Oscar Read online

  ‘Get her free!’ he boomed at the idle patrolman.

  The patrolman wasn’t quick to hide his displeasure at having to put an end to his amusement. He raised himself gingerly from the van’s uncomfortable wooden bench and made his way over to her. He pulled hard on her arms from behind, releasing her from the steel’s painful grip; this was followed immediately by an ear-piercing squeal of pain. Blood begun to flow freely from the fresh wound, but was soon stemmed by a rag that the patrolman had tied round her shoulder tightly.

  ‘We can’t have you bleeding out, can we?’ he said cynically. ‘Got to leave something for the torture technicians, you see?’

  She was beyond the point of caring now; she just wanted whatever it was to be as quick and painless as possible.

  CHAPTER TEN

  John Cutter stared impatiently at his watch, wondering where Miriam was. By his estimates, she and the rest of the Mind operatives should’ve been back a lot earlier than the time suggested.

  ‘They should’ve been back by now, Max.’ he pointed to his wrist for emphasis. ‘What the hell could possibly have gone wrong? It was a simple enough mission, and shouldn’t have taken the whole day to complete.

  ‘Eight bloody hours they’ve been gone—eight! If they’ve been caught by any chance, we need to be ready to get out of here.’

  Max nodded in agreement as he went to warn the others, who had found refuge in the other houses that lined the road outside the front door. John turned to Oscar, flashing an uneasy smile his way, wondering to himself: what kind of relationship did Oscar have with Miriam? Should he simplify what he had told Max, in a way that a seven-year-old could understand?

  ‘Oscar, come here for a moment.’ he ordered.

  He slowly made his way across the room to where John was standing. He looked scared, but there was no need to be. As the day wore on, he had figured out that John Cutter was a friendly sort. It was just what he had to tell him that had Oscar worried.

  He took hold of Oscar’s shoulders and stared deeply into his eyes. He could sense that the man was worried about what was about to be said but waited patiently for him to speak.

  ‘Miriam might not be coming back, Oscar.’ he said sternly, not trying to sugar-coat the situation.

  ‘We need to get out of here as soon as possible; we may no longer be safe.’ he warned.

  He may have been only seven, but Oscar knew what John was trying to say.

  ‘You think she’s been taken to a camp, don’t you?’ he said, with a hint of sadness attached to his voice.

  ‘What do you know of the camps? You are too young to know about these things.’ he said, almost shouting.

  This scared Oscar a great deal. Why had his question angered John so much? Why would he think that Oscar didn’t know about the camps?

  ‘My mummy and daddy were sent to one.’ he finally replied, snivelling.

  John looked upon the boy with a sense of regret for something to which he may have been a party. However, it was the wrong time to dwell on his misgivings.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss, young man.’ he said, with very little warmth.

  Oscar backed away angrily, and then turned and ran. He headed back upstairs to his bedroom and slammed the door with emphasis, for John’s benefit.

  A short while later Max re-emerged, with the others following directly behind him.

  ‘We need to pack up and leave.’ John blasted in frustration. ‘The mission to blow up the armoury has been compromised.’

  Panic set in as the women scurried around like headless chickens trying to organise their children. The noise was deafening; crying and pandemonium ensued. Each of the women was thinking about their husbands, and what may have happened to them.

  John held his head in his hands for the briefest moment.

  ‘Qu-iet! I can barely hear myself bloody think.’ he shouted over the din.

  With that, a sudden silence followed. Everybody turned and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something reassuring. All he could tell them was that they had probably hidden themselves away until it was safe to come out again, knowing full well in the back of his mind that they had all been captured. How could they not have been? He thought to himself. The odds had been stacked against them since the plan’s conception.

  #

  Oscar looked toward the crack between the floor and the door to his bedroom. A shadow formed outside his room, and then came a gentle rapping.

  ‘Can I come in?’ said a gentle voice on the other side.

  He said nothing at first.

  ‘Please, we have to go.’ said the voice, with a little more urgency. ‘Can you please come out?’

  ‘Go away!’ he screamed.

  The door handle began to turn. John entered the room and simply looked at the boy for a minute. Oscar had no choice but to do as he was asked.

  ‘Grab what you need, Oscar. Hurry up about it.’ he said, sternly, as he started to disappear from view. Oscar grabbed his coat, bolted across the landing and made his way down the stairs as fast as he could.

  John and the others were waiting in readiness to make their move out of the house and as far away from the armoury as possible. The idea was to move back to the city, but the lack of men had left the rest of The Independent Mind wanting. There were among them some weapons-experienced women who had no ties. John had plans for them. The chosen were to stay behind and defend the prize, ready for the reinforced Independent Mind to try and destroy the armoury again—a job that Miriam and the others that went with her had been incapable of doing.

  ‘We need to think about moving out.’ he ordered. ‘Let’s go, people. Hustle!’

  In single file, each one passed through the solid oak door. They glanced at their surroundings before heading out into the street.

  ‘Move, people.’ he barked with impatience. ‘No dilly-dallying.’

  The pace was picked up tenfold as they almost ran from their destination, with the children trying to keep up with them. The women chosen to stay went in the opposite direction from the rest; they were heading to take up their positions within the Kentish countryside, close to the armoury and ready for battle.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Miriam lay upon her uncomfortable bunk, staring blankly at the Nissen hut’s crude corrugated metal ceiling. She nursed her ribs (bruised from another unwarranted beating) and wondered what was happening to her comrades. She had no one to tend to her; the other inmates had been warned to stay away on threat of death. She was a traitor, and the guards thought she ought to be treated as one, especially as the ringleader of the group that had plotted and schemed to render the government useless in a time of war and mistrust.

  She had been summarily tried for treason, and a date had been set for her execution. Each member of the ill-fated cell had been dealt the same sentence. She, however, had been named as the leader by her so-called friends and colleagues, under the brutal interrogation techniques administered by the camp’s torture technicians. She would face the ultimate punishment for her crime—being burnt alive! Yes, it was medieval, but it was an effective deterrent.

  She had been segregated from the other Independent Mind operatives upon arrival at the camp. From day one, she had known nothing but pain and the guards who were relentless in prescribing it. That was the way things would remain. The administration had cruelly arranged for her execution to take place on the day of her fortieth birthday, 22 April, 2032. The only thought running through her head was of relief.

  Two days remained before her misery ended.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  John Cutter and what remained of The Independent Mind had covered many miles in a few hours, but the children’s need to rest was weighing heavily on them. They were running out of light to be able to go any further anyway, so it was the perfect opportunity to stop for the night. But where would they rest? They were in the middle of nowhere, only corn and rapeseed fields for miles. The corn was tall enough for shelter, but hardly an ideal situa
tion for the children. However, needs must when the devil drives.

  ‘Just a little further, everyone.’ he shouted back, leading them off the road and into the cornfield.

  ‘You can’t be serious!’ one of the women squawked angrily. ‘You can’t expect us to sleep in this field for the night, think of the bloody children.’

  ‘I am thinking of the children, you stupid woman.’ he spat back. ‘There’s nothing but fields for miles, it’s getting dark, and the kids are tired—what the hell do you propose I do?’

  There was no reply; she knew that he was right. Besides the fact that the children were tired, they were also hungry, and what could be better to feast upon than fresh corn?

  Oscar almost salivated, pulling on the corn’s stem to claim his prize. The other children followed after him and pulled on a stem each, their rasping fingers trying to reach the food they needed. John could see that some were struggling. The women just stood there, watching and waiting for the children to concede and ask for their mothers’ help.

  ‘Don’t just stand there watching them struggle, go and help your children.’ he boomed in frustration. The women herded together like a flock of sheep and he became the sheep dog, ushering them towards their kids.

  ‘Get over there, the lot of you.’ he ordered.

  #

  Oscar and the rest of the kids ate their raw corn as they were watched by the adults, who refrained from eating anything. They sat drinking water from the canteens that they had found within the houses they had left behind, and speculated about anything that didn’t involve the day’s events. John sat watching over all of them, neither drinking nor eating; his thoughts lay elsewhere.

  For most of the day, the only thing he had been thinking was: what are my comrades doing at this precise moment? He knew all too well what went on in the camps, and prayed that they had evaded any kind of resistance. He wanted to believe that they had gone into hiding until it was safe for them to surface again, but he somehow knew that they hadn’t been that fortunate. He had to rid himself of such thoughts in order to stay sane and able to get the others in his charge to the safe place he had talked about.

  One of the women in the group stared into his sad, faraway eyes, wondering what was going on in that mind of his.

  ‘Can I ask you, John, what the matter is?’ said the woman. ‘I’ve been watching you all night, and you have done nothing but stare into thin air.’

  ‘Are you finding us too big a burden to shoulder?’ she added.

  He snapped out of his trance-like state and smiled uneasily at her.

  ‘No, Grace—none of you are a burden to me.’ he cried. ‘The others are playing on my mind.’

  He hung his head and brought his hands up to meet his face. Grace felt the urge to mother him, to take him into her bosom, to comfort him. She knew that he held himself responsible for what might have happened to Miriam and the rest, her husband included among them.

  His hard exterior had all but melted away. Everybody in his presence was shocked by the sudden transformation. They had only ever known him as their no-nonsense leader, without an ounce of compassion. Even he didn’t know what was happening to him. Maybe he needed a situation like this to bring out the decency in him.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine, John—they know how to handle themselves.’ Grace concluded before returning to the others.

  #

  An hour or so had passed, the children had laid their heads down for the night and the women were becoming weary.

  ‘I think it’s time you all got some shuteye.’ John said, a slight tinge of aggressiveness attached to his tone.

  Nothing was meant by it, but he was as tired as the rest of them. He chose to watch over them instead of sleep; like a shepherd watching over his flock until morning, ready to ward off any danger that might be lurking within their corn field cubby.

  In this day and age, you couldn’t afford to make a mistake—one slip-up, one word out of place, and the government would find an excuse to have you interned. He wasn’t about to let anything happen to his flock.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It had just struck six-thirty in the morning. Miriam hadn’t slept a wink, thinking only of her impending execution. There was a certain irony to her situation: today was the day that she turned forty, and today was to be the day of her death.

  Her peace had been interrupted by the sound of the ear-piercing time siren screeching through the compound—a warning for the inmates to get up or face punishment at the hands of the guards.

  She had no need to rush; she knew what time she would be taken away from the camp. She remained on her back with her right arm placed across her forehead, just waiting for the solid oak door to the Nissen hut to burst open. The guards would take her to London, for what would be the last day of her life.

  A few minutes passed, the siren ceased, and her peace was shattered yet again. The guards had come.

  ‘Get up, Scarsberg.’ one of the guards snapped.

  She stood from her metal slatted bunk and remained still, almost standing to attention.

  ‘Put your hands on your head, and place your forehead against the wall.’

  She walked over to the adjacent wall slowly and did as she was told.

  ‘Spread your legs.’ was the final demand.

  She complied.

  The guard approached her and took hold of her hands, pulling them behind her back. He cuffed her wrists and pulled her close to him roughly.

  ‘Happy birthday, Scarsberg. We have a hell of a day lined up for you.’ he whispered unkindly, biting the tip of her earlobe in a perverted manner, just before pulling away.

  #

  Miriam’s tussled platinum blonde hair gleamed in the morning sun. For a split second she felt free as the cool breeze hit her face. She took a deep breath, and held on to it for as long as possible before exhaling.

  The moment was ruined as the guards either side of her began to pull her violently towards the awaiting black transit. For once, she was frightened of what lay in store for her. She began to pull away from the van, digging her heels in.

  ‘It’s no use struggling, Scarsberg.’ The guard on her right side barked, as he signalled over another colleague who was waiting by the van. ‘Get over here, and get ready to lift her legs.’

  The idle guard ran towards the group of three with another set of restraints—ankle cuffs. He jogged up behind Miriam, who had been subdued.

  ‘Get them cuffs on, and lift her legs.’ the guard ordered.

  She began to kick like a mule, trying to prevent the guard from doing as he had been ordered. She was quickly forced to the ground face-first, and pinned.

  ‘Try now!’ he barked, digging his bony knee into her spine. She screamed out, half in pain and half in frustration. The ankle restraints were successfully placed, and she made no further attempts to struggle as she was lifted from the ground. She had all but given up and resigned herself to her fate: she wasn’t going to escape the punishment for her crime.

  Tears brimmed in her eyes, and one by one they fell to the ground, making little dents in the sand. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that her emotions were getting the better of her, pushing through her hard exterior.

  ‘You can pack that in for a start.’ one of the guards screamed in her ear. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for crying when you’re burning to death!’ a maniacal cackle ensued.

  ‘Screw you!’ the usually refined, Miriam muttered defiantly under her breath.

  The guard lifted her head with her hair in his fist.

  ‘What was that you said?’ he pinned his ear up against her mouth to receive his reply.

  Almost instinctively, she bit into the guard’s ear and ripped the tip off with her teeth.

  The guard screamed out as he grabbed the side of his head with his free hand.

  ‘Put her down.’ he shrieked in pain. ‘Have we got a muzzle or something? She’s bloody dangerous!’

  #

  It wasn’t so much a
muzzle, more a leather face mask. But it would do the trick for the journey to London. The mask was placed on her face, so tight that it hurt.

  The van was within reach, the doors were open and it was ready to receive its passengers.

  ‘Dump her in the van! Sit on her if you have to.’ shouted the lead guard, who had been watching the drama unfold from a distance.

  Her escorts took their orders literally. All three men sat on her, crushing the air out of her lungs. The lead guard made his way round to the back of the van to close the doors.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he bawled at the others. ‘Get off of her, now.’

  They jumped up quickly and took their seats for the journey, leaving her belly down on the cold metal floor.

  She turned her head as much as she could and gazed upon her captors, her eyes seething. She was no longer frightened for her future—she was angry.

  ‘Keep your eyes down, Scarsberg—or I’ll pluck them out of their sockets.’ one of the guards squawked.

  She turned her head back towards the floor. After a few seconds, she looked towards the other side of the transport’s interior. The van’s engine revved into action, shunting forward violently as it started its journey to London.

  #

  Miriam was being watched constantly. She hadn’t moved a whisker since the journey began. She stared at her metal surroundings with a look that could only be described as deadly, visions of mayhem circling her scarred mind. If only I could move, she thought to herself.

  Her body had cramped up and all she wanted to do was roll onto her side. The ankle restraints were rubbing against the cloth of the labour camp-issued orange boiler suit, chafing the skin on her legs.

  She began to shuffle around and grunted angrily, much to the annoyance of the guards sat over her.

  ‘Stop that!’ the senior guard shouted, giving her a vicious clip in the ribcage with the heel of his boot. She let out a muffled scream as she felt one of her ribs crack under the force of the blow.