Hunter's War

By Peter Methven

AD 2113. In fragmented, post-Apocalypse Britain, Hunter, a Guard, has been exiled to the Scottish border after a failed rebellion. He is sent to remote and mysterious New Zealand to extradite the rebel leader. There, he finds that Joseph Emmanuel, his quarry, has raised an army of fundamentalist warriors. The survival of New Zealand—and Hunter—is in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Methven
• Release date: May 4, 2010
• ISBN: 9780473169541

Peter Methven

Former computer programmer, teacher, outdoor education instructor, community education organiser, public servant and international consultant, now somewhat retired but for some part-time editing. Lives in Wellington, New Zealand, with partner Clare.

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Hunter's War

Peter Methven

Hunter’s War

Peter Methven

Published by Peter Methven and Associates at Smashwords

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

ISBN 978-0-473-16954-1

Copyright 2010 Peter Methven and Associates

Cover artwork created by Rita Y Toews, with additional images by Tony Wills

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Part One: Kingdom of Britain

1

The Neutral Zone between Britain and the Confederation of Scottish Clans was established by the Treaty of Jedburgh in 2074. It follows the line of the historic border between England and Scotland, from the Solway Firth to Tweedmouth. The official width of the Zone is five kilometres, delimited by stone cairns, although this distance may vary with topography. No settlement is permitted, and wild game cannot be taken, although animals can be culled by mutual agreement of the signatories.

Edgewood C (2112) A Life of Nathaniel Edgewood 1990-2087

The alarm siren sounded at four in the morning, three long blasts signalling a breakout from the prisoners’ barracks. Even before he had pulled on yesterday’s camo battledress and stamped his feet into his boots Hunter could hear the hysterical barking of the camp’s rough-coated hounds questing for the escapees’ trail. Senior Squad Leader Robson, his coverman, met him at the door, to report three men gone and a Guard left bound with his own belt and bootlaces, his carbine missing.

Who’s run? he asked, as they tramped across the dark yard to his office in the tower.

Them Stanton brothers from Ashington, and their bunk mate, George Graham. Picked the lock somehow and waited for the sentry to make his rounds. They’ll be headed for the border, I don’t doubt.

Revelationists, aren’t they? Graham’s half Scots, so he’ll be looking for a place at a clan hearth. Who’s the stupid bastard who got jumped?

Wally Tyler. He’s in th’ infirmary. Collected a fair dunt on the head before they hog-tied him.

One of Hammond’s?

Aye.

The Troop Leader in question, his stomach straining at the waistband of his battledress, was waiting apprehensively in the tower guardroom. Hunter brushed past him, saying, Wait!

His clerk, Trooper Rattray, was already at his desk in the anteroom and the lamps were lit. Bring your notebook, Rats, he snapped. He sat behind his own desk and yelled. Come in, Tom!

Hammond sidled in, red-veined jowls quivering, and Hunter sighed internally. A model of efficiency when it came to counting prisoners, planning guard rosters and inventorying supplies, the fat man had the command presence of a baby bunny. What sin of commission or omission had resulted in his being transferred to Prison Administration and, more specifically, to the dreary Kielder posting, Hunter had never enquired.

So what went wrong? Five months without a breakout and now we’ve three in one night.

Sorry, sir.

Sorry doesn’t do it, Tom. Tyler’s lucky he’s still alive. Why wasn’t there two of them on sentry? That’s what Standing Orders say. Two!—not one half-asleep slack-arse.

T’other trooper went sick, sir. Had the squitters. I wasn’t told, sir.

Well, you bloody well should have been. You’re fined a week’s pay. Rats, record that and action it in the morning. You can deal with Tyler yourself, Tom, but I’ll be seriously pissed off if he gets less than fourteen days’ field punishment and stoppages. Now, what’s happening?

On surer ground, Hammond swiftly detailed the measures taken since the alarm sounded—dogs loosed and running, two squads following on foot with weapons free, one mounted patrol heading straight for the crest of the Cheviots to picket the most likely border crossings into Scotland.

You’ve posted a relief guard—two relief guards—at the barracks?

Yes, sir.

Lying sod, Hunter thought, but you will as soon as you’re out of here. That’s all, then. Let me know when there’s news.

Sir!

When Hammond had waddled out into the predawn darkness, Hunter sent Rattray to the cookhouse for a bacon butty and a mug of tea, then settled back to wait for the search parties’ reports. The eastern horizon was greying when the foot patrols returned with their dogs leashed and two limping prisoners. George Graham, shot dead when he had turned the stolen carbine on his pursuers, had been left wedged into the branches of a pine tree, temporarily safe from the attentions of vermin and crows until a work party could be sent to bury the corpse.

Hunter debriefed the Squad Leaders, dictated a few notes that Rattray would turn into one of his impeccably crafted transcripts, and left the office for his habitual dawn walk-around.

Kielder Detention Camp lay ten kilometres from the Scottish border, in an ancient forestry plantation whose long-neglected pines formed a tangle of close-growing timber, deadfalls and fire-scarred clearings full of burned stumps shrouded in gorse, brambles and bracken. Its thickets were home to deer, feral cattle and sheep, wild dogs, rabbits, foxes, weasels and stoats—even, it was rumoured, a pride of lions, descendants of a pair escaped from some pre-Apocalypse zoo. A useful legend, as it discouraged escapes. He had never seen a trace of the beasts, and he knew every inch of his domain, even the remoter areas that could be penetrated only on foot.

The detention camp at the forest’s heart had been hacked out of the living trees decades ago, their timber going to build two long detainees’ barracks, the cookhouse, the infirmary, the palisaded Guard Post and the water-powered sawmill. There were no fences and few rules. The three that were enforced impartially were the daily timber quota, the assembly siren and the penalty for attempted escape—a doubled sentence at hard labour in the slate quarries, where the Stantons would be sent after their routine flogging.

Reveille sounded as he began his tour and he stood watching as the homespun-clad inmates assembled on the parade-ground for roll-call. They were quiet this morning, eyes shifting uneasily towards the trooper who was attaching binding cords to the T-shaped whipping-post. Hammond, avoiding Hunter’s gaze, reported a full count—two in the cells, one deceased, three in the infirmary. The fat man handed over his charges to TL Pete Lennox, who called out the day’s tasks while his Squad Leaders issued axes, saws, wedges and mauls to the work-gangs. After queuing at the cookhouse for their morning ration of hard bread and harder cheese, the detainees marched off to their assigned cutting areas, trailed by pairs of carbine-armed troopers.

Hunter walked through the empty barracks, each with its rows of triple-decked bunks, each bunk with two geometrically folded blankets and a straw-filled pillow, finding nothing amiss. In the infirmary he had a few terse words with the still-befuddled Wally Tyler, bypassed the tiny cubicle where the half-competent medical orderly was sleeping off last night’s booze and ignored the three clumsy buggers who were recuperating from careless use of forestry tools—one broken leg, two amputated fingers and a crushed toe.

The sawmill was, as ever, operating smoothly under the magisterial eye of the outside contractor whose domain it was. The cookhouse, another civilian—and equally profitable—enterprise, was in its habitual state of grease-clogged squalor that nonetheless managed to produce three reasonably nourishing meals a day at minimal cost and, for the Guards, a limitless supply of bacon butties and hot tea.

His tour, as always, finished with the Guard Post—the stables, troopers’ barracks, mess hall and stores within the stone palisade, and the guard room, cells, armoury, wireless cubicle and administration offices in the central tower.

Rattray intercepted him as he walked back to his quarters, intending to shave and change into fresh camos. Wireless from Morpeth, sir. The clerk’s eyes were curious, as immediately were Robbo’s.

What’s it say?

Er, that you are to report to the Inspector-General at Northern Command immediately on receipt, sir.

Say that again!

Rattray repeated the message.

The Fox? What the fuck does the old bastard want with me?

Send an acknowledgement. Ask Bellingham to send up a Terrier to meet me on the road. I’ll need three horses saddled and ready in a half-hour. Robbo, go pack, then find a Recruit to bring the nags back after we’ve met the transport.

The stone cottage, the largest of the four on Officers’ Row and his home for the last three years, was full of the smell of baking. He tossed his field hat onto the peg by the door and called, Meg!

Meg Blackwood, the round, dark-haired ‘Guards’ widow’ who cooked his meals, did his laundry and from time to time warmed his bed, came from the back kitchen, wiping floury hands on her apron. Yes, Mr Hunter?

I’ve to go to Area. Could you pack some kit? Dress greens, undress greens, whatever. I’ll be finished with my shaving kit in a bit—oh, aye, I’ll need some hot water. And if you’ve summat I can eat on the road . . . thanks, love.

Will you be away long, sir?

Dunno. I’ll send a wireless when I do.

Half-an-hour later, washed, shaved and wearing clean riding overalls over his undress blues, he rode his grey gelding out of the camp, Robbo at his side on a half-ploughhorse more suited to his bulk. A grey-overalled Recruit, Bowen by name, followed on a hill pony at a suitably subordinate distance. All three were armed, Hunter with his old Enfield sniper’s rifle, Robbo and Bowen with carbines. Highway robbery was increasingly rare but not unknown in this remote border area, as the grisly remnants dangling from wayside gibbets testified.

The Terrier met them a few kilometre short of Bellingham. Officially designated ‘Tracked Carrier - General Purpose’ and the workhorse of the military, a Terrier was a steel box on articulated metal tracks, propelled by a rugged biodiesel engine at the rear. Its driver had to combine the practical abilities of a blacksmith with the arcane skills of a sorcerer—particularly in a hard winter, when the fuel could congeal to a consistency beyond the scope of the preheater. Once running, on the other hand, it would negotiate virtually any terrain at a plodding 20 kph, carrying up to a dozen troopers or a tonne of cargo.

Horses became fractious around the diesel’s clamour and stench, so the driver stopped fifty metres away, engine idling. Hunter and Robbo waited until Recruit Bowen and the eye-rolling mounts were well along the road back to Kielder before waving the vehicle on. It rumbled forward, rotated clumsily in its own length and came to rest, cloaking them in dust and burned-fat fumes. The driver, a shabby unshaven gnome in grease-stained battledress, raised a grimy hand in what might have been a salute.

Corporal Simcock, sir, he yelled above the chatter of the exhaust. You’re for Morpeth, right?

Aye.

Get you there by eight or nine, mebbes . . .

Robbo stowed their kit in the cargo tray, and climbed over the nearside track to sit beside the driver. Hunter followed, sliding into the leather-padded bench seat behind and stowing the Enfield beneath it. Simcock rummaged in a tool box bolted to the floor and produced two wads of fairly clean linen waste. You might want to stick some of this in your lugs. Noise gets fair tiresome after a while.

The improvised earplugs diminished the diesel’s bellow to a bearable level but there was little other comfort. Despite heavy coil springs and Simcock’s smooth use of throttle and brake, the motion was more that of a voyage across a choppy sea than a journey by land. Hunter tipped his field hat over his eyes, stretched across the seat and slept, waking only when they stopped—once while their driver tightened a track-plate that had worked loose, and a couple of times for a whey-faced Robbo to puke by the roadside. He had recovered somewhat when they came to the north gate of the Morpeth Garrison, though he was still pale around the mouth.

The Terrier clattered away, leaving Hunter and Robbo at the lamplit entrance tunnel. Two MP privates armed with carbines eyed them indifferently from the inner gate. Robbo bellowed impatiently, Officer on the Post! The sentries straightened abruptly, and a Sergeant half-fell down the guardroom steps, buttoning his tunic. To his credit, he straightened and executed a parade ground salute. Sir!

Hunter returned the courtesy perfunctorily. About bloody time! Having a quiet kip in there, were you? DC Hunter reporting to the Inspector-General as requested. Check your list, we should be on it. We’re staying the night, so log me and Senior Squad Leader Robson in according.

DC Hunter, SL Robson, yes, sir!

And I’ll have one of your dozy lads to carry my kit to the Mess.

Sir! Yes, sir!

Robbo, take yourself off, Hunter instructed. You look like summat the cat sicked up, he added, deadpan.

Robbo gulped and trudged off with his carbine and kit, ‘. . . very fucking amusing . . .’ drifting back when he was—almost—out of earshot. Grinning, Hunter slung the Enfield and followed, receiving a belated butt-salute from the sentries as he passed.

Like all such bases, Morpeth Area Garrison had been constructed to the design laid down by the Guards’ founder, Captain-General Nathaniel Edgewood. A scholar before the Apocalypse, Edgewood’s military principles had been grounded in those of Ancient Rome, where every legionary camp, temporary or permanent, was built to an identical plan.

The gate tunnel opened onto a broad lamplit avenue—North Parade—leading to the Combined Command tower at the camp’s centre, barracks to the left, stables and stores on the right. Across East and West Parades, on either side of South Parade, were workshops and the parade ground. Privately, Hunter thought the whole idea a nonsense. Mortars and artillery could be targeted with merciless accuracy if the location and function of every building were common knowledge—but at least no-one got lost when they moved to a new posting.

He circled the tower to its south entrance, the only access after Retreat. The guardroom inside the loopholed door was not much smaller than the entire Kielder Post, its high stone walls hung with banners and dusty paintings depicting historic battles and former Captains-General. A murmur of conversation and the slap of playing cards from a doorway suggested that the MPs here might be more than half-awake. He saluted Edgewood’s portrait and turned to the duty officer’s corner.

By the gods! TL Walter Headley exclaimed, coming around the counter to shake hands, Matt Hunter, as I live and fucking breathe. We’d just about given you up, man. Mind, Himself said send you straight up whenever you did blow in. He studied Hunter curiously in the lamplight. They must fair keep you on the run up there, man—you look fit as a bloody carthorse.

Hunter prodded Headley’s substantial paunch with a forefinger, commenting, And you’re bloody near the size of one. The food here that good, or is it just being idle?

Ah, no, I got married, man. You wouldn’t know her—a lass from Thirsk. Cooks like an angel and the fatter I get the more she loves me.

Well, aren’t you the lucky bugger! Any bairns?

A wee girl, and another on the way, said Headley proudly. Anyhows, he went on hurriedly, you’d best get your arse upstairs. Himself’s in the AC’s rooms. See you at Molly’s later on, mebbe?

Still there, is it? Aye, if Sir lets me out of class on time—but perhaps you should get yourself home to your bonny wife, instead of wasting your kiddies’ inheritance on booze.

Headley dipped a knee mockingly. Yes, Mother! He went back behind the desk to poise a finger over a call button. You ready? I need to warn His Nibs’ coverman you’re on your way up. You know the bugger? Hodge?

Oh, aye! I do that! said Hunter.

He mounted the stair tunneled into the east wall, emerging in the orderly room on the floor above, its tall wooden desks unoccupied at this late hour, its surrounding offices locked. Crossing the empty floor to the west staircase, he continued upwards. The next two levels were living quarters for senior officers. A tiny girl in a flannel nightgown smiled shyly at him from an open doorway as he passed, a smell of cabbage drifting from the apartment behind her.

The final flight took him to the Area Commander’s anteroom.

Took your time! The speaker, a grizzled giant in the grey of the Inspector-General’s personal staff, was at his ease on a bench by the inner door. His belt was hung with weaponry—a long baton, a sheathed fighting knife, a heavy revolver.

I’m here now, said Hunter flatly. Any idea why?

The big man smiled benignly. That’s for himself to tell you. Gan away in—he’s in the parlour.

Hunter pushed through the door and let it swing to behind him. The familiar corridor stretched before him—office and conference room on the right, formal dining room and kitchen on the left. The door to the private quarters at the far end was half-open, framing a flicker of firelight.

Come in, bonny lad, came the well-remembered dry rasp.

2

National Command has its origins in the legendary First Hundred, the mobile military force created by Captain-General Nathaniel Edgewood. Its functions were progressively extended after the Restoration to include rebuilding transport, communications, manufacturing and trade. The Inspector-General’s Branch manages national security, justice and international diplomacy, under Senate oversight.

Territorial Command (the Guards) adheres more closely to its original role of local policing and protection, administration and public service. So far as is practicable, administrative responsibilities and community services have been delegated to elected councils.

Pellew B J (2103) An Introduction to HM Government and Administration

A glow from the open fireplace lit the room. The Fox, Inspector-General Aidan Hooke, was ever cold, even in the warmest weather. He sprawled in a deep armchair close to the flames, boots off, uniform jacket unbuttoned. A pistol, a glass and a whisky bottle sat on the low table at his side. His left sock had a hole in the big toe.

Hunter saluted. DC Hunter, reporting as ordered, sir!

Sit down, man, and stop shouting. This is not, thank the gods, a bloody parade ground.

From a facing armchair the rusty hair and sharp features that had earned the Fox his nickname were more clearly visible. There was grey at his narrow temples. The lines at the corners of his ice-blue eyes were deeper than Hunter remembered. Middle age had otherwise done little to change him—there was none of the paunchiness that blurred the appearance of so many of his contemporaries.

Here’s summat for you, the Fox said. He reached into the shadow of his chair for a brown envelope, which he flicked across the hearthrug.

Open it, man!

Hunter ripped off the flap and delved inside. The single enclosure was a sheet of stiff parchment, which he tilted to the firelight.

To our trusty and well beloved Gabriel Matthew Hunter, it began. He read on slowly, with increasing disbelief, to the signature, Philip R. It was his commission as a Major in the National Command. A pair of the crossed-swords insignia that went with the rank was pinned below the Royal Seal.

Well?

I’m gobsmacked.

The Fox chuckled rustily. Thought you might be. It’s backdated, so there’s six months’ arrears of pay waiting for you at Admin. Call it compensation for three-and-a-half years’ shitty duty you didn’t deserve.

He took a sip of whisky and continued. You could have appealed, you know. If you’d asked, I’d have reinstated you at your old rank, no problem. So why didn’t you ask?

Weren’t worth the bother. I’d been given a job so I got on with it.

Didn’t want to get knocked back, more like. You always were a bit precious. Any road, it’s all history now.

Does this mean I’m working for you?

Yes and no. Officially you’re being posted to the Weapons Development Unit at the Establishment. The real work will be done by the Captain who’s running it now, so don’t go turning up unexpected and upsetting him. It’s a way of making you disappear. I’ve another use for you.

Hunter shifted uncomfortably. It’s not like, you know, political . . . ?

The Fox chuckled again. Not in the way you mean, no. I’m not going to set you to informing on your mates or beating confessions out of rebels and spies . . . so your honour is safe. I give that sort of work to them that enjoy it, like Hodge. Happy?

Aye . . . I reckon.

A clock chimed in the shadows, ten soft tones. The Fox stood and stretched.

I’m for my scratcher, he said, and you look as though you could do with a night in yourself. See Admin tomorrow for your orders. I want you on the road by Sunday.

Hunter stood. Thank you, sir.

Don’t thank me just yet—you may live to regret it. ‘Night, Matt.

Matt, is it? He recalled a saying of old Willy Watson, the Woodhorn schoolie, when some toadying kid brought him a fresh fish or an apple before an end-of-year test. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, that was it.

Hodge stood when Hunter returned to the anteroom and stuck out a hand the size of a Terrier track-plate. Congratulations . . . Major, he said. Not before time, Ah reckon, he added in a confidential rumble.

Hunter shook the proffered hand cautiously. Hodge’s grip had been known to crack bones. So you and who else knows about it?

Whole bloody camp, Ah should think. Old Man tried to keep it hushed, but clerks who did the paperwork were here when you was STL, and the word spread. He pointed at the door. On your way . . . sir. Ah needs to lock down so’s Ah can get my fuckin’ rest.

Hunter went back slowly down the silent stairs. The wee girl had gone, her door shut. The scent of cabbage lingered. Stopping under a lamp, he unpinned his bronze stars and replaced them with the National insignia, checking their alignment in the dark glass of a window. The metal gleamed, underlining his changed status. Dull bronze was for troops in the field. Bright silver identified the myriad of National Command advisors, administrators, surveyors, engineers, medics, quartermasters, transport units and police who gave practical effect to the decrees of Britain’s Senate.

Headley had gone when he reached the guardroom, but his replacement, a man Hunter did not know, returned the Enfield promptly. He went into the cool night. The rain had eased and the moon was showing fitfully between rags of westward-drifting cloud. Turning into East Parade, he crossed to the barracks compound and the Officers’ Mess. A yawning steward showed him to a spartan room on the first floor, where his kit was stacked neatly inside the door.

He secured the Enfield in the weapon rack by the window and pocketed the key. Closing and locking the door behind him, he walked around the empty parade ground to Molly’s.

Whoever ‘Molly’ had been was lost in the mists of myth and history. The sole civilian establishment within the camp, the tavern lay hard by the south gate. Rank was by custom left outside its battered wooden doors, although the less popular officers were not necessarily welcomed and the wiser ones stayed away. Inside was a single barn-like room furnished with slate-topped tables, one long side being taken up with a counter staffed by off-duty troopers. Barrels of ale lined the rear wall. Above them a long shelf bore loaves of bread wrapped in damp cloth, cold meat under metal covers, crocks of butter, pickle jars and wooden tubs of cheese.

The other walls were hung with caricatures of troopers past and present, including his own from his Troop Leader days, depicting him as an eighteenth century Rifleman in green and black. Beside the unlit fireplaces at each end of the room lounged a burly MP armed with a heavy baton—hired minders, there to enforce the house rule of ‘shout all you want, lads, but no fighting’. Presiding over all was a flint-eyed woman of awesome girth, the current ‘Molly’.

This late on a Thursday night there was little call for the minders’ services. A few small groups of Guards were drinking companionably, and at one table a quartet of clerks was playing cards. Walter Headley stood at the bar nursing a glass tankard of ale with Robbo beside him, evidently finding Molly’s whisky an effective cure for road-sickness. At Hunter’s entrance Headley yelled facetiously, Officer on the Post!

Fuck you, Wally! came an anonymous voice from a distant corner. Evening, Mr Hunter. Drinks’ll be on you, then?

Hunter fished in his pocket, finding a crown’s worth of loose change. He shrugged apologetically and turned towards the counter.

Your credit’s good . . . Major, said Molly, slyly. Drinks all round, is it?

Accepting the inevitable, he nodded. She beamed, reaching under the counter for her bung-starter. The troopers surged up to the bar without further prompting—except, Hunter noted, for a small contingent who made directly for the door. Headley, watching them leave, grinned evilly. Gone to get their mates, he observed. So say goodbye to your kiddies’ inheritance, bonny lad.

To most of my bloody back pay, anyway, thought Hunter wearily. It’s going to be a long night.

You realise, Major Hunter, that although your monthly pay is twice what you would receive at a corresponding rank in Territorial Command, you are responsible for finding your own rations and accommodation?

The duty Administration Officer, an impeccably uniformed Captain named Briggs, had the soft, white hands of a man who had not held a shovel or a rifle since basic training. Hunter would have found him irritating at the best of times. This morning, with a hangover pounding the inside of his skull, he could cheerfully have disemboweled him.

If you stay at a National Command or Territorial Command facility, Briggs droned on, the appropriate deduction will be made from your following month’s pay, at a rate commensurate with your rank—that is to say, three crowns and two shillings per diem. A further five percent will be assigned monthly as your contribution to the Territorial and National Command Welfare Fund—that is to say . . .

. . . seven-crowns-fifty, aye, I know. Where do I sign?

What? Er, don’t you wish to know how your back pay has been calculated . . . ?

Is it in my copy of the papers?

Well, yes, but . . .

Man, it may surprise you to learn that I can read and I can do sums. Where do I sign?

He scrawled his signature on the pay order, using the Captain’s fountain pen, and folded his own copy into the map pocket of his battledress.

We done with this, right? Now, I’m told by those who know about these things that I’m entitled to my own coverman and driver. Correct? The information had come the night before from Walter Headley, who had characterised the Admin Captain as an ‘up-himself little crawler, not worth pissing on’.

Yes, Major. Suitably qualified personnel will be assigned from the staffing pool when the necessary documentation has been completed . . .

Hunter leaned over the polished desk. No, Captain, they bloody well will not. This is what’s going to happen. You, personally, are going to arrange the transfer of Senior Squad Leader George Henry Robson from the Prison Administration Command, Rochester District, to the National Command—at Sergeant’s rank—and have him assigned as my coverman. If Corporal Simcock of Rochester District has no objections to shifting from there, I’ll take him for my driver.

But . . .

But what? Who signed my promotion order?

Briggs shuffled through the papers in front of him until he