He decided to take a trip over there sometime soon and load up with logs. It also occurred to him that any farm would surely have its own supply of red diesel for tractors and other farm machinery. That would be great; he could fill up the truck when it was getting low and also fill some jerrycans to have at the bungalow. Red diesel was a low-tax fuel used for agricultural and other non-road-going vehicles, and for heating and generators. It was the same as regular diesel but had a red dye mixed in to make it easily detectable by the authorities, and had been half the price.
He was aware of his predicament regarding fuel and using the Land Rover. Any supplies that he found would have a finite life before they were all used up – once they were gone there would be no more. Although it was a diesel, the Land Rover was a heavy vehicle and wasn’t as economical as a car would be. He needed to restrict its use to when he needed either its load-carrying or its off-road abilities. Despite the plans that he was putting into action for survival and self-sufficiency, he knew there would still be many occasions when he would need a vehicle; whether for transporting things that he couldn’t carry, or for scouting missions further afield.
He thought it might be a good idea to find a small, economical diesel car to use, for those times when he didn’t need the truck. He wrote it down in his notebook, and while flipping back through previous pages he saw the word “genny” scrawled down quickly. He remembered the portable generators he’d seen at Halfords: with a good supply of diesel he could run a generator when he needed electricity. He would collect a couple on his next trip out, along with some more fuel containers.
After cooking and eating his meal he read through some of his books on survival, crafts and growing vegetables, making notes on a few things as he read. An interesting piece in one book told how you could make a long-burning survival candle using vegetable fat – the sort normally sold in solid blocks or tubs and used in baking. He was aware that his candles would be a short-lived commodity and that it would be difficult to find more, so this was useful to know. He was tired after all his work over the last few days, but it felt good to be getting things done, so he went to bed early.
Three miles away in a pub on the Pevensey Levels, three men – two brothers and a cousin – decided between them that in the morning they would leave the pub for the first time in about three months. They hadn’t heard any vehicles go past for at least six weeks and it was time to see what was happening in the world outside, and to see what they could find. Their food was nearly gone, they were stir-crazy, and they had drunk every last drop of all alcoholic beverages in the pub, its storehouse and its cellar.
The Star Inn, on Sluice Lane at Normans Bay, was an ancient building dating back to 1402, although it wasn’t used as an inn until the mid-sixteenth century. Until the mid-nineteenth century it had been a well-known meeting place and hide-out for smugglers; in particular the notorious Little Common Gang. The Pevensey Levels was a large area of ancient marshland between Eastbourne and Bexhill, with a vast network of streams and drainage channels, and now a National Nature Reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest. The pub had been a popular place for families to visit, especially in the summer months or when the weather was good, though there hadn’t been any visitors except the three men since the pandemic began.
When the plague hit Eastbourne, Bexhill and the surrounding areas they had fled their homes in Eastbourne and decided to hole up at The Star Inn until it had all blown over or was safe, as they thought. The pub was fairly isolated in the countryside away from urban areas, so they had thought it would be a good place. They had filled two vans and a pickup truck with all the food they could get, by purchasing, looting or threatening behaviour; taking advantage of the chaos and panic that was sweeping everywhere to get what they needed.
All three men were thugs and brutal characters, with a string of criminal convictions between them. Adjacent to the pub was a small development of twelve chalets and they checked these first to see if anyone was around; looking through windows they saw that all were either uninhabited or had been vacated. They had knocked at the pub’s door, pretending to be nice, concerned citizens from Normans Bay, and asking if they were okay or needed anything. Their act only lasted long enough for them to ascertain that the owners weren’t infected and then they had killed them with a shotgun and buried their bodies out back.
Once inside they had boarded up the downstairs windows and locked the doors. They painted signs that said “CLOSED. PLAGUE. KEEP AWAY” and fixed them to doors and walls that could be read from the road. After that they had settled in, made themselves at home and stayed there for three months, doing little except drink. They weren’t particularly bright, but they’d had the sense to use all the food in the fridges and freezers before the power failed, and there was a stream beside the building that supplied them with water.
But now they had run out of nearly everything and it was time to venture out. Being where they were, and with no media to inform them, they didn’t know what the situation was. They decided to go to Bexhill in the morning to see what they could find in the way of food and drink.
The elder brother with the beer-belly was the dominant one; he looked at his brother and cousin. ‘You never know – we might even find some women left alive to have some fun with!’ The other two just nodded and grinned.
Seven
When the man got up in the morning the overcast sky had gone and the sun was shining. The conservatory was already warming up nicely, so he sat in there with a cup of coffee, thinking on what to do next. While there he checked on the progress of his seawater evaporation experiment. Three days earlier he had put some seawater into a shallow dish on the window-ledge to let it evaporate and collect the salt that would be left behind. Although he had a good store at the moment he wanted to test this out as a way of obtaining salt in the future. As it had been overcast recently it was taking a long time to evaporate, but he could see salt crystals forming around the edge already. He smiled to himself; now the sun was out it wouldn’t take much longer to finish evaporating and then he would taste it.
He decided his first act of the day would be a bathe in the sea as he was feeling rather grubby. While unpacking after moving into the bungalow, he had found the box of liquid travel soap he’d bought months earlier. It was supposed to lather in salt water, which normal soap wouldn’t do, so he thought he’d try it. He got undressed and put on his dressing gown and a pair of sandals to walk down in.
The sea was cold – only eleven or twelve degrees Celsius – and he sucked in breath sharply as the waves broke on his legs. Undeterred, he dived in and swam around for a while before fetching the bottle of soap. It didn’t lather as well as normal soap in fresh water, but it was okay and did the job. He climbed out and put his gown back on, feeling cold but refreshed, and walked back to the house. After drying himself and putting on warm clothes he got some food ready for a breakfast of pancetta and baked beans with some flatbread.
He’d taken to using the wood-gas camping stove and the Kelly Kettle for cooking and boiling water during the day, as he wanted to save the petrol and butane gas for when he was low on logs for the stove. Both were extremely efficient, requiring only a few handfuls of twigs from the garden, which he collected and stored under the porch to keep them dry. The wood-burner in the kitchen he wanted to use only in the evenings to warm the place up and to cook on.