Christopher Nuttall: The Fall of Night

Robinson rolled his eyes. The French would probably give in too.

“The Canadian Government today refused to hand over a suspected terrorist to American authorities without some proof that he was a terrorist,” a different face said. “This comes in the wake of American draft-dodgers fleeing to Canada and being turned back by the Canadian authorities, despite an underground movement intended to help the young Americans. Congressman Dave Howery, of Michigan, demanded that President Kirkpatrick show resolve and compel the Canadian authorities to surrender the man. The White House has not commented.”

“Cheerful news,” Hazel commented, as she placed his breakfast in front of him. Robinson grinned; bacon, eggs, fried potatoes and hash browns. What more could anyone want? All of it was cooked by his wife, not by a mess officer; the British Army had a recurring joke about men taking one look at the meals and deserting to the enemy. “Is there any good news?”

Robinson passed her the remote, allowing her to skim through the hundreds of different news articles that were available to them. It wasn’t like it had been back in 2007, when it had taken hours to download one episode of Doctor Who ; now, it only took minutes to have an hour-long episode streamed over to them, and seconds for a short and chunky news piece. He’d read articles that claimed that it was bad for people to have such access, but personally he loved it; the service was available everywhere in the UK and America. They could even have accessed news reports from Poland, or watched Polish television… and the world became a little smaller.

“Ah, a kitty caught up a tree,” Hazel said, after a moment. “Shall we watch that?”

Robinson realised that he was being teased. “No,” he said. “Anything of more interest to me?”

“The convicted killer of a child molester-, Alfred Ashford, was today remanded to the custody of a medium-security jail,” the newsreader said. Robinson felt his jaw clench; there had been protest marches against that, the only protest march he had ever attended in his lifetime. Ashford had caught a convicted paedophile molesting Ashford's daughter and had killed the bastard, only to be charged with murder; the streets of Britain were no longer safe. “Ashford is expected to spend at least ten years behind bars…”

“Assuming he survives his first year in prison,” Robinson snarled. He glanced down at his watch. “What are you doing for the next hour?”

“We have another lodger coming to look at the third room,” Hazel said. “I want to give it a clean-up before they look at it and make their choice. I need to check that Rashid and Sergey have left the bathroom in good condition, just to impress the newcomer. The conditions here are so much better than the hostels and the rent isn’t much higher.”

Robinson shrugged. Rashid Ustinov and Sergey Ossetia were both refugees from Russia, people who had fled the police state that the new government had created, somehow finding their way to Britain and temporary workers permits. They both had jobs within the city and paid taxes; they were also both quiet and soft-spoken. He had worried, at first, about leaving Hazel with them, but they had behaved themselves. Sergey was homosexual, something that Robinson knew was taboo in Russia, while Rashid had brought home a girlfriend from time to time. It was hard to see what they actually had in common.

“So, no time to get back into bed?” Robinson teased. He wanted her so badly at that moment. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Randy animal,” Hazel said, teasing him. He reached out for her and their lips met in a long kiss. “I’m going to miss you too… and if you get killed, I’m going to kill you, understand?”

“Yes,” Robinson said. He gave his wife a second kiss, then a third, and then a fourth. He would come back to her or die trying; what they had was too important to lose. “I do have some sense of self-preservation, after all.”

He kissed his wife goodbye and started the long walk towards Redford Barracks, pausing only to throw a quick salute to the portrait of General Éclair that he had attached to the wall. It was — officially — frowned upon, but hundreds of soldiers had decided to ignore official warnings and keep the pictures of those who had died or been betrayed by their own governments after Sudan. The Netherlands and Denmark had been particularly vile to their soldiers; if a far-right group did manage to get into power there, Robinson privately predicted blood on the streets.

Redford Barracks themselves were a set of massive buildings, set within Colinton, home to The Rifles as well as several smaller units and a Territorial Army base, right next door. Robinson showed his security pass to the guards at the gate, armed and ready for trouble; they searched him and allowed him to enter the base. He paused to salute the flag flapping in the wind, and then headed into the briefing room. Other soldiers would be trickling in over the coming two days; as a Captain, Robinson had the pleasure of being called back into service early. It wasn't an easy time to be a junior officer in His Majesty’s Army.

He stood and saluted, along with a handful of other officers, when Major General John McLachlan entered the room. McLachlan was fairly well-known; unlike Robinson himself, he had seen service in the ill-fated Iraq campaign, as well as Afghanistan and several other places where the general public would be astonished to learn that British troops had served. His dark hair was fading to grey now, but he still gave the impression of strength and, more importantly, competence. Rumour had it that he had wanted to retire, but the person who would be likely to get his job was an incompetent paper warrior.

“At ease,” McLachlan said, as he returned their salutes. “You will be pleased to know that we are being deployed, along with several RAF and SAS units, to Poland. You may have heard rumours about the repeated Argie claim to the Falklands, and the Government has authorised the deployment of a major force of Royal Marines and Royal Navy ships, but we are going to Poland. So far, the fact that a major force is going to the Falklands, in the hopes of preventing a repeat of the 1982 war, has been kept a secret; the requirement for a deployment to Poland has not. I assume that all of you know the background, seeing that you all did a tour two years ago during the first crisis; there are few changes of importance in the background.

“Almost the entire regiment is going, along with several other regiments, under my national command and the European command of General Konrad Trautman, who has experience in the Balkans and the Ukraine. No one expects serious trouble on this deployment, but we have been able to gain some permission from Brussels to deploy some units to expand our control of the area and hopefully increase our ability to react to any real emergency. It should be noted that there have been several incidents recently in Ukraine that Intelligence fears will trigger off a full-scale civil war; if that happens, we may find ourselves working with the Poles to seal the border. We are supposed to have reinforcements in that case, but with the Falklands becoming a trouble spot again, we may have reinforcements from France or Germany, rather than British reinforcements.”

He paused. “Forward deployment will be at Rheindahlen Military Complex, North Rhine, Westphalia, Germany,” he said. “You have all been there before, so you know the area; kindly ensure that your soldiers always use their contraceptives if they intend to sample the local nightlife before we get permission to move on into Poland. We will have a long and enhanced period of training; the good news is that we will be getting some of the new equipment that they promised us five years ago. The 7 thPanzer might have the new Eurotanks, but we will have several smaller vehicles, including some Close-Air Denial Systems, trucks carrying the latest antiaircraft missiles. I expect heavy training from all of you.”