Once more she wrapped her arms around William’s neck, and pulled him in close to kiss him with drawn-out, knee-weakening, heart-thundering bliss in the chill of the late spring afternoon. The instant her hungry lips met his, all resistance on his part crumbled, and it was all he could do to not collapse to the ground in a stupor, so exquisite was the sensation.
‘Aurora,’ he managed to utter after they were done, ‘I understand what you you’re sayin’, but we dunnae know who’s watching. Perhaps one ay these people will be so offended by the sight that they’ll call a bobby over, you know. I’ll get a hefty floggin’ back at the barracks if it was found out that I was, you know, kissing a lady in public. I love you madly, but we’ve got tae be more careful. I couldnae bear fir anything tae happen that would tear us apart.’
Aurora sighed, her countenance crumpling into a frown.
‘You’re no fun, William. You’re always so serious these days! What happened to the carefree stable boy I used to know?’
‘He’s still here,’ said William, who couldn’t help but smile. ‘He’s just a wee bit more cautious, is all. Say, you havenae shown me your sketch book this week. Let’s have a gander at your newest works, then.’
With a shy smile Aurora took her sketch book out of her bag and handed it to William.
‘I’ve done a number of new ones this past week,’ she said with a glimmer of pride dancing in her eyes. ‘I hope you like them.’
William flipped through the book slowly, taking his time to analyse and appreciate each and every drawing as they continued their stroll along the beach. He gazed up at her with unabashed wonder in his eyes.
‘These drawings, Aurora … why, they’re utterly, incredibly, amazingly, er, eh, amazing! By Jove, these are bloody fantastic!’
‘William!’ she laughed. ‘Such language in the presence of a lady!’
‘I cannae help it, Aurora! Your drawings have impressed me so much, that there’s no way fir me tae exercise restraint in my praises for you.’
She squeezed his hand and gave him a peck on the cheek.
‘You’re so sweet, William. I can tell that you honestly do mean that, and that means the world to me.’
‘I dae, m’lady. The quality of your artwork is truly astounding.’
‘Thank you, my warrior poet. Let’s get off the beach and have a wander through the town, shall we?’
Half an hour later, during their exploration of the town, they came across a book shop.
‘Let’s go and have a look inside,’ Aurora suggested.
‘All right. Let’s have a quick look at the newspapers out there at the front first. They’re too expensive tae buy, but we can have a look at what’s on the front page.’
They strolled over to where the handful of newspapers was stacked, and William stopped dead when he saw the headline splayed across the newspaper. All of the blood drained from his face, and, at the realisation of what the words he was staring at meant for him, his heart started thumping with the dread-laden resonance of a doom drum resounding through the darkness of a cannibal-infested jungle.
‘Aurora,’ he uttered, pointing a quivering finger at the front page.
She sucked in a sharp gasp of horror the moment she read the headline.
‘No,’ she whispered, choking on the word as if it was a splintered bone in her throat. ‘No, no, no…’
The words tore like malevolent, sharp-clawed beetle mandibles through the young lovers’ eyes and squirted noxious spurts of crushing despair and corrosive fear into their very brains, for it was stated, in ominous starkness, that Britain had just declared war on Russia.
PART SEVEN
25
MARGARET
5th October 2020. T’Kalanjathu
‘Ting…’
The whisper drifted from Margaret’s lips as she awoke from a fitful slumber. For a few moments panic blared its clamorous howl in her ears, and her heart boosted her pulse into turbo-drive as she tried to figure out exactly where she was; it felt as if she had merely pushed through a membrane that divided one nightmare from the next.
It all came rushing back as consciousness came into being. The teen soldiers who could assume the form of animals, the ancient African city, and the General. Could it all be real? If so, how? Margaret gripped her wrist and squeezed it hard, digging her nails into her freckled white flesh.
Pain.
She let go and ran her fingertips along the stone wall next to her. It was there all right, undeniably present in its cold, unmoving solidity. There was no doubt about it; this was all too real, too detailed, too insane, even, to be a hallucination or conjuration. Somehow, she was here, now, in this situation, as utterly surreal as it was. A knock at her door jarred her from her semi-trance, and she sat bolt upright on the bed. Glancing down at her torso, she noticed only now that she was naked.
‘Uh, hold on,’ she called out. ‘Give me a minute!’
‘Yes Doctor,’ came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.
Margaret peered across the room and saw the iron bathtub, and memories of the previous evening started to meld together into some sort of vaguely coherent sequence of events. She remembered the General speaking to her, and four of his soldiers heating up the tub with propane torches. In her there was a recollection of him leaving her a towel and clothes – military fatigues, yes. She had gotten undressed, climbed into the water, heated to a near-perfect temperature, and as soon as she had immersed herself, the weariness had hit her. That was about all she could remember: a wall of exhaustion, crashing into her.
‘Snap out of it, Margaret,’ she said loudly to herself. ‘Figure it out later. The clothes, get yourself dressed!’
Neatly folded in a pile on a shelf were the military fatigues. All her
