The Blurt of Richard Davies

Chapter Eleven

The Crises - Part Five. 

Already there had been nervous undercurrents stirring. Something wasn't right; things can't have been going as well as we'd been led to believe for Our Boys fighting for the right of our fellow Britons to remain in the Union. It all should've been dealt with by now: There must be something going on that weren't being told about... Then the brilliant flash which was visible from across much of the Fenlands starkly illuminated the whole shaky edifice of propaganda and outright lies for what they really were, and the last few flimsy ties binding the government and its people together finally snapped.

There was no way this event could be denied; or those in power escape from the accusation they had deliberately misled the people about the gravity of the situation. And no way to disguise the fact the state had proved utterly incompetent in its most fundamental duty of defending the people it was supposed to serve. As its last shreds of legitimacy were stripped away by the distant thunder of the blast wave the government of the United Kingdom descended into panic.

Despite the attempts to jam its transmissions and destroy its facilities, Rèidio Alba triumphantly announced the explosion of one of the many nuclear weapons it claimed the scessionists had access to. It warned unless Westminster announced a ceasefire within two hours and a total withdrawal of all armed forces from Alban territory within a day, further strikes would be launched, and this time cities would be targeted. The inhabitants of Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Liverpool, Cardiff, and London were warned to evacuate while they still had time.

Those who learned of the threat took it to heart, dropped everything, and fled for their lives. The government tried to forestall the chaos that a mass panic was bound to provoke, but they hadn't a hope of stopping hundreds of thousands of people from stampeding away from the potential target zones by any means. Unprecedented and unpublicised, the internet and mobile networks were shut down in a vain attempt to prevent news of the Alban ultimatum from becoming more widely publicised. Those not in the know thought their connection problems were just a result of local overdemand, rather than a deliberate policy decision. The Raidió Teilifís Éireann long wave service, which had boosted its signal to broadcast accurate and impartial reports of the war to the many Irish nationals living in the UK, was jammed with a roar of static. They tried changing frequencies but the jamming followed them. All public transport services leaving the threatened cities were shut down, and major road junctions were blocked by the army with light tanks.

Still the mass flight spread and intensified. On secondary roads cars and buses were commandeered; even trains were hijacked as well, but they didn't get any further than the next signal set against them before the passengers used the emergency override on the doors and disembarked whether they were at a station or a busy junction. Risking electrocution or being hit by another train out in the countryside was better than being near Ground Zero if the Bomb fell.

The army were ordered to maintain the cordons thrown up around the major cities by any means. Control of the population had to be maintained whatever the cost. The troops opened fire on the crowds of would-be escapees; first over their heads, and then directly at them. Scores of people were killed but there were many more who avoided getting shot and kept on coming. The soldiers soon ran out of ammunition, yet the desperate people kept pushing toward them; an unstoppable surge of panic. In the end the forces resorted to bayonetting or clubbing the fearful crush with their empty weapons but were eventually overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers, and according to some reports torn limb from limb by the enraged mob. The military vehicles were moved aside and the breakout from the threatened areas continued unchecked.

Some of those fleeing for their lives by any way out they could find fell victim to a new breed of instant highwayman, while others - proving there were two sides to human nature - give lifts, aid, and shelter to the refugees. A few local authorities acting in ignorance or open defiance of the central government 'stay put' directives set up Rest Centres for the displaced. The leisure centres or budget hotels situated in the run down retail parks of towns far from the Alban target list soon became overcrowded and their supplies ran out.