Interrupted Journey

Chapter 5 - Little Annie

As they moved back into the familiar world of the towpath, their spirits lifted. They were getting into the swing of this night walking and were making solid progress. The night was mostly clear and bright and when a brief shower came through they caught up with the 'Stoke-Newington Militia' who invited the Moore family to join them in the shelter of some heavy trees where they were resting . They chatted for a few minutes and found out that the militia were heading for North Wales but they were moving more slowly than they hoped and were worried that they would run out of food.

Still feeling good, they resumed their walk. It was getting light when a young man stepped off one of the canal boats about ten yards in front of them. Andrew immediately sensed something was not right. "Stay here," he hissed to the boys.

"Hello, nice to meet you," the man said with a grin that was worse than malevolent. It looked insane. He was holding a shotgun and his index finger was playing alarmingly round the trigger.

"Hello," Andrew answered cautiously but the man ignored him. He was staring at Elizabeth.

"Let's have something to eat," the man said, "then we can have some fun."

"Maybe we should have that fun first!" Elizabeth said with a welcoming smile. Andrew could see that the smile wasn't genuine but he doubted whether anyone else could. She took off her cloak, then stepped to the side of the path to take off her rucksack.

When she started to run her hands through her hair and stretch provocatively, Andrew could see what she was doing. The man's attention was well and truly grabbed and the barrel of the shotgun drifted away from Andrew who started easing his staff into position.

Suddenly there was the shaft of an arrow poking out of the man's eye. He remained standing for several seconds before falling sideways, his body remained rigid until he hit the ground.

"Mum, that was gross!" David said, walking up with the bow still in his hands, a fresh arrow already notched. His cool demeanour was destroyed, however, when he turned and started being violently sick into the bushes.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" she said to no one in particular as she hurried over to put an arm round his shoulders.

Andrew walked over and retrieved the shotgun and, paling slightly, checked the body. There was surprisingly little blood but he was very dead. In the man's pockets he found half a dozen shells and a good quality hunting knife.

There was no putting it off. Steeling himself, he took a firm grip on the arrow and pulled it out. It came out fairly easily but the noise it made as the aluminium grated against bone almost had Andrew in the bushes next to David.

He rinsed it in the canal then carried it across to David. "Yours, I presume," he said, passing it to him.

"Don't make me laugh, dad," David said, obviously still in some discomfort after being sick.

"Seriously, son, thank you for that. You probably just saved your mother and me. He didn't look awfully sane to me."

"But why was he being allowed to wander round if he's mad?" David asked.

"There are quite a few people out there who are only able to function reasonably with antipsychotic drugs," Elizabeth explained. "when the drugs run out..."

"I thought you might be able to use this," he said, handing David the knife. "And you should have this." He handed the shotgun to Elizabeth. They had been clay pigeon shooting several times and she never let him forget that she was the much better shot.

A few minutes later, they resumed their walk.

A day later, they found themselves a campsite in the field just above the towpath. It was quite warm and they did not bother to hang up the tarp.

They had made good distance that night even though they stopped early to avoid reaching a large town as it was becoming light. Elizabeth even insisted that they all had a quick wash and that they change their socks and underwear.

They had heard several gunshots during the day and, as they were getting ready to leave in the evening, there was the sound of an extended gun battle from the town ahead. This caused great concern so they were particularly careful as they prepared to move out, checking for noisy packs and even using the face paints they had brought to take the shine off their faces.

They waited until it was fully dark before pressing on into town.

At first they didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. The canal cut in towards the centre of town past high class houses with attractive gardens. As they drew closer to the centre, high-walled, industrial buildings lined the banks and it became quite dark.

The towpath led them up towards a narrow stone bridge and beyond it, they could hear the splash of water that generally indicated that they were approaching a lock. Suddenly Elizabeth, who was leading, tripped over something. There was a strange noise as she suppressed a scream.

Andrew moved quietly up and was quite shaken too. By the faint moonlight, he could see a child's body on the towpath. He looked around and saw that there were more bodies scattered around. With growing horror, he recognised that they were members of the Stoke-Newington militia.

They stared for several seconds but were shaken back to alertness by a whispered cry for help from down in the canal.

"Who is it? "Andrew asked, looking in the direction of the voice.

"The name's Reginald," he answered as Andrew cautiously approached. He recognised him as being a chatty, older guy from the Militia. He was lying half in the water and managing, with some difficulty, to hold a small girl on a narrow ledge so she was not in the water.

Andrew lifted the little girl off the ledge and gave her to Martin to look after as the others hauled the man out of the canal. Though he managed to stay silent, he was obviously in great pain.

"What happened? "Andrew asked.

"We were ambushed," Reginald answered. "I took one in the gut."

Andrew started to uncover his stomach but Reginald told him not to bother. "If there were hospitals and medivac and stuff," he said, "I might stand a chance, but like this... it's just a waste of time."

"What do you want us to do then?" Elizabeth asked though she already had an idea.

"Would you take care of our Annie? She's no chance if you don't."

Andrew looked towards the little girl. Her mouth was wide open, as if screaming though she was not making a sound, and there was a look of pure terror in her eyes. "Is she alright?" he asked.

"It's her silent crying thing," Reginald answered.

Andrew thought that it looked like a form of paediatric combat stress but he didn't think it would help to say so.

"Where are her parents?" he asked.

Reginald nodded towards the bodies down the towpath.

Andrew and Elizabeth looked across at the little girl who had latched onto Martin and didn't look as if she ever intended to let him go. Martin was kneeling down and holding her slightly awkwardly. Then they looked at each other and nodded to Reginald. This was not a request you could refuse.

"You need to get moving but there's some stuff on the ledge down there." He nodded towards the canal.

David retrieved an incredibly heavy rucksack, a smaller strangely shaped backpack and a rifle. Meanwhile, Reginald extracted a couple of magazines from the waistcoat he was wearing.

"Take 'em," he said. "They're no use to me anymore! Now let me give Annie a kiss then get gone."

As Andrew hefted the enormously heavy pack onto his back, he saw that Martin had put Annie onto his shoulders. He wasn't sure how that would work in the long term but Reginald was right. They had to get away from the site of the ambush as soon as possible.

Twenty minutes later, as they were trudging out of the town back into open countryside, Andrew realised that they had not even asked what little Annie's full name was.