‘Come on then; your turn!’ Jane grinned at him and they changed places, then she roared off down the hill and along the flat. When they got to the roundabout by her flats she turned onto West Parade and drove home at a more sedate pace, both of them laughing and grinning from ear-to-ear. Back at the house she parked the car in the garage then they went inside feeling elated and made some coffee. After laughing some more about their crazy ride they went back to the gardening with smiles on their faces.
Something happened on the Wednesday that Jamie had to tell Jane about when he got home from a trip to the retail park. She had prepared lunch while he was out and they sat down to eat when he returned.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s at least one more person alive in the area, maybe more.’
‘Why, did you see them?’
‘No, but a car was gone from the park by Tesco’s, which was there on Friday when I got the generators – a Ford Mondeo estate. I forgot to tell you about it at the time. I couldn’t remember if it had been there on my last visit and I had a lot on my mind, but it was definitely there on Friday and now it’s not.’
They talked about the implications of this, but couldn’t decide if it was a good or a bad thing. Ostensibly, they should have felt pleased that others had survived, but so far two of their three encounters with other survivors had been bad ones.
‘It’s possible they don’t even live in Bexhill,’ said Jane, ‘but came in from the surrounding area.’
‘That’s true. Oh well, there’s nothing we can do about it; we’ll either meet them, or we won’t. We’ll just have to be cautious whenever we go out, and make sure we’re always armed, to be on the safe side.’ Jane agreed with him.
He thought for a second. ‘On that note, I think it’s time we went down to the beach to give you a bit of instruction on the shotguns. You can fire off a few cartridges to get a feel for them.’
‘Okay, that’s a good idea.’
They finished lunch and cleared up then he brought the two sawn-offs and one over and under into the kitchen and put them on the table. He broke them open, removed the cartridges and demonstrated the differences between them. Her sawn-off was the oldest and simplest design, with two external hammers that you cocked manually and a separate trigger to fire each barrel.
‘I’d avoid firing both barrels together, if I were you,’ he said. ‘The kick would be huge and might hurt your shoulder!’
The other sawn-off and the over/under were more modern designs, with internal hammers. He explained that they cocked automatically when you broke open the barrel and closed it again, and there was a safety catch on top of the stock.
‘That means that if they’re loaded and closed they’re always ready to fire; all you need to do is slide the safety off and you’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll!’
He pointed out that his sawn-off had two triggers, like hers, but the two over/unders had just a single trigger which fired each barrel in turn. ‘The recoil from the first shot automatically re-cocks it, ready for the next shot.’
Jane practised opening and closing, loading and handling them, then they took all three guns and the box of cartridges they’d got from the Toyota down to the beach. Max followed them down the garden, but waited on the top step and watched them go onto the beach.
They didn’t go far and stopped ten yards from the nearest groyne, in line with one of the posts. Jane loaded the first sawn-off, cocked it and held it loosely up to her shoulder. Jamie stopped her immediately. ‘Whatever you do, don’t fire it like that! You’ll hurt yourself. It’s got to be snug against your shoulder to absorb the recoil. If it’s loose, the recoil will drive it back into you and you’ll end up with bruises. If it’s tight against you, your body moves with it to absorb the shock.’
She settled it snugly into her shoulder, aimed at the post and pulled the trigger. She gave a little shriek of excitement and turned to grin at him. Max barked behind them. They turned and waved at him and he barked again as if to say “Just checking!” She raised the gun again and fired the second barrel, then tried Jamie’s sawn-off. She broke it open, loaded it, closed the barrel and slid the safety on. She raised it to her shoulder, slid the safety off with her thumb and fired each barrel in turn.
They walked up to the post and Jamie showed her the spread of shot either side of it. They walked back to the same spot and she did the same with the over and under gun. Jamie said to hold it away from her at a slight angle when she broke it open, so the automatic ejectors wouldn’t throw the spent cartridges into her face. She broke it open and the cartridges ejected, followed by a trail of smoke. When they went up to the post she could see the much tighter grouping of the shot pattern because of its longer barrel. They repeated the process another ten yards further back.
‘Excellent,’ said Jamie. ‘Feel comfortable with them?’
Jane grinned and nodded. ‘Cool! I wish I’d tried this years ago.’ He smiled and asked her which sawn-off she felt happier using, and that she could choose which she preferred. She said she was happy with the one she had. They walked back up the steps to Max, patting and stroking him, and Jane gave him a dog treat. After putting the guns away in the house they carried on with the gardening.
That evening they cooked and ate their meal together in his kitchen. Even though she was now sleeping next door since the previous night, it made much more sense for them to cook together, rather than both of them burning wood on a single meal each. They planned to continue doing so every day, and it was much more sociable like that, anyway.
After they’d eaten and cleared the things away they sat and talked for a couple of hours in the kitchen, with Max stretched out on his blanket in front of the stove, then Jane yawned and announced that she was ready for bed. They said goodnight and she stroked Max, then picked up her shotgun and a box of cartridges and went next door.
Jamie poured a glass of cognac and went to sit on the sofa in the conservatory, looking out at the night sky and listening to the waves break on the beach. Max heard him move and looked up; satisfied that he wasn’t going far he put his head back down on the blanket. Jamie sat there for half an hour, thinking. He decided that the next day, weather permitting, he would take the boat out for the first time and attempt to catch some fish. Apart from wanting fresh food, he was eager to try the smokers he’d built to see if they worked as they were, or if they would need modifying. He finished his drink, stroked Max and said goodnight, then went to bed.
Twelve
On Thursday morning when he got up, Jane was again up before him and they greeted each other. Max was devouring a bowl of food and she was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee, reading a book. She said there was coffee in the pot so he poured himself a mug and sat down with her.
‘I was thinking last night after you went to bed;’ he said, ‘I’d like to take the boat out to try it with the oars and see if I can catch some fish. We need to start getting fresh meat and learning to preserve it. The sooner we can stop using tinned meat, the better, as far as I’m concerned. I think we need to treat those foods more as emergency rations for when we can’t get fresh stuff. Obviously, we’ll have to continue using the tinned veg’ and fruit until later, when we can pick fresh stuff.’