Surviving The Evacuation, Book 15: Where There's Hope: Surviving The Evacuation, #15

Part One

Captain Flora Fielding

Day 227

25th October

Chapter 1 - Never Volunteer

Calais

The diesel stung as it seeped into the welts around Flora Fielding’s cuffed wrists. The fumes burned her eyes, but there was little to see in the barely illuminated corridor beneath Calais Ferry Terminal. The toxic vapour filled her lungs as she hauled the full canister through the propped-open, triple-thick fire doors.

"Allez! Vite!" Paulo called from the top of the steep stairs.

Flora would put money on him being the one who’d propped open the fire doors. Either Paulo or Rhoskovski. From what she’d seen of the group of multinational slavers who’d taken root in Calais, both were so lazy they’d risk an explosion rather than descend the stairs to keep a more careful watch on their prisoners.

"Allez!" Paulo called again.

She didn’t look up, and she didn’t rush, but carefully hauled the fuel up the steep stairs. Her captors had called it a pump-room, but it wasn’t that. The small chamber was situated beneath the waterline, halfway between the inland fuel tanks and the quayside bunkering platform where the car ferries bound for Dover could be refuelled. Filled with consoles and gauges, the room was a place for monitoring rate of flow, with pride of place given to a comically large red button that would shut down the entire system in case of fire. A small valve allowed an equally small amount of fuel to be run off for testing. It wasn’t designed for litre after litre to be dripped into a mismatch of containers salvaged from who knew where. After only a few minutes in the chamber, her clothes were as saturated as the air. Her skin was as slick as the steps. When she stepped past a scowling Paulo, she’d never been so grateful to breathe fresh air.

Avoiding eye contact with her glowering captor, she trudged over to the other prisoners. She added her container to those already on the cart, and took her place next to Pietr. The young artist from Vienna gave her a conspiratorial grin. She replied with a nod, rubbing her cuffed wrists. The long chain gave her almost complete freedom of movement, but it was rubbing her skin raw.

Twenty metres away, a sign in English and French instructed drivers to remain in their vehicles at all times. No ship was at that berth, giving her an unobstructed view of the seawall protecting the entrance to Calais’s harbour. Beyond that, lost to the horizon and the sea mist, were Dover’s white cliffs. She was closer to home than she’d been since the nightmare began, though Dover wasn’t home. Nor was Portsmouth. No, even eight years after she’d enlisted, home was her parents’ house in Aberdeen.

Such maudlin thoughts wouldn’t help her escape. No. She was a sailor in the Royal Navy, a second lieutenant on the HMS Courageous. Or, if a promotion from a retired Russian admiral had any value, she was now the captain of the Ocean Queen. And she was the prisoner of this multinational mix of slavers and murderers.

Paulo scuffed at the mud-coated asphalt, turned away, and walked over to the water’s edge. None of the prisoners moved. The corpse twenty feet away was proof of what would happen if they did. Flora didn’t know the woman’s name. She’d been shot simply as proof a sniper was watching them. Flora hadn’t located the sniper’s position. Most of this section of the harbour was an asphalt car park for the trucks and cars boarding the ferries bound for Dover, but there were dozens of small, low buildings on which a sniper could perch. Or, if the shooter was that good a shot, perhaps they were on the roof of one of the terminal buildings inland. It didn’t matter. The sniper was real, and there was nowhere from here to run.

Paulo reached into his small backpack, and took out a plastic package. She couldn’t see what he was eating except it was so pink it had to be mostly sugar. Her stomach growled. She forced herself to look away. Paulo was in his mid-twenties, the same age as her, but there the similarities ended. His hair was long and lank. Hers was slowly growing out from the buzz-cut she’d insisted on for all her crew and passengers. He was short while she was tall. Well fed to her gnawing hunger. Warmly dressed compared to the ragged jeans and jumper she’d taken from that Belgian boutique before she’d decided to launch the ill-fated expedition south.

The Ocean Queen and the Courageous had dropped anchor eighty kilometres northeast of Calais, by the small Belgian marina-town of Nieuwpoort. Admiral Popolov had taken most of the crew and passengers east, chasing the radio signal purporting to be from a group of millions of survivors based in Ukraine. That broadcast had been relayed across two continents via commercial broadcasters, ham-operators, and military installations until it reached a group of students in Cape Town. It was the students’ signal that she’d heard, but that had been in March. Now it was October. There’d been no one in Cape Town when they’d gone ashore. No one anywhere in Africa, Spain, or Portugal. No one, except here in the prison camp called Calais.

They’d sailed past the harbour on their journey north, and had hoped to venture inside until they saw the stray mine floating in the harbour’s entrance. They’d seen no lights, no smoke, and so assumed the port was abandoned. She’d argued they should go ashore. With the mine in the harbour preventing scavenging by sea, she’d thought there was a chance other ship-borne looters had avoided the port. They might find food in the harbour, perhaps even fuel. Admiral Popolov had overruled her. They’d continued north, hoping to find shelter in Dunkirk, but it was as bad a ruin as any they’d seen. They’d reached Nieuwpoort with barely any fuel remaining in the Ocean Queen. Admiral Popolov had left her a skeleton crew of three, and had promised to send for them once he’d arrived safely in Ukraine. After two days, still refusing to believe the admiral was chasing ghosts, and with boredom fuelling curiosity, she’d brought her three crew-members south. They had been murdered. Killed in an ambush on the city’s outskirts. She’d survived, but now she was just another prisoner.

Told you, Pietr hissed. An easy duty, yes? Better than killing zombies.

Easy enough, Fielding replied, her voice just as low. How many times have they had you collecting fuel?

Once a week, every week, since the summer, he whispered. This is the first time they brought anyone else. Do what they say, you stay alive.

Her gaze went to the woman whose blood now mingled with the sea-spray puddle in which she lay.

How many snipers are there? Flora asked.

Two, Pietr said. The women in white, yes? You’ve seen them with Rhoskovski? But they’re all good shots.

The prisoners came from across Europe, though they had one thing in common; they’d been trying to find a boat with which to reach England. From the languages she’d overheard, their captors came from France, Hungary, and Germany. Except for Rhoskovski, who was as Russian as the Udaloy-class destroyer in the harbour. She guessed that destroyer was the source of the mine floating in the harbour entrance, and the AK-74Ms that some of the guards carried. The rest carried a mixture of hunting rifles, farmer’s shotguns, and police-issue sidearms. Pietr thought there were over fifty guards, but she’d only counted fourteen so far, a mixture of ages and genders that, like the weapons and accents, gave no clue as to how they’d coalesced into a murderous band here in Calais.

She’d caught a glimpse of the destroyer, and the other dozen mid-sized vessels, as she and the other prisoners were brought to the harbour, but couldn’t see the warship from where she stood.

Do they live aboard the destroyer? she whispered.

I don’t know, Pietr replied. He seemed to realise what she was saying. No, don’t think about it. Everyone who tries to escape, they shoot. Keep your head down, you live. Four months, I’ve survived.

Except his existence wasn’t survival, and it certainly wasn’t living. She asked no more questions, but took in the harbour. Aside from Paulo, two guards loitered near a rusting forklift. That man and woman were more interested in each other than the prisoners. The danger came from the sniper. Even so, and despite the long-chained handcuffs around her wrists, if she got the opportunity to escape, she’d take it. If she could get out of Calais, get back to her ship, and if some of her crew had returned, then she could bring them south and free the remaining prisoners. If any were still alive. If, if, if…

Watch out, he’s coming, Pietr hissed.

She didn’t need to ask who he was. A squat man carrying an AK-74M and four-stone of extra fat sauntered towards them. The man was Rhoskovski. He called himself commander, but he was barely a sailor, and certainly not someone any navy would give a commission. His three-cornered hat had to have come from a museum, while his grey fur coat was so long it trailed in the mud. Behind him walked a pair of women, both head and shoulders taller than Rhoskovski. They wore matching white-fur coats and hats, and utterly blank expressions beneath thick make-up. The women in white. The snipers. Then, maybe, there were no more on the rooftops, watching.

Rhoskovski stopped in front of Flora and smiled. Want one? he asked, holding out a packet of cigarettes.

She shook her head.

"No? Go on. Smoke. Cancer is a good way to die. Long and slow. Rhoskovski laughed, pointedly staring at her diesel-drenched clothes. He dragged a cigarette from the packet, placed it between his lips, and extracted a lighter. Perhaps you would light it for me, yes?" he asked, and held out the lighter.