Thimblewinter (16 page)

In the morning guilt overtook me. I had wakened early and felt an emptiness beside me. Nes was gone, off to do her turn of guard duty, I supposed. And as I lay there, I had that nagging sense come over me; I had forgotten to visit Mrs. Sharma yesterday evening, though I had promised to call by. That high tide of feelings that had flooded me in the afternoon and washed me up here in the evening, had also wiped out that duty of friendship that I knew was owed to my old teacher.

Tired though I was - and cold as I rapidly became, as I quit the bedclothes, searched for my own clothes, and clattered down the narrow stairs and out of the shop - I knew that I should go and see the woman. The snow was thick and I floundered as I walked, not really taking in my surroundings or how deathly quiet it all was.

As I got to Mrs. Sharma’s house I heard the first volley and a sick, icy jolt of fear overwhelmed me. I hammered at her door, to find it open, and rushed in and up the stairs. She looked frailer than ever in her bed and I could see that she was now well past worries about time or my visits. I suddenly realised how ill she was and wondered that I had not noticed before.

“What is it child?” She managed to ask. “What’s wrong?”

I turned to her window, unable to speak, hearing the cacophony of noise that signalled the battle around us. Gunfire, shouting, screaming and flames crackling, as outlying buildings caught fire. From her window I could see them coming over the snow banks that had overwhelmed the wall, that had filled in the ditch and swamped our defences.

I could see our people running back from the walls and the gate towers. Suddenly I thought of Nes; then I felt guilty, because the thought that had come second was that of Rachel and Cal.

“Mrs. Sharma,” I said. “It’s all over, we’ve lost.” I was shaking so much that my legs gave way and I wasn’t sure if it was fear that overwhelmed me or grief.

But the old woman rallied. She sat up and said:

“Listen, girl! Listen to me! If they’ve abandoned the walls, it means they’ve withdrawn to the strong points. You must get yourself to the school-house.”

“I’m not going without you,” I said.

We’d have to go out of the front door and turn the corner, exposed all the time to anyone coming down the main street. We could have tried the back way, through the yards, but I doubted that she was in a fit state to make it.

My thinking was cut short by the sound of the door splintering downstairs. I looked out of the window again; there were winged skull soldiers stripped to the waist, running like berserkers through the snow, painted in reds and blacks like living nightmares. My fingers found the automatic, so used was I to its weight I had almost forgotten it. I pulled it out of my coat pocket, flipped off the safety catch, and walked to the top of the stair. As I looked down, the door came in and, rather than the painted savages that were running up the street, I saw two men in leathers; one with a hunting rifle of some sort, the other with a shotgun slung on his back, the axe he had used to break the door down still in his hands.

I lifted the automatic in two hands, as I had been shown, and prepared to fire, but something stopped me. In front of me I could see the face of the man I had killed that time before up on the high pass. The two men looked at me, quizzical but unperturbed.

“Give it up, girlie!” The one with the axe said. “Put it down! It’d be best for you. It’s all over.”

I could hear other voices on the street; these were just the advanced guard and there were many more of them out there, on the way.

“There are worse things than warming one of our beds, so be a good girl and drop it.”

It seemed like a frozen moment, as if the seconds had slowed and stopped, until suddenly, something sailed past my head and landed on the head of the axe man. Mrs. Sharma had pitched her water jug down the stairs and, by dint of an impressively accurate throw, or luck, it had landed squarely on the man’s head.

The man was hardly stunned, just disorientated for a minute or so, but something coursed in me and I recognised it as a fierce, calm anger. I fired two rounds into the axe man before he could recover, then turned to the other, but too late, as he levelled his rifle and fired.

I was blinded then - forever I thought - but then I realised it was just the wood splinters and debris that had flown into my eyes, as the round struck the stairs just beside my face.  He fired again and, before I could regain my senses, he was on me. I smelt his foetid breath and felt his hand on my throat and something else. He was pulling at my clothes with his free hand. I struggled then and kicked out at him. He spat in my face and, with both his hands now, squeezed my throat tighter. Darkness was welcoming me, and I thought suddenly of Mrs. Sharma, and wondered what had happened to her. Blackness was closing in on me as the twin circles of my vision spiralled to pin-dots and then, suddenly, his weight on me became dead. His grip was wrenched from my neck and hands pulled me down the stairs.

“Wake up,” the voice said. “Pull yourself together and take this.”

The automatic was in my hand again and knowledge came into my head at the same time. I knew Nes’ voice.

I could see her clearly now. She was firing through the doorway, single shots from the AK47, making them count. She was covered in my blood I thought, but then I felt myself and knew I wasn’t wounded. On the street outside, I could see that many of the winged skull warriors - those daylight demons who had looked so much like the victors - were dead, sprawled like leaking dolls on the snow.

Nes came back to me and took my face in her hands staring at me.

“We have to go. We have to run now, while there’s a lull in the fighting. Can you make it? You have to try.”

“But ... Mrs. Sharma?" I asked, though I already knew the answer. That had been the second rifle shot.

“Come on, darling,” she said. “We’re going.”

She took my hand and together we ran, like two kids running up the road to the sweetshop. Like they did once. Like grandmother told me they did once.

As we came up to the corner and took cover, I looked down the cross roads and saw movement by the gateway. Somehow, the enemy had overwhelmed the guards and were opening the gates. I could see a party riding through on horses.

“The second wave,” Nes said.

Exhausted, catching what little breath we could, we watched as they assembled, getting ready to charge. I could make out Great Coat at the head of them, a smile of savage glee on his face.

“Oh shit, look at that,” Nes said. A flower of flame exploded amongst the horses, a last surprise from the remnants of the gate guard. It was not much, one Molotov, but enough to panic the horses and make a shambles of their charge. The animals galloped all over the place, shedding riders, some of whom were burning.

I saw Great Coat briefly again. He had survived and had pulled himself into the shelter of a garden wall. It was no protection for him, though. He stood up briefly to get his bearings and an arrow suddenly sprouted from his throat. I knew it was Rowena’s work.

We crouched at the corner, but the firing was now sporadic.

“They nearly did it,” she said. “They nearly carried the place with that first attack. At dawn they came over the walls. Over the snow drifts.”

Then she tugged me up again and, as we approached the school house, we shouted and screamed like a couple of mad women, so that they wouldn’t shoot us by mistake.

Inside was blood and chaos, but the Sergeant was there and he was directing fire. Cal was there too, but wounded in the leg, looking grey. Rachel, unscathed, was rushing around with bandages; frantic with the work that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Make every shot count,” the Sergeant said. “Every time they come forward, we have them in a cross-fire, in killing ground.”

Rachel was soon by my side, her cool hands on my brow.

“Mrs. Sharma,” she asked. But I could not find the words to reply.

“It’s do or die, today, my lads,” the Sergeant was shouting, so that they would hear him in all of the strong points. “Today, we put an end to them!”

And we did make an end to them that day. They had gambled everything on the dawn attack. Most of them were starving, with empty bellies, and they’d filled themselves up with gut-rot hooch to make them fierce and painted themselves to terrify us.

But they foundered on those four strong points. They overwhelmed the warehouse, knocking one leg of our defences away, but Dai and May, with a small reserve force, counter-attacked. And that was where these two soldiers died; Dai trying to drag May back under cover after she’d been wounded.

By early afternoon they had broken; what leaders they had left, tried to rally them, but the booze had worn off, they were short off ammunition and, worse, they had started to realise that they had lost.

The killings and the bloodshed were not over though. They had to be pursued and harried, until any thought of ever returning was wiped from their heads. The Sergeant put together a force to do the pursuing, though there were precious few fit enough to follow him. In the forefront, though, was Rowena, who’d not had enough of the slaughter yet.

The force sallied out through the gates with the Sergeant at its head and that was probably what did for him. Some of the winged skull people had hidden in the gate-house and, on seeing the Sergeant out in front, had chanced a shot. The people with him told us that he had died in minutes, saying nothing, but staring up at the sky, now clear and ice-blue, as if he was seeking something there.

I had stayed with Cal and Rachel and Nes, but I was told about it later. The rest of the force had pursued the enemy and cut them down without compunction - the warriors that is - as when they’d broken into the village, they had acted with much cruelty and savagery. So it was repaid with interest.

After the killing, though, they came upon the camp followers, the refugees and the slaves and by then, their thirst for blood had been thankfully slaked. All, that is, except Rowena, who carried on in pursuit of stragglers and escapees well into the night and the next day.

The upshot was that - when our people had gathered in all the waifs and strays, and started to repair ourselves, our village, and to lay the dead to rest - though we realised we had been delivered, we saw we had a hard winter ahead of us and that we would have to redeem ourselves of the bloodshed and death, by caring for those who had been left behind, whether they were of our people or were other.

The second day after the battle, we were ready to bury our dead on the hill above the village and the Constable led the service. They gave the soldiers a separate tract of ground, a sort of heroes’ burial you might call it, though there were those that, no doubt, were glad that the Sergeant’s reign was now over and things could get back to normal. In that they were mistaken, for things would never be as they were again.

Nes stayed with me, as I’m sure she would have wanted to do. On a warm summer’s day when I visit the graveyard above the village on its green meadow, I do hope that she can feel the warmth of the sun, lying there as she does, as she sorely suffered from the cold.

I dug her grave next to my grandmother’s, so I could keep talking to them both and I do visit often. For my lovely Nes died there in the school-house; she was already fatally wounded when she dragged me back into the world of the living, which she, through no fault of her own, had to leave. There was never anyone else I could love as I loved her, so I’ve stayed here, near her, down all these years.

In these quieter times, when I think over the past and especially the events of those days, I think about the journey I made and the people I made it with. The people I met on the way. Nes, who I knew for such a short time, but who I knew forever. Richards, who was trying to keep the light of the world, the story of the people, alive, and the Sergeant, fierce and brave, more like a force of nature, a tidal wave, than a man. And all the others as well.

The only one left now is Rowena, who comes to the valley on occasion; like some half-wild, woodland creature she may be, but there are things we two share that the others don’t, as the years go by and more graves are filled up.

But I also think of the world as it was, before the Big Cold and the Flu, before the cities burnt. I wonder if there are whales still in the sea, somewhere out there where the waters run clear.