nickname, but everyone believed it'd become real one day.
It was great. It made me wish I wasn't part of the convoy, so I could stand with all the others and cheer King Val and his sons on their way to show King Conor what was what.
It was first gear the whole time. It was a public holiday. Little fairs, street sellers, jugglers, comics, theatre. There were so many stalls and entertainments we had to keep stopping and wait while the guard cleared the way so we could get through. You could have gone quicker on a bike. You could have gone quicker on foot. You could've hopped there quicker. We'd have been pulled to pieces before we got there, that's all.
We entered Conor's land at Swiss Cottage and the crowds just got worse. They were hanging out of windows, bulging out of doors. Even so, we weren't taking any risks. The old caterpillar truck is more or less a tank, we were as safe in there as anywhere. We battened down the hatches, pulled on our fireproof shirts and bullet proof vests and settled down to watch the carnival on the video link with outside.
It was a summery day – hot and smelly in the caterpillar. We four -Had, Ben, Val and me – we were all cooped up sweating away and breathing each other's breath. There was just this slitty little window for the driver. We could hardly see out, but what we could see made us jealous of the people outside. All those cheering crowds, yelling and hooting and calling for us. They'd had generations of tyranny and now we were coming. We were peace. They wanted to see us, and here we were hiding away like rabbits from the fox.
Then, 'Bugger this,' said Val. We'd planned on keeping our heads down. It only took one assassin, after all. But seeing it all on TV was perverse. Hel's teeth, it was us they were shouting for! So we opened up the trap door on top – and the noise that came in! When they saw our heads – Conor's people looking straight at us in the flesh – it was deafening!
I've never seen anything like it, except at Signy's send-off. Everyone just went mad. They were cheering and waving and jumping up and down – millions of them, all jammed onto the streets as if they'd been packed in by machine. People were throwing flowers and bits of coloured paper they'd dyed and screwed up into little balls. There was a scruffy little man selling fried potatoes grinning up at us from the roadside. He reached up and offered me a potato, and I took it. I handed it to Val – he was the man, after all -and he bit it in half and everyone cheered louder than ever. King Val eating their potato! What an honour!
You could see it in their faces. Everything was gonna be all right now. It had to be! It was a celebration. It was glorious! Even Hadrian was grinning from ear to ear.
'Conor can't go against this crowd. His own people!' he said.
And I thought, yeah! Val! My father played for big stakes, the biggest. Not control of this bit or that bit of London. He wanted it all and he wanted it for everyone. The only problem was, he wanted to do it all himself. It was a job of centuries. If he'd lived for ever, if Odin wasn't the God of the Dead, he might have done it.
There was a thud some way off, then another almost immediately. There was that shudder the air gives when a big shell lands nearby and then it began roaring. Hadrian pulled down the lid to the armoured car with a bang. Val jumped up and clutched the video screen. 'But what about the crowd?' he said in a surprised voice. Yeah, what about them? There it was on the little black and white picture. They were being blown to pieces.
From a military point of view it was the perfect ambush. The street was narrow, our vehicles were all strung out in a thin line with the crowds shoved right up against us, a living trap. Perfect. But was there ever a more perfect treachery than using your own people as cover?
For a moment we just stood there staring at the little screen. The crowd – Conor's crowd – was swaying and rushing and splashing like water. When a shell landed they went up in bits. Benny lost it a bit and started trying to open the hatch. 'I want to see,' he explained when Had pulled him back down. I knew what he meant- watching all that horror on the screen when it was happening just outside. You wanted to find out if it was really true.
Outside, a shell landed nearby. The car shuddered. They were getting our range.
'Move it!' roared Val. Then came this awful few seconds with the driver banging the car backwards and forwards and blasting the horn. He couldn't bring himself to drive over the living people. Had and Val roared at him together. There was another violent jerk as he gave it gas and brake at the same time. The driver screamed, 'Go!' to himself, and we shot off, tearing over the crowd, crushing people like cabbages under us.
It was a massacre. Our soldiers on foot and the crowds lining the roads went first. You could see them literally sizzling under the gunfire. Then the vehicles went up in flames – BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The crowd fled back from the road, trampling the wounded and the weak down. The dead piled up like barricades of sandbags around them. The others got about ten paces before they were wedged tight against the buildings. They were being massacred twice, once by Conor and once by our vehicles twisting and revving on top of them. They pressed back against the walls to get away from us, and a curtain of space opened up around our vehicles. The streets were spotted with a red pulp.
Val and Had started screaming orders down the radio phone. Benny was praying to Jesus and Odin. I peered out of the little slitty window. Our vehicles were trying to re-group but the streets were too narrow. All we could really do was run. The foot troops were already gone. If they weren't dead they were burying themselves in the crowd, but the guns were still going after them. It must have cost fifty civilians for every one of us. All around, the line of vehicles was popping into oily fire one after another. Then we got hit It wasn't direct, but the whole car was flung sideways. We were shaken about in it like little bloody peas. When it settled, the driver crawled back to the radio phone wiping the blood off his face.
He rattled the connection. 'It's dead,' he said.
'So're we,' said Had.
We all looked sideways at Father. He was staring at the video screen; that was dead too. He banged at it with his hand.
'It's all gone,' he said wonderingly. He couldn't understand. I think Val must've decided he was immortal or something. I saw Hadrian shrug slightly, not meaning he didn't care. But it was too late now.
Then another shell landed near us and we floated up and landed with a huge crash and rolled over. I don't know what it was made of, that armoured car. It was donkey's years old, built way back, but it was almost indestructible. It just bounced around a bit and ended up upside down. But inside – well, we weren't made like that. I was skinned; I had the skin off one side of my face where I'd skidded against the control panel, I was black with bruises down my back and my front, but I never noticed it till much later. I wasn't the worst. Had was groaning in a heap. Benny was screaming. Val was covered in blood from head to foot, he looked like a demon. The driver was trying to crawl back to the driving seat but I think his leg was broken, or twisted or something. He screamed and fell back to the floor.
'It's up to Aaron now,' said Val; that was our general.
Then a kind of miracle happened. Yet another shell hit the car, yet again we rolled over and banged around in there like lumps of meat in a mincer. But this time the car landed on its tracks. I dragged myself into the driving sea, and would you believe it, the engine roared into life. Three hits, and still working!
'Odin loves us!' screamed Val. The engine revved, and we were off. That car! It must've weighed all of five tons, but it skittered up the streets like a little cat. Had was out of it, that last hit had really hurt him. Val and Benny were holding him and the driver, and they were all screaming at me, 'GO! GO! GO!' People were running in front of us, diving out of the way. I clenched my teeth and powered through them, over them. Smoke and fire everywhere. Other vehicles fleeing. I couldn't even see the enemy.
We were crashing through crushed stalls and deserted bandstands, bouncing over heaps of people. We rushed up the street, turned a corner, turned another. We were disappearing into the houses. We were making it, we were doing it, we were getting out! We could have done it! But then…
Then I saw him: the man in the broad-brimmed hat. The dead man, Odin. He was standing on the heaped-up dead, watching us drive. I thought, shit! What are you doing here? Come to watch the prisoners tear up the escape plans? But what spooked me was this: the hail of bullets wasn't bouncing off him; it was blowing
Val said, 'Stop the car.'
I just decided that hadn't happened. 'Stop the car!' yelled Val. He was leaning over my shoulder, staring out of the window. I just ignored him, but he grabbed at the wheel. Had I known – but what could I do? He was my father. I lifted my hands and took my foot off the gas. Val pushed me out of my place and steered us around until we were close to Odin.
'Oh, God, oh, God,' moaned Ben. Through the carnage, Odin was walking across to meet us.
