Interrupted Journey

Chapter 6 - Can't

As spring turned to summer, the number of starving refugees roaming the countryside started to increase. At first we talked to some of them. We learnt, for example, that the red-sleeves - they called themselves 'The Axis' - had completed their takeover of Amberford and that some former members of the town council were running Barnfort with the support of what remained of the local police.

We were fortunate that the river provided a first line of defence, conveniently funneling anyone trying to attack us across the bridge. Though, earlier on, a few had tried either to ford the river or use the bridge much lower down to come round the back of us, by this time, almost everyone trying to attack us was too weak and desperate for such sophisticated maneuvers.

Another day, another double shift. The number of vagrants meant we had to keep more guards on duty. The farm was suffering as a result but security had to come first. It was late morning and I was on observation in the main bunker with Mike. It had been hot and sunny for days and I was starting to worry that the river level might drop so much that it ceased to provide an effective barrier when they arrived: a young couple, they couldn't have been much more than eighteen. They were thin, bedraggled and utterly hopeless.

The two paused at the sign at the end of the bridge and talked quietly to each other for a short time.

"Please," the girl said, "we need help. You've got to help us?"

"There's nothing for you here," Mike said gruffly. "We haven't got enough to feed ourselves. You have to go on."

"We can't go on," she said, clearly beyond tears. "We've nowhere to go."

"You can't come in,' Mike repeated automatically. "This conversation is now closed."

He took my shotgun and gave me the rifle. He racked it; the loud noise frequently had the effect of discouraging our unwanted visitors.

"You have the male," he said tersely.

"I have the male," I confirmed.

The two spoke briefly again and then the boy took a couple of paces onto the bridge. Without a thought, I took the shot - centre mass. He collapsed, unmoving.

The girl stumbled back a few paces.

"I have the female," I said automatically. I had the rifle - the superior weapon.

"You have the female," Mike confirmed.

As I looked at the girl through the rifle scope, I could see her face and body were splattered with blood and worse. In her emaciated state, it was easy to see that she was pregnant.

With a courage borne of desperation, she started to walk towards her friend's corpse. I prepared to take the shot.

But a couple of yards before she reached the bridge, she collapsed. She lay there, unmoving, for the rest of our watch.

+++

That afternoon, I was almost glad that I had assigned myself the dull monotony of firewood duty. The piles of logs that we had chopped down in the spring and left to dry had to be split into sections that could be used in the fire and stove.

It was a straightforward task that required only a little brain activity. As I swung the heavy, two handed axe, it gave me the chance to think about what was happening and what it meant. The image of that young, blood-splattered girl kept running through my mind.

As I continued to swing the axe, the sky darkened and there was a threat of thunder in the air. I was still stripped to the waist and chopping when Alice sent my girls to tell me that it would soon be time for tea.

As the three of us tidied up together - stacking the split firewood against the barn wall then cleaning and re-sharpening the axe - I realised that I had to talk to Susan.

+++

It was quite late that evening when I eventually managed to find some quiet time with her. "I can't do this," I told her. "I just can't. It's tearing me up inside and I'm turning into a monster. Today I had a pregnant, eighteen year old girl in my sights. I was going to take the shot."

Susan thought about this for a long time. There were tears in her eyes.

"I know it's tearing you up," she said at last. "I don't think I could love you if it wasn't. But you know the numbers better than I do; we just cannot feed anyone else. If we let more people in, more of us are going to die."

She led me upstairs and quietly opened the door to Mam's old room which was now a nest for all the younger girls; even Rachel had taken to sleeping there when she wasn't on duty. We looked down together at our sleeping angels on their mattress on the floor. "I hate myself for having to do this to you but I have to remind you of three promises you made," she said gently. "Your wedding vow to Mary, your promise to look after Emily and your wedding vow to me. You didn't know it at the time but, in each of those, you promised that you would stand on that bridge and keep the rest of the world out."

She closed the door gently. "I will understand if you fail, really I will. But I ask one thing of you. If the time comes when you can't do it anymore - you can't face shooting one more vagrant or we're simply overrun - then I want you to keep three bullets."

I stared at her in disbelief.

"I know you're all in hell down there... keeping the rest of the world out... but it's nothing like the hell of being outside and trying to get in."

She took both my hands and looked me in the face. "And that, my love, is the only alternative... the only alternative."

Then she took me by the hand and led me across to our own room.