My Name is Stab

Chapter Seventeen - Unexpected Visitors

As winter turned to spring, we started a desperate battle to make sure that we wouldn't starve the next winter.

We did have a sort of ancient tractor that sort of worked so we could avoid doing some of the more back-breaking work by hand. Having seen the thing plough a whole field in a single morning, I can tell you that I would not want to try to do that with a spade.

But there was still plenty to do.

We were usually up before dawn. Nearly all the candles had run out months before, of course, and we were saving the few we had left for real emergencies. So we were fumbling around trying to get dressed and eat our breakfast by the flickering light of a fire.

You learnt to be very careful about where you left your clothes the night before. I kept mine in my sleeping bag with me. It meant they were toasty warm in the morning.

We would be out, working in the greenhouse or fields at first light. There were stones to be cleared, seeds to be planted and transplanted and there was the never ending joy of weeding.

But by now everybody knew what starving felt like so there was no reluctance whatsoever to do the work. There wasn't even that much grumbling.

Well, not out loud, anyway.

Then there was helping with the baby lambs being born. That was sort of lovely. It was a bit messy and sometimes meant staying up all night but somehow it helped to take the edge off the horribleness of Susan's dead baby.

Guard duty was, by contrast, something in the way of light relief. We had hardly seen anybody for weeks and the few people we did see were only interested in trading or exchanging gossip. I guess anybody who had managed to live this long had developed the survival instinct required to not ignore a sign which says, 'set foot on the bridge and you die'.

I was up in the fields with Susan - another fun packed session of back breaking weeding - when she suddenly straightened up and quietly, but distinctly, said, "What the fuck?"

I should make it clear that Susan never swore.

Like, never.

Patching up one of the guys hands that he had managed to mince whilst engaged in the never-ending task of babying that tractor - not a word out of place.

Watching whilst a difficult old lady consciously and deliberately starves herself to death - calm resolution and tender support.

Even premature childbirth, for goodness sake - shouts, screams and plenty of tears but no bad language.

Of course we all looked in the direction she was looking and were met by the sight of a helicopter flying low along the main valley, down past the bridge.

A helicopter!

A HELICOPTER!

I don't think we would have been any more shocked by Martians landing.

We all looked at each other for a moment then there was a sort of general shrug. There was absolutely nothing we could do about it. It might as well be the Martians. So we might as well get on with our weeding.

About twenty minutes later, all thoughts of weeding or even helicopters were dragged from our minds by the continuous ringing of alarm bells in every house up and down our little valley: 'General Quarters!' All militia to the bridge; everyone else to shelter.

Don't think, just move. You can think when you're in motion.

I ran - a controlled run, not a sprint - you had to be in a fit state to fight when you got there - out of the field and down the lane towards the bridge. I was vaguely aware of other people around me but they didn't matter.

About three quarters of the way down the track, I was met by Sampson coming the other way. But I was so intent on getting to the bridge that he had to actually stand in my way to stop me. Even in my super-concentrated state, I was not going to run into Sampson. It would be like running into a tree.

"Relax!" he said with a huge grin once he had grabbed my attention. "Everything's good. Open your mouth and shut your eyes!"

I did so without a moment's hesitation. Sampson didn't do practical jokes. He just didn't have that sort of mind.

He popped a piece of chocolate in my mouth!

Chocolate!

CHOCOLATE!

"The Australian army has arrived," he told me.

I couldn't help myself. Theodora burst out and gave him an enormous hug. He lifted me up and spun me round then put me down. Then he carried on up the road to share his news and his chocolate with the rest of the militia who were coming down after me.

Not knowing what else to do, I strolled on down to the bridge.

We milled around down there for a while, I'd been given a bar of chocolate all of my own so I was in no particular hurry to go anywhere else.

Apparently Australia and New Zealand had survived pretty much unscathed but the earth's magnetic field had flipped directions and they had been having problems with their planes. That's why they took so long to get here.

They decided to set up camp in our lower field - apparently we had things pretty good, here in our little valley.

If this is pretty good, I'd hate to think what the other places were like.

Then again, I probably knew.

Within a very few minutes they had a mess tent set up and tea was being churned out on an industrial scale. I had never really been that into tea before 'the day' - cappuccino was always my drink - but now it provided a sense of alien normality so I drank it with relish.

And with biscuits, of course!

Susan was just doing the rounds of her younger charges - which included me - warning us not to overdo it with the biscuits, when James and Ron appeared at the entrance to the tent. Instantly all the soldiers jumped to their feet and stood to attention.

We looked at Ron.

Then we looked at him again.

Then James put into words what we were all thinking. His exact words were, "Oh crap!"

I could have wet myself laughing. It turns out that Ron isn't Ron after all. Turns out he's one of the minor princes... about eighth in line to the throne or something... except that all the others were dead and so he was king now.

Which is why the Australian army was so keen to find him.

I knew I recognised him as soon as I saw him but I didn't even start to think that it might be him. You wouldn't, would you? I had walked past a photograph of the Royal Family which included him every day on my way into and out of school.

At least everyone else was as much in the dark as me - even Susan who I thought was his mother. I'd have been royally pissed off if I'd been the only one not to know.

Royally!

Susan gave Phil the sort of look that told him that they were going to enjoy an extended conversation about this later.