Jessamy Beech Ch. 10: Plymouth

AUTHORS NOTE: No, there isn't any sex in this chapter. But hopefully it sets the scene for future chapters of Jessamy Beech in which there will be.

"If ye untie me I'll give ye the best fucking y'ever had," said Hamnavoe from the shadows, "ye look like you could do wi' one ..."

Jessamy Beech ignored him and rotated the spitted squirrel a quarter turn. The smell of the meat slowly cooking over the campfire was making her mouth water, especially as they hadn't had time to eat properly for at least a couple of days. Glowing embers floated up into the clear starlit sky. She guessed it was going to be another bitterly cold night.

"That's what I said to ye last time we was here. Do ye no' remember lass?"

Hamnavoe was really starting to get on her nerves again. Jessamy had to admit that for much of the time he was an amiable travelling companion, but after Inverness they'd found no clue whatsoever as to Trevithick's whereabouts. She felt that every second, every minute spent stationary was time wasted. Thanatos was closer every day, clearly visible high above their heads, even in daylight.

The beach they had chosen to camp on still had the dubious honour of being the highest sandy beach in what had once been the United Kingdom. Many miles from the sea in every direction, Loch Morlich nestled at the foot of the Cairngorms mountain range. There were pre-strike buildings they could have stayed in nearby, boarded up holiday chalets, the Glenmore Cafe and derelict shops, but Jessamy much preferred the open air. She watched the squirrel slowly browning and hoped that the smell wouldn't attract any unwanted attention.

"You can actually remember word for word a conversation we had a couple of weeks back?" Jessamy smiled at their adopted collie Myrtle, shuffling impatiently and whining to be fed. It was the dog they had to thank for their meal. Myrtle had chased and cornered the plump little red up a lightning scarred stump with nowhere to go.

Hamnavoe tapped his head with a grubby nail, "Photographic memory darlin' ... one of my many talents."

This beach was where she'd told Hamnavoe about Beaconsfield's attempted rape, and her time living in the old distillery in Tobermory and her eventual escape from Mull. Almost twenty years ago. A lifetime.

A very eventful lifetime ...

"So you'll remember that the last time you made ... unwelcome advances, I nearly skewered your bollocks with my knife?"

Hamnavoe laughed uncomfortably, "Ye're a tough lassie JB. Ye're bonny, but ye can take care of yerself an' ye answer to no-one. I ... I feel awfully jealous of whichever lucky man ye call yer own."

Jessamy gazed into the flames for a few seconds. She'd spent so many years putting up a wall between herself and the rest of the world. An impervious armour-like shell. Would it be such a bad thing to finally let someone else in? She'd after all already had a moment of weakness when she'd fucked Hamnavoe on Orkney.

"I'm single. Unattached," Jessamy told him, without looking up, "there was someone, but ... he was killed."

It had been months since she'd last thought about Jiff, Jessamy realised with a shock. The father of her two daughters, the handsome New Zealander's real name had been Geoff but his kiwi accent rendered it as Jiff. After Thanatos he'd been marooned in West Cornwall, where they'd met. Now all that was irrelevant. Jiff lay rotting at the bottom of the English Channel amongst the shattered wreckage of his beam trawler ... another innocent victim of HMS Poseidon.

To this day she always regretted not dealing with the Poseidon when she and the others had had the chance.

Hamnavoe's eyes lit up, his face creasing into a beaming grin, "Oh great. I mean oh lass, I'm so sorry ..."

Jessamy started cutting slivers of charred meat from the squirrel, "Don't get ideas," she warned, but couldn't quite keep the smile from her voice.

Hamnavoe edged closer, "Um, do ye think yerself and an old rogue like me could ..."

Across from them, Myrtle dropped into a crouch and bared her teeth at the undergrowth nearby, growling low in her throat ...

Without further warning, two dark figures charged onto the beach brandishing automatic weapons, "ON YOUR KNEES! HANDS ON YOUR HEADS. MOVE IT!"

In the moment Myrtle had dropped down, Jessamy had reflexively curled her fingers around a flaming log at the edge of the fire. Now, with unerring accuracy, she flung it at the closest figure, hitting him squarely in the face. She launched herself at him as he batted frantically at the embers scorching his skin.

BLAM!

The second gunman fired wildly into the night sky, distracted as Myrtle threw herself on him, jaws snapping, knocking him backwards as Hamnavoe snatched up his M16 from the sand.

BLAM! BLAM!

Jessamy slammed the first startled gunman's MP5 up against his windpipe, forcing his head back with all her might as he struggled beneath her. Behind, the sound of not one, but two bodies crumpling to the ground ...

The gunman's struggles grew weaker, then eventually stopped.

"Fuckin' amateurs," Jessamy spat as she dusted herself off and stood.

Sitting on the ground next to the bloodied corpse of the other, Hamnavoe examined his arm by the firelight, "Fucker winged me."

Myrtle stood guard over the gunmens' bodies.

"You okay?"

"Aye. Just a flesh wound. Ruined ma fuckin' jacket though."

Getting slow in your old age," Jessamy grinned and started searching the corpses for anything useful, "... who are they, do you think?

"Keaton's men. Militia. I recognise this ugly piece of shit from Kirkwall," Hamnavoe delivered a savage kick to the chest of the nearest body, "Keaton's on our tail and he's not going to give up wi'oot a fight, lass."

"I was afraid of this," Jessamy shared out what little food and equipment the two dead militia men carried, an antique Heckler & Koch MP5, an even older Browning pistol and a crossbow, "we can't stay here. We have to keep moving."

Myrtle whimpered, licking her chops.

"After we've eaten ..." Jessamy ruffled the dog's ears, "this little lady just saved our necks ... again."

. . .

They headed south, walking through the freezing cold night. Trudging cross country would make their progress painfully slow through the mountainous terrain so Jessamy opted for following the railway - the route of the main Edinburgh to Inverness line, as she guessed that any more of Keaton's thugs would expect them to follow the road.

Over the next few days, they encountered small pockets of survivors scratching out a living amongst the hills. Mostly friendly, if a little wary, some had heard of her - the legendary Jessamy Beech, the hero of the Battle of Truro, the woman who'd single handedly taken down the gang of cutthroats calling themselves the 'Peaky Blinders' years before. A few had even heard of Hamnavoe and each time it took some effort for Jessamy to plead his innocence.

There were sketchy reports of Trevithick near Pitlochry and Perth. A tall, ragged figure who'd passed through muttering to himself. With Glasgow and much of the west coast still overrun with Reivers after twenty years, they had to assume their quarry would adjust his route accordingly and that they were still on the right track.

Although invited to do so, Jessamy and Hamnavoe decided not to stay in one place for more than a single night. They were getting no closer to Admiral Dale Fredrickson - Trevithick, and Keaton's Orcadian militia could be right behind them and in much greater numbers.

It was as they neared Inverkeithing on the Firth of Forth, the great expanse of water separating the highlands in the north of Scotland from Edinburgh and the lowlands to the south, that Hamnavoe stumbled over a rotting railway sleeper.

"You okay?" Jessamy called back over her shoulder. She tried not to sound concerned, but she'd noticed Hamnavoe had been slowing up for a couple of days. She'd put that down to the punishing pace they were setting, with few breaks.

The thick morning mist that filled the straths and glens tinged orange by the sunrise, reduced visibility to around twenty five yards. But up ahead, she could just about make out the top of the sun bleached red ironwork of the world famous Forth Bridge reaching up into the cloudless blue sky above. Just across the water lay what was left of Edinburgh ...

She shuddered.

"J-just give me a m-minute JB," Hamnavoe panted.

Jessamy looked back at him. It was completely out of character for the old Scot to show any hint of weakness and that simple plea made it clear that something was seriously wrong. Hamnavoe looked deathly pale, his face shining with a unhealthy sheen of cold sweat, his eyes watery and sunken. She quickly crouched down, pushing Myrtle away as the dog inquisitively sniffed at Hamnavoe's arm.

"Think we may have a problem," Jessamy told him as she tore open his sleeve where the bullet had wounded him, "it's infected and you're burning up."

"I cl-cleaned it," Hamnavoe groaned.

"I know," said Jessamy irritably, wrinkling her nose at the smell coming from Hamnavoe's wound, "and I stitched the fucking thing up."

"Then how?"

Jessamy clenched her jaw, "Old Reiver trick to slow down their enemies. They dip their bullets and crossbow bolts in their own shit so practically any wound - even a scratch will eventually get infected."

"Dirty bas-bastards," Hamnavoe cursed. His face screwed up in pain as he clutched at his arm, "I s'pose a bl-blowjob's out of the question ... ye ken? To make me f-feel better?"

Jessamy ignored the remark, "We need to get this seen to," she examined her rudimentary stitching over the angry red bullet hole, "it needs proper cleaning, antibiotics."

"And where the f-fuck are we going to get antibiotics JB? N-nip into Boots the Chemist in Edinburgh? You'll have to leave me. Go on, take M-myrtle and find Trevithick."

"Don't start talking like a dick," Jessamy cocked her head to one side.

"With a dick like mine ye cannae help talkin' like ..."

"Ssh!"

Had she just heard something from back the way they'd come? A scrape of footsteps on the railway line's gravel ballast perhaps ...

"Wh-what's up JB?"

"Ssh."

Whatever it was, Myrtle had heard it too. The collie's ears pricked up and she stared off into the swirling mist.

"What is it?" Hamnavoe whispered, thumbing off the safety on his M16.

"Could be troub ..."

Somewhere off in the white wall of mist obscuring the northbound railway line, something metallic clinked. The sound echoed from the rock walls of the narrow cutting they'd just walked through.

Jessamy drew her handgun and laid the MP5 on the ground in easy reach.

They listened ...

Voices.

"... only way they could've come. Flett's boys are covering the road west."

"I still don't know why we need so many. There's only fuckin' two of them according to that wanker Gorbachev."

"Albert. We're on the edge of Reiver territory. And besides, this is Jessamy fuckin' Beech were talking about ..."

Jessamy stared down at Hamnavoe, "Keaton's men. Gorbachev sold us out," she mouthed.

Myrtle flattened her ears back and stared intently into the mist.

"Back stabbing fucker. How m-many?" Hamnavoe hissed.

Jessamy shrugged, but decided not to hang around any longer to find out. Ignoring his grunts of pain she hooked a hand under Hamnavoe's armpit and hoisted him to his feet. Then motioning to Myrtle to follow, started hurrying along the few slippery railway tracks towards the Forth Bridge ...

... and Edinburgh.

CHAPTER TEN: PLYMOUTH

Nineteen years earlier.

PART ONE: YELVERTON

"FINAL WARNING! FUCK OFF OR WE OPEN FIRE!"

The people of Yelverton, just a few miles inland from Plymouth on the edge of Dartmoor, had been thorough in clearing the street of any debris or abandoned vehicles that might be used as cover. Jessamy guessed that the old telephone box she crouched behind, still sporting a few flakes of cheerful red paint, had somehow been overlooked or was just too difficult to move. She leaned around it and peered across the rain soaked square through the sight of her SA80 at where Mpenzi stood, dangerously exposed, still clutching her white flag.

"We just want somewhere to rest for the night and a little fresh water," the tall South African sergeant explained, wiping rain drops from her eyes, "there's only three of us. We're not going to eat all your food, we've brought our own."

A bus had been pushed over on its side to effectively block the entrance to Yelverton's indoor market. Tractors and farming equipment, sandbags, mattresses and pieces of car bodywork created a virtually impenetrable barrier on either side. But Jessamy's chief concern was the amount of firepower the villagers had at their disposal ...

Two tripod mounted heavy machine guns on top of the bus tracked Mpenzi's every movement, along with at least a dozen civilians armed with bows, catapults and assault rifles that must have come from some military establishment. Jessamy had spotted snipers on the roof of the church, the village pub and that of the market building itself - a 1960s concrete monstrosity with a flat roof. But she was certain there would be others she hadn't seen. It looked like the villagers held all the aces and it wouldn't do to provoke them.

A ruddy faced man wearing a patched red Rab mountain jacket stood up behind the parapet of sandbags, "You cunts aren't gettin' nothing."!

That was a double negative if ever there was one, thought Jessamy.

"You asked last week," the man continued, "you came back yesterday. And fuck me if you ain't here today. Our food, our weapons, our fuel ... it all belongs to us. Nobody else."

"I think you've mistaken us for someone else," Mpenzi countered, "we're just ..."

Rab jacket ignored her and aimed a handgun down at Mpenzi, "Fuck off back into town and leave us alone."

Mpenzi stood her ground and stared. And waited. The wind soughing through the branches of dead trees around the weed choked village green was the only sound. They'd seen little evidence of meteorite strikes for the last few miles and the nuclear winter that had followed Thanatos seemed to be the main cause of this area's woes - the stunted, sickly looking crops in the surrounding fields and warnings of disease painted on isolated farm houses.

The people of Yelverton were understandably suspicious and had obviously confused them with someone else who'd caused them trouble in the past, Jessamy guessed. Though she wondered how many other groups of travellers went around dressed from head to foot in MTP with kevlar helmets and SA80s as soldiers in the British army.

She prayed that Alison Nethybridge would hold her position and wouldn't try anything stupid or Mpenzi was most certainly dead. They'd left the nervous comms expert watching their backs, huddled behind the rusting hulk of a milk tanker on the edge of the main street. This part of Devon had once been lush dairy farm country. Now it was a bleak wasteland.

A muffled baby's cry broke the silence from somewhere inside the market.

"You have children in there?" Mpenzi gasped.

It now made sense why the villagers were so territorial. They weren't just survivors. They were actively rebuilding. Taking what Thanatos had left them and making the most of it. A precious new life was certainly a step in the right direction.

"Kids, families. What of it?" spat Rab jacket.

"Just asking," Mpenzi replied. Even from a distance of fifty yards, Jessamy could see the sweat on the sergeant's ebony skin, trickling down from her hairline.

"Well don't."

Mpenzi huffed, defeated, "Okay. We'll leave you in peace. It's a shit world we live in and all we can hope for is a little kindness from a stranger once in a while. Just not from you, eh?"

She turned her back on the barricade and started walking the way she'd come. Jessamy fell in beside her, nervously glancing back at the enormous machine guns aimed at their exposed backs, "Why didn't they just shoot us? Take our gear? There's only three of us."

"I was hoping they wouldn't think of that. Maybe they're decent folk after all. But I think they've mistaken us for someone else. Don't know who though," Mpenzi answered. She signalled to Alison to rejoin them, then threw the white flag into a hedge, "won't be needing that anymore. Let's see if can get to the outskirts of Plymouth before dark since these fuckers won't give us a bed for the night."

KA-BOOM!

Jessamy, Mpenzi and Alison were literally blown off their feet as behind them, Yelverton's indoor market suddenly exploded, sending chunks of concrete and lethal shards of glass blasting out in all directions. The bus barricade flipped high into the air and landed with a loud crunch of rusted metal ...

"GET DOWN!" Mpenzi screamed. But Jessamy and Alison were already scrabbling for cover. Behind them, shouts of panic came from what was left of the market ...

KA-BOOM!

Another explosion tore the ruined building apart in an orange fireball. Bangs and secondary explosions followed as fire found the villagers' ammunition dump and store. Overheated gas cannisters shot skyward as their contents erupted.

"W-was that m-meteorite strikes?" Alison shrieked. Her face was deathly white, though from fear or a coating of plaster dust Jessamy couldn't tell.

Mpenzi looked up into the darkening sky as something unseen screamed low overhead, "GET THE FUCK DOWN!"

KA-BOOM!

A third explosion turned anything that was left of the villagers' fortress into rubble, the devastating blast damaging the old Methodist chapel and every other building in the vicinity. Jessamy and the others huddled down behind the burnt out remains of a Range Rover as debris rained down around them from the sky.

A billowing cloud of smoke, dust and ash rose up as minutes later they finally deemed it was safe to emerge from cover.

"Fuck me. They were no meteorite strikes," said Mpenzi.

"How can you tell?" Jessamy asked, wide-eyed.

"Three strikes hitting exactly the same spot? Hell of a fuckin' coincidence wouldn't you say?"

"Jet? Some kind of aircraft?" Alison suggested.

Jessamy had never heard a jet so she wasn't in a position to guess.

Mpenzi shook her head, "We'd have heard it. No. This was something else."

They spent a short while searching through the rubble for survivors or anything useful. But on seeing what was left of the building it was clear that there wouldn't be any. Without another word, they turned away to head south ...

. . .

They'd left Bristol two weeks before, following a course diagonally across country through Somerset and Devon. Alison Nethybridge tried several more times to contact the naval base in Plymouth once again but there was just static. With rampaging Reivers advancing south from Scotland and General Chinnor's army close behind them the trio's options were limited, so they voted to stick with their plan ...

Much to Jessamy's relief.

The three of them had made their way south and west, paddling a makeshift raft across the flooded Somerset Levels, bypassing the scorched, jagged scar in the earth where the town of Taunton had once stood, offering manual labour in return for food and shelter in the isolated communities that would have them, moving on quickly from those that wouldn't.

Jessamy had practiced and practiced with her bow whenever she got the chance, hunting what little small game was to be found.

They experienced every kind of weather the British Isles had to offer, as well as a few freakish post Thanatos phenomena such as dust storms with 150 mile an hour winds, debris storms that struck fear into Jessamy's heart when they were caught out in the open, electrical storms where the whole sky seemed ablaze, and meteorite strikes ...

Almost nightly, brightly glowing chunks of Thanatos tore screaming across the sky, randomly entering Earth's atmosphere at tremendous speeds to slam into the already shattered land below. Most smaller pieces did little damage, but there were always the larger ones that lit up the distant horizon as they impacted so violently that the ground quaked beneath them.