to result in chaos and confusion however well prepared they were, although that could work to their advantage.
“Good. You’d better brief me on the routes and signals before I turn in. And take me round to inspect the sentries while we’re at it.”
“Very good sir” John replied in an unusually military fashion. He was an experienced reservist, and Frank had a lot of respect for his abilities, but generally the reservists were rather more informal than the permanent cadres of the army, so the “sir” was a surprise. He was also a little flattered. John Smethwick was at least eight years older than him and had himself been a full time soldier for two years. In the circumstances other men might have resented a younger, less experienced officer being in command over them, but in the three weeks they had been out on the patrol, John had never given any sign of rancour or irritation.
Frank finished his whisky and got to his feet. He asked one of the troopers to douse the fire, and then he and John went off to check the escape routes and inspect the sentries. An hour later he was lying in his sleeping bag. He hated sleeping in his boots, and they had done so now every night for the past week. He was beginning to think his feet were rotting. As he nodded off he made a mental note to carry out a foot inspection of the entire patrol at the next opportunity. At least it was dry.
It felt as if he’d just closed his eyes. John Smethwick was shaking his shoulder. “Frank, get up, something you should see.” Frank groaned, undid his sleeping bag, and rolled upright. He looked at his watch – it was two thirty. He followed John across the camp and into the field to the west. They reached the belt of trees and John led him through to the other side. The young trooper on sentry duty was crouched in the ditch at the edge of the wood, his rifle to his shoulder, pointing out across the open stretch of ground. John and Frank joined him in the ditch. The trooper pointed to the south west. The ground fell away in a gentle slope and then rose again to a ridge about seven hundred metres away, running more or less due north. Under the clear light of a half moon an extended column of riders were walking steadily north. Frank started to count. “Two hundred and fifty, at least” said John. “And pack horses – at least fifty.” Frank could see no reason to disagree.
“Get the men up and mounted. I want to move out in five minutes. Keep an eye on them” Frank said to the trooper. He and John got up out of the ditch and made their way back to the camp. John went off to give the orders to the senior troopers and sent the walkabout off to bring in the remaining sentries. He came back a few minutes later. Frank had gathered up his gear and stowed it on his horse and was preparing to mount up.
“John, I want you to send a good man back to the main column. He’s to tell Corbett I’m going to trail this column – we may be able to pick off some stragglers and bring them back, at least find out where the column is going to camp. They can’t just keep going. But it seems odd they’re moving at night.”
“Perhaps they’re running late” John said.
“Yes, that’s what’s worrying me. Things may be hotting up. We might have to head home in a hurry, with this lot on our tail.”
John came back on his horse a few minutes later and confirmed a trooper was on his way back to the main column. Frank meanwhile had briefed the rest of the patrol on his plan. Two troopers were to head immediately north, under cover of the woods to the west between them and the renegade column, to try and get ahead of the column and if possible keep them under watch from their front, assessing their most likely route. Two further troopers were to ride fast south and then west and approach the column from the rear, taking care not to blunder into any rear guard the renegade column might have set, but aiming to get as close as they could to the column. The remainder of the patrol would wait in the cover of the trees until the column was well past them to the north and then follow at a safe distance. As soon as either the troopers at the front or the rear noticed any change or halt, one of the two was to return to the patrol and report. Frank ran quickly through the plan with John and asked him what he thought.
“I can’t suggest anything else. Except maybe a screen between us and the main column. If we get cut off, or into trouble, they could at least let Corbett know.”
“Good idea – we’ll put five men between us and the main column – at the moment the renegades are only two klicks or so from the main road, which I guess they’re heading for, so our men’ll only need to be three hundred metres or so apart – enough to keep in contact with each other.”
Of the original patrol, ten men including Frank and John Smethwick now waited in the trees for the renegade column to move away to the north. After about twenty minutes the troop moved off to the north with the screen of troopers to the east keeping pace with them. They had been riding for about an hour when the trooper who had been keeping an eye on the renegade column rode up to Frank.
“They seem to be stopping sir” he said.
“Are they making camp?” Frank asked.
“Not sure, sir. They might just be having a bevvy.”
“OK trooper, go back and keep an eye and let me know if anything happens. We’ll lay up here and wait for you.”
The trooper turned his horse and walked carefully back through the screen of trees towards the renegade column.
A few minutes later a rider galloped up following the line of screening troopers to their east. Frank heard him ask one of the troopers who had just dismounted where his CO was and the trooper pointed at Frank. The rider dismounted and walked over to Frank, leading his horse.
“Lieutenant Stearman?” Frank nodded.
“Message from Colonel Corbett, sir. He says that at all costs you must make sure the enemy column does not become aware of your presence, and that if they do, you are to draw them away from the main column, if necessary, at the cost of your patrol. If you are able to take prisoners, you must make sure you are not followed back to the main column. He asks me to ask you to confirm you understand this order.” The messenger looked uncomfortable as he said this and Frank could understand why. Corbett was in effect telling Frank he was on his own and would have to take the consequences of any risks he took.
“Please tell Colonel Corbett I understand his order. If necessary I will draw off the enemy column to the west or south, away from Colonel Corbett’s column.”
“Thank you sir. Do you have anything else you would like me to tell the Colonel?”
“Just that we will do our best to get a prisoner or two for him” Frank replied.
“Yes sir. May I go sir?”
Frank nodded, and turned to John Smethwick. The messenger mounted up and galloped back the way he had come.
“Well, we’ve been told in no uncertain terms” Frank said.
“Yes” said John. “Do you think the Colonel’s running scared?” he continued, in a low voice. They were standing a little apart from the rest of the troop, out of earshot.
“I hope not” said Frank quietly. “He did seem pretty shook up when I went to see him last night, but that’s understandable – we’re only a hundred men all told, a long way from home, and now we know there are at least five hundred enemy troops somewhere in the area. If they do get wind of where our main column is I wouldn’t give much for our chances. And Corbett knows exactly why we’re here and it’s not to get hacked to pieces in some version of Custer’s Last Stand, it’s to get good intelligence back to Cambridge. In fact, I hope he’s already sent someone back with what we already know, just in case the worst happens. What we need to figure out, is how we can pick off two or three prisoners without getting our sticky fingers caught in the jampot. I don’t want to take the roundabout route back to Cambridge with two hundred renegades chasing me and only a week’s supplies to get us home.”
“No” John said grimly. “We could of course sit on our hands and let them go on their merry way.”
“D’you think?” Frank looked quizzically at his second in command, unsure whether or not he was being serious.
“No, not for a second – we’ve got to give it our best shot, but I think the men need to know we might be playing the Forlorn Hope” John said quietly “and what the consequences may be if we have to run for it.”
“Yes, you’re right. First things first, call in the screen – it’s clearly no use now. If we’re in trouble, we’re on our own. We don’t want them to lead the enemy back to Corbett. Then send someone up to the front unit and another to the rear and see what’s going on. If we’re going to pick up a prisoner or two, our best hope is to catch a sentry off guard in the dark, if they’re settling down for the night, and then sneak off. Otherwise, we’ll just have to keep trailing after them and see if we get an opportunity on the march.”
Frank walked a few metres away from the troop. John gathered them together and spoke briefly to them all and then sent three troopers off to bring in the screen and to liaise with the troopers at the front and rear of the enemy’s column. Within twenty minutes, the screening troopers and the two who had been sent to confer with the front and rear patrols had returned. They confirmed that it did indeed seem that the renegade column was bedding down for the night, and in some style. Several blazing fires had been built and a large number of tents erected and a considerable amount of singing and raucous laughter could be heard. It was quite clear the column thought they were in no danger.
“I just hope they actually post sentries” Frank said to John. “I don’t want to try sneaking into the camp if they’re just having a party – I want them sleeping like babies.” John just nodded.
It was about an hour later. Frank had found a tree that had been pushed back by the prevailing wind that made a reasonably comfortable couch, and was just about to nod off, when John came up to him.
“We’ve had word from the two troopers at the rear. They’ve spotted at least two sentries moving around the perimeter, a good fifty to a hundred metres away from the main camp.”
“Well, that would be something. Be nice if we could nab someone a bit more senior as well. Any sign of an officer keeping an eye?” Frank asked.
“They didn’t say. But if we can nab two sentries and get away quick and quiet, that’d be something for Corbett at least.” John continued “And we can’t afford to wait too long – we want at least an hour or two more of darkness to make our getaway. Now’s the perfect time, the moon has practically set, and I bet that lot have got their kit off and are all sleeping like babies, if they’re not pie eyed drunk. There won’t be many ready to start charging round after us in the dark if the alarm is raised.”
Frank had to agree. If they let this chance go, they’d have another day trailing after the column and his men would have had no sleep for twenty four hours, unlike the enemy, before they would have a second chance. And every klick they moved north would take them deeper into enemy territory and increase the risk of them being seen or caught unawares or cut off from Corbett’s column.
“OK. How many men do you think you’ll need?”
“Six max. I’ll take our six best men” John replied, giving Frank the strong sense he had been working out how to go about picking off the prisoners for the past hour.
“Good. I’ll collect everyone else, including the front patrol, and we’ll move back to the ridge where we first saw their column and wait for you there. You’d better take three spare horses to carry the prisoners” Frank said.
“Three?” queried John.
“Yes” Frank smiled at him in the gloom “I want that bloody officer”.
“Do our best” John said and turned to go and pick his team. A few minutes later he and three troopers filed out to the south leading three saddled but riderless horses.
As soon as the two troopers who had been watching the front of the enemy’s column had been retrieved, Frank ordered the patrol to mount up and they moved back the way they had come, behind the screen of trees to the west. Once they were a safe distance from the enemy camp, they began to trot and then canter down beside the trees. They reached the point where they themselves had been camping within half an hour and turned into the wood. As they came out on the other side, the moon had finally set but there was enough starlight to see their way clear to the ridge opposite where two hours before they had first seen the renegade column.
Once on the ridge, Frank detailed a trooper to take the horses back to a small depression about thirty metres behind them. He then spread his twelve troopers in a broad arc across the ridge, instructing each of them to take up a good firing position and to be ready to signal to John Smethick’s men when they were sure they had seen them. Each man had a torch. They settled down to wait.
After forty minutes Frank felt sure he heard the faint drumming of horses’ hooves. He put his ear to the ground. He got up and ran along the line – “I think they’re coming – remember, just three quick flashes if you think you see them, and be ready to give covering fire if they’re being chased.”
To the left of the line, Frank saw a torch wink on and off three times and then looking forward saw horses coming fast against the skyline. He could count nine, but it was hard to tell how many had riders. He peered behind, but could see no sign of pursuers. And at least there was no shooting.
Within minutes John and the others had come through their line. Frank ran up to John.
“What happened?” He looked up at John.
“Got ‘em” John grinned down at him. “And your officer I think. Lost one of our lads I’m afraid. Someone took a pot shot at us as we were riding off, must have been one of the other sentries I guess. Ted Marshall got it. Came clean off his horse. I think he broke his neck when he hit the ground. I’m sorry. He was a good man. Got a wife and two kids. We’d better get going, I don’t understand why we’ve not been caught up with yet, although we had a clear start, and it’s been black as pitch most of the way back, so they may just have lost our trail.”
“OK, we’re going to head south east in a wide arc” Frank said “and once we’ve got back to the North Road, if we think we’re not being followed we’ll turn north to rejoin the main column. Otherwise we just keep going south and hope we lose ‘em.”
They set off in a tight group, moving as fast as the poor light would allow. Once off the ridge and across the valley to their right the going got slower as they passed through belts of trees and thick bush. They had ridden ten kilometres south and east without sign of pursuit when the first grey light of dawn started to show on the eastern horizon and they stumbled on to the broken surface of the Great North Road. For the first time Frank had the chance to inspect their catch. The two sentries looked a sorry sight, shabbily dressed and clearly miserable. The third man was a different proposition altogether. He was smartly kitted out in polished riding boots and a long trench coat and seemed to be wearing an eighteenth century cocked hat, with a rosette of blue and gold sewn to its front. He looked angry rather than miserable. Frank gave him an ironic salute. The renegade sneered and raised his hands, tied at the wrists. Frank saw that his ankles were tied to the stirrups which in turn were loosely tied to each other under the belly of his mount. Behind him a trooper was staring at the renegade’s back intently, a pistol held loosely in his hand, his reins in the other.
John came up to him. “Where to Frank? North?”
“I think so, but we’ll get over the road and on to the other side – we’ll be a bit obvious here. And send a couple of men up front a hundred metres or so, just in case we bump into someone up ahead.” John nodded and went off to select a couple of men to go out in front.
They rode parallel to the road, about half a kilometre to the east, in open order, with each of the prisoners closely followed by a trooper with a drawn sidearm. Within an hour it was broad daylight. An hour later one of the troopers on point trotted up.
“Just spotted the main column sir” he said to Frank “about a kilometre north of us, heading this way, down the road.”
“You sure?” Frank looked at the trooper. “Do they look like they’re in a hurry?” Frank wondered if Corbett had met another enemy column.
“No, they seem quite relaxed sir.”
“Well let’s move on to the road then, nothing to lose if they’re already on it” Frank said wheeling his horse to his left and trotting up the embankment of the old road. “Oh, and you and your mate might as well ride up and report to Colonel Corbett” Frank said to the trooper.
“Very good sir – do you want us to tell him our news?”
“No, just that we’re on our way up to him, thanks” Frank said over his shoulder, as he crested the embankment and reached the metalled surface of the road. He looked over to the west, to check again for any sign of pursuers, but could see nothing. He didn’t want to meet up with Corbett trailing a party of renegades behind him.
Within ten minutes they had met up with the head of the advancing column (or should that be retreating, Frank wondered) and Frank rode back to find the Colonel. He was riding in the centre of the column with a group of four officers. Frank noticed the troopers in the column did not look particularly cheerful – he supposed they’d had a sleepless night as well.
“Ah, Stearman, good to see you” Corbett said. “Everything OK?”
“Yes, sir. We lost a man, I’m afraid, Ted Marshall. But we have three prisoners, and one looks a good catch.”
“Good, good, well done. And no sign of any pursuers?” Corbett looking strangely uncomfortable as he asked this. From the corner of his eye he noticed a look being exchanged between two of the officers behind Corbett, one raising an eyebrow at the other.
“No sir, we seem to have got clean away. We took a long route back, looping round, so if anyone was after us, I think they’d have caught up with us by now.”
“Good, excellent. Well I’ll look forward to meeting your prisoners then.” Corbett turned to his second in command, Jim Masters. “Time for breakfast, d’you think?”
“Yes sir, good idea. I think the men could use a break” Masters replied. “Shall we stop here on the road?”
“I think so, it looks safe enough to me” Corbett looked around. “Better send out some screening patrols, to be on the safe side – we don’t want to get caught napping while we’re eating.” Corbett laughed, but again Frank detected a note of uneasiness in it.
“Excuse me, sir” Frank said.
“Yes, what is it Stearman?” Corbett sounded irritated.
“Well you’ve no longer got a screen out to the west, my whole troop has come in with me and the prisoners.”
“Leave the prisoners with us and go back out then” Corbett said curtly.
“My men are all in sir. They’ve been up all night and in the saddle for most of it. They need a rest” Frank said, trying to prevent himself sounding insubordinate.
“We’ve all been up all night, man” snapped Corbett. As he said this Jim Masters leant forward in his saddle and whispered a few words to Corbett. “Oh, all right. Cancel that Stearman. Stay here with your men and have some breakfast. Jim here will sort out another screening patrol to take over from you for now.”
“Thank you, sir” Frank said, relieved, and giving Corbett a smart salute, turned and rode back towards his men at the head of the column. He found them sitting round a small camp stove, a kettle boiling and a pan of eggs frying. John came up to him as he got down from his horse.
“Everything OK, Frank?” John asked quietly.
“I think so John” Frank replied in an equally quiet voice “but Corbett seems in a very funny mood. He was just about to send us back out on patrol. Fortunately Masters seems to have sorted something out. I don’t know about you, but I’m done in. All I want to do is eat something and sleep for a week.”
“I think we all feel like that” John said “it’s been a very long night. I can’t believe Corbett said that. I’ve always thought he was a good CO.”
“Perhaps he’s finding command under fire a bit of a strain” muttered Frank.
“But he’s not been under fire dammit, we have” John said with some feeling.
“Let’s not worry about it John, no doubt we’ll hear what’s been going on soon enough” Frank said, and turned to join his men around the stove. “When will we get a coffee out of this thing?” he said to the trooper who appeared to be acting as cook.
“Nearly there sir” the trooper smiled and then the kettle started to whistle.
Once he had a coffee in his hands, Frank waited his turn for something to eat. Cooking for twenty two, including their prisoners, took a while. As he was waiting, Jim Masters walked up.
“Hello Frank. Well done. A really good night’s work. I’m sorry about the Colonel, he’s had a bit of a hard night. Got very worried about being caught by that column of yours. Two hundred and fifty I think you said? Anyway, he thought it would be sensible to withdraw under cover of night while we had the chance, and move on back up the road when we’re sure the coast is clear.” Masters was genuinely being kind and clearly appreciated what Frank’s patrol had achieved but there was something in his tone and manner that made Frank look up at him. Masters looked slightly embarrassed. Frank wondered why.
“It’s John here you should be congratulating sir – he’s the one who got the prisoners” Frank said.
“Yes, of course, well done John. I expect there might be an award in the offing – a very good night’s work. Well done all of you” and Masters looked around at the whole troop, smiling warmly. “I’d better get back to the Colonel – just wanted to make sure you were all OK. Sorry to hear about Ted, he was a good man, I’ve known him a long time. Judith will be dreadfully upset, and the children.” Masters turned and walked back up the road.
After they had eaten, they all more or less toppled over where they sat, including the prisoners, and fell asleep. Frank woke up about three hours later, stiff and cold. He stood up and stepped over several snoring bodies and walked up the road.
“Hello Frank”. It was David Stubbs, a fellow lieutenant on Frank’s admissions course, attached to Colonel Corbett’s staff. Frank greeted him warmly. They had got on well together from the start. Stubbs was walking south, so Frank turned and walked with him.
“What’s up with Corbett? He seems in an odd mood. And Masters clearly isn’t happy” Frank asked as they walked.
“Pure funk I’m afraid” said Stubbs. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice man and I like him a lot, but you could see last night, when your report came in, he just lost it. It was all we could do to persuade him not to set off full tilt for Cambridge. It was rather pathetic really, we could all see it, and he knew it, but we sort of had to keep up the pretence that everything was fine. Anyway, he insisted on what he called a tactical withdrawal, until we knew what the position was. The men are very fed up, I think they knew what was going on too, and they’ve had to spend all night walking back down this damned road for no good reason. And it’s so bad for morale, if they don’t think the boss is up to it. I mean, if he isn’t, why should they stick their necks out?”
All Frank could do was nod in agreement. In a way, Stubbs had confirmed his worst fears. But at least, on the bright side, they had three prisoners, who might give them some useful information. Frank wondered what the next few days would bring. He certainly didn’t want to battle back up north if their commander was going to turn tail at the first whiff of trouble. As Stubbs had said, it did no one’s morale any good if their leader’s heart wasn’t in the job.
“Does he key by the way?” he asked Stubbs, as he turned to walk back up the road.
Stubbs turned round. “No, I don’t think he does, actually. I mean, he sits in on keying sessions, he sort of has to, goes with the job, but I think he just sits there. Always looks a bit twitchy, I think he finds the whole thing a bit embarrassing to be honest.” David Stubbs walked off back the way he had come. Frank turned back to rejoin his sleeping men. He’d have to write a letter to Judith Marshall about her husband. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He wondered if Jim Masters might do it, he seemed to know Ted Marshall well. But it was his responsibility, he knew. He could ask Masters’ advice.
The Colonel had issued orders for the main body of the column to remain where they were and for four screening patrols to be sent out north, south, east and west. The patrols were given strict instructions not to engage with any renegades unless they were a very small party and the patrol could be absolutely certain of either capturing or killing the whole group. As soon as a larger column was spotted the patrols were to send back a rider as quickly as possible to inform the Colonel and to make absolutely certain they themselves were not spotted by the renegades.
Frank and his men were glad of the chance to rest up. Frank announced a kit inspection for that evening, as much to give his men something to do, but also to grab the chance while they had it to clean and repair their weapons and other gear, ready for whatever the Colonel decided he was going to do.
The following morning all the officers in the column were summoned to a meeting by Masters. Apart from the six officers out with the patrols, there were eighteen assembled with Masters. He led them off the road to a small clearing. There was no sign of Colonel Corbett.
Masters stood in the centre of the clearing. “OK men, I have some bad news, I’m afraid. The Colonel has been taken ill and cannot continue in command of the column. I will be taking over command of the column as of now.” Frank was sure he heard an audible sigh of relief from the assembled officers. Masters continued “And I need a volunteer to escort the Colonel and the three prisoners back to March.” He looked around the group – no one had given any sign they wanted to leave the column. “Well, unless one of the officers on patrol is prepared to go, I’ll have to appoint someone. And we’ll need at least three troopers to accompany him – please ask for volunteers from among your men when we’re done here.”
“We’ve interrogated all three prisoners and they have given us much useful information, particularly about their communications and how they are organised and how widespread they are. They appear to have come from right across the country. The column Frank Stearman’s patrol intercepted came from the Bristol area, but the prisoners have told us of units from as far away as Cornwall and Northumbria. They have a very limited number of long range radio sets which they have been using to co-ordinate the assembly of the whole force to the north of us, somewhere south of York. They also use carrier pigeons, and relay riders and they have some short range radios as well – hand held jobs which work over five to ten kilometres, depending on the terrain. Unfortunately the prisoners could not tell us what frequencies they are using for the long range radios or what if any cyphers they use, so that’s a particular priority for us now. If we can, I’d really like to capture a wireless and / or a wireless operator.”
Someone raised a hand. “Yes, what is it?” Masters asked.
“What’s your plan sir?”
“As soon as we’ve got the Colonel and the prisoners safely away, we’re going to move north” Masters replied. “I’d like to start today if we can. We’ll keep the four screening patrols out as we can’t be sure where another renegade column may be approaching from – there could easily be one on this road to the south of us. If we do come across another column and we have enough warning I’d like to set up an ambush if the numbers look right. That column from Bristol was too big for us to take on, but we may come across a smaller one. That’s our best chance of capturing a radio or an operator. So, I repeat – I would really like a volunteer now to lead the Colonel’s escort, so we can get moving without any more delay.” Masters looked around. Although it was the last thing he wanted to do, Frank was about to raise his hand when someone else beat him to it. Masters looked visibly relieved and delighted. “Good man, Stubbs. I think it’d probably be best if you pick your own troopers, but talk to the squadron commanders and see who they recommend – I don’t want you ending up with any duds. You’ve got a long way to go and you may bump into trouble.”
“OK everyone, go back and let your men know what’s happening. I’d like to be ready to move out in two hours, that should give us enough time to locate the screening patrols and tell them what’s going on” saying which Masters turned away and walked back to his tent at the side of the road.
Frank went back to his men and gave them the news. While they were packing up their gear, Stubbs and the escort passed them with Colonel Corbett and the prisoners, trotting south. Although he only caught a glimpse of the Colonel, he seemed to be having no trouble riding his horse. He gave the men a salute as he passed which they all smartly returned. Frank wondered what the Colonel’s “illness” actually was.
The column moved north at a considerably faster pace than before and by the third day the forward patrol had reached a point a few miles south of Doncaster. They sent a rider back to report to Masters that they could see what looked like the renegades’ main camp. Masters decided to go forward with the rider and have a look for himself, leaving orders for the main column to halt until he returned.
While he was away another rider came in from the patrol on the eastern flank with a report that a small column of renegades had been sighted moving north west. Masters had left Frank in temporary command of the main column until he returned. The trooper told him they estimated the enemy column was about fifty strong, moving slowly with a large number of pack animals. The patrol commander had already reconnoitred two or three suitable sites to set up an ambush about five kilometres to the north and had positioned his patrol across the line of advance of the enemy column. Frank told the trooper to go back to his commander and tell him the main column would be at the ambush site within half an hour. He assembled the other officers for a briefing.
“Right, dump everything apart from weapons and ammunition here” he said “in the trees over there would be best.” He pointed to a large copse of oaks and pine trees to the east of the road. “And then I want everyone mounted and ready to move as quickly as you can – you’ve got ten minutes.”
The column of about sixty men moved off at a gallop within a few minutes. They stayed on the road for three kilometres or so and were then intercepted by one of the troopers from the patrol who led them off on a side road running north east. After another two kilometres they came to a cross road in the middle of a dense patch of mature woodland. The patrol commander, Pat Stoddart, was standing at the junction.
“Hello Frank” Stoddart said, looking a bit surprised. Frank explained about Masters having headed north.
“What do you think of this for an ambush site? I reckon they’ll be here within an hour or so” Stoddart said pointing south east down the road.
“Well it looks perfect to me” Frank replied. “Where’s your patrol?”
“I’ve got a couple keeping tabs on the renegade column, the rest are in the trees either side of the road.”
Frank spoke to the other officers. “Right, I want two small groups to go down the road and lay up in the trees on either side about half a click south of here. They’re there to catch any of the renegades who try and run off to the south, so they’re not to take part in the ambush proper until we’re quite sure we have the whole column in the bag. Put another small group north of the cross roads in case any of them try to break through and head off to the north. Divide the rest of the column in two and put them either side of the road just south of the cross roads.”
He turned to Stoddart. “How long is the column, Pat? I gather they’ve got a lot of pack animals with them.”
“They’re pretty bunched up, fifty metres tops” Stoddart replied.
“OK, well make sure the men either side of the road cover the last hundred metres before the junction” said Frank. “That way, we should have the whole column surrounded before we open fire. And make sure our men fire up and down the road rather than across it – I don’t want us shooting each other by mistake.”
The action when it happened was remarkably shortlived. The enemy column approached slowly with the pack animals in the rear. When the lead riders were twenty metres from the junction, Frank gave the order to open fire. The pack animals effectively prevented anyone from fleeing to the south and when they panicked they tried to run both through the head of the column and back the way they had come. The small group who had been sent south of the junction were able to corral the stampeding pack horses going south. Within three minutes all the renegades were either killed, wounded or simply lying on the road. Frank ordered the column to cease fire. The troopers stepped forward on to the road and began to disarm the men lying there.
Within half an hour, the dead had been dragged into the dense woodland. In all, of the thirty men in the column, twelve had been killed, three probably would not survive their injuries, a further eight had wounds that could be treated, and the remainder were unhurt. One of them was a radio operator. His radio had been hit by several stray bullets and did not look like it could be repaired. Apart from one of the troopers who had been hit in the arm by a ricochetting bullet, the Pale column had suffered no casualties.
Frank left Pat Stoddart’s patrol to continue their screening and the main column returned the way it had come with the renegade prisoners and pack horses. As they reached the Great North Road, they met Jim Masters riding up from the south. He had returned from Doncaster to where he had left the column and had turned back to rejoin the patrol to the north when he found no sign of the column. As they rode back to where they had dumped their gear, Frank told him what had happened. Masters was of course delighted.
He had seen the renegades’ main encampment and estimated there were at least five thousand mounted men there. With the prisoners that Frank had taken, and especially the radio operator and damaged radio, Masters felt they had probably achieved as much as they could and it was time to head for home. Frank sent riders out to let the screening patrols know that the column would be turning south at first light the following day.
It took them five days to reach March in the worst weather they had experienced on the entire patrol and for the last two days they had been living on half rations. When they got back, Jim Masters told them that Colonel Corbett had been arrested and would be facing a court martial for cowardice and dereliction of duty.
* * *
When Frank had finished telling Danny and Sally about the patrol, they both wanted to know what was going to happen next. Frank told them what he knew. A defensive perimeter was being built north of Cambridge and two flying columns of two or three thousand men each were being assembled to head north and engage the main renegade force. He would almost certainly be assigned to one of the columns, as would Johnny Chisholm’s unit. It was quite likely that he and Johhny would be fighting alongside each other. Sally could not work out whether she was more or less worried by this. On balance she decided she would rather her son and brother were together and looking out for each other.
Two days later Frank returned to his unit at March and a week after that Danny and Sally heard he had been sent to join Johnny’s unit in Ely. Meanwhile, all across the Pale frantic preparations were being made to assemble troops and supplies and to complete the perimeter defences north of Cambridge. In late March, air patrols reported that the renegade army had struck their camp north of Doncaster and were moving south in three columns. Frank managed to make a quick visit and stayed the night with Danny and Sally. He told them his column would be moving out the next day to occupy a fort that had been built west of the Great North Road near Peterborough. His would probably be one of the first units in the Pale’s army to engage with the renegades.
* * *
Over the next few weeks Danny and Sally grew increasingly desperate for any sort of news of what was happening to Frank and Johnny and, for that matter, for news of the war in general. It was difficult in any case to get reports back from the front, wherever it was or if indeed there was a front at all, but added to which it seemed the Army’s commanders and intelligence staff were becoming increasingly concerned with how much the renegades seemed to know about the movements and dispositions of the Pale’s columns. Although the renegades had no aircraft and limited communications, they appeared to have a very clear idea of where and what the Pale’s forces were up to. And despite constant air patrols flying as far north as Doncaster, east to King’s Lynn and the coast round to Lowestoft, and west to Kettering and even Winchester, the Pale were almost completely in the dark as to where the renegade columns were. They moved mostly at night and were adept at laying up in woodland, heavily camouflaged, during the day. Pale intelligence suspected there were renegade spies in Cambridge, possibly within the army itself. There may have been, but in the event the explanation for the renegade’s superior intelligence was much simpler. The renegade commanders had, months before they began to assemble their forces at Doncaster, placed small units of two or three men all over their planned area of operation. Some of these cells had carrier pigeons, others radio sets. They hid out, moving only at night, observing everything that happened in their field of view. Frank’s earlier exploratory column could have been reported, and was certainly monitored as it moved north, but the observers were under strict orders not to do anything to give away their presence until the formal start of operations by the renegades. This system proved remarkably robust until the end of the war, with very few of the observer units being captured, or even noticed by the Pale forces, whose working assumption throughout was that their only problem was relative numbers – that the renegades were simply a bunch of bandits, with little or no technology or intelligence and certainly with none of the sophistication of the Pale.
* * *
It was a beautiful, mild late April spring afternoon. Danny and Sally were sitting in the garden, drinking tea. The three children were all out, Joe at school, Daisy working on her revision for university entrance at the library, and Rachel with friends.
Above the birdsong in the trees around the lawn, they heard the distinctive whirr of a flicker bike, and then the crunch of its tyres on the gravel drive. There was a shouted “Hullo, anyone in?” and Sally immediately leapt up from her deckchair.
“Danny, I think that’s Johnny” she cried over her shoulder as she started to run across the lawn, answering the cry as she ran. Danny heaved himself out of his chair and followed her. He reached the corner of the house as Sally led Johnny back from the drive. Despite the cheerful sound of his shouted Hello, Johnny looked in a dreadful state. His clothes were filthy, his face grey and drawn, his steps leaden.
“Hello, Johnny” Danny said, concerned, “you look done in. Would you like a drink? Cup of tea? Something stronger?”
Johnny looked bleakly at Danny, and at Sally. Something in his gaze made Danny’s heart turn and a hard knot of despair began to form in his gut. He knew, without Johnny having to say anything more, that whatever he had to tell them, it was not going to be good.
“What is it Johnny? What’s the matter?” Sally pleaded.
“Can we sit down? And yes, Danny, please, the strongest you’ve got.” Johnny almost stumbled across the lawn to where Danny and Sally had been sitting. Danny walked into the kitchen and got down the apple brandy – without quite knowing why he put three glasses on a tray with the bottle and took it back out into the garden. He saw Sally, her back to him, sitting on the grass, her head almost on her knees, her back and shoulders shuddering, but no sound. And then a howl, a noise he’d never heard from her, animal like in its ferocity and pain, and he knew what Johnny had come to tell them. He walked up to them and put the tray down, and knelt behind Sally and enclosed her in his arms. For a brief moment, he felt almost detached. His thinking brain knew what Johhny had told her, but he had not yet heard it for himself, and there was a brief window when he could believe it was something else, and he wanted to hold on to that moment for ever, to go on believing that it could not, would not be, that some other terrible thing had happened, but not what he knew he would have to accept, soon, had happened.
He looked up at Johnny. Johnny’s dirt stained face was streaked with tears, and he drew the back of his hand across his face to wipe them and the snot from his nose. He said nothing, just shook his head. Danny took a deep breath and started to key, at the same time opening the brandy and pouring three large tumblers full. He passed one to Johnny, who took it from him, his hand trembling.
It seemed to Danny that they sat there, like that, saying nothing, Sally sobbing, Johnny holding his glass, untouched, Danny not daring to speak or ask the question, as if, until he did, whatever the answer was, it would remain untrue until it was given. Every so often, Sally would let out a great shuddering sigh, and then she just fell to the ground, and lay sobbing, huddled up like a foetus, on the lush spring grass. Danny looked at Johnny and with a shake of his head, signalled him to come away. Johnny drained his glass and got to his feet, and the two of them walked down towards the river.
“What happened, Johnny? What’s happened to Frank?” Danny almost whispered.
“He’s dead, Danny. Three days ago, near the fort.”
“How? Were you with him?”
“We were trying to break out. All three of their columns attacked us, just before dawn. We had no idea they were there. Almost six thousand of them, and there were only a thousand of us in the fort. They got in pretty easily, we had only had sentries up on the walls, and it was just a slaughter. Frank and I and about a hundred others managed to get mounted and we tried to make a run for it over the south wall, but they’d completely surrounded us.” Johnny stopped for a moment. “We nearly made it, we just rode at them full tilt, and caught them on the hop I think. Frank was fantastic, sort of hanging back, making sure no one was left behind, and then he stopped to pick up someone whose horse had been shot, and got him up behind and started riding towards me, and a machine gun opened up, and he just somehow seemed to come apart, they both did . . . I’m sorry Danny, I can’t bear it, can’t stop seeing him coming off that horse . . .” Johnny stopped talking, started shaking, and then fell in to Danny’s arms, sobbing. Danny held him, quite unable to feel anything, to weep, just an endless grey emptiness inside him, stretching it seemed in every direction, to the end of time. Grief and utter despair.
Eventually they drew back from each other, saying nothing, and turned to walk back towards Sally. Danny knew that he could not simply cave in to this – there was Sally, and the three children, and somehow, they had to find a way forward, but, dear God, he had no idea what or where it was, or how he could lead them to it.
* * *
The next weeks and months passed, somehow. Friends did and said what they could. There was no body to bury, so no funeral, but they had a memorial service. Johnny managed to come, although only for a few hours, but enough to stand up in front of the crowded benches, and describe what had happened, how Frank had been, and how good and strong a man he was, and would have been, had he lived. Johnny was no orator, but that almost made his words more powerful, more real – he had been there, with Frank at the end, and that was more important than anything he actually said.
It was months later before Danny took any interest in what had happened in the war. All he had the heart for was holding on to Sally, and Daisy, Rachel and little Joe. The pain and grief receded eventually, as it must if life is to go on, although he often came across Sally, in the garden, weeding, or planting, or just sitting, staring into space, her shoulders bowed, he head tipped forward, as if waiting for the executioner’s axe, rocking and sobbing, very quietly. All he could do was go to her, and hold her in his arms, and sometimes cry with her. Sometimes she lashed out at him, swinging her arm at him, shouting at him to go away, to leave her alone. Then, a little later, she would come to him, and hug him, hold him, say sorry to him, knowing that if it were possible, he was hurting as much as she.
They got through it, somehow. The children were best; they missed their eldest brother, in a way that Danny and Sally could not understand, but they also knew that they still had lives to lead. They would never forget Frank, but he faded, as he had to, and they just got on with the business of their lives with that loss added to all the others, big and small, that we carry round with us. So Danny and Sally sort of fell in to line behind them and kept their different sense of loss quietly to themselves.
* * *
The war continued, and did not go well for the Pale. The complacency that had led to the catastrophic defeat at Peterborough quickly wore off, at least tactically. No one any longer assumed that because there had been no reports of enemy movement or action in the area, they were not simply out there, ready and waiting to attack. Every patrol, every blockhouse, every fort, kept itself in constant readiness for an attack at any time. But higher up the chain of command, the lessons took longer to sink in, and mistakes continued to be made that cost the Pale heavily in the spring and summer months of 2075.
On three separate occasions after Peterborough, the renegade columns successfully concentrated on much smaller groups of Pale forces. Although they did not achieve the overwhelming victory that they had at Peterborough, simply because the smaller Pale forces were at least ready for an attack, they drove the weaker Pale forces off and captured much useful materiel – weapons, ammunition, food supplies, and most importantly for the renegades, communications equipment. This they used to particular effect to monitor Pale radio traffic, further improving their ability to outmanoeuvre and pre-empt Pale attacks or defensive measures.
By late August, the Pale commanders were beginning to panic. They had lost men and materiel, of course, but far more significantly, they had lost any initiative or sense of superiority they might have had at the beginning of the war. Some argued for a purely defensive strategy – to man the barricades as it were – but the Pale was trying to defend a front that on its northern flank alone was over one hundred and fifty kilometres in extent, with fewer than ten thousand men, and fortifications only around the obvious vulnerable points, such as Cambridge itself. A single powerful renegade column, of two or three thousand mounted men, could break through at any point around the fortifications, and wreak havoc behind the supposed “front line”. The only solution was to meet, and defeat, the bulk of the renegade force at one point, in a decisive battle. That meant finding them, forcing them to congregate, and preventing them from leaving the battlefield before a conclusive result had been achieved. It also meant, potentially, leaving the greater part of the Pale effectively undefended, in order to concentrate enough forces to overcome the renegades.
By this time, Johnny Chisholm was effectively second in command of the Pale forces in the field. He had more experience of actually fighting the renegades, over many years, and had proved himself under fire on several occasions. He was happy to admit he was no Sun Tzu or von Clausewitz, but he did not take fright easily, he thought quickly and clearly under pressure, and he was no coward.
A council of war was held at Newmarket at the end of August. Johnny Chisholm, Jim Masters, Sam Black, Greg Grinder (the former renegade captured in 2053) and Jack Corbett were present, along with their ADCs and deputies. Corbett was obviously well connected, Masters thought – although he had been acquitted by the court martial held after his disastrous performance on the patrol north at the beginning of the year, Masters was surprised to see him at such an important meeting, and, as it turned out, in the chair. It made Masters uncomfortable, not least because he had persuaded Corbett to use his “illness” as a convenient excuse to send him south, with not a little amount of force, if not outright blackmail. Masters need not have worried however. Johnny had no history with Corbett, although he may have learned something about him from Frank, and he was fearless about stating his views.
“If we don’t act effectively, and quickly, these guys could be in Cambridge in a month” Johnny said. Corbett responded, not surprisingly, by arguing for a policy of attrition, determined and dogged resistance from fixed lines of defence, to hold out until the weather deteriorated and the renegades began to run low on supplies of food and forage, at which point they would have to withdraw to winter quarters.
“And then?” Johnny Chisholm barked. “Wait until next spring, when they do it all over again? And maybe not just from the north next time – if they had come at us from the south or west as well as the north this time, we wouldn’t be here now wittering about what to do next, and I have a pretty good idea that’s occurred to them too. They are not stupid, they are not ill equipped, this was not just some ‘let’s go out and bash the palefaces after a pub lunch’ exercise – they’ve been thinking and planning this for months, if not years. There are people out there who want what we’ve got, not just women and food and slaves – they want our technology, they want this place for themselves, and we can’t afford to give them the time to think how to get it. Our best chance is to attack them now, hard. Take a risk, and kick them off the football field, permanently.” What was interesting about this speech (for Johnny Chisholm, it was a peroration) was that as he spoke, his voice grew calmer, deeper, more confident; Johnny knew he was right, and everyone else, apart from Corbett, felt that too.
Corbett then did the worst thing he could have done. He grew pompous, stood on his office as chairman, and attempted to sneer Johnny down. He patronised him, told him he didn’t understand the strategic situation, the long term plans of the Pale’s higher command (although as several at the council wondered, were not they the “High Command” in fact, if not in name). Corbett said the rebels would be weaker after a winter out in the wilds, less able to mount an offensive as powerful as they had this year, and that next year, the Pale would have better and more powerful weapons with which to fight them. For a moment it seemed as if he might have persuaded the rest of the council. Then Masters stood up.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong” Jim said, coldly. “As you were wrong in March, this year. We know the renegades are better informed, better equipped, more organised, and possibly better resourced, not just than we thought they were, but even than we are. They appear to control the whole country, apart from the Welsh hills, the Lake District and the Scottish Highlands. They have had apparently little difficulty in assembling and co-coordinating a force of several thousands, supplying them throughout the summer, and defeating us on every occasion that we’ve given them the chance of a fight. If we are to defeat them, for good, we have to do it now. We have to take the risk. If we don’t, they will surely crush us, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Chisholm is right – they will crush us this year, this summer or autumn. I don’t think they’re interested in playing war games with us for the next few years – they’re in a hurry.” Masters sat down. Corbett looked uncomfortable, but clearly did not think he’d yet lost the battle. He turned to the rest of the council.
“Well gentlemen, what do you think?” He looked around at the others, appearing to somehow inflate himself as he did so. “Personally, I think it would be rash in the extreme, to risk all on a crazy assault on what is clearly a well organised force, which if it fails, would result in disaster, not just for us, but for everyone in the Pale. I’m sure you agree, much better we keep our powder dry, wear them down, Russian style, let winter take its toll, and finish them off next year, in an orderly and thoroughly prepared fashion. Shall we call for a show of hands?” Corbett looked around him, confident again.
Surprisingly, Greg Grinder stuck up his hand. He was not normally a great one for committees and meetings, and certainly not for speaking up as a rule. “May I say something?”
“Of course Greg” said Corbett, although there was something in his tone that suggested he was just letting Grinder speak for form’s sake, that there was nothing Grinder was likely to say that would contribute to the discussion either way.
“Before we decide” Greg responded “I think we should key, y’know, properly, for a good half hour” he hesitated “then, well that’s what this is about really, in the end, isn’t it? Us keying, them just killing and stealing. So if we’re going to risk everything like Jim and Johnny say we should, or hold on and hope for something better, like you say, well I think chances are we’ll make a better decision, if we just shut up and think about it for a half hour . . .” Greg tailed off. He didn’t look sheepish or defensive, a bit nervous perhaps for bringing in something so un-military as keying to a council of war. He sort of glared around the table.
“Well, Greg, I’m not sure that’s appropriate just now” Corbett murmured “I think we just need to get on and make a decision . . . don’t you?” Corbett looked around the table. For a moment, no one said anything. Then Masters said “I think we should take a vote on that, first, sir”.
“Oh, very well. Show of hands then” said Corbett, still looking confident. “All those in favour of half an hour’s peace and quiet, please raise your hands.” Four hands were raised. Corbett looked confused, and then recovered himself. “Very good, excellent suggestion, Greg – right, let’s get started. Jim, would you do the honours?” Corbett turned to Masters.
Jim Masters nodded to Corbett and reached below his chair and brought up a small gong. He sat quite still for a few seconds, and then started intoning what sounded like a Buddhist chant. Corbett looked uncomfortable. Everyone else had closed their eyes. After what seemed like several minutes to Johnny Chisholm, Masters finished the chant and struck the gong three times. The group keyed. Although everyone had their eyes closed, it was hard to ignore the irritated shuffling and shifting from the head of the table. Corbett was clearly not comfortable keying, or perhaps even sitting still for half an hour.
As soon as Jim Corbett struck the gong to signal the end of the session, and before he had had a chance to say anything further, assuming he wanted to, Corbett burst out. “Right, good, glad that’s sorted out – just a few words, if you don’t mind before we vote on the plan.”
“I’m afraid we do mind, sir” said Masters, firmly. “We were keying after discussion, and before we made a decision. No further discussion is appropriate, or fair. We’d like to vote, now, sir.” Somehow, the tone of Masters’ voice did not allow for any further debate.
“Oh, very well, if you insist” Corbett said, peevishly. “Please raise your hands if you are in favour of this reckless proposal to attack the renegades in force before the winter sets in.” At least he got the motion straight, Masters and Chisholm thought, even if he couldn’t resist a last minute dig about its ‘recklessness’.
Four hands shot straight up. Corbett seemed to crumple. “Oh, right, well, motion carried then. I’d better get back to HQ and let them know what you think.” Corbett pushed back his chair and started to get up to leave. Before he could Masters stood up. “I think we’ll come with you, if you don’t mind, sir – just so they’re quite clear what we’ve decided. Don’t want you to have to go into the lions’ den unsupported, after all.” If it were possible, Corbett looked even more defeated than when he had taken the vote. Masters wondered why Corbett was so worried – after all it was not as if he was going to be in the front line. Whatever he had done to get himself off the hook after the court martial, no one in the Pale would consider him for another active service command.
“Look, Masters, if that’s how you want to do it, would you mind going without me?” Corbett almost whined. “I’m a bit tired you see, not been sleeping well the last few days, touch of summer ‘flu I expect – and you’re all agreed so you don’t need me to come along and spoil the party, really . . .”
“Of course, sir. Except . . .” Masters hesitated.
“Except what?” Corbett said testily.
“Well, you’re the only one who expressed a contrary view, sir; they might want to hear it from your own lips, y’know, why you think a cautious, softly, softly approach is better than an all out attack now.”
“I doubt it, Masters – last time I was in a fight, I flunked it, as you well know. They know it too – I’d be more convincing arguing for your position . . . I’m not a coward you know . . . that’s why they acquitted me . . . I just can’t stand the thought of losing, y’know, losing everything. Not just my life, that’s not worth much, but losing all we’ve built up here . . . we’re not playing roulette or poker here, this is real life. If you’re wrong, we’ll all have to pay for your mistake.” Corbett straightened up, and shrugged, and turned to leave. Masters made as if to follow him, and then thought better of it.
The remaining members of the council went as a body to see the high command and tell them of their decision. Curiously, Masters found himself presenting and defending Corbett’s view more forcefully and clearly than he had felt about it at their meeting, and indeed, the others at one point in his presentation, looked positively bemused. Johnny however could see what Masters was saying. What they were proposing was a risk, there was no guarantee that it would work, and a lot of what Corbett had said made sense. Maybe the rebels would be weaker next year, the Pale better prepared, more capable. In the end, it was only your guts that told you which way to jump, and Johnny was quite sure what his innards were telling him now. That the longer they waited, the more sure would be their defeat. The evil hour could not be put off any longer.
They had expected the high command to thank them politely for their recommendation and ask them to leave. Rather to their surprise, after asking a few questions, mostly fielded by Johnny Chisholm and Jim Masters, although Greg Grinder stepped in on a couple of occasions to give his insider’s view of how the renegades might be thinking, the committee asked them to wait outside for a few minutes. When they were summoned back in, the chairman told them their plan had been accepted, and asked them to put it into force immediately. As they were about to leave, one of the committee members raised his hand and the Chairman nodded to him.
“My name’s Andrew Brown” the short, balding, middle aged man on the left of the table said. “I’ve known Jack Corbett for many years. I know he doesn’t key, which is maybe why he finds some of this tougher than you do, but he’s a good man, a decent man. He’s not a coward. Just maybe not a gambler – he can see what we have to lose here. What I want to say is” he hesitated, and looked at each of the war council in turn “is don’t dismiss him. In fact, if I were you, I’d keep him on board . . . there’s something called ‘groupthink’ that you need to be aware of; I think Jack would be a good counter to that, and he’ll be all the better, if you’re generous enough to keep him on board. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you and your plan, but we need everyone on board if it’s going to work.” Brown sat down.
“Thank you, Mr Brown” Jim Masters said “that sounds like very wise advice.”
They left the room.
The next morning Masters summoned the senior officers in the army to a strategy briefing at Marshalls, the old airfield north of Cambridge. He sat in front of a large diagrammatic map of the area north of Cambridge up to Peterborough, marked with the renegades’ dispositions as best they were known. When everyone was seated he called them to order, and they began a half hour keying session.
At the end of the session, Masters stood up to one side of the map.
“Good morning, everyone. I guess you all know why we are here.” Masters looked around the room, part of a converted aircraft hangar. There were about fifty in the room, mostly men. “This is the situation, as best we know. The enemy have their main base, for logistics, comms, staff and so on here” and he pointed with a baton on the map to the small town of Ramsey, near Peterborough. “The bulk of their forces appear to be concentrated here” and he pointed to an area circled in red around Huntingdon. “We think they are concentrating for a final attack somewhere along this line, between Bourne in the west and Newmarket in the east. This is our plan.” Masters and the war council had debated how much to tell this relatively large group, as they were still not sure if the renegades had spies within the Pale, but in the end they concluded it made more sense that all the senior officers were fully in the picture. If they could not trust their own commanders they were likely to be doomed in any case.
“We are calling everyone up, that is, regardless of age, as long they can still stay on a horse and shoot straight.” To date older reservists like Danny had not been asked to do more than occasional sentry duty, or provide escorts for supply columns behind the front line. “We think we should be able to raise twelve to fifteen thousand troops in total, in the next few days. They will be divided into three corps. Division 1 will be made up of the best troops we’ve got, under the command of Johnny Chisholm here.” Masters pointed at Johnny, but everyone in the room knew him, so it was hardly necessary. “The remainder will be split into Divisions 2 and 3. Division 1 is to move immediately, by night only, up to here” and he pointed to an area between Huntingdon and Ramsey. “I cannot emphasise the importance of them not being detected by the renegades until they are in position, and the other two divisions are also. Divisions 2 and 3 will also move under cover of darkness well to the west to reach this area” and Masters pointed to an area south west of Peterborough, a few kilometres west of Division 1’s position. “They will almost certainly take longer to reach their allocated position, and it is even more important that they are not detected until they have done so. This may mean Division 1 having to wait for a few days, in hiding, until 2 and 3 have made it. I will go through with you later what our backup plan is if any of the three corps are discovered by the renegades.”
Masters turned back to the map. “Right the plan in essence is simple. When all three corps are in position, Division 1 will break cover, very obviously and move as if to attack the renegades’ base at Ramsey. The intention is to force the main body of the renegades’ forces to turn back to attack Division 1 and defend their base. For that reason Division 1 has to be obviously strong enough to force the entire renegade army to attack them, yet apparently weak enough to represent another relatively cheap victory for the renegades. From their point of view it should, or rather must, look like a win-win – they protect their base, and they get rid of a third or more of our army. They cannot afford to lose their base, especially with winter coming, but they mustn’t be tempted to imagine they can defeat Division 1 with only part of their own forces.”
Masters looked around the room. “I should have said, before I began, if anyone has any questions, please keep them until the end of the briefing. I will also want your feedback on what we propose – any helpful suggestions or weaknesses you see in the plan will be more than welcome.”
“Now comes the hard part.” He smiled, and there were a few chuckles around the room. “And this is the reason Division 1 has to contain the best troops we have. It will for a start be smaller than the other two corps, small enough that is to look like relatively easy meat for the renegades. It will have to allow the renegades to catch up with it, and then make a fighting retreat back towards Ramsey, drawing the renegades after it, but it cannot allow itself to be surrounded or outflanked, or simply defeated. We’ll have to judge the best moment for the next phase as Division 1 moves back, but at some point Divisions 2 and 3 will move to the flanks and rear of the renegades’ army to cut it off and surround it. At that point we go in for the kill with everything we’ve got. By the way, we will have flutters equipped with missiles to help us.” There was an audible gasp from the room; hitherto the Pale’s aircraft had only been used for aerial reconnaissance and generally kept well out of any potential danger – they were too precious to risk losing any of them unnecessarily.
“That’s it, in a nutshell.” Masters looked around. “Right, questions please, or comments.”
Several hands were raised. Masters pointed at one on the left of the room.
“What about the Pale, Jim? What forces will be left to protect it while the three corps are moving into position?” asked a woman colonel.
“Effectively” Jim replied grimly “none. A scratch force of a few hundred whose main job will be to try and look a lot stronger and more numerous than in fact they’ll be. We’ll be making use of dummies and fake vehicles and guns as much as we can. We have to try and give the enemy the impression that everything’s going on as usual.”
Another arm was raised and Masters nodded to the questioner. “What if the renegades are already planning their own attack on the Pale, and make it while we’re moving up to Peterborough?”
“Good question, Philip” Masters responded. “That really comes under the heading of our backup planning if one or more of our divisions is detected. Basically, we break cover immediately and move in on the renegades as fast as we can to do what we are intending to do up here at Ramsey. It will amount to the same thing, that all our forces meet all their forces in open battle and we slug it out. The difference of course is we will not have the advantage of surprise or tactical position, and they may do a lot of damage in the Pale before we can catch up with them.”
Masters pointed to another questioner. “How soon are we going to move out?”
“Precisely because of the risk the renegades may jump the gun, within a matter of days – no more than a week from today. I appreciate it’s a tall order, but I don’t think we have any choice, we have to act now, and act decisively.” There was a murmur of agreement from round the room.
The discussion and questions continued for another hour or so, dealing with logistical issues, the precise order of battle and command structures. Masters would command Division 2 and Greg Grinder, the former renegade, Division 3.
When the meeting had come to a natural end, Masters stood and said a final few words. “I want as little as possible to be said about this plan to anyone else, until all three divisions are in the field and under way. If you say anything to your officers and troops, it should be to imply that only your division is going anywhere, that we are preparing for an attack by the enemy, hence the full mobilisation, not hard to believe given where the enemy is at the moment, and that you have not yet been told what your division’s role in the defence is to be or where it is going to be sent.” Masters looked slowly round the room. “I think that’s it. Are you all happy?” There was a mutter of agreement. “Good, let’s get on with it then. We have a great deal to do, and very little time.” Masters turned and nodded to Johnny Chisholm and Greg Grinder, indicating that they should follow him. Everyone else collected their briefing papers and orders, which told them in detail which divisions they were in and what units had been allocated to them.
Later that same day, Danny received a call at work. He was ordered to join his unit immediately with his horse, all his kit and weapons, and with enough food to last him for a week. He apologised to his staff, but most of them had received the same instructions and they left in a body a few minutes later. Danny returned straight home, hoping Sally was there. He did not want to leave her without at least saying goodbye.
He stepped through the front door and called out for Sally. She came running in from the garden where she had been picking the last of the runner beans.
“What is it Danny? Why’re you home so early?” She looked at him fearfully, suspecting the worst. They knew how many troops the Pale had lost over the summer, and that it was only a matter of time before Danny was called up for full time duty.
“I’ve got to go, Sal. I’ve been ordered to join my unit at Bourne. I’ve got to get ready, get all my kit packed. Can you get together enough food for me for a week?” Sally nodded, sobbing silently, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Danny, none of the children are here. Can you wait at least to say goodbye to them before you go?”
“I’ll try, Sal, I really will. Can you get a message to them, get them to come home now?”
“I think so. I know where Joe and Rachel are. Not sure where Daisy is though.”
“All right, well do that first, do your best, and then get some food sorted out for me. Stuff that will keep, and is not too bulky. Don’t forget tea and sugar, please.” He smiled at her, and she smiled wanly back at him, and then turned to go and make telephone calls.
Most of Danny’s kit was already packed, ready for when he was next asked to do a duty. He saddled his horse, a bay mare called Belle, and started loading his pack horse with saddlebags and packs. He was still in the stable when Sally ran across the yard.
“They’ll all be here very soon.” Sally gasped, a little out of breath. “I managed to find Daisy through a friend of hers. I’ll go and sort out your food now; have you a bag for me?” Danny gave her a pair of canvas saddle bags. “I hope they’re big enough” she said.
“Have to be I’m afraid – can’t carry any more stuff with all my kit. Do your best love, I know you will.”
Within half an hour the three children had returned to the house. Danny hugged and kissed them all, and told them they didn’t need to worry about him. “I’m much too old to fight” he laughed “they’ll just give me guard duty or something, so I’ll be fine. Anyway Uncle Johnny’ll look after me.” He held Sally to him for a long, long time. He knew what she must be going through, still grieving for Frank, and now facing the possibility that she might lose Danny as well. He whispered in her ear. “Look after these three, you’re all they’ve got till I get back, and don’t worry, love, I am coming back, I can just feel it.” He felt her shuddering sobs against his chest. He stood back from her, his hands on her arms, and grinned, and she managed a smile through her tears. “Just don’t do anything silly, Danny – you’re not twenty any more. And come home safe to me, please.”
Danny gave her a last hug and turned to mount Belle. The pack horse was tied to his saddle bow with a lead rein. He gave Belle an encouraging kick, turned in the saddle to give his little family a last wave, and trotted down the short drive and turned west along the old Trumpington road.
He reached his unit’s camp with an hour or so of daylight to spare, which was just as well. He would have liked to describe what he saw as organised chaos, but there was precious little organisation about it. He reported to his unit commander, Rashid Abdullah, who greeted him warmly – they were old friends and had been together in the unit for several years.
By nightfall, he had found himself a berth in a six man tent, unpacked what he needed of his kit, fed and watered his horses and was about to decide what of the rations Sally had given him he would have for his supper, when Johnson popped his head round the tent flap and said “CO wants us all assembled for a briefing, right now. And he’s organised a hot meal, God only knows how.” Danny picked up a notebook and followed Johnson to the big mess tent. The whole unit was assembled, sitting on benches laid beside trestle tables. The unit cook was standing over a camping stove, stirring a stew of some kind. Rashid was standing at the head of the tables, beside the cook.
The unit was thirty strong, mostly men of around Danny’s age, with half a dozen younger women. The women were all single. Two of them Danny knew were partners. Women with children were exempted from the reserve, unless they had very specific skills the army could not do without. They had all been together as a unit, with the exception of one of the women who had only joined them a few months before, for several years, and knew each other well. Mostly they got on together and several were good friends of Danny and Sally’s.
Rashid raised his hand in a calming gesture. “Well done everyone, and thanks for getting here so quickly. As you can see, we are not alone” and he waved his arm around vaguely. Danny had passed several hundred tents on the way to his own unit. “We’re all being assembled for a big operation, not quite sure what as yet. We’re being put into a division, we’ll be about five to six thousand strong, I think. Our CO is Greg Grinder – you know him, don’t you Danny?” Rashid looked at Danny.
Danny nodded. “I was with the unit that captured him in ’53 – he’s a tough customer, but a good commander, from what I’ve heard from my brother in law.”
“Well that’s good to hear” Rashid continued. “Right, this is what I’ve been told. We’ve got a few days, a week max, to get ready for a major operation. We’re going somewhere, but they won’t tell us where. Say they don’t know themselves yet, but we’ll be away for at least a week, maybe two. Basically the next few days are just getting us organised into columns, meeting our commanders, getting all the stores collected and packed up, ammunition distributed, pack animals assembled. Has everyone got food for a week?” Rashid looked round. One the women shook her head. “I’m sorry Rashid, I was completely out of food when I got the call, and there was nowhere I could get any more at such short notice. I’ve got a bit, just what was in my cupboard, but nothing like a week’s worth.”
“Don’t worry, Julia” Rashed reassured her “we’ve got enough spare rations for you in the unit store. We knew some people would be caught on the hop. Come to me in the morning and I’ll sort something out for you. And has everyone got their field first aid kits?” Everyone nodded. “Good, good. We’re going to need them I think. OK, cook, are you ready to dish up?” The cook nodded. “OK, everyone – let’s eat. And I suggest an early bed for all of us – they’re going to keep us awfully busy the next few days. Breakfast here at seven thirty?” Rashid looked at the cook, who nodded again. “And everyone on parade at eight thirty.” Rashid went and sat down, and a more or less orderly queue formed up in front of the cook and his stove.
The next four days were a blur. Hundreds more men and women came in to the camp. Everyone was briefed on the Division’s order of battle and where their unit fitted in. The Division was a self contained fighting unit, with specialist units of mortars, machine guns, field artillery, explosives, field hospitals, stores, communications and the commander’s headquarters staff. It was divided into regiments, each about eight hundred strong, which could if need be operate on their own with specialist units attached to them. Each regiment was commanded by a colonel and lieutenant colonel, all of whom were full time officers in the Pale army.
At the end of the fourth day, they were all summoned to be addressed by their general, Greg Grinder. Fortunately the late August weather had remained, warm, dry and sunny, which was as well because there was certainly no building large enough to accommodate them all. They were formed up by regiment in a large field, where a rudimentary public address system had been set up. Greg Grinder stood on a raised dais in front of them with several of his staff officers sitting behind him. Danny recognised one of them, an attractive woman in her forties, from his university days.
After making sure that everyone could hear him clearly, the general started to speak. He had a steady calm voice, with an accent Danny found hard to place – it sounded northern.
“Well done everyone. You’ve done magnificently. We had allowed ourselves a week and we all expected it was going to take at least that long” Grinder turned and nodded to his staff officers “as it is you’ve done it with three days to spare, which I take as a good sign for the success of our mission. We are leaving tomorrow, as soon as it gets dark. We’ll be moving by night for at least three or four days, under conditions of absolute silence. It is vital we get to our final position without being spotted by the renegades. We will be lying up under cover during the day. No fires I’m afraid. And we will definitely be seeing action if all goes as planned, within a week at most. It will almost certainly be tough, and we must expect casualties, maybe heavy casualties, but I am confident that you are more than capable of completing our mission successfully. I wish you all the best of luck.” Grinder sat down, to a ripple of applause.
Some of the staff officers with Grinder got up in turn to talk in more detail about the order of march, the arrangements for lay ups during the day, and what to do if enemy units were encountered on the march. After an hour the division was dismissed and the regiments returned to their individual billets.
The talk that evening over supper in Danny’s unit was excited and noisy. There was an air of expectancy, and almost of relief, at knowing they were going to be doing something, even though they still had no idea where they were heading. Danny assumed north. He wondered what the rest of the Pale’s army was doing, and where Johnny Chisholm was. He and Sally had not heard from him for several weeks.
The next day was a fury of inspections, packing and loading horses and drawing extra supplies from the central commissariat. The only wheeled transport were the gun carriages for the field artillery which were pulled by teams of six horses. Everything else had to be broken down and packed carefully on the hundreds of mules and pack horses. Their biggest problem were the heavy machine guns, which had to be dismantled and loaded on the animals in such a way that they could be reassembled and brought into action within minutes. By six that evening everyone was ready and they sat down to eat a hot meal before darkness fell and they could move off. Each regiment commander had been given a map reference for the next day’s lay up and a detailed route guide to follow. As Danny found out later, all along their route two and three man teams had been dropped by flutters who had established observation points to the left and right of the division’s planned track – they were equipped with radio sets and their job was to warn the advancing column if any enemy units were on their route, and in what numbers. In the event only on the third night was a renegade column spotted some kilometres ahead of them, moving south east, presumably towards the renegades’ area of concentration around Huntingdon. Word was passed back to halt the march, to give the renegade column time to cross the division’s planned route and clear safely out of its way.
Danny had only a rough idea how far they had travelled. They had been moving more or less north for three nights, but his geography outside the Pale, especially in this direction, was sketchy to put it generously. Rashid had a map, but kept it close to his chest. He apologised to Danny, but explained that the less everyone knew the better. That way, if anyone fell into renegade hands they wouldn’t be able to give anything away about the Division’s intended route or final destination.
At the beginning of the march on the fourth night they were warned even more emphatically about silence on the march. They were now deep within enemy held territory and very close to the renegades’ main supply base (although still no one was told where they were). Grinder expected the division to reach their final lay up position before dawn the next day.
The next day Danny was dozing in the warm sunshine. He suddenly heard what sounded like artillery fire coming from some way off to the south east. As he sat up he saw a flight of twenty or more flutters flying south of them to the east at about five hundred metres altitude, which surprised him, as he knew the flutters generally flew as high as possible to avoid being seen or shot down. He looked at his watch. It was just after midday. He kept looking at the flutters. As they started to become mere dots they began to climb quite steeply and spread out and then he saw streaks of smoke shoot out from beneath their wings. Several seconds later he heard a series of loud explosions.
About an hour later, Rashid told them all to assemble at their colonel’s bivouac.
The regiment had packed themselves as close to the colonel as they could. He was a tall, slim man, a little younger than Danny, called Harry Rolfe.
“Can everyone hear me?” he said, raising his voice. After four days and nights of near total silence it was a shock to hear it being broken. Everyone apparently could. “Right, well, as you know, we have arrived. We are now about ten kilometres from the enemy’s main base at Ramsey, near Peterborough. As far as we can tell, the enemy does not know we are here – they think we’re in the Pale, manning the barricades. About five kilometres to our south is another division commanded by Jim Masters, also undetected by the enemy. And that noise you can hear to the south east of us is a third division commanded by Johnny Chisholm.” Danny gave an involuntary whistle of surprise – he knew Johnny was quite senior in the Pale army, but that made him second in line after Jim Masters, along with Greg Grinder.
“Chisholm’s division is now heavily engaged with the main renegade force – we estimate between six and eight thousand men. Those flutters some of you may have seen are firing missiles into the enemy forces. Chisholm’s field artillery is also firing – you’ve probably heard the noise of his and the enemy’s guns as well. I’ll make no bones about it, Chisholm’s division is having a very hard time of it and they are taking a lot of casualties. However that is all part of the plan, and so far it has gone like clockwork. Chisholm is making what looks to the renegades like a fighting retreat back north to their base at Ramsey. He is in fact leading them into what we intend is a trap. Our division and Masters’ division are very shortly going to move round into position on the enemy’s flanks and rear, at which point we’re going to slam the door on him so hard he won't know what has hit him. If our plan succeeds, and I’m confident it will, the greater part of the renegade forces will be killed or captured. Masters’ division has already started to move off – they have a distance to travel as they need to get round behind the enemy to the south east of him. We will move out to the enemy’s south west flank so that both divisions are in place at the same time. Obviously it remains essential that the renegades don’t get wind of us or what we’re up to until the last possible moment – we don’t want them slipping out before we’ve shut the damned door. If we do come across any enemy units while we’re moving into position it’s vital that we kill or capture them if we think they’ve seen us. The observer teams who’ve been monitoring our line of march are no longer in a position to help us, although there are some flutter patrols keeping an eye out for us but they may be too high to spot small groups of the enemy. To that end three of our regiments are being positioned to our front and flanks to act as a screen and to cut off any enemy units who may be trying to get away from our main column. We have been ordered to provide a screen on the division’s right flank. I want you to be ready to move out in an hour. All heavy or unnecessary gear will be left here. That includes the machine gun and mortar platoons and all our pack animals. Make sure all your gear is safely stowed on the horses and mules before we leave – they will stay with the main column until we are almost in position, when they will be left at a base depot. The field hospital will be set up there as well. I have briefed your unit commanders on the location of the base and they will tell you all how to find your way to it if you need to. Right, you better get going – we leave at one forty five.”
As they got up to go, Danny was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of exhaustion, a desperate need to lie down and sleep. He realised he had hardly slept since they had left Bourne. He had found it difficult to do more than doze during their day time layups and the long night marches were made doubly stressful and exhausting by the need to keep absolute silence and by having to move in the dark. He found some water at his bivouac and splashed his face vigorously with it. He wished he had some sort of wake up pill, or a strong drink, and wondered what sort of state everyone else was in.
The remainder of the division was also getting ready to move out, carefully separating out those elements which would be left at the base, to avoid any delay once they reached it. It would also enable them to go straight in to action if they had to, before they had reached the location for the base. The division would only start to move once the three screening regiments were in position.
In the event they reached the location for the base camp without any trouble. They waited until five o’clock before they got confirmation that Master’s division was in place. The order came down from Grinder’s staff to be ready to move out in battle formation in ten minutes. They had about five kilometres to cover before they should start encountering the renegades’ left flank and rear. Although under severe pressure, Chisholm’s division was still in good order and ready to stand and fight as soon as Masters and Grinder reached their start lines.
The next four hours were a desperate fight to try and contain the renegades and complete the encirclement before darkness fell. Danny’s regiment was on the extreme right flank of the division, which was spread over a front of nearly fifteen kilometres. Their colonel was in almost constant radio contact with Grinder’s headquarters in the centre of the division and with the colonel of the regiment on Masters’ left flank, with which they needed to link up.
Flutters armed with missiles made almost continuous sorties to prevent the renegades slipping through the gaps between the divisions while the divisions’ field artillery poured shell after shell into the renegades’ front, maintaining a relentless pressure on them to keep falling back. As darkness fell Danny saw about half a kilometre to his left what must be the troopers from Masters’ flanking regiment. He gave a loud shout to Rashid. Enemy troops to their front had dug themselves in behind a low hedge and ditch about a kilometre ahead of them and were pouring fire into both his regiment and that of Masters’ division. Even through the waves of adrenaline Danny could feel the almost palpable tension around him as they moved forward, the desperation to close the circle and complete the entrapment. The renegades to their front were now being shelled from both Masters’ and Grinders’ field artillery and heavy machine gun units. Finally, when it was almost too dark to see anything but the flashes from the muzzles of the enemy guns a last squadron of flutters came in and delivered a salvo of forty missiles smack on target. It was enough. The renegades broke from their position and mounted up and set off at a gallop to their rear. Within minutes the two regiments had met and moved up to take over the renegades’ abandoned position. Although the battle was hardly over, for the first time that day, Danny felt the tension leave him. He just hoped the other two gaps had also been closed.
While they lay up in the ditch, Rashid came round. Of the thirty in the unit, five had been killed and six more sufficiently seriously wounded to have been taken back to the field hospital at the division’s base camp. Danny was too exhausted even to grieve for his dead friends. He just wondered how severe the rest of the division’s casualties had been. At two thirds of their original strength, and dog tired after their four day march, Danny wondered what sort of a fight they could put up if the renegades decided to make a counter attack, or attempted to break out. And what state was Johnny Chisholm and his division in, who had been fighting on their own against the full weight of the enemy army for nearly the whole day?
Rashid posted sentries and told the rest of them to try and get some sleep, but to be ready for action immediately they heard a shot or got the order. Danny more or less keeled over where he was sitting and passed out.
It felt as if he’d only just fallen asleep when he was being shaken gently by the shoulder. He groaned and opened his eyes. Julia was kneeling beside him. “Sorry Danny, it’s your turn for sentry duty” she said in a low voice. Danny struggled to sit up. “How long have I got on duty?” he asked. “Two hours. It’ll be light by then” Julia replied. Danny looked at his watch. It was three thirty. The sky was clear and there was a half moon hanging high in the sky. At least he’d be able to see something, he thought, if he could just stay awake.
Julia reached into her pack. “Here, have one of these” she said, offering him a small bottle of pills. “What are they?” Danny asked. “Amphetamine I think, they’ve done the trick for me although I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep now”. She smiled ruefully. “How many?” he asked.
“Oh a couple should be plenty – they seem quite strong.”
“Where’d you get ‘em?”
“Rashid brought them round when he posted the first sentries. Just as well. I don’t think any of us would have been able to stay awake if he hadn’t.”
Danny swallowed the two small pills with water from his canteen, and took the bottle from Julia. “Hope you sleep” he said as he got to his feet and picked up his rifle. He walked forward to a small copse of trees about ten metres in front of the ditch and made himself as comfortable as he could just inside the front of the copse, looking out at where he assumed the renegades would approach from. After a few minutes he felt a buzzy, nervous rush, not unpleasant, and a warmth in his gut as the amphetamine kicked in. He suddenly felt confident that whatever else happened, he wasn’t going to fall asleep. He was more worried by hallucinations or paranoia brought on by the drug and his exhaustion. He started keying, although his mind was racing and he found it difficult to stay with the key. But it seemed to help.
He must have been having some sort of waking day dream, when the dawn chorus seemed to explode all around him. It was all the more astonishing and wonderful after the noise and tumult of the battle the evening before. To the east he could see the sky lightening, soft low clouds lit pink and orange by the sun that still lay below the horizon. He wondered what the day would bring. He was filled with an unexpected serenity, almost euphoria. He supposed it was the effect of the amphetamine he’d taken. He looked at his watch. It was quarter past five.
A few minutes later, Rashid came up to him.
“Morning Danny, how’re you feeling?”
“Good thanks. These pills are a great invention. Could have done with them sooner really.”
“Yeah, I know, but I didn’t have many, and I wanted to make sure I had enough of them when they were really needed. Anyway, they’re not a great idea for too long. Start to make you go a bit mad if you keep taking them day after day. Will you go and get Johnson? It’s his turn next. And you never know, you might get a bit more sleep.” Rashid grinned at him. Danny thought he seemed remarkably cheerful, given that he appeared to have been awake all night.
“Have you had any sleep at all?” he asked.
“Oh yes, I’ve just been setting my alarm every two hours. And I haven’t taken any of those” Rashid said, pointing at the pill bottle in Danny’s hand.
Danny walked back to where Johnson was sleeping while Rashid kept watch. He gently shook Johnson awake and offered him the bottle of pills. Johnson looked at him questioningly, and Danny explained what they were. Johnson struggled to his feet and stumbled off to the copse to take over the watch.
Danny lay down on the gentle slope of the ditch, watching the sky continue to lighten. To his surprise, he suddenly felt sleepy, and within a few seconds he was snoring softly.
He was woken by Johnson. It was seven thirty. The sun already felt warm on his upturned face.
“What’s happening?” he asked, looking up at Johnson, blinking in the bright sunshine.
“Breakfast, I hope” said Johnson, grinning. “Those pills are good news aren’t they? Made me feel quite high. Anyway, nothing to report, no sign of any movement over there” he said, nodding towards the enemy positions.
The words were barely out his mouth when a barrage of shells screamed over their heads.
“Bloody hell” Johnny grunted, throwing himself down into the bottom of the ditch. Another round of shell fire came over, landing distinctly closer to their position than the first. “Looks like they’re ranging in on us” Johnson muttered. Danny crawled up to the lip of the ditch and looked forward, but could see nothing. Rashid came running along the lip of the ditch, seemingly oblivious to what a target he made, and then ducked down beside them.
“Just been talking to the colonel. Looks like they’re making an attempt to break out to the north. Poor old Chisholm’s lot are getting a pasting again apparently. Colonel thinks this shellfire’s just trying to keep us pinned down here. Anyway, we’re to get ready to move forward in half an hour. We’re going to tighten the noose and feed reinforcements forward to beef up Chisholm’s division.”
It was clear the renegades had realised they had been led into a trap. But they also realised that Chisholm’s division had been under continuous attack for much longer than the rest of the Pale’s army, and he was the only thing between them and their base at Ramsey. It made perfect sense for the renegades to try and break out on that side of the encirclement. Danny only wondered why they had waited all night. He assumed the renegades were in as bad a shape as they were, and needed the night to recover and prepare their attack.
Soon after, several waves of flutters flew over and started attacking the northern front of the renegade army. Then they were ordered forward. Desultory shellfire had continued but the regiment had received no direct hits although some of their horses had been injured by a shell and had to be shot.
They moved forward at walking pace. Occasionally they came under rifle fire, and mid morning they came up to a wood on a small rise which was being fiercely defended by several hundred renegades. They took cover as best they could. Rashid came down the line.
“They’re surrounded. The colonel says we’ll wait them out for a bit. They must know they’ve no chance of escape and our artillery is going to start shelling them to buggery in a minute. Just keep your heads down.” He continued down the line, talking to each of the unit in turn.
By mid-afternoon the encirclement had tightened sufficiently for Chisholm’s division to be withdrawn from the front line. They had suffered heavy casualties, exacerbated by the fact that they had been unable to set up more than simple dressing stations while fighting their retreat, so many of the more severely wounded had simply had to be left where they fell. Danny asked Rashid if he had any news of Johnny Chisholm, but Rashid hadn’t heard anything.
* * *
At sunset the renegades requested a truce. They wished to send a delegation out to negotiate the terms of a surrender.