At the Edge of the Game (23 page)

Two days after
the loss of the Cylinder to the Shapes, the stars themselves began to fall,
ripping the firmament, blasting country, gashing earth. Deep, black craters
pock the desert and the cities.

A refugee party
stops by the hut. Their leader – a man called Ammatas – asks if we have water. I
draw some from the well for him and his women and children sitting motionless
in their cart, drawn by a thin-ribbed ox. From Jerusalem they have come, their
home now a smoking ruin in a charred wasteland. He has already lost an uncle
and a brother during the family’s hazardous traverse of Dublin Near City’s
southern outskirts. He says that they aim to reach the Pillars, gateway to the
Western Ocean, where they shall seek means to cross the sea and find possible
safety on the other side. He eyes my force weapon, says that we would be
welcome to join his group. We accept his invitation without hesitation

So we walk the
ancient road that runs along the two-thousand mile length of the African Wall. Aurochs
and other beasts sometimes charge past us, singly and in groups, running from
the grass fires to the south. Greater stampedes are triggered whenever a star
impacts close enough for us to feel the shockwave. The foot of the African
Wall, so very far below, has become littered with the decaying carcasses of
creatures caught up in the panic. 

Everywhere we
see the same scene of disaster – destroyed crops, befouled rivers, devastated
towns, wide-eyed locals. They are always incredulous when we tell them of the
release of the Shapes into the human world. These people know only vaguely of
the war in the Cylinder, certainly are little aware of the spectral nature of
humanity’s enemy. The Shapes have not pushed this far west yet, but soon enough
the uneasy villagers will become acquainted with their wrath.

The battle is
inevitable. There is, in the end, no escaping from it. One way or another, the
enemy must be faced. All else must be set aside until that moment has come and
gone, everything that constitutes life. There are only warriors now. When the
fighting ends, the human beings who once stood here may re-emerge, or they may
not. Those who survive will inherit all.

My precious
blanket, dragged away by clumsy stumbling feet. Ruined my shallow sleep, left
me awake and cold in my smelly clothes.

Please let me go
back to where I was. It wasn’t a good dream, but I don’t want to open my eyes. God,
did I really sleep at all? Jaw aches with tension of tiredness. Legs sore with
straining for comfortable position. The foul taste in my mouth makes me feel
sick. Little wonder Helen won’t come near me. Got to find some toothpaste
somewhere.

More feet. A
heavy boot skids off my skull.

‘Come on,
George.’ Helen. She’s tugging at my arm, making me get up.

‘What’s going
on?’

‘Planes.’

‘What?’

She’s not
crazy. Everyone’s piling through the antechamber doors to see. I can hear myself
now that accumulation of sonic energy that heralds the arrival of prop-driven
aircraft.

Thick, greenish
cloud canopy obscures all. The squadron’s mighty vibration may shake cloud
spherules into full-fledged rain. The day feels ripe for it, spreading down
granite, pooling in softening ice, washing frost from windows. Swiss-cheese
snow textures. The Suir may thus be replenished. That’s what happened before,
what washed us here, coughed us up on this river rock. Perhaps now it will pick
us up like soggy fallen leaves and, in the style of a sewer, carry us all the
way to the Atlantic.

Three planes
follow the line of the river, transporters that would drop supplies on beset
African populations. Iron birds, release your nutritious pellets on our Irish
mound.

Down the
slippery Friary steps, rushing past the red-brick house whose damaged front
door still hangs half-open. Round the corner, in time to see the first crates
tumble out of the cargo hold. White chutes float towards the frozen Suir. We
descend a slipway as the planes bank a long, lazy loop back from whence they
came.

‘Men only!’
Heathshade shouts. ‘My men only! Women stay back.’

No one pays him
any notice. Great.

The crates break
open on impact, release their bounteous payloads. Grey-skinned frenzied people
fall to their ragged knees and tear at wrappings. Into cankerous mouths go
powdered milk, grain sugar, dehydrated soup.

Helen and I
claim a crate of our own. We use our coats for sacks. Got to establish some
sort of a hoard, gain independence from the church groups, maybe use that
red-brick house as a new base.

The planes are
coming back, have circled round for a second run. Powerful engines roil those
strange green clouds. Amazing, this - my hypothesis was right. A light
sprinkling of rain reaches us with the second batch of crates.

And just after
that, those Unity IRA bastards start shooting.

Warburton takes
a bullet in the head and, as in slapstick, falls right over. Starving people abandon
their newly acquired food piles and run away. I try to cover Helen with my own
body. The crate is no good for protection. A bullet whips through it. Splinters
dig into my face. I pull her to her feet and we make a run for it like everyone
else.

Heathshade and
his men fire back, and in the resultant crossfire more fall. Though not us.
Thank God, not us.

We duck around
the quayside corner and make it back to the refuge of the church.

Where tons of
prized foodstuffs lately fell from the sky, the swollen Suir is resurgent. No
longer is there a solid ice floor to walk on. Black water strains through the
Old Bridge arches, pounds the ancient stonework. The sky is still green, even
in this pre-dawn twilight. The sharp cold has departed, replaced by an unwholesome
dampness, a sick vileness that besets in a way dry cold never does. There’s no
food left. None at all. Time for desperate measures, and measures don’t come
any more desperate than following human train wreck Marcus Heathshade into
battle.

A trichotomous
plan was agreed yesterday, and Heathshade declared that he would undertake the
most hazardous of those diverse prongs himself.

He left at six
o’clock this morning. I suppose it constitutes leading by example. The St
Nicholas group was briefed on its mission last night and sent away suitably
armed. A man called O’Daly was given command of the men on this side of the
river. He was no replacement for Heathshade, and he knew it. No attempt was
made by him to embolden the men at 06:30, as they trudged away to meet their
fate.

No such worries
for me. I have different concerns. Helen grips my arm as though she expects
that at any moment my manly instinct to join the tribal war will win out. No
fear of that, anyway. I am a worthless, cowardly bastard, undeserving of food,
shelter or human society.

But I have some
unwilling experience of what it’s like to be in the line of fire, and my desire
to experience it again is weak indeed. Some subsection of my brain is working
hard to come up with a trick of logic that might prove to everyone’s
satisfaction that this is not my fight anyway, that I’m a neutral, or that my
priority must understandably be the needs of my woman. I suspect that there’s
more merit in the latter thread than in the former. I’ve partaken of their food
and shelter, after all. Now I refuse to repay them. But it’s not my fault -
it’s her idea that I stay here.

My posting as
lone, unarmed ‘guard’ of the churches is a joke, a non-job devised by him in
one of his more inspired moments of malice. There would be more dignity in
being an out-and-out malingerer. That would be a badge of perverse courage.

On schedule the
fighting begins. Gunfire and shouting are heard above the patter of the rain
and the ambient rush of the flood. Some of the women find that they can’t bear
to sit while their men-folk fight, and run down to the corner of Friary Heights
to look across the river.

‘I’m going too,’
I tell Helen.

Perceiving that
she must allow me this much, she acquiesces. ‘No further than the corner, okay?’

From this side
of the Old Bridge one can see the Bridge Street barricade afire and, beyond it,
the West Gate in a similar state. A Molotov cocktail draws a bright arc and
whooshes flame all over an IRA man. That’s O’Daly’s men at work. Heathshade
will be pleased. Hopefully the St Nicholas men are doing the same at the Cook
Lane and Church Street barricades.

Heathshade
crossed the river armed with nothing but a knife, but no doubt was cheered by
the kiss he received from his lady. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw
Helen stiffen at the sight of that. Jealousy? Or hardwired womanly pragmatism?
Maybe it’s best not knowing.

His planned
route was mapped out at the candlelit council of war. First along Strand Lane,
then up Jones Lane, ending at a blocked archway according to scouts. Somewhere
around there he climbs a wall and drops into the back garden of one of those
old houses. He chooses his moment to break into the house, which with any luck is
empty. Thus he breaches the perimeter of the Main Street stockade. His purpose
is to find weapons of the sort that can do real damage, and bring them back
across the river for Phase 3 of the campaign. The frontal attack is only a
diversion. Lives will be lost, and all in aid of giving Heathshade cover. They
really do have that much faith in him. Then again, it’s either do this, or
probably die anyway.

The Molotov
cocktails have all been thrown, and the attack has broken down into desultory
gunfire. A few shotguns are a poor match for massed machine guns, but the men
are hanging in there, keeping the IRA occupied. I find that I am edging across
the bridge, using the indented walls for cover.

I spot
Heathshade hurrying down the quayside, hunched under a heavy load. My chance to
do my bit. I scramble the length of the bridge, but when I reach the corner I
see that Heathshade has been caught. An IRA man has him at gunpoint.

I make a few
dangerous yards up Bridge Street and take a sharp right through a narrow
alleyway, right around to where I can sneak up on Heathshade’s captor. I’m sure
Heathshade sees me, but he keeps his eyes steady on the IRA man. I take a big,
heavy rock in my hand and edge closer, until I can hear them talk.

‘British Army?
You’re joking.’

‘No joke.’

‘What are you
doing in my country?’

‘Air crash.’

‘What’s your
name?’

‘Heathshade. Marcus
Heathshade. Lieutenant.’

‘Lieutenant?’ The
man laughed. ‘My friend, you may be a soldier, but an officer you are not.’

‘I’m a
lieutenant.’

‘Not even NCO.’

‘Well, you’re
not even a soldier, mate.’

‘I’m soldier
enough for you, Englishman. My name is Darach Glandore, revolutionary field
commander. I have fifteen well-trained fighters under my command. Dont tell me
I’m not a soldier. I’m the best kind of soldier there is, inspired by love of
country.’

‘I love my
country too.’

‘Stationed up
north?’

‘Maybe.’

‘We shoot
members of the occupying Crown forces.’

I swing the
rock, mash Glandore’s skull. An untidy damped pulse of crushed bone registers
in the gristle of my two arms. Heathshade finishes the job with a rifle butt, smashing
down once, again, again until no possibility of life remains.

‘Pick those up,’
he says to me, pointing at the pile of weapons. I do what he says.

We head back to
Bridge Street, in through a door in the alleyway, up a narrow, creaking stairs
in a room that smells of boiled carrots.

‘Everything
ready?’

‘Everything’s
ready, Marcus.’

O’Daly’s bald
scalp is blotched pink with the excitement of it all.

‘Okay. We wait.’

 There are still
sporadic attacks on the West Gate and Cook Lane barricades, mainly carried out
by the men of St Nicholas, as hungry for revenge as they are for food. Fiery
bombs fly.

But, Heathshade
tells us, the paramilitaries are conserving ammo now. There’s less firing,
right enough.

The
unprepossessing individuals in this room are more uncomfortable in the quiet.
They hold their captured machine guns uncertainly. Discarded on the floor are
the ineffective shotguns, airguns, even a crossbow. I want to take one of
these, to be part of it.

But no. A glance
from Heathshade re-confirms my outcast status.

Minutes pass,
and not a sound is heard from the direction of the barricade. Then – something.
Heathshade alerts the men.

‘Almost time,
lads. Keep it together now.’

The Unity IRA
contingent climbs over the Bridge Street barricade. We can just about see them
from where we are.

‘You all know
what to do. Follow my lead.’

The IRA men pass
by our position. Heathshade butts through the weak downflowing glass, starts
spraying bullets. The others do likewise. Dust and bits of ceiling and wall are
falling. The coarse wooden floorboards underfoot vibrate. Will this decrepit
house collapse with the noise of so much unleashed materiel?