Part 16 (1/2)

Heartbreaker!' She laughed, trying to fit the ring over his finger, much to Smith's discomfort. He started to hop, holding his wounded hand to his head and looking away as if to ignore the pain.

'It was mine, I'm sure. Maybe I changed? Ow!'

They fell into a pile of limbs, Joan's legs tumbling round his very immodestly, and kissed excitedly in such a jumble. Finally, they unwrapped themselves, Joan blus.h.i.+ng thoroughly again. 'We're not married yet, John Smith. Do you like blackberry jam?'

'Jam? I don't know. I wonder if I've tried it?'

'Well, I make some every summer, so let us keep our hands to ourselves and see if we can find any early blackberries.' She hopped up and picked up her hat from where it had fallen. Instead of replacing it on her head, she upturned it and headed off for the hedgerow.

Smith followed, his hands in his pockets, whistling a jaunty tune. He bent to pick a poppy and fixed it to his b.u.t.tonhole.

'That's good!' she called, wandering along the hedge and plucking at the occasional early berry. 'What is it?'

'I'm not sure.' Smith tried to remember the lyrics. 'This old heart of mine... is weak for you... That's the t.i.tle, but I don't know who sings it.'

'A n-band, probably. We must go to London and see one, if we save up, and have a meal in some terribly precious cafe.'

'Yes.' Smith winced. His hand had contracted again for a moment then, as if something else had jarred. 'I'll just walk to the fence...' He set off up the field, wis.h.i.+ng that he could identify what it was that was curling him up inside. Perhaps it would get in the way of his marriage. Marriage! What a leap! How had he done that?

Ahead the field broadened out into a meadow with a few trees. At its end, up a light slope, was a wooden fence. And around the fence wheeled a flock of swallows. That was an odd sight at this time of day, there'd be no big concentration of insects for them to catch. And they were very low.

Something was s.h.i.+mmering in the air, a heat haze on a day too cool for one. It was actually getting closer, too, as he approached it, which was as impossible as walking through a rainbow.

He reached his wounded hand out to touch the phantom.

The shock rushed up his arm and thumped straight into his head.

A cat pinned down on a table, its skull open to show its brain. The folds of its head were pinned back and b.l.o.o.d.y white, like the skin on a roast chicken.

It was alive.

'Who's going to intervene?' a woman shouted. 'Who can save them now?'

He stepped back in fear and lost the vision. His hand plucked the poppy from his lapel and he sniffed it absently, his mind racing. There was a wall here. A real wall. Walls meant a prison. A prison meant guards. But what did the vision mean?

Joan wandered up to his shoulder, her hat full of blackberries, and he bounced the poppy off her nose, still frowning.

'Tell me,' he said. 'When you first met me, did I have an umbrella?'

Chapter Eight.

Everything Changes

Alexander slowly turned his head towards Bernice and coughed experimentally.

The noise echoed around the little dome. He opened his mouth and shouted something, but no sound was audible. Finally, he tried a whisper.

'I didn't understand a word of that. Are they Martians?'

'No. We could do with a few Martians right now. They'd sort those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out.'

Benny closed her eyes, trying to stop the feeling of panic that was welling up in her stomach. If the fear overwhelmed her, she wouldn't be able to think. 'If I could reach to get the laser cutter out of my pocket, we'd also be better off. Alex, can you think of a really clever way to get out of this?'

'Not at all.'

'Because neither can I, and I really don't want to think about what's going to happen when they get back. So what do you want to think about? Women?'

'Women? If I'm about to be killed, loved one, that's the last thing I want to think about. Were you in love with your knight, Bernice?'

'Oh yes. No doubt about it. Full-scale romance. We nearly got there, too. Another few feet, and - oh, sod it!' She started to pull at the manacles, her wrists chafing white against the cuffs. 'I will not die like this! There's so much more to do!

There's my dad out there somewhere, Alex! And that b.a.s.t.a.r.d is not going to get his hands on me first! Do you hear me, Alex?'

'I hear you, loved one,' Alexander whispered.

Benny strained her hands against the manacles until her thumbs started to dislocate with the force of it. If your life depended on it, couldn't you just ignore the pain and wreck your hands?

She gritted her teeth.

Probably not.

Then the metal sheet thumped her in the back.

She waggled her hands to let the blood flow back into them, and the sheet fell backwards, nearly pulling her off her feet. She pulled forward and took the weight of it on her back. At the base of the sheet was a churned-up clump of soil. Two thin metal spikes that had fixed it into the ground had snapped in half.

'I pulled it out of the soil! I b.l.o.o.d.y pulled it out!' Benny shouted. 'Quickly, Alex, heave!' She hefted the sheet of metal on to her back, still manacled to it, and stamped around behind Alex to lean all of her weight on the back of his sheet.

Together, the weight and his efforts snapped the supports on that one too.

'My G.o.d, how do we get out?' Alex stumbled forward, tortoise like, carrying his sheet as Benny carried hers.

'Which b.u.t.ton was it? I think that's it...' Benny stamped up to a piece of machinery and angled the bottom corner of her sheet at it. She swung the metal deftly and the corner hit a b.u.t.ton dead centre.

A square opening appeared in the side of the dome. 'Come on!' Benny called.

'Run!'

The two awkward fugitives scrambled out into the forest and jogged away as fast as they could manage doubled up.

'At least we'll be safe if they start shooting at us,' murmured Alexander.

'Now these' - Rocastle held up a smooth, s.h.i.+ny-jacketed bullet pulled from the belt that fed the Vickers gun - 'are for enemy armies. Austrians, we might a.s.sume, Serbians or Germans. These will go right through the body and leave a clean, decent wound or kill instantly, as such n.o.ble enemies deserve.'

The boys were cl.u.s.tered around, listening intently as Rocastle sat on a sandbag behind the machine-gun, their imaginations racing across landscapes of cavalry charges and courageous squares of men in uniform. He held up another bullet, a square, sharp-edged one. 'This is for tribesmen, rebels and those whose creed is unchristian, thus disallowing them from the basic brotherhood of all professional soldiers.'

'Please, sir,' Merryweather raised his hand, 'did you use those in Pretoria?'