Blood Roots: Are the roots strong enough to save the pandemic survivors? (12 page)

Jane sat down beside her father and ran her fingers through his salt-caked hair. ‘It’s going to take a good day to get everything organised for the trek down to Haver.’

He nodded. ‘It’ll take at least a day. I want to leave
AWOL
shipshape, in case we have to sail again in a hurry.’

‘Surely we won’t have to?’

‘Unlikely, but as my Granny always said — be prepared.’

‘Is this where you and Steven anchored last time?’

‘We anchored a little further downstream, just below Gillingham.’

‘And you expected
Archangel
to be there again?’

‘I thought she might be. Steven must have found somewhere more suitable.’ He tried to disguise the concern in his voice.

The rest of the crew wandered down from the foredeck.

‘Can we go ashore, Uncle Mark?’ Gina asked.

‘I’m sorry — there’s a lot of work to do.’

Disappointment spread across the children’s faces.

‘Go on, take the children ashore,’ Jane said gently. ‘The rest of us can start the preparations for the journey.’

‘Don’t forget …’ he began.

‘Dad, we can manage. You’ve done your bit — getting us here safely.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘The rest of us can take the load now.’

Fergus helped Mark lower the dinghy and Tommy, Gina and Audrey tumbled in, chattering excitedly. Tommy told the younger children with great authority that the grey vessels in the dock behind them were American naval ships and the big sailing ship was HMS
Victory.

Mark smiled to himself. He’d visited Chatham’s historic dockyard before. The naval ships were British, the old square rigger the restored HMS
Gannet.
He knew the
Gannet
particularly well — he’d spent three years on her as a boy cadet when she’d been called Training Ship
Mercury
. Suddenly he not only wanted to show the excited young children around, he wanted to show his grandchildren too.

‘Why don’t you two come?’ he said, looking towards Zach and Nicole. ‘And if you’d like to look after Chelsea and Marion, they can come as well.’

The toddlers jumped up and down excitedly. Nicole and Jane both smiled. It was the first civil word Mark had spoken to his granddaughter since he’d learnt she was pregnant.

The children spent three awestruck hours wandering around the historic dockyard. They clambered through the cigar-like interior of a submarine as Tommy told them how the torpedoes were fired, and Mark gently and unobtrusively corrected him. They walked through the ancient rope works, quarter of a mile long, where the hawsers for HMS
Victory
had once been made. But the highlight was the tour of the HMS
Gannet
, where they listened, enthralled, as Mark showed them where he had slept in a hammock, let them turn the old pump which the cadets operated when they were being punished, and showed them the photographs on the bulkhead in the forepeak portraying life aboard the training ship. It was a lost world. At the end of the afternoon the children clambered aboard
AWOL
all talking at once, vying with one another to tell their parents all the sights they had seen.

Good progress was made with preparations for the party’s departure from
AWOL
but even so it took the whole of the following day to complete the task. A search party headed ashore and located a flatbed trailer in the dockyard workshops. The tyres were perished, but the rims were sturdy. They lashed a pipe across the towing bar so that two people, standing on either side of the bar, could hold the trailer level, and attached ropes to each side so the rest of the party could pull.

Early on the third morning they ferried ashore personal belongings, the little food remaining in
AWOL
’s stores, Roger’s doctor’s bag, containing a supply of selected medicines and drugs, and some tools and ropes, and lashed them on the trailer.

‘What you taking that for?’ Fergus challenged Rick when he noticed the American packing his automatic weapon. ‘You wasted all your bullets, remember?’

Rick shrugged. ‘I’ll get more somewhere.’

Fergus was tempted to point out that the weapon was American military issue and it was unlikely suitable ammunition could be found in England. Jessica looked at her partner hard, her eyes warning him not to start another argument. Fergus glanced at other questionable items the children had stowed on the trailer and said nothing.

After a final check of
AWOL
Mark gathered his best two rifles and the remaining three rounds of ammunition and clambered into the dinghy to row ashore.

‘All in order, captain?’ Fergus asked as Mark approached the quayside. The older man nodded and passed him the painter. They hauled the dinghy clear of the water and began the trek towards Sevenoaks.

Although only a little over thirty miles by the route Mark had chosen, it proved a slow journey. With two people on the crossbar
keeping the trailer level and the remainder pulling on the ropes, only ten miles were travelled the first day. They camped the night at the derelict village of Snodland.

They made an early start the next day, but were delayed by a road barricade. They had to unpack the trailer, lift everything over the obstacle and repack the trailer on the other side.

‘What’s the plan, Dad?’ Jane asked after the journey recommenced.

Mark looked up at the darkening sky. ‘I don’t think we can make Haver tonight. We’ll get as far as possible and rest up. Then we’ll leave the trailer and head in tomorrow morning. I don’t want to go bowling into the park with all this gear in tow.’

It was already dark when they reached the village of Seal, less than three miles from Haver. Mark led the party to Johnstone Court, a retirement complex where one of his uncles had once lived. The exhausted travellers slumped onto damp, musty beds. They were too tired to make a meal. There was precious little food left anyway.

Dawn was breaking when Mark awoke. He found Jane sitting at the foot of his bed. She handed him the mug of hot water she had been drinking and the remains of a jar of bottled fruit. ‘I hope we can get into Haver today,’ she said. ‘We don’t even have enough food to prepare a proper breakfast.’

‘Is anyone else awake?’

‘Fergus and Jessica are up: the others are stirring. Do you think it’s safe to take everyone in to Haver Park, given what we know about Nigel and his sons?’

‘Try stopping us,’ Rick said. He was standing at the door, looking in. Mark resented the intrusion.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll be careful,’ Mark said to Jane. ‘I can get us close to the house and out again without our presence being detected if I need to.’

In no time at all they were ready to get on the road. The breakfast was so meagre it took hardly any time to eat. Mark, rifle
in hand, led his party westwards down the road towards Sevenoaks, the town closest to Haver. He reached Wildernesse School and turned left up Seal Hollow Road. Anne caught him up and took his hand. Jane, trailing further back with Zach, Nicole and Audrey, noticed — it was the first time Anne displayed affection to Mark in front of his daughter and grandchildren. It was as if she was trying to make a statement. Jane wondered how her father would explain Anne to Allison, not knowing that her father was wondering the same thing.

‘Where are we going?’ Fergus challenged as his uncle turned left into Blackhall Lane rather than continuing along Seal Hollow Road. ‘Aren’t we going through the Abbot’s Gate?’

Mark glanced over his shoulder. Fergus and Jessica were piggy-backing the twins and struggling to keep up. He waited for them, annoyed that Roger and Rick, who were both walking hand in hand with their partners, had not offered to take the children.

He took Chelsea from Jessica himself. ‘Last time I went through the Abbot’s Gate I was ambushed by Jasper and Damian. We’ll go over the stone steps.’

Fergus screwed up his face. ‘I’ve never heard of the stone steps.’

‘Exactly, and I doubt weather Nigel or his sons have either. Few people knew about them. My parents used to take my brothers and me over them when we went into the park for our Sunday picnics.’

Mark halted half a mile further up the road and handed Chelsea to Roger. He lifted his binoculars and scanned the trees at the end of an overgrown farm track leading off to the right.

‘What are you looking for?’ Rick asked.

‘I was hoping to see smoke.’ There was a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

They forced their way down the track. Mark was relieved it was April and the nettles had not yet developed their stings. At the end of the track the seven mile long, eight foot high stone wall that enclosed Haver Park loomed into view.

‘There,’ he said, pointing ahead. ‘The stone steps.’ It took the remainder of the party some time to pick out the steps, a staircase
of grey slabs protruding from the side of the wall, covered in moss. Mark ascended the lower steps and peered cautiously over the top of the wall.

‘Deer,’ he announced softly, smiling to Fergus. ‘We’ll eat well tonight.’

‘Any sign of our relatives?’ Jane enquired.

Mark turned around and shook his head.

‘We’re still over a mile from the house,’ he said, addressing everyone. ‘We still don’t know what we’re going to find when we arrive. I want everyone to follow me. Quietly! No talking,’ he added, looking sternly at Tommy.

‘Isn’t this all a bit melodramatic?’ Rick challenged.

‘You have no idea what that bastard Nigel’s like,’ Jessica said, coming to her uncle’s defence.

‘Just give me the rifle and I’ll soon take him out,’ Rick boasted.

‘Here we go again,’ Fergus breathed. ‘Bloody Yanks wanting to start another war!’

‘That’s enough,’ Mark snapped. ‘With any luck we’ll find the Union Jack and Cross of St George flying above the West Tower. But until we know what the situation is, keep your heads down, keep behind me and keep your lips sealed.’ He waited till they had all
followed him over the wall and added, ‘I want you to follow me in single file.’

‘Why?’ Rick challenged.

‘The deer form narrow tracks through the bracken. If we stay in single file, our tracks will look like theirs.’ They could all tell from Mark’s tone that he was fed up with having to explain himself.

He led them through the bracken and undergrowth on a circular route designed to place them opposite the West Tower. Running through Haver Park was a criss-cross of gravel tracks about six feet wide that had been used by carriages in past centuries. As they reached each of the paths, Mark would halt and anxiously scan in each direction before running across to the bracken on the opposite side. Everyone followed his example, except Rick, who dawdled across.

Mark’s heart raced as he saw the slightest wisp of smoke rising about the trees in the direction of Haver House, but he didn’t mention it for fear of invoking excited chatter. He was finding it difficult enough to keep the children silent as it was. Gina, Audrey, Chelsea and Marion had never seen many of the birds that fluttered through the trees, and he was forever telling know-all Tommy to keep quiet.

An hour after they had scaled the wall, they began to climb out of the valley known as the Gallops heading towards the tree-lined knoll on which Haver House stood. A grinning Fergus touched Mark’s arm and pointed out a herd of cattle further along the valley. ‘A good sign,’ he said.

Mark smiled back.

‘I can see your Union Jack,’ Roger announced, ‘and a white flag with a red cross.’

‘The Cross of St George. It’s safe to go in!’ Fergus beamed.

‘I only hope Steven got
Archangel
back safely and everyone’s waiting for us inside,’ Jane said. Tears were streaming down her face.

‘Come back,’ Mark yelled to the children, who had scampered ahead. ‘I want to check the place out before we go in.’

‘Here we go again,’ Rick ridiculed from the rear of the group. ‘Mr
Cautious. You’ve got your goddamn flags, for heaven’s sake.’

Mark ignored the jibe and brought the party to a halt in thick bushes about two hundred and fifty yards from the West Tower. Haver House looked huge even though only a small portion could be seen from their vantage point. With its three hundred and fifty rooms and seven courtyards, enclosed by fortified walls, it almost beggared belief that it had been built more than five hundred years previously by stonemasons using chisels and hammers and mixing their mortar by hand.

‘Granddad, there’s someone in front of the house,’ Zach said.

Mark focused his binoculars. His heart quickened. He couldn’t be sure because the person was on their hands and knees facing away from him, but he felt sure from the posture and size that the figure was his brother Paul. Then a frown wrinkled his brow. The gates to the West Tower were closed. He wondered why anyone would be outside Haver’s walls alone with the gates closed. And why were the gardens that had been so neat and tidy when he left England four years previously now overgrown?

‘Let’s get in there. I fancy venison for breakfast,’ Rick said impatiently.

Mark focused his binoculars on the house, scanning the windows for signs of life. He could see smoke rising from a chimney further back in the complex. Then he focused on the West Tower.

Rick had had enough. He brushed past Mark. ‘Come on,’ he said to Julie. ‘These Limeys can stand out here all day if they want to. I’m starving.’

Mark rushed forward, grabbed Rick and jerked him back into the bushes. Rick tripped and sprawled on the ground.

‘What the …’

‘Something’s wrong.’

‘What do you mean, something’s wrong?’ Rick asked as he picked himself up. Mark handed him the binoculars. ‘Look. The Union Jack,’ he said.

Rick lifted the binoculars and looked at the flags. ‘Yeah, so it’s the goddamn Union Jack.’

The flag was old and faded, as was the Cross of St George flying beside it. Both had clearly been on the flagpoles for some time. Rick thrust the binoculars angrily back towards Mark, who handed them to Fergus.

Fergus looked at the flag. ‘It is the Union Jack,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders.

‘Don’t you see what’s wrong?’

Fergus looked again. ‘No. What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s upside down.’

‘Goddamn it,’ Rick exploded. ‘The Union Jack looks the same whichever way up it is.’

‘Isn’t he right?’ Fergus asked.

‘You should have been a Boy Scout, Fergus. Then you would have known that the broad white stripe always goes to the top. That flag’s being flown upside down.’

‘All that proves is that one of your son-of-a-bitch relatives is as dumb as Fergus is,’ Rick sneered. ‘And I’m still hungry.’

‘My brother Paul was a Boy Scout. He’d never fly the Union Jack upside down.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t Paul who hoisted the flag,’ Jessica suggested.

‘Something’s not right. I can feel it in my water.’

‘You can feel it in your water all you like,’ Rick said, ‘but I’m going in. Who’s coming with …?’

Before Rick completed the sentence the squeaking of metal hinges announced that the huge metal-strapped timber doors of the West Tower were being opened. Mark took the binoculars back from Fergus and focused on the entranceway. The doors opened slowly, and as they came to rest a pony trap emerged from beneath the archway.

Even Rick was shocked. ‘What the hell …?’

There was no pony. Four women were tethered in the traces.

Mark refocused his binoculars. On the trap, holding the reins and a whip, stood Damian Chatfield, wearing light blue jeans and a gaudy pink shirt. The effeminate look of his long blond hair was somewhat counteracted by his moustache and neat goatee beard. The bow and quiver slung across his shoulders suggested a hunting expedition. The
pistol holster slung from his waist suggested Haver was still being ruled by force of arms.

‘Who are the poor women pulling the trap?’ Jessica asked.

All four were wearing the drab grey tunics Nigel had decreed the peasants wear so Mark had trouble identifying them. ‘Kimberley and Rebecca Steed … and Theresa Morgan … I can’t make the other one out.’ The fourth woman was obscured by Theresa. The pony trap changed direction. ‘Penny, it’s Penny!’ he blurted, his voice full of elation and emotion. That meant
Archangel
had made it back to England.

Then concern set in. He spoke his thoughts aloud. ‘Why aren’t Steven and Luke pulling the trap? They’d have to be the fittest people at Haver.’

‘Why aren’t there
any
men drawing the trap?’ Fergus asked.

The stooped figure in the garden was on his knees, apparently begging. As the trap passed, Penny threw something in his direction. The crack of a whip sounded and the young woman jumped as Damian’s whip cut across her back.

‘That bastard Damian hasn’t changed a bit,’ Jessica breathed.

‘What now, Dad?’ Jane asked softly.

‘Well,’ Mark sighed, ‘we obviously can’t risk going in till we know what the situation is.’ The disappointment could be heard in his voice.

‘Roger and I could go in,’ Rick suggested. ‘They don’t know us.’

‘So how are you going to explain two Americans stumbling into Haver?’

‘The problem is this guy Nigel and his three sons, right? With Pretty Boy out in the pony trap, there can only be the old man and two of his sons inside. Give us the rifles; we’ll take them by surprise.’

‘We can’t risk it,’ Fergus said. ‘People could get hurt in the crossfire.’

Rick shrugged. ‘You’ve got to expect a bit of collateral damage in war.’

Fergus had had enough. ‘Why don’t you get real, you frigging lunatic? The collateral damage you’re talking about is my family!’

‘Pity you Yanks didn’t care a bit more about collateral damage in Vietnam and Iraq,’ Jane added. ‘If you had done, you wouldn’t have lost all your goddamn wars.’

Mark had had enough too. ‘Jane, can you find your way back to the stone steps?’

‘Of course.’

‘Fergus and I will stay here. I want you to take everyone else back to Johnstone Court. We’ll set up a temporary base there till we can get back into Haver, or until we decide to move somewhere else. Do the usual — scout around for vegetables and fruit, and find a water supply. Don’t light any fires till after dark. I doubt they’d be able to see any smoke from here, but I don’t want to take any chances.’

‘I’ll stay with you and Fergus,’ Rick volunteered.

Mark opened his mouth, the anger showing on his face.

Roger spoke first. ‘No, you won’t,’ he said firmly to Rick. ‘This is their fight. The best we can do for now is to keep out of the way until we’re called on to help.’

Anne looked towards Mark. He could tell she wanted to stay too. ‘Roger’s right,’ he said. ‘Best leave it to Fergus and me for now.’

Jessica kissed Fergus. Anne and Jane kissed Mark. They both told him to be careful. Everyone looked unhappy.

‘Take care crossing the gravel tracks,’ Mark said. ‘Damian will be somewhere in the park, and he’s armed.’ He kissed Anne again and Jane led the party away.

Roger sidled up to Mark. ‘Don’t judge all Americans by Rick,’ he said quietly. ‘We’re not all gung-ho fools.’

Mark nodded. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘And don’t worry. I’ll make sure he behaves. If he dawdles this time I’ll kick his butt myself.’

With that Roger hurried off to join the end of the column.