Blood Bond (25 page)

From that moment on, watching Corky and knowing what he was doing at all times became Luke's preoccupation. Corky carried his rifle constantly. His eyes were forever searching for his prey.

Still Mark did not come, and Luke was forced to leave the area for brief periods to find food. Whenever he made a foraging trip he would also search frantically for ammunition, always without success.

He lived the life of a guerrilla, never sleeping in the same place two nights in succession. He'd heard stories of Australia's poisonous spiders and snakes and was terrified of being bitten, adding to the stress of his predicament. His territory became the few acres bounded by Wynnum Creek to the north, the ridge above Manly to the west, Lota Creek to the south and the sea to the east. He came to know it like the back of his hand.

The game of cat and mouse went on for days, then weeks. The lack of food, together with the nervous exhaustion of avoiding Corky and watching for signs of
Archangel
, began to take its toll. Luke decided he had to take action.

One morning, about an hour before dawn, he lit a fire at the far end of a beach a few kilometres from Corky's settlement. He stoked the fire with leaves and grass before making his way to a hiding place nearby. His adversary was both an early riser and a man of habit: each morning he would wander down the beach towards the point, rifle and bucket in hand, and check the net he had set the night before. After placing any catch in the bucket, he would carefully scan the horizon, the islands offshore and the beaches on the mainland with his binoculars. The care with which Corky searched indicated to Luke that he too expected
Archangel
to return.

This morning was no exception. As Corky completed scanning the mainland beaches, he sighted the smoke from the fire Luke had set. Corky hurried in the direction of the smoke, rifle at the ready,
with Luke following, keeping well back and well hidden.

Luke halted at the southern end of the beach and watched as Corky continued along the sand towards the smoke. As he neared the source of the smoke, which was spiralling skywards from behind a house, Corky slowed and began creeping more cautiously towards the plume. Luke turned tail and ran as fast as his legs would carry him back along the road towards Corky's house. He reckoned he had about twenty minutes before Corky realised he had been tricked and arrived back at the settlement.

He burst into Corky's house, found a rucksack and bundled in all the food he could find in the kitchen. Then, glancing nervously at his watch, he commenced the most important part of his mission — the search for Corky's ammunition.

Rummaging through a cupboard in the hallway he found a Bible. Despite having been in the church choir — chosen for his angelic looks rather than the quality of his singing — he was not particularly religious. But the Bible caught his eye. It had a very distinctive, leather-bound cover decorated with two Cs intertwined with the branches of an oak tree. It was identical to the one his grandmother kept at Haver. On impulse, he stuffed the Bible in the rucksack with the food.

His time was almost up before he found what he was looking for — Corky's stash of pistols, rifles and ammunition, hidden behind clothes in a wardrobe. He picked up one of the rifles then remembered that all he really needed was ammunition.

Replacing the rifle, he reached down towards the pile of ammunition. The largest spider he had ever seen — at least two hand-spans across, including its legs — stood guard atop of the pile of boxes. Terrified, and unaware that he was confronted by a harmless huntsman spider, he picked up the rifle again, flicked the spider off the top of the boxes and slammed the rifle butt down on it. Still shaking, he removed a box of ammunition from the stack and tipped the contents into the rucksack before closing the empty box and hiding it in the centre of the pile. Then he carefully replaced the rifle and closed the wardrobe door. He hoped that, with both the weapons and ammunition apparently undisturbed, Corky wouldn't
realise he had found the stash.

The search had taken longer than he had anticipated. As he reached the front door, he saw Corky running, puffing and panting, along the promenade towards him.

‘You little bastard!' Corky yelled breathlessly as he lifted his rifle.

A bullet slammed into the wall of the house. Luke turned and ran back through the house into the kitchen. Finding the back door locked, he climbed through the kitchen window. As Luke leapt over the garden gate, Corky burst through the back door.

As he ran down the road, the rucksack banging up and down against his back, Luke began to wish he hadn't stolen the heavy Bible. He had just reached the junction at the end of the street when a bullet hit the rucksack with such force that he was knocked off his feet. Surprised he was still alive, he scrambled to his feet. Another bullet whistled overhead as he turned the corner.

He knew he could run faster than Corky, but not with a pack on his back. Unwilling to abandon the precious food and ammunition, and momentarily out of sight of Corky, he cut into a driveway and hid behind a hedge. He watched as Corky rounded the corner and continued along the road ahead, yelling obscenities. Suddenly Luke wished he had stolen a rifle rather than the Bible.

He remained hidden for the rest of the day, watching Corky searching for him. Only when his pursuer had returned to his house, shouting a final string of threats, did Luke make his way cautiously to his favourite hiding place near the point.

He was ravenous. He took food from the rucksack, gulped it down and then began to systematically sort through his spoils. He had already decided he would split his pickings, including the ammunition, into three lots and hide them in separate locations, just in case any of his hiding places was discovered.

He picked up the Bible. It had a hole in it and was still warm where the bullet, lodged in its pages, had spent its force. He realised how lucky he was: the Bible had undoubtedly saved his life.

As he opened the flyleaf, his heart began to race. At the top of the page were recorded the names of his great-grandparents, Claude and Cora Chatfield. Below their names were listed fifteen children,
including his own grandmother, Margaret, and his mysterious ‘secret' Great-Uncle William. Only William's descendents were recorded, and the last entry in the list had been amended. Someone had crossed out ‘Clive Cedric Cecil Cork' and written ‘Corky'.

Luke looked up to the heavens. Was there a god after all? What had possessed him to pick up a Bible when he had been searching for ammunition? Was his grandmother up there looking after him? No, she couldn't be. She was still at Haver.

Suddenly he missed her. He had lost his mother to the pandemic, his father to a lion in Cape Town, and now his brother to Corky. All he had left was his grandmother. Was she still alive? If only he could go back to Haver.

He bundled his spoils back into the rucksack and set off for some houses on the edge of Manly where he remembered seeing rifles. He deposited a share of the food and ammunition at two selected hiding places along the way.

In a large house he found a suitable rifle and loaded the chamber. He then loaded a second rifle, the fear of being shot by Corky that had haunted him ever since the death of his brother replaced by overwhelming anger and hate.

After a sleepless night he left his hiding place before dawn and made his way along the beach towards the point, where he hid in a clump of bushes a few metres from the route he knew Corky would take to check his fishing net. As his brother's murderer strutted down the beach towards his net, Luke raised the rifle and lined up the sights between Corky's shoulder blades. But despite his anger, despite the opportunity, despite the pressure on his finger, he found he couldn't pull the trigger.

 

‘That was yesterday,' Luke explained. ‘But today I woke up and realised that I just couldn't take the risk of him finding me any longer — I had to kill him. I was making my way back here to shoot him when I noticed you all at the top of the beach. When I saw you digging I guessed he was planning to do the same to you as he had to Robert. I had a devil of a job getting into a position where I could shoot him without risking hitting Penny or Lee.'

‘You did well,' Steven said, staring down at the corpse.

Penny put her arm around Luke's shoulders. ‘We're really sorry about your brother.'

For the first time since Robert's death, Luke began to cry. At last it was safe to mourn.

Steven dragged Corky's body across the grass and dumped it unceremoniously into what had been intended to be his own grave. As he shovelled soil onto the body, Luke gradually took control of his emotions.

‘Do you think my brother really was responsible for the death of all these poor people?' he asked, looking forlornly at the row of graves.

Steven stopped digging. ‘No, it was Lee.'

‘Lee?'

‘He's carrying the typhoid bug. He's what's known as an asymptomatic carrier.'

‘But how could he have infected the people here?'

Steven leaned on his shovel. ‘When Lee was taken ashore in the rowing boat, he used the latrine at the top of the beach. That probably infected the water supply. Those women had no resistance to the disease — they didn't stand a chance.'

 

‘Do we really have to go back to New Zealand?' Penny asked Steven. They had moved
Archangel
to the channel off the marina, and were now sitting together on the promenade wall, watching Lee help Luke set Corky's net off the point.

Steven looked at her. ‘We have to go back,' he said gently. ‘I can't just sail off without saying goodbye to my father. Anyway, I want to take him Corky's Bible — it proves there may be other Chatfields alive somewhere. And we also need to take Luke to New Zealand.'

‘Are you sure he wouldn't rather return to Haver?'

‘Of course.'

‘I wouldn't be so sure if I was you. Have you asked him? He might feel like me.'

‘I know that for you and I, living a life of isolation with Lee in New Zealand will be difficult, but we'll have one another. And maybe
Luke will choose to stay with us rather than join my father.'

Penny shook her head. ‘He won't. There's no future for him in our group. I'm the only woman, remember? I accept that you must see your father again, but once you have, I want you to take us back to Haver.' There was determination in her voice.

Steven didn't like her words, but he could understand her feelings. ‘I love you,' he said eventually. ‘More than I've ever loved anyone. I'd like you to give New Zealand a fair crack.' She opened her mouth to protest, but he continued quickly. ‘If after giving it a try you still feel the same way, I promise I'll take you back to England. I just don't want to leave my father in the lurch. I want to help him get the community re-established. I owe it to him, and I owe it to everyone else.'

She moved closer to him and put her arms around him. ‘Thank you,' she said. ‘I love you too.'

 

They spent almost a month at Manly, fishing, hunting and generally recuperating from their recent ordeals. They walked into Brisbane and wandered through the city, which had been virtually destroyed by fire. They hadn't expected to find any signs of life, and they didn't.

Most of their efforts were centred on the marina complex. They found many skeletons both inside and outside the perimeter fence and gradually, as they discovered fortified boats and skeletons at strategic points along the pontoons, they realised that the marina had become prime real estate, fought over by those inside and those trying to breach its defences. Closer inspection revealed that the wreck sunk at the entrance to the harbour was heavily armed and had been used to attack the marina from the seaward side. Those trapped in the marina had clearly held out for a considerable time. Despite extensive searches, Steven could not find a single scrap of canned or bottled food on any vessel.

Their efforts were directed to refitting
Archangel
. She had sailed over thirty thousand miles and was badly in need of attention. With Gulf Harbour Marina destroyed, Manly was the ideal place to scavenge for materials to refit her for the possible voyage back to England — a voyage which Steven accepted was becoming increasingly likely.
Luke, upon being made aware of the situation at Gulf Harbour and Penny's desire to return to Haver, indicated his wish to ‘go home' too.

At high tide on a calm day,
Archangel
was brought in close to the beach, heeled over to starboard and allowed to lie over on her side as the tide dropped. Everyone set to feverishly scraping barnacles from the port side of the hull. It was then liberally covered in antifouling paint before the tide returned. She was then heeled over to port and allowed to settle on her other side, enabling a further shift to complete the cleaning and painting of the starboard side. Shrouds, halyards, sheets and sails were all replaced.

Their final act was to place carved wooden crosses on the graves of Robert, Emily, Ruby and Harriet, and to repaint the crosses on the remainder of the graves. The freshest grave was furnished with a simple painted plaque; a cross did not seem appropriate. The plaque read Clive Cedric Cecil Cork.

‘They've gone!'

Diana was suddenly wide awake. Susan was standing at the foot of her bed, fighting for breath. The clock above Cromwell's Tower struck six o'clock. ‘They've gone,' Susan repeated.

‘Who's gone?'

‘Damian and Greg.'

‘What!'

‘I went to collect Greg from the Punishment Room at the end of his shift and found the door unbolted. Neither Greg nor Damian was inside.'

Diana was already out of bed and pulling her dress over her head. Her mind was racing. ‘What about Jasper?'

‘I didn't check. I came straight here.'

‘Get everyone assembled in the Great Hall. Tell Duncan and Paul to go to Cromwell's Tower and check whether Jasper's still in his cell.'

Diana and Susan raced along the gallery, Diana breaking off into
her study and Susan hurrying down the staircase, through the Great Hall and out towards the quarters around Lawn Court as fast as her arthritic limbs would allow.

To her relief, Diana found all the keys, including those to Jasper's cell, safe in her desk. She grabbed the keys to the armoury and dashed off to collect rifles and ammunition. The members of the community were streaming into the Great Hall as she arrived, all asking questions at the same time — none of which could be answered.

Duncan ran in, followed by Paul.

‘Jasper's gone too,' Duncan shouted breathlessly.

Fear spread across the face of everyone apart from Jennifer. Her expression was one of total disbelief.

‘How in heaven's name did they escape?' Diana demanded, thrusting a loaded rifle into Duncan's hands.

Paul held out his hand. In his palm were two crude keys. ‘We found one key in the cell door, the other in the lock of his ball and chain.'

Diana snatched the keys and studied them, while Jennifer looked on in continuing disbelief. She recognised the keys. They had been using the smaller one to unlock Jasper's ball and chain for several weeks. She'd helped him produce the larger key, to his cell door, only the previous week. It was the key he'd promised to use to take her away from Haver when the time was right. Why hadn't he told her he was going? Why had he left with his brothers instead?

‘It gets worse,' Kimberley said as she joined the group in the hall. ‘Virginia's gone too.'

‘What!' Jennifer's voice rose above the hubbub in the Great Hall. ‘Has she been kidnapped?'

Kimberley shook her head. ‘She's taken little Hazel with her. You can see from the state of their rooms and what they've taken with them that it was all carefully planned.'

Amy and Beatrice started crying. The fourteen-year-old twins were pregnant, thanks to Diana and Theresa's insemination regime. They couldn't believe their mother would have left without them.

‘The bitch!' Jennifer exclaimed. There was such venom in her voice that all eyes turned to her. ‘Well, it's obvious, isn't it?' she spat.
‘Don't you see it? The little whore's dropped her knickers for him — and he's conned her into helping him make the keys.'

‘How could he have seduced her?' Duncan shouted, coming to the defence of his daughter. ‘Didn't you and Virginia always lock Jasper up and collect him together?'

‘Of course we did.'

‘That's enough,' Diana snapped. ‘What matters now is keeping ourselves safe. The Chatfield brothers obviously don't have weapons or we'd all be lined up against the wall.'

‘More likely we'd be lying dead in front of the wall,' Paul said glumly.

Diana handed him a rifle. ‘We'll mount guards at the top of Cromwell's Tower and West Gate. You take Cromwell's Tower. Duncan, you take the West Gate. Lock the doors at the foot of the towers once you're inside. Now get going.'

As Duncan and Paul hurried away, Diana turned to Cheryl. ‘Bolt the West Gate and all the other gates. Susan, get on with breakfast. The rest of you stay inside the walls — we'll start firearms training as soon as breakfast's over.'

‘What about the animals on the farm?' Bridget asked.

‘No one goes into the park until I say so.'

 

Over the next few days, the community at Haver remained in a state of high alert as Diana, assuming the role of High Commander, drilled and trained her troops. Of her adversaries she knew the most dangerous was Jasper. Damian, though extremely volatile, didn't have the ability to lead his brothers, let alone mount a concerted attack against Haver. Greg would do as he was told.

It began to dawn on her just how clever Jasper had been. By appearing subjugated and broken, he had lulled them all into a false sense of security. But what really puzzled her was how he had apparently seduced Virginia.

He was undoubtedly a ladies' man, and the community was pitifully short of eligible males. She had always recognised that as a chink in her armour. The fear that consensual sexual relationships might develop between women in the community and the Chatfield
brothers had been the main reason that she had decreed artificial insemination be employed.

So how had Jasper managed to charm the pants off Virginia — literally? Was it simply the promise of a life with him away from Haver that had led to her betrayal? Even promises had to be delivered and discussed. Diana checked and re-checked, interrogating Duncan, Jennifer, Kimberley and Rebecca several times. Despite her probing and accusations, they supported one another's stories. If the Steeds were to be believed, Virginia had had no time alone with Jasper. Yet somehow he had managed to communicate with her.

Diana knew her future as Leader of Haver lay in her ability to out-think and outwit Jasper. She particularly feared the Chatfield brothers would mount a night attack. Fortunately it was June, and the nights were short. The contents of the armoury were distributed to three locked rooms at strategic points in the Haver complex. The issue and return of firearms was rigorously controlled by a booking system. In addition to machine guns installed on the parapets of the West Gate and Cromwell's Tower, Diana had at her disposal sufficient firearms and ammunition to issue a weapon to every adult.

With no sighting of the Chatfield brothers, the community began to relax, despite Diana urging them to remain vigilant. Weapons had to be put aside while duties were performed. She noticed guns were being propped against walls and left unattended. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

She recalled most of the weapons, and armed only selected guards whose sole task was to keep a lookout while others worked. Unannounced ‘re-arming drills' were held several times a week and the amount of time taken to get weapons was analysed. New targets were set. Of those working inside Haver's walls or in the gardens immediately outside the West Gate, fifty per cent were required to be armed and in their allocated defensive positions within forty-five seconds. The remainder had to be armed and in position within ninety seconds.

Target practice was a highlight of the weekly schedule. A competitive spirit developed between the keenest marksmen. None practised more rigorously or became more proficient than Jennifer.

A thick wooden screen with rifle slits in it was erected on the platform of the cart previously used by Nigel for executions, to form a mobile fort. When the farm animals needed tending, the cart was pulled by horses to the area being worked and a guard remained behind the screen while the other members of the party carried out their tasks. Once again, surprise drills were practised, during which those working around the cart had to scramble to its safety within forty-five seconds.

A quarter of the community's labour was engaged on guard duty, day and night. The loss of the Chatfield brothers' manpower had robbed the community of much-needed electricity, which in turn increased demand for manual labour. Supplementary solar panels and wind generators were pressed into service, but they never quite made up the shortfall. Unable to rely on the freezers, Diana ordered the bottling of much of the previously frozen produce — a massive, labour-intensive activity. Diana was forced to constantly juggle resources. Had it not been for her organisational abilities and her order to significantly increase the working hours of the community, Haver would have collapsed.

 

‘The Chatfield brothers might never come back,' suggested an exhausted Duncan as the community entered the second month of its perceived siege. Those who weren't on guard duty were sitting in the Great Hall having dinner.

‘Why would they come back?' Jennifer sneered bitterly. ‘Greg and Damian will do whatever Jasper tells them. And he took what he wanted with him.'

Paul looked at her, not understanding her rationale.

‘The whore, of course!' she shouted at him.

‘Don't you talk about my daughter like that,' Duncan threatened.

‘That's enough,' Diana snapped.

The community was living under martial law, in a constant state of siege. They could still play cricket or football, but the games were no longer enjoyed on the playing fields outside the walled perimeter of Haver House. Matches were now played on Lawn Court, under the watchful eyes of sentries standing guard on the ramparts. They
could no longer venture into the park or walk through the deserted streets of Sevenoaks. They were forever looking nervously over their shoulders. The drills seemed endless. Haver had once again become a prison.

During September and October the labour pool was further reduced as the younger women gave birth. Of the seven babies born, only one was male. The only sperm Diana now had access to was Duncan's, and she was concerned about not only how fertile his sperm was, but also how much longer he would live. Diana frequently ranted to Theresa about Mark's selfish removal of so many male genes from Haver.

 

In early November, five months after the Chatfield brothers' escape, Paul, on lookout duty at the top of the West Tower, noticed that several cows appeared to be missing from the herd grazing in the valley. Diana ordered the fortified cart despatched to check the paddocks. The patrol returned just as lunch was being served in the Great Hall.

‘Definitely half a dozen of our best cattle are missing,' Duncan confirmed.

Everyone at the table was alarmed. Many of them had started to assume that the Chatfield brothers had moved far away, or had died. Now they knew they hadn't.

‘It's a good sign, don't you see?' Theresa said, trying to dispel the gloom.

‘What's good about losing half our stock?' Paul said. He was exaggerating, but he had a point.

‘It means they don't intend to try to take this place back. They're obviously content to establish their own community somewhere else.'

‘Content! They'll never be content until we're skivvying for them again, mark my words.'

‘I don't want to think about what it would be like if they took control again,' Bridget sighed. ‘They'll take revenge on us all for Diana murdering their father.'

‘They're not getting back in control,' Diana snapped. She was
running the risk of moving from saviour to villain. ‘There are more of us, and we're armed, organised and disciplined. All you have to do is do as you're told.' Like Nigel before her, she was talking to them as if they were naughty children. ‘Now, I want the herd moved closer to the house. They're to be brought into Stable Court every evening.'

‘The Leader's right,' Theresa said, reinforcing her mother's authority. ‘So long as we obey her rules, we won't come to any harm.'

 

In the first week of December, Cheryl noticed large sections of the precious winter crops of leeks, turnips and savoy cabbage had begun to wither.

‘I don't know what's wrong with them,' she said to her father as he walked around the garden with her, inspecting the damage. ‘Do you think it could be some sort of blight?'

Paul had already formed an opinion as to what the problem might be. His suspicions were confirmed when he found some plastic containers dumped beside the bean stocks. ‘They've been sprayed with insecticide,' he said bitterly. ‘It'll be the Chatfield boys. They've left the evidence here to remind us that they can strike whenever they like.'

For the remainder of the week the community worked day and night to convert the former lawns and flower gardens inside Haver's walls to vegetable gardens and to transplant as many of the plants as they could save from the gardens outside.

A few days later came the most frightening development of all: the sound of gunfire in the park late at night. It appeared that the Chatfield brothers were now armed. Again they deliberately left evidence of their presence in the park to reinforce the fact they could come and go as they pleased. They had shot several deer, but the offal and hides were left behind.

‘What does it matter?' Duncan said nervously. ‘They're just helping themselves to a few deer. We've got more than enough.'

‘They're my deer!' Diana exploded.

A week later, shots were fired in broad daylight at the party working on the farm. Fear swept through the community again.
Later the same day, a shot ricocheted off the stonework on the West Gate next to where Bridget was manning the machine gun.

Everyone was worried that they might be shot. Diana was more worried by the fact that no one
had
been shot. Jasper was an excellent marksman. There was no doubt in her mind that had he wanted to, he could easily have killed someone. The fact that he hadn't shot anyone suggested to her that he intended, and expected, to regain control of Haver and didn't want to kill one of his prospective slaves.

It was a conclusion she shared with no one, including her own daughter. She was determined to hold on to power. She would not be overthrown. As far as she was concerned, she was smarter than the Chatfield boys and she was certainly smarter than the numbskull relatives she commanded at Haver.

Then, as suddenly as the incidents had started, they ceased. No more gunfire was heard. As the days slipped by, everyone except Diana began to relax again. Diana only worried more. Was Jasper just up to his old tricks — lulling everyone into a false sense of security?