It was estimated that already more than 25 per cent of the army had seceded, and had placed itself at the disposal of the Afrim leaders in Yorkshire, and three ground-attack squadrons of the Royal Air Force had so far similarly changed allegiances.
In a later programme we heard a group of political pundits speculating that public opinion in favour of the Afrims was diminishing, and that Tregarth and his cabinet would take more militant action.
The only outward sign of the events taking place that we could discern was that traffic was unusually light. We were stopped several times by police patrols, but we had grown accustomed to this in the last few months and thought little of it. We had learned the appropriate responses to make to questioning, and maintained a consistent story.
I was disturbed to notice that many of the police we encountered were from the civilian-reserve special force. Stories describing various atrocities had been circulating continuously; in particular, one heard of coloured people being arrested without warrant, and released only after experiences of personal violence. On the other hand, white people were subjected to harassment if known or suspected to be involved with anti-Afrim activities. The entire situation regarding the police was confused and inconsistent at this time, and I for one felt that it would not be an entirely bad thing if the force were to divide formally.
Just to the west of Finchley, I was obliged to stop the car and refill the tank with petrol. I had intended to use some of the petrol I had put by as a reserve, but discovered that during the night two of the cans had been emptied. Consequently, I was forced to use up the whole of my reserve. I said nothing of this to Isobel or Sally, as I anticipated being able to restock sooner or later, even though none of the garages we had passed that day was open.
While I was pouring the petrol into the tank a man came out of a near-by building carrying a pistol and accused me of being an Afrim sympathizer. I asked him on what evidence he formed this suspicion, and he told me that no one could be driving a car at this time without the support of one political faction or another. At the next police road-block I reported this incident and was told to ignore it.
As we approached our house all three of us reflected by our behaviour the apprehensions we felt. Sally became restless and asked to go to the toilet. Isobel smoked one cigarette after another and snapped irritably at me. I found myself continually pushing up the speed of the car unconsciously, although I knew that it was generally better to stay at lower speeds.
To relieve the tension between us, I responded to Sally’s requests by stopping the car at a public lavatory about a mile and a half from where we lived, and while Isobel took her inside I took the opportunity to turn on the car radio and listen to a news bulletin.
Isobel said, when they had got back into the car: “What shall we do if we can’t get into the street?”
She had voiced the fear none of us had liked to express.
“I’m sure Nicholson will listen to reason,” I said.
“And if he doesn’t?”
I didn’t know. I said: “I just listened to the radio. They said that the Afrims were accepting the terms of the amnesty, but that occupation of empty houses was continuing.”
“What do they mean by empty?”
“I don’t like to think.”
Behind us, Sally said: “Daddy, are we nearly home?”
“Yes, dear,” Isobel said.
I started the engine and moved off. We reached the end of our street a few minutes later. The police and army trucks had moved off, but the barbed-wire barricade was still there. On the other side of the road, mounted on the top of a dark-blue van, was a television camera operated by two men. It was protected in front and at the sides by heavy plates of glass.
I stopped the car five yards from the barricade, but left the engine running. No one appeared to be near the barricade. I blew the horn and regretted the action an instant later. Five men appeared from the house nearest to the barricade and walked towards us carrying rifles. They were Afrims.
“Oh God,” I said under my breath.
“Alan, go and talk to them. Perhaps our house is not being used by them!”
There was an edge of hysteria in her voice. Undecided, I sat in my seat and watched the men. They lined up at the barricade and stared at us without expression.
Isobel urged me again, and I got out of the car and walked over to them.
I said: “I live at number 47. Can we get through to our house, please?” They said nothing, but continued to stare. “My daughter is ill. We must get her to bed.”
They stared.
I turned towards the camera-crew and shouted: “Can you tell me if anyone has been allowed in here today?”
Neither of them responded, though the man pointing the microphone in our direction looked down at his equipment and adjusted the setting of a knob.
I turned back to the Africans.
“Do you speak English?” I said. “We must get to our house.” There was a long silence, and then one of the men said in a thick accent: “Go away!”
He lifted his rifle.
I got back into the car, put it into gear and accelerated away, swinging across the deserted road in a wide U-turn. As we passed the camera the Afrim fired his rifle and our windscreen shattered into opacity. I banged my forearm against it and a shower of glass fragments blew in. Isobel screamed and fell to the side, covering her head with her arms. Sally reached over from the back seat and put her arms around my neck and shouted incoherently into my ear.
When we were about a hundred yards away I slowed a little and leaned forward in my seat, pulling myself from Sally’s grip. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that the camera-operator had turned the instrument to follow our flight down the road. I stood with many others on the beach at Brighton. We were watching the old ship that was drifting in the Channel, listing to port at an angle of what the newspapers told us was twenty degrees. It was about a mile from the shore, riding the rough seas uneasily. The lifeboats from Hove, Brighton and Shoreham stood by, awaiting radio confirmation that they might take it in tow. Meanwhile, we on the shore were watching for it to sink, some of us having come many miles to see the spectacle.
I reached the main group without meeting any patrols, and as soon as I considered it prudent I approached Lateef and gave him the mirror-daggers.
He said nothing about the other men who had been foraging, nor whether they had been successful.
He looked critically at the daggers, but was unable to conceal his grudging admiration for my initiative. He took one in his right hand, balanced it, held it up, tried holstering it in his belt. His habitual frown deepened. I wanted to make excuses for the crudity of the weapons, explain about the shortage of materials suitable for the manufacture of armaments, but held my silence as I knew he was aware of this.
His criticism of my handiwork was political, not practical.
Later, I saw him throwing away my daggers, and I decided against mentioning the petrol-bombs.
As I passed through my adolescence I underwent, as is common to most boys, many puzzling stages of development towards full sexuality.
Near where I lived with my parents and brothers was a large area of waste ground which was cluttered with many piles of building materials, and torn into mounds of bare earth by bulldozers. I understood that at one time it had been scheduled for development, but for reasons unknown to me the scheme had been delayed. Consequently, the area provided an ideal playing-ground for myself and my friends. Though officially we were forbidden to play there, the many hundreds of hiding-places made it possible for us to evade the various forms of authority as manifested by parents, neighbours and the local police-constable.