Dark Ages

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She knew the words, she’d heard them all before. They dragged her back four years, to a night on the Plain. The scene was there before her; she could feel the winter chill. An unlit country crossroads, at the exit to the range. She was waiting with the others: the protestors, the police. Under a cloud-fogged moon.

One of the cars had driven up as far as the vedette. He was out of their sight up there, cut off – but still in touch by radio. How must it feel, she’d wondered, to be sitting there alone? As the snake of lights came creeping up towards him …

She remembered every detail, as fresh as if she’d been there yesterday. The convoy’s escort, parked along the farm-track: dim shapes of transit vans with engines running. Two Land-Rovers were sitting on their sidelights, up the hill. But the road to Imber village was still dark.

‘All vehicles now on the vedette …’

Fran felt herself go cold and faint. She slumped onto her haunches, sliding down. Still staring at the radio; but her eyes saw other things.

‘Eight launchers, four controls, two Rams, two wreckers. They’re coming through. They’re coming.’

And over the hill they came, in a serpent of slow headlights. From the black heart of the Plain; the ghostly wreck of Imber village. Fran cringed against the cupboard – gripped her head between her hands. The voice had fallen silent, but her mind filled in the rest. The whistles and shouts as the convoy came off, its escorts slotting in between the flights; then the scramble for the cars, and the pursuit into the night. The terrifying chase to Greenham Common …

She was still huddled there when Craig came through to see where she had got to. Jerkily she raised her face; he saw her tears glistening in the gloom. He knelt beside her, hugged her: held her close. Fran hung on tight for dear life – and sanity as well. But she couldn’t shake off that eerie voice. Those sombre words.

They’re coming.