Before the Storm Read online

  ‘Fox, stay with BC. Whatever I do, stay with BC. Understand?’

  ‘Lockdown.’

  Emily drew breath, screamed, then dashed for the door. She collided with her father in the passageway.

  ‘It’s Liore, he’s collapsed!’ Emily shrieked.

  Several minutes of chaos followed, but the bandages and blood established for the Langs by their own eyes that BC had indeed been shot in the stomach.

  ‘My apologies, I stood up too quickly and became dizzy,’ explained BC as Emily held his hand, Mrs Lang sponged his forehead, Mr Lang removed his boots, Daniel fanned him with a newspaper and Martha stood ready with the smelling salts.

  ‘With a wound like that, Sir, you should have stayed in bed for another month!’ declared Mr Lang.

  ‘Fox spoke well of you,’ BC explained. ‘You seemed to be fine people, and I was getting bored with lying in bed. I forgot how much blood I had lost, so when I tried to stand I could not –’

  ‘You will go straight to bed, now!’ ordered Mrs Lang. ‘If I see you downstairs again before a week is past, I will not be at all happy.’

  ‘Fox, BC, carry, upstairs,’ said Emily quietly.

  Fox lifted BC from the sofa as if he weighed no more than a feather-down pillow, and Daniel led the way upstairs with the entire family following. Presently BC was resting in the bed in the garret, and the cushions from the sofa had been put on the floor so that Fox could sleep beside him. With BC safely in bed, the Lang family gathered in the dining room.

  ‘Your father and I think that you should, well, attend the young lieutenant,’ Mrs Lang announced to Emily.

  ‘Attend him?’ asked Emily, batting her eyelashes at her mother.

  ‘Don’t you play coy with me, young lady!’ snapped Mrs Lang.

  ‘You know, sit by the bed, sponge his forehead, just be with him for an hour or two until he is settled,’ interjected Mr Lang.

  ‘I think you made a big impression on him,’ her mother added smugly.

  ‘Mother! We merely sat together at dinner.’

  ‘Indeed so, but he has been at sea for a long time,’ said Mr Lang. ‘You are the first girl of, well, good breeding that he has met since coming ashore.’

  ‘You never know,’ added Mrs Lang.

  ‘Need a chaperone?’ asked Daniel, grinning slyly.

  Fox had been left to look after BC, and the door to the garret was open as Emily reached it. Fox was lying on the cushions beside the bed, staring up at the ceiling and singing softly to himself.

  When first I deserted I thought myself free,

  Till my cruel parents informed on me.

  I was quickly followed after and brought back with speed,

  And now the king’s duty lies heavy on me.

  Court martial, court martial

  They very soon gave me, And the sentence I got

  Was three hundred and three.

  May the Lord have mercy on their souls

  For their sad cruelty

  For now the king’s duty

  Lies heavy on me.

  Emily knocked on the frame of the door.

  Fox stopped singing. ‘DBC, enter,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Please, do not stop,’ said Emily.

  ‘Unsuitable song, for polite girl, hearing.’

  ‘Fox, I may be silly and sheltered, but I don’t need protecting from soldiers’ songs and stories.’

  ‘Of shame, is song.’

  ‘I did not know that deserters had their own songs.’

  ‘People sing, of circumstances, for to bear.’

  ‘Is that why you sing about a deserter? Because you attacked your own people in the future?’

  ‘Of treason, songs, are none.’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose you did more than just desert. Do you regret what you did?’

  ‘No. Leaders, courtly, all mad. Destroying world, for victory. Against courtly, we stand. Against Germans, we stand. Against world, we stand. Alone, we stand.’

  ‘Yes, yes, and it is very brave of you, but now I have joined you, and Daniel, and Barry. I … I cannot say that I am truly happy, I must admit. I feel as if one of those gangs of men who used to kidnap people to serve aboard ships has captured me, and that I have been whisked away to sea.’

  ‘Press-gang,’ said Fox.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Press-gang, sailors, abducted, crewing ships, for purpose of,’ explained Fox in his terse but highly concentrated speech. He began to sing.

  As I walked out on London’s streets

  A press-gang there I chanced for to meet

  They ask me if I would join the fleet

  Aboard of a man-o’-war, boys.’

  Come brother shipmates, tell me true

  What kind of treatment they give you.

  That I should know before I go

  Aboard of a man-o’-war, boys.

  When I got there to my surprise

  All that they told me were dirty lies.

  There was a row, and a jolly old row

  Aboard of a man-o’-war boys.

  The next thing they did, they took me in hand

  They lashed me with a tarry strand

  They lashed me till I could hardly stand

  Aboard of a man-o’-war, boys.

  ‘Is more, as like,’ said Fox. ‘To Daniel, am teaching.’

  ‘Strange, but you are right about singing and songs, they do make things easier to bear,’ said Emily. ‘Tell me, though, how can you sing in courtly, yet be so shy about speaking courtly?’

  Fox looked uneasy, and did not reply immediately. Emily had the feeling that she had touched on a sensitive matter.

  ‘Some songs, in courtly, may sing. British Grenadiers, Heart of Oak, Rule Britannia, God Save the King. Singing others, insolence, is considered.’

  ‘Insolence?’ gasped Emily. ‘A song?’

  ‘On target.’

  Suddenly Emily remembered why she was there.

  ‘My parents want me to sit with BC, and to sponge his forehead.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because girls do that with wounded heroes.’

  ‘No purpose, medical, is served.’

  ‘Probably not, but it is very romantic.’

  ‘No target.’

  Emily had been fairly sure that romance would be well beyond Fox’s experience.

  ‘Romantic, you know. When boys and girls like each other. Grown-ups do it too, I suppose.’

  ‘No target.’

  ‘Romance is what they have before they are married.’

  ‘No target.’

  ‘Marry! What your parents did.’

  ‘Mother, father, hatchery contract, signed. Marriage, for courtly, only.’

  Emily suddenly felt so sad that she very nearly surrendered to tears. Only the fear of showing weakness in the same room as BC, even though he was unconscious, held her in check.

  ‘Oh Fox, what a cruel, bleak world you come from,’ she sighed, caressing BC’s hair while trying to tell herself that she was just smoothing it back.

  ‘Is why, must prevent.’

  For a time Emily just patted her damp sponge against BC’s forehead. Because the youth was back in the healing coma he was quite oblivious to her attentions, but Emily was happy to be doing anything that involved BC.

  ‘I need to talk with you,’ she announced to Fox. ‘It’s about the mission.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Daniel reported back to me. He and Barry found five very suspicious Germans in St Kilda.’

  ‘Target acquired. Orders?’

  ‘Orders?’

  ‘Abduct? Interrogate? Torture? Kill?’

  ‘I can’t tell anyone to do things like that!’ exclaimed Emily, as her mind conjured the image of a German being stretched on a rack being operated by Barry the Bag, who was wearing a hood.

  ‘DBC must.’

  Suddenly Emily understood a lot more about Fox. He had been brought up to see everything as absolutely black and white, and to think of anything
British as absolutely white.

  When thought of in those terms, the fact that he had actually rebelled was almost beyond belief. Because he spoke only battle standard, he sounded as if he was somewhat slow of wit, yet under all that he was probably fiercely independent and highly intelligent. Now he needed something to cling to. His commander, BC, had been that. Now Emily was his commander.

  What must he think of me? wondered Emily. I must look like a village idiot compared to BC. There was nothing for it, she just had to be honest.

  ‘Just what am I expected to do?’

  ‘Clarify, if please?’

  ‘What do I do as DBC?’

  ‘Lead.’

  ‘But for how long? BC is very sick.’

  ‘Is strong, will live.’

  ‘Yes, but he is not going to be able to do anything for a long time. The opening of the first Australian parliament is very soon, and that is when the bombs go off, important people die, and the future changes.’

  ‘Ninth day, May,’ said Fox instantly.

  ‘Thank you. So that means that if BC is still too weak to get up, I shall be leading you when we try to stop the bombers.’

  ‘Estimate fifty-five per cent, adjusted deviation fifteen per cent.’

  ‘Um, could you say that again in English, please?’

  ‘BC lead, is possible, still. Is likely, you lead.’

  Emily put a hand to her head. ‘No wonder the bombers win,’ she said wearily. ‘Whatever shall I do? I can’t fight, I can’t lead, and if Mother had her way I would never leave the house without a chaperone.’

  ‘So far, safe lodging, for BC, secured. Surveillance, in St Kilda, organised. Germans, in St Kilda, discovered. As leader, scoring wins. Myself, as leader, not capable.’

  ‘But I do not know how to use a gun.’

  ‘In Flinders Lane, did so.’

  ‘Well yes, I suppose I pointed a gun to frighten some snotty boy, but I could never shoot someone.’

  ‘Is hard, you think? Is easy. Too easy. Spare time, ten minutes, I teach.’

  ‘Too easy? Fox, I sometimes think that you disapprove of guns.’

  ‘On target.’

  ‘Really? A soldier who does not like guns?’

  ‘On target.’

  ‘So what do you like?’

  This was obviously a very sensitive matter. Fox clasped his hands together, then squeezed until the colour drained from beneath his fingernails.

  ‘Art, my liking. Impressionists. Heidelberg School. Symbolists, also. Music, am liking. Dance music. In band, of playing, do dream.’

  To Emily, this was like walking onto a warship and finding an art gallery and ballroom below the deck. Artistic people talked like artistic people. Talking to Fox was like meeting a guard dog whose hobby was collecting Ming Dynasty porcelain. Emily knew that she was trapped by her parents, but Fox was trapped by people who were not even born yet. They were deep within his mind, and Emily could not begin to imagine the conflicts that were going on there between artist and warrior.

  She stared at BC, wondering what was within his head. He had been the leader of the finest of the Empire’s finest cadets, he had everything, yet he had rebelled. His sheer strength of character must have been unimaginable. What did he like? Was he artistic, like Fox, or was he a warrior all the way through? Emily sponged BC’s forehead and held his hand. His breathing remained deep and steady, his pulse slow.

  ‘When will BC be fully recovered?’ she asked as the grandfather clock downstairs chimed out 10pm.

  ‘Operational, six weeks. Functional, seven days.’

  ‘Seven days?’ echoed Emily. ‘But that means that he can take over from me before the opening of parliament.’

  ‘Functional. Not optimal. Functional, fifty-five per cent probability. Adjusted deviation fifteen per cent.’

  ‘But he could tell me what to do.’

  ‘On target.’

  ‘That is such a relief.’

  ‘Seven days, much work, stop bombers, still must.’

  ‘Stop the bombers? With me leading?’ Emily laughed for the first time since the boating accident.

  ‘On target.’

  ‘If the future depends on me, then the future must indeed be fixed.’

  ‘No target,’ insisted Fox. ‘Not fixed, is future.’

  ‘Perhaps so, but I am becoming more and more certain that the future is very hard to change.’

  ‘On target.’

  ‘I should go to bed, there is nothing that I can do for BC. Nothing useful, anyway.’

  ‘Beside bed, shall sleep,’ announced Fox.

  Emily returned to her room, stared at her little table for a moment, then rummaged in the drawers. In one book of art paper were several sketches of BC, but the rest of the paper was blank. Emily cut out the sketches and stared at them for a time. The likenesses were not bad, but after having sat beside BC, holding his hand, she was no longer quite so interested in clinging to sketches. She hid the sketches under her mattress, then picked up her pencils and charcoals. Returning to the garret, she found the door still open and Fox settling down for the night on the cushions beside the bed.

  ‘Don’t you ever lock doors?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Is forbidden, by provosts, of academy.’

  ‘But Fox, this is a hundred years in your past. The Imperial War Academy is a school for boys, and there are no provosts. You can do what you like.’

  ‘Cannot. Cadet training, is mine. Take away, is left, what?’

  ‘You are trapped, just like I am trapped,’ Emily concluded.

  ‘Are trapped, yourself?’ exclaimed Fox, sitting up quickly and looking for some possible threat.

  ‘No, no, not the way you think. Just being a girl traps me.’

  ‘No target.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I just can’t explain,’ she said, giving up on the cultural gulf between them and holding out the sketch pad, charcoals and pencils instead. ‘Fox, these are for you. Now you can do artwork. Sketches, anyway.’

  ‘Plan, you have?’ responded Fox, taking her offerings as if they were the British crown jewels.

  ‘No, these are a present.’

  ‘Present? Is what?’

  He does not even understand what a present is, thought Emily, feeling too tired to fight her way through yet another explanation.

  ‘Never mind. Look, with these you can go to the cafés in St Kilda, pretend to be an artist.’

  ‘Artist? Me?’ responded Fox, looking as if he had been asked to lower his trousers.

  ‘Yes, you know, spy on people while you sketch.’

  ‘Spy?’ asked Fox hopefully, looking a little less alarmed.

  ‘It is a disguise.’

  ‘Camo!’ exclaimed Fox, delighted. ‘On target! Lockdown! Emily-DBC, good leader.’

  Good leader, thought Emily. If only you knew. She paused at the door, then turned back.

  ‘Why are you called Fox?’ she asked. ‘Do you mind me asking?’

  ‘Distinct call-sign, no mistaking. Fox! Del! Jet! Bow! Even Dan! In battle, no confusing.’

  ‘So even your names are for fighting?’

  ‘On target.’

  ‘But sad.’

  Emily paid another visit to her father’s study. Back in her room, she read the first few pages of HG Wells’ story on time travel yet again, and made more notes. Several things worried her. If BC changed the future that had formed him, then he would cease to exist. That meant that he would never come back from that future. That in turn meant that the Exhibition Buildings would always be bombed. Emily concluded sadly that the future was indeed fixed, and that this little sliver of time where she was nursing BC back to health was doomed. In nine days BC and Fox would cease to exist – and would never have existed.

  Yesterday will change, thought Emily. BC and Fox come here, then they cease to be. Daniel and I never get rescued by Fox. In a few days, if BC stops the bombing, I shall be over a week drowned, and the bombing will happen anyway. If BC fails, the dreadful centur
y of war will happen anyway, yet BC and Fox will remain real.

  For some minutes Emily sat waiting for her head to stop spinning, then got out of the chair, changed into her nightdress, took Barry’s book on human sexual reproduction from under her mattress, and got into bed. This time she read certain sections with considerably more care than before. Hundreds of coyly worded scenes in dozens of romantic novels began to make sense as she read.

  Sex was apparently the ultimate means to demonstrate one’s love! There were certainly dangers from rather worrying diseases, and the threat of pregnancy loomed large over what Emily now understood seduction to mean, yet it remained the ultimate expression of love. In novels, girls did it with sweethearts about to go away to war. BC was already at war, and was about to face his final battle. Win or lose, he would die. They would all die – or vanish, or never exist, or whatever happened when one travelled through time and did things that changed things that had not happened yet but had happened anyway.

  After hiding the book again, Emily blew out the lamp and lay stretched out in her bed. Her mother said that good girls always slept on their side, and that it was rude to lie flat on one’s back. Emily thought of BC, and of how they would soon all be dead. Without even making a conscious decision, Emily slipped from her bed, removed her nightdress, then climbed into bed again and lay on her back. She did not sleep very much for the rest of the night, and when her mind was not on BC, she was planning what to do with his crew while he lay in the healing coma. That was not all that she was planning.

  ‘Trap me, will you, Mother and Father?’ she whispered into the darkness. ‘Keep me out of libraries, and bohemian coffee houses, and, and even grocery stores? I lead a squad of killers! Well, apart from Daniel and Barry, anyway. I have a gun that can melt steel. I have been trusted to save the future! No, Mother and Father, you cannot stop me. You have ordered me about for the very last time.’

  6

  GIRLFRIEND

  For Daniel the morning began normally enough. He awoke, washed, checked with Fox that BC was still alive, then went downstairs with Fox to breakfast. Mrs Lang had decided that everyone except for BC should eat breakfast in the dining room. Daniel entered the room, sat down, and gestured for Fox to do the same. Emily was already there, her fingers interlocked, her chin resting on them, and her elbows on the table. As far as Daniel could recall, nobody had ever put their elbows on a table in the Lang household, at least not in his short lifetime.