Squad Commander Fraser shifted his machine pistol onto the other shoulder and squinted into the low-hanging sun. The hummocky terrain beyond the wall was baked hard, any remaining grass withered white, bouncing the harsh rays into his eyes. Little by little the barren zone merged into scrubby brush, dessicated and barely alive, which stretched as far as the eye could see. They’d been told to expect quite a crowd later in the morning, spotted heading their way by the security drones the previous evening. So far he’d seen not a soul.
It was just after six, but the temperature on his wrist thermometer was already edging towards the forty mark. Humidity was high too. It was going to be one hell of a Mid-Summer’s Day. For a moment he felt pity for those – beyond his sight – struggling northwards across the desolate landscape, desperate to find respite and sanctuary his side of the wall. It didn’t last. There just wasn’t the room, wasn’t the food. It was five years now, since the order from Holyrood had gone out. No more. Alba was full.
The border posts had come down then, and all routes north closed off. Then the wall had gone up. Ten metres high, there were no breaks, no entrances. The only way in was up and over or around, and that’s why Fraser was there. He and four hundred or so others of the Deterrent Force. It wasn’t hard really. All they had to do was shout a couple of warnings at any bands of refugees getting too close, then pot a few if they were ignored. After one or two went down, the rest invariably legged it. Where they went, he thought, Christ only knew. Back into the dying land that was once England he assumed. There to starve slowly. Personally, he would take a bullet any day, but people would hang onto life as long as they possibly could, hoping against all hope that something would turn up.
He looked up as a pair of Dissuader AIs rumbled overhead. The robot planes were programmed to locate and identify individuals and groups heading for the wall, issue three demands to turn back, fire a warning salvo, then take them out if they made no move to turn around. There’d been more and more of them around in the last few months and they gave Fraser the creeps. There’d been mutterings about them in his squad and the general opinion had been that they were the future. That, eventually, there would be no more than a skeleton Deterrent Force, the whole business of so called alien interception undertaken automatically and with little human involvement. In which case, most of them would be out of a job. And they all knew what that meant for them and their families. No work – no food.
As the sun rose higher a gentle breeze wandered in from the Irish Sea. It wouldn’t last, but it was welcome nonetheless. A stronger gust lifted his light kilt and he allowed himself to savour the feeling as it played around his privates. A couple of klicks away, he could see where the wall hung a hard right at Beaumont, paralleling the coast all the way up to Gretna to put off any wise guys who thought to sneak in the back door. Even now it brought a smile when he thought of the route of the wall, which pretty much followed the one the Romans had built a couple of thousand years earlier. They, of course, were trying to keep the Scots out. Now the situation was reversed. Still, the English had only themselves to blame. As climate breakdown had bitten ever harder, successive governments had fiddled while the country burned – quite literally.
The nation of Scotland – now Alba – was fortunate to be water rich and even as summer temperatures soared the rapid construction of a network of mains and canals had ensured that everyone benefited from the heavy winter rains. Farmers could irrigate their fields, even in the worst droughts, those industries that came through the Correction relatively unscathed had water enough to operate one week in two, and those in cities now bursting at the seams had enough to drink – most of the time. Fraser turned and looked north at the rolling green hills covered by a patchwork of fields, then back at the wasteland in front. No wonder the Sassenachs were so desperate to get in.
A whistle off to the left caught his attention and he squinted to make out, through the early morning heat haze, a couple of his men approaching along the narrow walkway that topped the wall. There were ten altogether – including himself – charged with protecting a little more than a three kilometre stretch. The rest, he knew, were breakfasting in the shade of the covered stairwell, which formed a semicircular bulge on the northern side, and provided access to the wall from below. The thought reminded Fraser that he had eaten nothing since the previous evening and his stomach produced a timely rumble. The food was shite, there was no doubt about that, but – unlike for the city folk – it was unrationed, so they always had enough.
He peered into the sun again as he waited for the pair to report, still thinking of food. He had no idea what the English refugees ate to keep themselves alive. They were skin and bone by the time they reached the wall, the kids’ bellies swollen with advanced malnutrition. He was surprised that they made it this far at all. How did they keep going? It could only be, he surmised, on a diet of prayer and desperation. A diet inevitably ended by a bullet or slow starvation in the heat and the dust.
Again, he felt a twinge of compassion, compromised by anger at an English government – now decanted wholesale to Iceland – that had failed to look after its own people; that had chosen not to act until the horse had well and truly bolted. As temperatures climbed, London and the south east had struggled to draw up enough water from depleted aquifers. By the time plans were in place for a national water grid, to bring in the precious resource from the north and west, the world was in the grip of the Correction and the money to build it wasn’t there.
As water rationing was enforced across the UK, militancy blossomed in water-rich regions and the mantra ‘we hold what we have’ rang out. Scotland had plenty, so it was hardly a surprise when the country voted overwhelmingly for independence, galvanised by the SNP’s call for Scottish water for the Scots. The poll took place against the wishes of the Westminster government and afterwards there was a bit of sabre-rattling from the English. A short but vicious conflict ensued, but it was clear the Sassenachs’ hearts weren’t really in it. Scotland took the opportunity to edge its border southwards to the site of the Roman wall, at the same time reclaiming its Gaelic name, Alba.
The Welsh could see the way things were going and wanted out too. The feeling was that they had been dumped on by the English for long enough, and they had no qualms about kicking their neighbour when it was down. Supplies to England from the principality’s mountain reservoirs were shut down and the water saved for the use of the Cymru alone.
So then the English were on their own – just like they’d always wanted to be. But the weather grew hotter, the aquifers were sucked dry and agriculture and industry began to crumble, so that once the Great Drought began, the country was already on its knees. That’s when the movement north began in earnest. At first the migrants were welcomed, at least if they had money or skills – preferably both – but then the numbers just got silly, with thousands queuing every day at the eight border crossings.
Fraser still felt anger and frustration as he recalled how the unrest amongst those denied entry had quickly turned into pitched battles with the Immigration Force – as they were then – amongst the shanties that had sprang up along the border fence. They just hadn’t had enough men to cope and he’d lost a couple of good mates before Holyrood had finally got its act together.
Fraser’s musings were interrupted as he became aware that the two troopers had, for some time, been standing wordlessly just behind him. He turned and raised his eyebrows.
‘Nothin’ tae report, Sarge. Nae a soul aboot.’
Fraser nodded his thanks and the pair made off in search of breakfast. It was getting uncomfortably hot now and the weight of the machine pistol was making his shoulder slick with sweat. He unslung it and lay it on the metal parapet in front, burning his hand as he did so.
‘Shit!’ For perhaps the thousandth time he railed mentally against the fuckwit back in Edinburgh who had thought a wall made of metal was a good idea in a world that was rapidly turning into a hothouse hell. In the middle of the afternoon you really could fry eggs on it – if you could find any eggs.
He peered over the parapet, careful this time to keep any bare skin away the scorching metal. The shanties that had hugged the old border fence were long gone, demolished and burnt where they stood, leaving a wide stretch of charred, ash-carpeted ground that followed the wall. There were bones too, the scattered remains of a miscarried child abandoned in one of the shacks. He could see them now, off to the left, part bleached white by the sun, part blackened by fire. He really ought to get them buried. It was the least he could do.
He raised his eyes to scan the scrub again. Still nothing. Maybe the drones were wrong. They had been before. Fact was, they had seen hardly anyone for more than a month now. He was beginning to wonder whether the wall was needed any more. Perhaps it had done its job? He’d heard on the grapevine that the great and the good were asking the same question. Hence the increase in the Dissuader AIs. There were other deterrents they could use too. Ones that didn’t tie up four hundred hungry souls for months at a time of mind-numbing boredom relieved only very rarely by a short burst of mild excitement. Maybe they’d take a leaf out of despot ruled Lakeland’s book. It really was amazing how effective an unmanned frontier marked by the flayed and crucified corpses of children could be at keeping the unwanted out. Then again, maybe not. Despite the heat, he shivered at the imagery.
It made him feel sick inside to think that, at the stroke of a pen in Holyrood, he could be dumped in the shit without warning – no job, no food, a future begging on the streets if he couldn’t find some other way of supporting the missus and the girls. And he knew what happened to beggars. Their life expectancy was shorter even than the poor bastards that tried to scale the wall.
He blew out his cheeks. Well, there was nothing he could do. He contemplated the horizon again. Still deserted. He’d give it another five minutes, then breakfast. He used both hands to wipe his eyes free of sweat. The breeze had died, replaced by stagnant air. It would stay like this now, the enervating humidity building until the monstrous convective storms of the late afternoon provided some relief in the form of gusting winds and torrential rain. None of it soaked in, of course. The water just ran off the baked ground, scouring ever-deeper runnels that anastomosed and merged, and ended up at the coast in enormous gulleys. Then the heat would start to mount all over again. He sighed and closed his eyes. What a fucking world.
A few minutes more and he’d had enough. His belly was rumbling constantly now and he needed to eat. As he turned to go, his eye caught a flash way out in the distant scrub. Turning back he peered again into the glare, but whatever it was had vanished. He was about to turn away again when his eyes opened wide. Was he seeing things? Was it the heat shimmer? The air was as hot and still as a cooling pool of molten steel, but the scrub seemed to be moving, swaying and shimmying, battered this way and that, as if ruffled by gusts of wind. He rubbed his eyes again and squinted into the glare. Then his jaw dropped.
‘Whit the fuck…..’ Emerging from the scrubland were figures. A trickle at first, then more and more, until they swarmed across the baked ground like a horde of giant ants.
Fraser closed his mouth and swallowed hard. There must be a thousand, give or take, he reckoned, and still more were emerging from the scrub. They moved slowly, but purposefully, coming together to form a straggling column that headed for the wall a hundred metres or so to his left.
Eyes still fixed on the multitude, he spoke into his head mic. ‘Lacky. Get the lads up top. Now. We’ve got comp’ny.’ His number two responded at once.
‘On it. Out.’
Fraser raised his field glasses and took in a sight he’d now and again had nightmares about, but hoped he’d never see. This was no starving rabble, this was organised. There was method in this madness. The front of the column was almost entirely male, and mostly on the right side of fifty. Quite a number were armed – everything from machine pistols to meat cleavers. Others carried extendable ladders. Behind came older men, women and kids. Even at this distance he could see that everyone was rake thin and looked just about all-in. They shuffled rather than walked, inching their way across the blasted landscape.
‘Jesus H Christ!’ A miasma of body odour and stale cigarette smoke announced the arrival of Lacky – Squad Deputy, Corporal Lachlan Gray.
‘Must be thousands o’ the cunts!’
Fraser lowered the glasses.
‘Get Begbie and his lot over here. And Drummond. We’ll nae stop these fuckers on our own.’
Lacky showed no sign of having heard a word. He seemed transfixed by the steadily advancing column, muttering profanities under his breath.’
Fraser reached out and cuffed him around the head, knocking his wide-brimmed digger hat askew.
‘Listen up ye wee shite!’
‘Wee’ was stretching it a bit as the man towered at least a foot above the diminutive Fraser, but the sentiment was there. The number two looked startled, affected a sloppy salute and headed off, talking into his head mic and straightening his hat. Fraser called after him.
‘An’ soun’ the general alarm. We dinae ken if there are ither columns.’
Moments later, the sirens began sounding off along the entire length of the wall, providing a head-splitting backdrop to the clatter of boots on metal as the squaddies pounded along the walkway to gather around their commander. Some were still chewing, all were dripping sweat. One or two looked terrified and kept glancing over at the advancing horde.
‘Right. Listen up yeez bawbags! Dinnae fash aboot the numbers. This lots a rabble, a bunch of jessies. They’ll turn aboot and run once yeez start firing.’
A few didn’t look convinced.
‘Ah need yeez tae spread oot. Pick off the tadgers wi’ the guns and ladders. Leave the rest tae gan chug.’
Fraser tried to catch an eye, but everyone of them looked down, feet shuffling. They hadn’t signed up for this. Taking potshots at the occasional jobby was one thing. But this? This was something else entirely. They looked petrified and he couldn’t blame them. He didn’t feel too great himself. But he couldn’t show it.
‘OK? Any questions?’
No-one spoke.
‘Right. Braw. Now – scram. Oan ye bike. An’ stay solid.’ There were some inaudible mutterings and a few attempts at a salute, before the squad turned as one and jogged back along the wall. Following standard procedure, the tail ender peeled off every fifty metres or so and took up a position at the parapet, machine pistol unshouldered and tracking the advancing column. Within minutes, the squad had spread out along half a klik. Once Fraser could see they were in position, he tapped his head mic. ‘Nae firing ’til ah say. Savvy?’ He took the silence as an affirmative.
Fraser remained in his position to the west of the approaching column, so as to get a picture of the action as a whole. The order not to fire without his say-so had carried no weight in the face of mounting fear as the column drew closer. It was still some way off when one of the men let loose a short burst. The bullets hit no-one and he could see the impacts kicking up dust to the right of the column, but it provided the spark for the rest of the lads to open up. It also provoked an immediate response from the attacking force. One he strongly suspected had been planned in advance.
As the gunfire homed in, the column disintegrated, splintering into small groups, each comprising a few armed men and a pair carrying ladders. Now, instead of a single column, the defenders were facing perhaps a couple of hundred small bands of individuals who weaved and dodged as they scuttled towards the wall. It confirmed what Fraser had already known deep down, that they just didn’t have the men to keep this lot out. Not by a long way. And there was no sign of reinforcement from either of the neighbouring squads.
As the firing continued, plenty went down and the white baked ground was soon splashed red with the blood of hundreds of dead and dying. But the attackers had the numbers – and they were desperate. They screamed like berserkers, hunger and fatigue forgotten as they sensed the proximity of the promised land. They had no fear and nothing to lose and that made them unstoppable.
Within minutes at least a dozen ladders were in place, the attackers swarming up them and onto the wall. Inevitably, these drew the fire of the defenders, so that those still climbing found themselves unopposed. Many of the attackers fell on the wall, but one by one Fraser watched as his men were brought down, either by a bullet or under the hacking blows of a flurry of machetes and the stamping of feet. In no time the wall was taken. Lacky was the last to go down. Fraser watched him, head and shoulders above the surrounding mob, arms flailing, keeping it at bay with the bill hook he was never parted from. Then the back of his head seemed to burst apart as it took a bullet at close range and he went down like a felled oak.
After that his recollection faded. His memory of events chopped up into a series of disconnected scenes. The mass of attackers trudging along the wall in his direction. A close up of hollowed eyes and ravaged faces. Blood-caked weapons held in raised arms. He could easily have taken out dozens of them, but he remembered thinking what would be the point. It would only postpone the end. He had glanced behind to see if there was any sign of Begbie, but the bastard and his men were nowhere to be seen. He was still debating whether or not to fight, when a rock hurled from the advancing mob took him four-square on the temple, and brought instant oblivion.
Consciousness returned abruptly, summoned by a brilliant flash of light and a thundering crash that rumbled slowly into nothing. He was naked, and it was raining; a deluge of huge, warm droplets that made it impossible to open his eyes. He turned his head to the side and squinted into darkness. Nothing. His head hurt like fuck and he tried to lift a hand to check for damage. That’s when he panicked. He couldn’t move his arms. It took a few seconds for him to work out his predicament. He lay on his back, arms and legs akimbo and bound with thin rope to wooden stakes beaten deep into the ground. Despite the pain, he strained at his bonds, but they were good and tight. He lifted his head once more, just as another flash of lightning tore across the sky. For a moment, the rain glossed surface of the wall towered above him, then blackness returned.
Despite the rain and the clamour of the storm, he must have slept then, or lost consciousness again, because when he opened his eyes a second time, a yellow light was filtering across a grey landscape from which the heat of the coming day drew out plumes of steam like a thousand camp fires. When he raised his head he could see no-one, but slowly he became aware of the sound of footsteps approaching from behind, crunching across the desiccated landscape with purpose. He resisted the urge to struggle and waited, resigned, for what might happen next. He doubted it would be good.
The sound stopped as a foot enclosed in a military boot was planted either side of his head. For a moment, he felt elated. Rescued – against all the odds. Then a face loomed over his, red bearded and florid-skinned, a face he knew.
‘Begbie! Whit the fuck?’ He struggled against his bonds then, as if he thought that Begbie had maybe not noticed them.
‘Christ alive, am I glad te see ye. Gimme a hand out o’ these bastard ropes.’
Begbie said nothing, but sat down slowly on the parched ground a little way off. He was a big and cumbersome man and it seemed to take some effort. He made no move to untie the bonds, but peered earnestly and, it seemed to Fraser, a little sadly into his face. ‘Am afraid I dinae work fer the Force nae more.’
Fraser looked confused. ‘Is youz takin the pish, Begbie. Jus’ get me oot o’ this.’
In response, Begbie just shook his head slowly. ‘Cannae do that ma friend.’
Fraser looked incredulous and his mouth worked as he built himself up to let rip, but in the end nothing came out, and his outrage subsided like a deflating balloon. He waited to hear what Begbie had to say.
The big man looked east and squinted into the brilliant orange dawn.
‘Ye see, they wouldnae let me. I helped them right enough, but that doesnae mean they owe me. I had ma own reasons.’ Fraser lay still now, thinking things over. ‘Ye jumped ship – ye big cunt.’ It was part statement, part question. Begbie shrugged, but continued to look away. ‘I had nae choice. It was the only way I could get ma girl back.’ Fraser closed his eyes. Now he understood. Begbie’s woman had been taken in one of the rare and pointless English raids on Alba’s coastal communities. Somehow she had got away and managed to get a message to Begbie. It had been brought north by one of the buccaneering adventurers who traded with the growing number of English salt manufactories on the south and east coasts. Begbie had done everything he could to persuade the government to get her back, but Holyrood was having none of it. It would set a precedent, they said, a dangerous one.
‘So where’s the lassie now?’ Fraser queried.
Begbie turned and looked down at him, a smile playing about his mouth. ‘She’s in.’ He gestured with his head in the direction of the wall. ‘Wi’ the rest of ’em.’
Fraser wondered why Begbie wasn’t with her, but the big man answered the question before he could ask. ‘I’ll join her when I’m done here.’
Fraser didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Oh aye. Done whit exactly?’ He tried to catch Begbie’s eye, but the man was peering towards the dawn once again.
‘It’s gonna be a hot un, right enough.’
Fraser said nothing. He knew he wouldn’t make it through the day, staked out naked in blistering heat for twelve hours or more. The sun had just touched the horizon and the first rays washing over him already had sweat beading on his brow.
‘It’s an awfi way tae die.’ said Begbie. He sounded as if he sincerely felt for Fraser.
‘Then get me the fuck oot o’ here, pal.’ Fraser struggled briefly to reinforce the point, then settled back, breathing heavily in the building heat.
Begbei turned and looked down at him again, shaking his head once more, but saying nothing. Then he half turned and reached into a pocket of his ragged trews, pulling out a small pistol.
Fraser felt his stomach clench and his eyes opened wide. ‘Aw, come on now, big man. I thought we was mates.’
Begbei looked hurt. ‘It’s a favour. A quick way oot. They were all fer letting you roast.’ He nodded in the direction of Alba. Fraser raised his head. Screwing up his eyes against the blinding sun reflected back off the wall, he could just make out three silhouettes. He said nothing, but lay back on the rock-hard earth, already uncomfortably hot as the sky began to blaze with the burning light of the new day.
So this was it. Slow and excruciating or quick and – he hoped – painless. He had always known it would come to this sooner rather than later, so in a way he was prepared. He’d had too many close encounters with the grim reaper, during his forty years, to imagine he would survive to a ripe old age. His only regret was that he wouldn’t see the girls again. He and Martha hadn’t been close for a couple of years now and, to tell the truth, he wouldn’t miss her. But the girls. His eyes filled at the thought he wouldn’t be there to protect them as they struggled with the shit hand that fate and climate collapse had dealt them. ‘Begbie.’
The big man was toying with the pistol, seemingly uncertain what to do next.
‘Ye’ll keep an eye on the girls fer me?’
Begbie nodded. ‘Dinna fash yersel, pal.’
Fraser squeezed his eyes shut against the mix of sweat and tears. He could sense, rather than hear, that Begbie was getting restless. Not long now. One way or the other.
He’d never been a God botherer, and he wasn’t planning on becoming one now. He had always thought of death as a very long, deep, sleep, and by Christ he could certainly do with one.
He heard a shout then. One of the loiterers by the wall he guessed. He couldn’t make out the words, but the intent was clear. Fraser heard Begbie’s knees pop as he stood. Then the sound of the pistol being cocked. There was silence for a time, then Begbie cleared his throat nervously.
‘It’s time wee man. Whit’s it tae be?’
Fraser knew that there really was no choice, but he didn’t see why he should make it easy. Let the bastard stew. He closed his eyes again and said nothing. The awkward silence dragged on until Fraser decided he’d made his point. His head came up and he opened his mouth to speak, but the words never came.
A small hole appeared in the dead centre of his forehead. His whole body jerked once, then subsided slowly onto the baked ground. His head tilted sideways, one cheek resting in the mix of blood and grey matter that formed a starburst beneath.
Begbie pocketed the pistol and looked down at the body. He muttered something under his breath, which might have been an expression of regret, a prayer, or even a thanksgiving of relief. He seemed unable to leave until another cry hooked him out of his contemplation. This time a woman’s, high and clear and full of life. The sun was fully up now, turning the spreading pool of blood into a glowing mirror around which the flies were already beginning to gather.
He turned then without a backward glance and raised his arm to a small figure beckoning excitedly from the top of the wall.
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Emerging Worlds is a Zealot Script Publication.
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