CHAPTER TWELVE
TARIQ FELT THE frost crunching beneath his feet as he walked across the grass towards the school. The air was crisp and cold but the sky was clear and the sun shone strong but heatless.
He loved this place. All his life he had dreamed of escaping from Basra, of never again seeing dust or sand or dun coloured buildings. This place, with all its rain and greenery, its tall palladian columns and huge windows, was as far away from his birthplace as he could imagine. When he had lain in his bed at night as a boy, this was what he had dreamed of. Another man might have felt a twinge of guilt when he realised that, in some ways, The Cull was the best thing that ever happened to him. But not Tariq. He rarely dwelt on the past and seldom paused to examine his motives or feelings. He lived in the moment and he liked it there right well, thank you very much.
As a teenager he had pictured his future as a journalist in the UK, lobbing perfectly formed gobbets of vitriolic prose at Saddam and the Ba’athists over the internet. But he didn’t mourn the loss of his dreams and ambitions. He was a teacher now, and a member of a community that had taken him in and made him part of a family. He would settle for that and count himself lucky.
He’d fight for it, too. Fighting seemed as natural to him as breathing. He had stood in opposition to someone or something his entire life — Saddam, the militants, the Americans. It was only in the last two years that he’d had nothing to fight. Peace had brought its own challenges, though, not least the loss of his lower left arm after the Salisbury explosion. The pain had gone now but he still felt occasional flashes of feeling in his missing fingers, and the stump itched like hell if he wore his hook on hot days.
He raised the artificial limb and flexed the metal claw. It made a soft clicking sound as he did so. The younger kids called him Captain Hook, but he didn’t mind that. He’d even play along sometimes, bellowing a piratical “ARRRR!” and chasing them down the corridors as they screamed with terrified delight.
The thought of anyone taking them away and making them slaves caused an old familiar anger to rise inside him. He’d almost missed it.
He pushed open the doors and walked inside. The first person he met was Green. Tariq thought Green was a bit odd. Gawky, with acne scars and floppy blond hair, he was very quiet and reserved in company. But give him a classroom of students or, better still, a gang of people wanting to put on a play or a musical, and he was driven, focused, funny and inspirational; a natural performer. Tariq had assumed he was gay, but recent rumours suggested otherwise. The oddest thing, though, was that he didn’t take part in any of the military training exercises. Matron had exempted him, and only him, from all such activities. She’d never told Tariq why. She’d just said: “He’s earned it.”
Green nodded a greeting as Tariq entered, then smiled in relief as the four kids he’d brought back with him shuffled past in search of baths and bed. But his face fell as he realised no-one else was following on.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“Call an assembly, ten minutes, dining hall,” replied the Iraqi. “All kids of ten and up. I need to get some food in me first.”
He hurried off to the kitchen and left Green to round everyone up.
TARIQ HAD BEEN a leader before, in Basra. Giving orders came easily to him, and he felt no nerves as he stood in front of over forty children and twelve adults.
“Hands up everyone who was at the original school during the battle with the Blood Hunters,” he said.
About twenty hands went up.
“And how many were here when we moved from Groombridge?”
About thirty.
“And how many of you want to move again?”
There was a murmur of disquiet.
“Because there’s a chance we’re going to come under attack. And I, for one, am not running and hiding this time!”
He was hoping for a chorus of “Damn straight!” but instead Mrs Armstrong spoke up from the back.
“Why not start at the beginning, eh, love?” she asked. “Tell us where the others are.”
Tariq looked down at his audience and shook his head in wonder at his own stupidity. These weren’t his fellow rebels from Basra, these were bloody kids, and he had started off like he was a sports coach gearing his team up for a big match. What was he thinking?
So he told them, honestly, without sugar coating it or hiding anything, exactly what had happened and what they had learnt at Thetford.
“We’ve prepared for a siege, over and over,” he said in conclusion. “You all know your roles and positions. My job is to make sure that this place stands firm, no matter what. And with the defences we’ve got and the strategies we’ve drilled, anyone who attacks this place is going to find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.”
He fell silent then, waiting for some kind of response.
“No,” came a voice after a moment’s silence. It was not shouted, but it was spoken forcefully. It took Tariq a second to realise that it was Green speaking.
“You want to say something?” asked Tariq.
Green got to his feet and gestured to the podium where Tariq stood, asking permission to address the room. Tariq nodded and stepped aside, surprised.
Green cleared his throat and looked at his feet as he prepared to speak. Then he looked up and addressed the room.
“Somewhere in London there’s an army of kids fighting a war,” he said. “Kids like you and me. Kids who should be here, with us. We’ve been looking for allies recently, building trade relationships with the Steamies and the rest, and trying to arrange mutual defence pacts with Hood and Hildenborough. We know some of the people we encounter may be hostile or dangerous, but we keep looking for allies who can help us.
“These kids in London don’t know it, but they are already our allies. Because they’re us. They’re you and me and her and them, if we’d never found this place. If Matron hadn’t stuck her neck out and fought for us. If Lee hadn’t seen off Mac. If Rowles hadn’t sacrificed himself to keep us safe.
“If not for their efforts, we would be those kids. Scared, alone, fighting a war against kidnappers. Or worse — shipped to America already, where God knows what would have happened to us.
“And how do we repay the sacrifices our friends have made to keep us safe? We hide here and hope the bad guys don’t come looking for us? Well, yeah. Of course Matron and Lee want us to do that. It’s natural. They’ve fought hard to keep us from harm, to create this place for us. They don’t want to risk it or lose it. Of course they want us to stay here and protect this perfect haven they’ve built.
“But the thing is, they’ve also taught us by their example. And their example teaches us a different lesson.
“It tells us that the only safety worth having is the kind you fight for.
“It tells us that sitting around waiting for other people to look after you is asking for destruction.
“It tells us that protecting people weaker than ourselves is the most important thing we can possibly do with our lives.
“They’re out there now, fighting for us. God knows where Matron is, or what’s happening to her. Lee’s dad has gone to London to try and lead a gang of kids against an army that will almost certainly kick their ass. Lee’s gone riding off into potentially hostile territory with a bunch of men who we don’t know he can trust.
“And we’re supposed to sit here and let them do all this for us because it’s what they would want us to do?