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Troubador Publishing Ltd - Nick Christofides

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124 pages

English

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The European Union has collapsed. Countries are shaken to the core by the economic and political fallout. Europe is split between the Capitalist 'Scandinavian Arc' in the north and a post-capitalist 'Southern Bloc' in the south. Ben Baines, a dissident, is pushed forward by 'The People' to lead England. Taking to office with a barefaced contemptfor pomp, quashing corporate control and ousting The Establishment, he ignites a new optimism in his country. Living on a Northumbrian farm, Nat and Esme Bell are toughened by experience and hardened by work. They hold no value in money or standing. But they also have no understanding of the Populist Revolution, or the ideology that the new regime must enforce. One man must fight to save his country, the other to save his world.

Sujets

War

Politics

Political

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	02 juin 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838598532
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © 2020 Nick Christofides

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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For Andreas
Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE

T he B order R eivers

“ People who have suffered every atrocity, and who have every reason to fear that they will suffer them again, may submit tamely, or they may fight for survival. The English and Scots of the frontier were not tame folk.”
George MacDonald Fraser

The wild North gave no respite to the hardy souls who called this land home. It was January, a time of year when the winds often came from Siberia, sweeping relentlessly over the coastal plain and into the Border hills, biting flesh with icy fangs. The stooped figures of men battling its fury appeared from the gloom as they trudged up the hillside.
‘Why’s he brought us all the way out here?’ said one, fighting for voice over the gale. The question was lost to the wind and none of his companions heard him as they approached a lonely stone byre. The rain fell like daggers to rap on its tin roof.
They were southwest of Wooler, close to the Scottish Border, and the Cheviot Hills loomed in the darkness. The howling weather battered the already beaten barn, but an orange glow radiated from lights within; like an inn on a long remote road, it offered sanctuary.
The heat from the assembled men appeared like smoke, rising from rain drenched coats inside the confines of the shelter. The haze escaped from the building and expanded into the air briefly, before the wind whipped it away.
There must have been a hundred farmers rammed into that byre, their ruddy faces glowing in the orange light. The smell of silage wafted through the space, and a muted hullabaloo spilled from chattering mouths, bravado cloaked the fear.
Old Man Rowell farmed near enough four hundred acres outside Hexham. Almost eighty, the passage of time struggled to age him, he was rotund and red-faced but, like a packhorse, he was built for hard graft. His three sons, all stern and upright, flanked him. Two of them shared the old man’s build; the third was a foot taller.
Slamming his fist repeatedly into his open palm, he paced with a broad bow-legged gate back and forth across the makeshift stage they had cobbled together from hay bales and planks.
‘We’ve farmed this land… toiled, sweated blood and shed tears!’ he boomed. ‘The soil is grafted into our skin! This land that our fathers passed down through blood to hand, it’s our right…’
The crowd drowned out Rowell’s voice with cries for revolt.
‘We must resist the government’s treachery,’ he continued, to rapturous cheers. ‘We must fight this robbery!’
The men in the barn stamped their feet and bashed whatever they could that would make a noise. The racket overwhelmed the howling wind and dust fell from the roof as the building shook at the mercy of the farmers’ energy.
As the clamour ebbed, Rowell roared out: ‘What they’re saying is a ‘new beginning’ for some is the end of the world for us! If necessary…’ The crowd fell silent. ‘If necessary, we must fight the men they send!’
Again, fever gripped the room, which bristled with physical electricity. Rowell stepped back to allow the assembly to voice their rage. As the reaction to his words died down, he stepped forward again.
‘Those bastards will not beat me.’ He turned to look at his sons. ‘And I’ll not let it be the end for you.’
In a dark corner of the barn, a figure sat bent forward, his eyes fixed on the floor. Steam rose from his sodden clothes and his hands were clamped together, resting on his lap, swollen and sore from pulling sheep out of the snow.
His head rose slowly to absorb the atmosphere of the byre and the strident passions therein. His skin was tanned by the weather, and he had a thick shock of white hair and grey whiskers. Years of squinting into sun and gales had wreathed wrinkles around his eyes and, when he opened them, the piercing cobalt became a window to the life stirring beneath that gnarled exterior.
He looked at the throng. Although he knew every face, he had nothing to say to anyone. Many looked to him for direction, but he bowed his head again. He ground his teeth and picked at a scab on his hand, drawing a red trickle from the wound. As he smudged the blood across his skin, his eyes met the expectant crowd once more. For a long moment he appeared on the verge of delivering the words they wanted to hear. The crowd willed it, but instead the man stood silent. He didn’t raise his eyes again but simply masked his grimace by pulling his hood over his head. Nat Bell turned without a word and threw the heavy door aside.
The violence of the weather silenced Rowell. As the freezing wind filled the void that Bell left, Rowell watched him vanish into the deluge falling like shards of glass across the open doorway. The old man forgot about his audience. When he snapped back into the present, he saw the spiritless faces staring back at him. His shoulders sagged, and his hands hugged his arms and rubbed against the chill while he waited for men to heave the door closed.
ONE
Three hundred and thirty-seven miles south of Wooler, Ben Baines was mobbed by his party members. They hugged him and kissed him, shook his hands eagerly and slapped his back. His own face beamed back at him from a sea of placards adorned with his picture and the words The New Way: the New Socialist Order .
He knew that it was too early to leave, but in conversation he felt his eyes glaze over, and he found himself lost for words; these politicians and party busybodies were not his people. He maintained a frivolous grin, waving all the way and accepting their praise, as he backed out of the room. He jogged up four flights of stairs to the calm of his office. He had won. He had brought the NSO to power. Pushed to the fore by his peers, he had defeated The Establishment, big business and the media.
When he reached his office Lucas Dart was waiting for him there. Dart stood up straight as his leader entered, it was not a conscious act, and Ben noted that his deputy seemed annoyed with himself with this show of deference. Ben smiled at him, knowing all too well how disarming his smile could be.
He turned off the strip beam lights as he stepped in – he hated them, especially the incessant hum they emitted – and the office was left draped in shadow. Dart took a long, deep breath and exhaled loudly, exaggerated and bullish, while Baines wandered over to the window.
Lucas sat down on one of the huge Chesterfields and the leather groaned beneath him, it distracted Ben from the window and he looked across at his colleague. ‘I thought they were coming to take all this bloody stuff.’ He gestured to all the finery.
‘I don’t know, Ben. That’s above my station,’ Lucas replied sarcastically, casting his eye over the sofa, he reclined and shook his head.
Ben looked with disgust at the antique furniture, the trappings of wealth and power, before his eyes settled on the portrait of Mikhail Bakunin, his only addition to the room, staring down on all who visited the epicentre of The Revolution.
‘Well I can’t have it in here. It’s embarrassing,’ he continued.
The building was not his idea, but it had been offered to the party by a wealthy donor and he didn’t pass up the opportunity. To legitimise the movement, the NSO had needed a headquarters in the nation’s capital. One thing had always been certain: he was not prepared to move into Downing Street; his movement would create its own traditions, not follow those of the enemy.
He stood at the sash window, itself at least nine feet bottom to top, and rested his forehead on the cold glass. He studied the revellers milling in the street, four storeys below, like bees in their hive.
‘And they thought leaving Europe would give rise to fascists…’ he said absently, without looking away from the window.
Dart had risen from the sofa to pour himself a drink at the antique mahogany sideboard. The clink of cut glass and the groan of aged wood drew Ben’s attention away from the window again.
He stepped over to his desk and slumped down in the leather seat. He leaned back, his legs splayed, and his arms hung at ease by the sides of the chair.
‘Cheers!’
Dart raised his glass and slurped his drink as he also approached the desk. His barrel chest and thick neck inhibited his movement, but he dis