One Crow Alone Page 13

  The Asian energy giant that sponsored the MOD’s patrol infrastructure capabilities.

  Inside the cab were two soldiers on line-inspection duty. It was an easy day’s work. No standing around in the wind marshaling traffic, or digging snowdrifts back at base, or enduring the hellish boredom of a tactical deployment meeting in some overheated prefab office in Birmingham.

  They simply powered along under the Wylfa pylons, checking for faults and wires down. Hot air blasted from the under-dash fans and loud music pumped from the speakers.

  “Are we going to refuel, Sarge?” Private Connors shouted above the pounding bass line.

  “Yeah, next depot.”

  Connors gave a thumbs-up, his head nodding in time to the music.

  They had circumnavigated Shrewsbury and ahead of them the cross braces of the next pylon rose in the sky, power lines swaying in the gale. They churned past it, snow flailing from the track plates.

  “It’s not far,” Sergeant North shouted. “We can get a brew on.”

  The Shrewsbury Service Depot came into view. A long corrugated shed at the side of the track. The Bully slowed, crunching to a halt.

  They jumped energetically from the cab, standard-issue Sno-tex boots sinking in the powder of last night’s fresh fall. The thump of music deadened as they slammed the doors shut.

  “Sarge! It’s unlocked.” Connors pushed the door to the depot shed open.

  “What?”

  “When was the last stop here?”

  “Monday.”

  They peered into the dark. Connors pulled down the light switch—a generator automatically rumbled to life and a fluorescent strip light pinged and flashed.

  Sergeant North paced along the line of snow-clearing vehicles and hydraulic platform trailers.

  “Everything looks in order. You fill up the ancillary tanks, Connors, and I’ll go and see what MCRs we’ve got in barracks. I’ll make a report in the log about the breach.” He unlocked a door in the corrugated paneling and went into the emergency barracks room built into the end of the shed. No windows, but bunks, the back-up generator, and hopefully a good supply of tea, coffee, and ration pouches.

  In the depot, Connors, humming to himself, scuffed his way across the concrete floor between the fuel trailer and a spanking new Wassau Snowblower. The fuel hose was coiled at the rear of the tank and he began to haul it off the reel.

  “What the f—” He dropped the hose. “Sarge!”

  He nudged the toe of his boot against the huddled figures. “Oy! Get up!”

  A boy. A girl.

  He pulled the gun from his belt.

  “Sarge! Get in here quick!”

  Sergeant North stuck his head out the door. “What?”

  “We’ve got company.”

  Magda saw two clean-shaven faces staring down at her.

  “What the hell are you doing in here? This is government property.”

  “We—we have no place to sleep—”

  “Oh, Christ. Foreigners. Right. Show us your identity cards.” Connors hauled Magda up by the shoulder.

  She looked at the soldiers. From one to the other.

  “Identity cards!”

  “What is it?” said Magda.

  “You no speaky English?”

  “Come on,” said the sergeant. “They’re just kids.” He pulled his colleague’s hand away from Magda’s shoulder. “You got identity cards, love? Passport?”

  Magda stared, helpless. “No. We have no passport.”

  “Bloody perfect,” said Connors. “Now we’ll have to take them back to base. It’ll eff up our time sheet.”

  “What. You. Do. Here?” said Sergeant North. Speaking slowly to make himself understood.

  “It is very cold in night—we were looking for place to sleep.”

  “Yeah, and I’m looking for bloody Jesus Christ,” said Connors. “But he ain’t here, is he?”

  Sergeant North spoke again. “Look, I’m sorry, love, but without an identity card or passport I’m going to have to take you and your friend back to base. I have the right to arrest you for trespassing on government property. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  Ivan, who had been standing silent, leaned close. “They will find the passports if they search me. What are they saying?”

  “They are arresting us for having no identity papers.”

  “What did your friend say?” snapped Connors.

  “He just ask what will happen now,” said Magda, heart pounding.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Poland.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “We give lift,” said Magda. “We give lift to man but he leave us on road and drive away. He take our papers in car. My mother live in London. Look, I have address here.” She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper. “Here. It is in London. We can go back to the road. Please let us go.”

  Sergeant North looked at the piece of paper.

  “It’s just cock and bull, Sarge. They’re illegals. Look at them.”

  “Give them a break. You hungry, love?”

  Magda nodded.

  “I’ll make them a brew. You fill the tanks.”

  “I wouldn’t trust them more than a tart in barracks.”

  “I’ll worry about that, Connors. They’re just kids—lucky they haven’t frozen to death.” He turned to Magda. “You tell your friend, love. I’ll get you something to eat.”

  In the barracks room, Sergeant North made some tea and gave them both a soup ration. He switched on a space heater.

  “Sit down there.” He motioned to two chairs and they sat, gulping down the hot food.

  “So,” he began, pulling a logbook from the shelf above the table, “what are two Polish kids doing out here? I assume you’re aware that there’s a State of Emergency across Britain at the moment?”

  “My mother lives in London. She has a job there. I show you the address…”

  Sergeant North sighed. “Yes. You showed me. But if your mother is in London, what are you doing in the middle of nowhere in this weather?”

  “We drive to Liverpool and we give the man a lift. But then he steal the car.”

  “Yes, but why were you going to Liverpool in the first place?”

  “I—We try to visit—We try to visit my uncle. He is ill.”

  “So you and…”

  “He is my brother.”

  “So you and your brother left London, where your mother works, to visit your uncle in Liverpool? In a State of Emergncy with a storm coming down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you got an address for this uncle, a number?”

  Magda shook her head.

  “And where did you get a car from?”

  “It was—my mother’s.”

  “Right. Your mother’s car. Must be a good job she’s found herself. Well, she’s not going to be too pleased it’s been stolen, is she?”

  “Yes. No…”

  It was Sergeant North’s turn to shake his head. “And your passports were in the car.”

  “Yes. The man take them too. That is why we are here.”

  “I’ve got to be honest, love, but that is the biggest cock-and-bull story I’ve heard in a long while.”

  “Cock and bull?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What will you do with us?”

  “You’ll have to come back to base and the police will take it from there.” He tried a smile. “If they find your details, you can be on your way to visit this sick uncle or whatever.”

  Magda said nothing. Ivan nudged her questioningly.

  Sergeant North finished his report in the logbook, snapped it shut, and got up. “Right. Wait here.” He went out of the room, and appearing to have second thoughts, locked the door behind him.

  * * *

  Outside, Connors was filling the tanks, the heavy rubber hose from the fuel tank snaking across the snow. He looked up. “What are we going to do with them t
hen, Sarge?”

  “Well, they’ve got no identity cards so we’ll have to take them back with us.”

  “It’s a pack of lies. Someone probably gave them a lift and kicked them out at a roadblock.” He withdrew the hose, dripping diesel onto the snow. “Maybe we should just let them go. They haven’t nicked anything. Who’d know? They’re not going to tell anyone.”

  “What, let them out? Here?”

  “Why not. Save us a lot of bother.”

  “Look, Connors, you dump a wild fox into unknown territory and before you know it it’s pilfering the bins and you’ve got to get someone to come out and deal with it. No, we just lock them in the back of the transport, carry on with the recce, and swap them over to the Dolgellau team coming back this afternoon. They can take them back to base.”

  “Don’t we need clearance for that kind of thing?”

  “Unless they’ve got oxyacetylene torches stuffed up their jumpers, they aren’t going to get out of the transport in a hurry.”

  “Whatever you say, Sarge.”

  Sergeant North went back to the barracks room and unlocked the door. “Right, you two. Come with me. And don’t try anything funny.”

  They followed him outside.

  “We’ll transfer you to another team heading back to base.” He opened the heavy double-skinned steel door of the carrier.

  Ivan looked about at the snow-whipped wilderness, at the gun in the soldier’s belt.

  “Come on. In you get.”

  They climbed up through the low door. The small cab had double-glazed windows on all sides and two padded benches big enough to seat four men. It was warm inside; hot air blew from a vent under the seats. The soldier slammed the door shut, locked it, and then climbed into the cab at the front of the vehicle.

  “What time is it, Sarge?”

  “It’s eight. We should get to Dolgellau by thirteen hundred.”

  “You reckon those two are going to be all right stuck in there all day?”

  “We’ll let them out at the halfway depot for a piss and a brew. They’ll be fine. They survived last night in the shed.”

  Connors glanced through the rear windshield.

  “They’re busy talking to each other back there.”

  “Well, they’ve probably got a lot to talk about.”

  “What’ll happen to them?”

  “They’ll end up at Ravenscar detention center until spring if they’re illegals. And then the first bus back home.”

  “To Poland?”

  “Wherever they come from.”

  “Must be pretty bad over there if they think it’ll be better in Liverpool.”

  Sergeant North laughed. “Well, it’s not our problem, Connors. You just keep your eyes on the line. That’s what we’re doing—remember.”

  Connors turned up the music. “Let’s see if we can do it in four and a half, Sarge.”

  * * *

  But Sergeant North—having never traveled in the personnel cab in the back of the Bully—had made an error in his reckoning. The vehicle he was driving at speed through the pristine new-fallen snow was designed for transporting personnel working in extreme weather conditions. Dangerous conditions.

  Kitted out with all safety features.

  And in the carrier, several feet behind him, under the back window, just beside Magda’s knee, was a small, red, glass-fronted box. Emblazoned across it were the words:

  LIFE AXE

  EMERGENCY ESCAPE HAMMER

  STRIKE SHARPLY ON GLASS

  22

  The Bully crunched to a halt in a large plantation of Norway spruce. Connors looked back into the carrier. The girl was staring at him. He looked away.

  “Here.” Sergeant North thrust a high-vis jacket at him, and they bumped shoulders in the small cab, the bulky garments rustling as they pulled them on, taping down the Velcro cuffs.

  Connors pocketed the field binoculars and a waterproof notebook. “I hate this effing bit of the line.”

  Sergeant North opened the door. A prickly coldness filled the warm cab. “Jesus, it’s cold.” He looked up at Magda and Ivan in the carrier. Held up his fingers. “Ten minutes,” he shouted through the glass.

  “Feel a bit sorry for them,” Connors said as they tramped through the thick snow between the trees.

  “They’ll be all right. Safer with us than out wandering in the snow like a couple of lost dogs.”

  * * *

  “Can you see them?” Ivan said.

  “No. They are away under the trees.”

  “Take off your coat. Quick.”

  She pulled it off her shoulders.

  “We will have to be fast.”

  “Then what?”

  “Run.”

  “But they will see our footsteps.”

  “We will run back along the tracks and then into the trees.” He took out the hammer. It was small but heavy, a sharp point at one end. He cracked it sharply against the windowpane. The point cracked a hole.

  “Harder, Ivan. Quick.” She glanced back into the forest.

  Ivan struck it harder. The glass made a strange creaking sound and cracks radiated from the hole. A shard fell out.

  “Give me your coat!” He stuffed it against the glass and wedged himself against the seat. He lifted one leg and kicked as hard as he could. Cold air rushed into the cab. He kicked again and more chunks of glass fell out, a jagged hole in the window.

  He clambered out feetfirst.

  Magda followed. He helped her slide through the opening, ripped the coat out of the window, and then they set off, running back behind the vehicle in the rutted tracks, breathless and throwing glances over their shoulders.

  “Now!” Ivan jumped over the banks of snow into the dark of the conifer plantation. Magda followed, adrenaline pumping, sweat rising, the snow flailing up around her legs.

  And as he ran, ahead of her, Ivan was laughing.

  Laughing and laughing. He turned. “We made it!”

  * * *

  They reached the edge of the plantation. It was bitter out in the open, and the cold rapped as unrelenting as a stone—icy in the blood that welled like treacle in their fingers and toes. There was a nonsmell to that kind of cold. The earth purged of scent, anaesthetized. It dried up your nostrils with every frosted breath. Sat in the hollows and beat from the ground.

  In the afternoon light, with the sun setting behind the hills, they could see a wide valley rolling away before them, with brushy stands of bare hedgerows poking up frosted fingers from the ditches and culverts that marked the boundaries of buried meadows and obliterated roads. A great unknown landscape in which they were cast, alone, their human smallness weighing upon them as they surveyed the emptiness. From the other side of the valley, the silhouetted bulk of a mound-shaped hill rose up against the graying sky. The last light charging the snow with purpling shadows. Intermittent flashes of light blinked to the east.

  “What are the lights?” said Magda.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think there are people out here?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Maybe we should go back?”

  “We were in that vehicle all day, Magda. For hours.”

  Magda glanced at the side of his face, the firm set of his mouth. “Well, what then?”

  “We will cross the valley. There will be somewhere to hide, make a camp and a fire. Maybe people and food.”

  She followed his gaze and shivered. The snowflakes started to fall again. Not wet and soft, but dry and hard. Enough of a powder to cover their footprints if it kept up.

  Overhead came a droning sound. Two large cargo planes. They ducked under the cover of the trees and watched them pass.

  “Do you think they are looking for us?” she said.

  Ivan pulled his collar up. “Us? No. You maybe.” And he grinned at her.

  * * *

  Love was not slow and steady like a growing apple tree. It was not like Babula had said. There were many things Babula had
said. Were all of them just fairy tales you tell to children?

  Because Magda felt drawn to every fiber of Ivan’s being. His angular jaw and the turning down at the corners of his lips and the flash of skin at his neck and the broad feel of his strong back and even right down to the tips of his toes.

  All these new things that she had never imagined before.

  No—this feeling was not slow, but savage like a stone smashing glass.

  Ivan was right. She could have turned back a long time ago. But a seed had rooted inside her. And now she felt that she would follow him to the ends of the earth if he let her.

  * * *

  And what of Ivan?

  He had been forged in the happenings of childhood, poured and cast into a certain mold. Like a bird that had been reared by human hand, he had imprinted upon his eye the vision of one face only.

  The thin, sharp face of Anna. The girl in the Kiev orphanage who had held his hand and told him to forget. It was she who had reached out as the dark waters dragged Ivan away from shore. She had hauled him up into a leaking boat and they had tossed and pitched on the choppy waters of their childhood, together.

  It was not Ivan’s failing to be stuck on that vision. Because men are like dogs in many ways. They are not fickle. And that imprint would remain. That human face.

  There was a weight to Magda; he had felt it. That feeling of something solid and right, clunking to earth and resting beside him.

  But Ivan was not perhaps very brittle, despite his flaws. And unless he were to fall—to be shattered and break open—his softness would remain hidden: those cracks that can hide inside the hardest stone.

  All Ivan knew was that no one had seen his tears. No one had seen them except the girl from the children’s home.

  He did not know whether Anna still lived. And, if so, where? Kiev, perhaps? She might still be there. Under the bridges. By the railway lines with a bottle in her hand. Maybe with a child, with a home. Maybe working in a shop. Maybe all or none of those things.

  He did not dwell on it overly much. Though vague dreams of finding her again were a compass in his gut.

  * * *

  Poor wretched Magda.

  That constant tugging and pulling and cracking and bending and not knowing and knowing.

  Oh! It is unwise to try to make a window of Crow’s heart, Magda.