We Need Madmen

By Sam Smith

Soper, another European tyrant, has been defeated by an armed United Nations, the Blues, who have become Europe's occupying army. Henry, a survivor the Camps, comes by the wherewithal to finance his revenge. Told alongside Henry's tale is the history of how Soper came to power and how he came to be defeated. (We Need Madmen won the Skrev Press 2007 Science Fiction prize.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Smith
• Release date: Jan 31, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452310060

Book preview

We Need Madmen

Sam Smith

Published by Sam Smith at SmashWords

copyright Sam Smith 2010

Cover Image: The Dyslexic’s Divided Shelf by Jim Keogh

Other Sam Smith titles available from SmashWords include The Care Vortex, The End of Science Fiction, Eviction from Quarry Cottages, John John, Marks, Porlock Counterpoint, Sick Ape: an everyday tale of terrorist folk, and Two Bridgwater Days.

We Need Madmen won the 2007 Skrev Press prize for Science Fiction ‘We Need Madmen is a truly fascinating, though brief, exploration of ideas; a deliberately leading and questioning book that may make you feel a little uncomfortable – one that will leave you pondering for a length of time in inverse proportion to its own short length.' Stu Carter: Vector

'This is a short book that says a lot. I would have preferred a bit more background into Soper and the Camps, but this is still a gem of a story.' Paul Lappen: Dead Trees Review

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This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between characters in its pages and persons living or dead is unintentional and co-incidental. The author and publishers recognise and respect any trademarks included in this work by introducing such registered titles either in italics or with a capital letter.

This book is also available in paperback at www.skrev-press.com

First published in 2007 by SKREV PRESS:

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We Need Madmen

Chapter One

‘History does not make moral judgements: history records events, conjectures on their causes and traces their consequences. In history there is neither good nor evil, right nor wrong. Things simply happened. That is all that concerns us.’ Frieda G, UNESCO, Contemporary History Lectures, Series 2

Railway stations make Henry nervous. Having been nudged into petty thieving by awkward circumstance, he is aware that he is about to commit a crime and feels compassion for the person he is about to rob. Not being naturally vindictive he lacks the necessary ruthlessness. Henry has charitably decided that this is why he so often gets caught: this knowledge lifts him above his fellow petty criminals.

‘. . .Soper, for instance. . . he has become a bogeyman. So too did Napoleon and Hitler. Yet look at the good that came from them. After Napoleon came the Grand Alliance. . . and then along came Bismarck to upset that balance of power, which led to the First World War. That gave birth to the League of Nations. After Hitler came the United Nations — a forum that Soper forced us to arm in order that we avoid a nuclear or a biological holocaust. Because of Soper we now have a federal world, a global constitution. Malnutrition will shortly be a thing of the past. Nuclear and biological disaster is no longer a debilitating anxiety. Equality is at last a true and a real thing. Soper slaughtered millions of people; and we have now rid the world of Soper. The world today, however, is arguably a better place for Soper having existed. I give you a theory — We need madmen like Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and Soper to teach us values. . . ’ Frieda G, UNESCO, Contemporary History Lectures, Series 2

Here on this platform they had placed one group of ten — always numerically exact — in front of each steel-lined wagon. Each group of ten was guarded by one Special. Each Special had an M1S. Each M1S had a silencer. With as much noise as a horse farting, as porridge boiling, each M1S sprayed each group of ten with soft-headed bullets. Each of the wagon doors were closed and the bodies were taken to the processors.

Word came through to the Camps. Henry went in fear of being transported by train.

But surely, the Blues prosecutor asked a Special’s Captain, some of them must have screamed? The prosecutor was trying to indict the people who had lived nearby, and who had claimed to have heard nothing.

No, the Captain shrugged, they seemed to be expecting it.

‘In the Boer War they were christened concentration camps. Hitler kept the name. Stalin called them Labour camps. The British renamed them Internment camps. The Israelis referred to theirs as Refugee camps. Elsewhere they were known as Transit, Displacement, Detainee, Re-education, Migrant, etcetera. Their fences were all topped with barbed wire. By the time Soper arrived there were no euphemisms left. They have become simply Camps.’ Joseph Tsolke Daily News, Tanzania

When Henry was released from his last Camp his skin was sagging like a deflated balloon on a wire frame. His hair had come out in combfuls. But he is plump again now, his hair a thick silver grey.

A tweed hat covers that silver hair, slightly alters the shape of his smooth round face. This, he told himself when putting the hat on, might make it difficult for him to be readily identified. Leather gloves hide the tattoo on the back of his hand.

Despite these precautions he expects to get caught.

The first two years after his release, when not in hospital, Henry was in the courts identifying Specials. His memory is true to Specials’ faces. But, though he can remember his every keeper, his fellow inmates — alive and dead — blur into a scrawny grubby mass. It is some years now, his growing criminal record casting doubt upon his testimony, since he has been called as a witness. The trials too are fewer.

Name: Bethune. Henry Kevin.

Age: 35

Height: 168

Weight: 74.4

Eyes: Grey

Hair: Grey

Complexion: Ruddy

Distinguishing Features: Tattoo on back of right hand — 5807656

Convictions: Shoplifting x 2. Breaking & Entering x 4. Aggravated robbery x 2.

Armed robbery x 1.

Sentences: 2 years probation. 6 months suspended sentence. 6 months. 1 year.18 months. 18 months. 18 months.

Remarks: Ex-Salisbury. Unable to adjust. Loner. Recidivist.

The train about to arrive is an express, will have stopped at mainline stations only. Tickets will have been collected before arrival. In the confusion of disembarkation Henry hopes to snatch a handbag aggravated (robbery), lift a wallet (daylight robbery).

He waits at the far end of the platform in order that he can walk with the alighting passengers towards the exits.

A young couple, their black labrador between them, sit on the bench under the clock. There used to be a poster on either side of the clock. His official biographers remarked upon Soper’s uncanny resemblance to Cromwell: in France it was Marat, in Italy Garibaldi, in Germany Luther

A man with receding hair keeps pushing himself off his seat by the toilets to peep over the sill of the buffet window. At the far end, by the toilets, are two Blues. They have baggage with them, are off duty.

None of the other men waiting here have the marks of the police about them — civilian clothes buttoned as correctly as a uniform.

People disfigured by weighty suitcases come through the arrivals arch, swing lopsidedly like hunchbacks to the ticket office.

Soon after the occupation the Blues ran free skin-grafting surgeries to remove the telltale tattoos. The lack of response surprised them.

‘Keeping their stigmata to keep their grudge alive, we ex-detainees wear our tattoos as a continuing reproach to our fellow countrymen and women — our country’s conscience at the end of our sleeves. . . ’ Mike Davidson, Lest We Forget, Off-World Press

Henry does not blame his compatriots: he knows that he too could easily have been one of them, keeps his to remind himself that he is not.

Henry has been for one job since his parole. He expected refusal, tried to smooth the way for his own rejection. Still the prospective employer was embarrassed. Of course he was above such prejudices himself, but. . . No-one now has belonged to the Organisation; and Organisation members had anyway always been so reasonable, even when explaining death sentences, like salespersons using technicalities to placate disgruntled customers.

You wouldn’t believe it was — what was it now? Twelve years ago — but you see it doesn’t pay very much and we’ve got a few disabled heroes here. They freely speak their mind. You can take the job if you like. But I doubt you’ll be happy here.

Soper’s heroes are everywhere, except in jail Henry has worked beside them before. . . A side-glancing silence for several days; and then the names — collaborator, conchie, sponger — muttered softly at a distance at first; and becoming clearer, coming closer, coming louder with the absence of a denial, of an ingratiating excuse. Sometimes someone will intercede on his behalf, get labelled themselves. Usually, though, Henry hits his accusers with whatever is to hand, and is summarily sacked. Supporting the prejudice that Soper was right — all detainees were troublemakers.

Henry, however, bears them no real malice. They were caught up in it, they believed the propaganda, went to war, fought together. Henry knows that he too would have joined them had his father not been a cantankerous idealist. His father had opened his teenage eyes — grudgingly on Henry’s part — had showed him the alternative truisms, had made him an outcast. Henry had not been allowed to give in, to give way, to go along unthinkingly with the rest. He hasn’t consequently shared their innocent war experiences, can’t