Jane Higgins - The Bridge

‘Ah!’ The man in the rubbish waved a stick of wood. ‘Splint.’ He knelt beside Dash who was breathing real deep and shaky. The man took out a knife and started to cut through her jeans at the knee. ‘Hold on to something, this is going to hurt.’

‘Wait!’ said Dash. ‘I have to talk to Nik.’

Jono looked up, seriously groggy, groaned, and put his head back on his knees.

The other soldier, much older, came back down the alley. ‘Lucky for you we were around.’

I was struggling to get a grip. ‘You’re the army. We can – can’t we go after them? We can get reinforcements and go looking. Where are the others?’ I looked around, half expecting a combat team to leap into existence, weapons at the ready.

‘The others?’

‘The rest of the army,’ I said.

‘What army would that be, son? If you mean the great and glorious Army of the People, the Righteous Army, the Army of God and the General – or should that be the General and God? – well now, that army’s broken, isn’t it? Split clean open last summer. Half of ’em scarpered up north, or Oversea, even over the fucking river. And the other half – here’s the joke – the other half was sent to bring ’em back. And that left a skeleton crew,’ he bowed, ‘to hold the line here. So what happens? The South gets wind of this, and takes its chance. And here we are. Screwed.’

‘But, no, but, the General…’ I stammered.

‘Dead. In the mutiny. Don’t go pinning your hopes on any General. This place is finished. By month’s end it’ll be running with hostiles.’

‘No! This makes no sense. What about ISIS?’

‘ISIS? They’re not gonna help the likes of us. No way. We’re on our own.’ He patted his gun. ‘We’re gonna have a Breken-hunt before we head north.’

‘Nik!’ Dash was staring at me hard. ‘You have to go after Sol.’

The older man shook his head. ‘You’d be a fool to do that. A dead one.’

I looked at Dash. ‘What about you?’

The guy waiting to splint her leg said, ‘We can look after them.’

Dash looked at me, bleary-eyed. ‘You have to—’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Course. I’ll… Jesus.’ I looked up at the older man. ‘They’ll have gone back over Mol Bridge, yeah?’

‘I’d say.’

Jono stirred again. ‘I’m coming.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re not.’

The one with the splint shook his head. ‘You’re crazy. If they catch you, d’you know what they do to people, our kind, over there?’

Not what I needed to hear. ‘Where will you take these three?’

He squinted up at me and shook his head again. ‘If you’re going over there, I’m not telling you.’

‘Why?’

‘Aren’t you listening? This place is going to be overrun. I don’t want hostiles dragging information out of you about where we are.’

Great. That boded well for my future. I crouched by Dash and kissed her. ‘I’ll find Sol. And then I’ll find you. I promise.’

I stood up. So did Fyffe. She was shaky on her feet, and tears shone on her cheeks. She wiped her face with her sleeve, then fished a dirty yellow scarf out of her bag and tied it round her head, tucking her hair into it and covering the bruise on her forehead. She pulled on Jono’s big denim jacket, which made her look tiny. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘Going with you.’

Over the general outcry I said, ‘No way are you coming with me. No. Way.’

‘He’s my brother! Don’t argue. Anyway, you don’t know what they look like, the ones that took him.’

‘So tell me.’

‘Not the same.’

‘Fyffe. Look at you – you won’t last two minutes over there.’

‘We don’t have time to argue. I’m not afraid.’ She grasped the little cross that hung round her neck. ‘If I can’t go with you, Nik, I’ll go alone.’ She looked at Dash and Jono and said, ‘We’ll be back, with Sol.’ She marched off down the alleyway. I followed, protesting.

We weren’t what you’d call well prepared for a foray into enemy territory. We had no weapons, no protective gear, no food, no water, and we were dead on our feet. Also, we had no idea where they’d gone, except Over The Bridge.

We sat on some steps in the doorway of one of the old terrace houses right on the riverbank and watched the foot traffic on Moldam Bridge. We told ourselves we were planning, waiting for nightfall, but we didn’t have much to plan. I guess we were taking a deep breath.

Away west the sun was setting, but that was in a different country where life went on like it was meant to. Sunlight gleamed gold on the arch of the Mol but under that, the night rose up from the river. Bands of armed Breken were crossing back and forth, and alongside them rag-tag crowds came and went, like crossing the bridge was the most normal thing in the world. Like killing Lou and Bella and Dr Williams was normal too. And kidnapping Sol. All in a day’s war.

I had tried and tried to convince Fyffe to go back. Nothing doing. Now we sat there, argument exhausted, and watched the bridge. Fyffe took my hand. ‘Remember that rhyme?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

She chanted softly:

Over the Bridge, it’s dark not day

Over the Bridge, the devils play

Over the Bridge their souls are BLACK

Go over the Bridge and you won’t come BACK .

I thought of Fyffe and Lou and me, hunting each other through the sunlit upstairs hallways and rooms of the Hendry mansion. But the game always came to an end, usually with their smiling mother calling us downstairs to new-baked bread and honey, or biscuits and glasses of milk.

Fyffe peered at me. ‘Are you scared?’

‘Of course I’m scared. Aren’t you? I wish you’d go back. You don’t speak Breken – how are you going to get by?’

‘I speak enough.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since a long time back.’ She bent her head and studied her hand in mine, white against brown. ‘How do you think I talked to the servants? Besides, you do. You speak it well.’ She looked up at me. ‘You kept that quiet.’

‘Yeah, I did. Because, you know, I thought playing the “brown and Breken” card at school would be unfair. I mean, everyone wants to be mistaken for one of the barbarians at the gate, right?’

‘Ouch. I’m sorry. Why should it bug you? It saved our lives today. Just because Jono baits you doesn’t mean you have to bite.’

‘I wish you’d go back.’

‘I’m not going back. You’ll look far less threatening to people if you’ve got a girl. And,’ as if this was the clincher, ‘Lou would’ve gone with you.’

‘Is that what you’re doing? Standing in for Lou? You’re not Lou, Fy. What about your parents? Maybe they don’t even know about him yet. Shouldn’t you go home and tell them?’

‘I can’t get home, though, can I? And even if I could, how could I tell them we’ve lost Sol as well?’ She wiped her eyes with the end of her scarf, took a breath and studied the activity on the bridge. ‘Look down there, something’s happening. Come on, they might be closing it for the night. We better go.’

So it was Fyffe who dragged me to my feet, then stood with her arms outstretched to the city behind us, saying good-bye to the day, and to the world we knew. Then she took my hand and we went together.

Over the bridge.

Fyffe and I walked through the Cityside gateof the Mol, trying to look like we belonged: two scavengers heading home for the night. A man guarding the gate stepped in front of us. ‘Hold it! What did you find over there? Come on, cough up!’

I nodded back towards the roadblock up Moldam Road. ‘Nothing we were allowed to keep.’