It felt like ages before Leon could open his stinging eyes, and even longer for the whistle of white noise in his ears to clear enough to hear anything.
They were in the back of an army truck. It was painted a sandy yellow with wavy grey ‘disruption’ streaks: desert camouflage. He guessed it was one of the many army vehicles that had served time over in the Middle East and had been patiently waiting its turn to be repainted to a default olive green.
Freya was sitting on the bench opposite. Like him, she was blinking back chemically induced tears. Soldiers sat quietly on either side of them, swaying as the truck swerved to avoid road jams, rolled off congested hard shoulders on to dirt and then back on to tarmac again. Leon met her eyes and she managed to pull a smile together for him, her expression full of questions.
Are we alive?
Are you OK?
Is this for real?
Was I really begging you to shoot me?
Maybe just five or ten minutes before, Leon had been psyching himself up to do it. He’d almost been ready to turn the gun on her, then himself. Counting down the last few seconds before he was out of time.
Now here we are. Rescued.
Finally safe in the hands of the authorities.
He returned her smile. It’s OK, Freya. We did it. We’re safe.
He looked at the soldiers sitting patiently in the truck facing each other. Their equipment wasn’t what he expected to see. They were wearing army uniforms, of course, but over the top of the olive greens were overlapping dark segments of Kevlar protective armour. It reminded him of the kind of segmented protective plating that speedway motorcyclists wore. But no guns. He looked up and down the truck. Not a single assault rifle or sidearm as far as he could see. He saw a bunch of cylinders with tapers, flashbangs presumably, and a crate of bottles plugged with cloth that sloshed liquid.
They were each holding on to the handle of a tall riot shield with POLICE stencilled boldly across them. And at their sides, tucked into belts and pouches, he could see the handles of a curious variety of sharp-edged weapons: fire axes, machetes, hunting knives. One man even looked as if he was carrying a samurai katana.
One of the soldiers further along noticed Leon’s curious look. He pulled himself on to his feet, carefully made his way down between the two rows of grounded shields and hunkered down in front of him.
‘You all right there, son?’ he barked over the growl of the truck’s engine.
Leon nodded.
‘Aye, close bloody call that, wasn’t it?’
Leon recognized the voice from back in the tunnel. The one who’d been shouting the commands.
‘Flame! . . . Again! . . .’
Deep and gravelly, like a knife drawn flatly across dry toast. Clearly someone used to a lifetime of shouting over noise and with a hard Glaswegian accent.
‘Yeah. I’m OK.’
‘You were checking out our kit? Not exactly standard issue, huh?’
Leon nodded. ‘Like . . . I dunno . . .’
‘Medieval?’
‘Yeah.’
The man snorted a laugh, then wiped at the thick moustache beneath his nose.
‘For good reason, lad . . . Different kind of warfare now. Guns’re useless on those scuttlers. Too many of ’em, too small and too bloody fast.’ He looked Leon over quickly. ‘You medicated?’
‘Aspirin.’
‘Good. Your girlfriend too?’
He didn’t bother correcting him. ‘Yeah. She’s on the same.’
‘Good. You’ll get a full medical examination when we get back.’ He stood and began to make his way carefully towards his seat. ‘Lucky we decided to come out foraging today!’
The truck rocked and bounced across another kerb.
‘Where are we going?’
The man didn’t hear Leon’s voice. That, or he ignored him.
Half an hour later the vehicle turned off on to a side road, flanked by mature oak trees that hung over the road from either side, creating a flickering tunnel through which the pale sun dappled light. He spotted a sign by the side of the road.
WELCOME TO BANTON CASTLE:
CORPORATE EVENTS, WEDDINGS, BANQUETS.
Scrawled over it in red paint:
CAMP CAMELOT
Perhaps another emergency operation?
They emerged from the trees into a clearing. Leon craned his neck to look over the heads and helmets of the soldiers in front of him, expecting to see some vast military base, perhaps an airstrip lined with Chinooks ready to whisk them away. He was anticipating a stirred-up ants’ nest of activity: army doctors and nurses processing queues of bedraggled and malnourished survivors, soldiers organizing queues, rows of buff-coloured tents . . .
Instead he saw a tall and narrow castle encircled by a moat. Surrounding the moat was a large tree-lined clearing, he guessed a half a kilometre in diameter: the castle grounds.
Except, unlike any castle grounds he’d seen, it wasn’t all carefully cross-hatched mown lawn and tended rose gardens – it was a wasteland of weeds and grass and nettles and brambles. Here and there, dark, ragged craters pitted the ground like a no-man’s land pockmarked by artillery.
The truck came to a halt beside the moat as a drawbridge was slowly lowered for them.
‘OK,’ said Freya. ‘I get the Camelot reference now.’
Beyond the lowering bridge stood the castle, a traditional Norman keep sitting proudly on its own man-made island, an acre of mud-churned ground littered with pallets of supplies, boxes, crates, oil drums, another army truck and a third one up on blocks that looked as if it had been cannibalized for parts.
The bridge finally clunked into position and the truck rolled across on to the muddy ground beyond and parked beside the others.
‘All right, lads!’ barked the Scottish soldier. The others stood up, grabbed their shields and shuffled to the back of the truck, jumping down into the mud.
The man gestured at Leon and Freya to follow the others. ‘End of the ride, boys and girls.’
‘What is this place?’ asked Freya.
‘You saw the sign, didn’t you?’
‘Banton Castle?’
‘Aye. Although you may have spotted we call it Camelot now.’ He held a hand out to her. ‘Come on.’
She pulled herself up off the bench with a groan.
‘You all right? You pulled a muscle, love?’
‘No . . . I’ve got MS.’
Leon got up, squeezed past her, jumped down off the back and then turned, holding up his arms to help her down.
‘This is being used as an army base, then?’ asked Freya
‘Aye. You need a hand with her, lad?’
‘I’m good.’ Leon grasped her hands as she sat down and bum-shuffled off the back.
Leon looked around. Above him loomed the Norman keep. He could see faces looking out of narrow arched windows and heads peering down from the flat roof at the very top. From one of the corner towers a Union Jack fluttered.
‘First things first, you two. Medical examination and then Major Everett will want to have a chat with you.’