Emma Zeth - The Lucky Prepper - A Gardener's Story of Surviving a Pandemic

Next I went to check on Matty. He was still sleeping but tossing and turning and when I checked his forehead, he was very hot. It looked like he had an infection. I didn’t have any antibiotics, but I had a lot of paracetamol and aspirin to bring the temperature down if it got dangerously high. The only problem was how would I administer it? I walked back to Mark and Freya.

‘Matty has a temperature,’ I said, ‘I’ll monitor it and if it reaches 40 degrees, I’ll give him some paracetamol.’ I looked at the gear they were collecting. ‘What’s with the towel?’ I asked.

‘It’s an easy way to hide,’ replied Freya, ‘people don’t check under a grubby towel in a hedge.’

‘In fact they positively look away from something they don’t like seeing.’ said Mark, ‘A towel with a few dodgy stains and you’re invisible.’

The towel they had on the table looked fresh and new, but I had no doubt that by the time they had arrived they would have found a way to mess it up thoroughly.

‘What time will you leave?’ I asked.

‘Just after 4am,’ said Mark.

I looked at the clock; it was getting on to 6pm, time for some dinner, my evening walk around the estate, and then an early night.

Just as I was thinking of making dinner, Leila and Taz popped in. ‘Can you guys cook?’ I asked.

‘Move over,’ said Taz, looking through the cupboards. I sat at the table and watched the magic in action. They were just like Frank had been; adding spices and odd ingredients, they sent me out to get some garlic and an onion which they chopped up with speed and panache, they fried them then added the tomato paste and the spices. The resulting pasta meal was an explosion of flavours. I promised myself yet again that I would learn how to cook.

Nina woke me just before 4am. Freya was almost ready and very soon Mark was knocking at the door.

Before I was really aware, they were ready and standing in the open doorway. ‘I’ll expect you to be back tonight, but will wait till tomorrow to come looking for you if you’re not,’ I said. ‘Be careful.’ I anxiously watched them go; it okay when it was me having the adventures, sending someone else off into danger was much harder.

Although it was very early, I didn’t feel like going back to sleep so I helped Nina with the 4am feed. The children seemed to be a bit livelier, squirming against the syringe and generally moving around more. Nina had taken out some of the toys that Taz had packed and William was holding a boat. For some reason that snagged in my mind and reminded me of Liam.

‘I wonder what has happened to Liam,’ I said.

‘Who?’ asked Nina.

‘Liam was the youngest kid who came with us; we were resting under the M25 when the soldiers started chasing us. Freya said he went into the water, aiming for a boat on the other side of the canal.’

‘Did he make it?’ she asked.

I thought back to what Freya had said, ‘I don’t think anyone saw,’ I said, ‘we just assumed he was taken, but he might not have been.’

‘So where is he now?’ she asked.

I frowned; we had left the camp on Saturday, I had arrived home in the late afternoon, yesterday we had spent settling in. That meant if Liam hadn’t been captured then he would have been alone for almost two whole days. If he had escaped, he would be wet and cold. He hadn’t turned up yesterday so he could be anywhere. Hiding in the boat we had seen, or somewhere along the canal or in the surrounding countryside. He was young but sensible; he hadn’t been particularly close friends with anyone in the group, so he had probably arrived at the camp alone, which meant he was used to getting by on his own. What would he have done? If he had made it to the boat and hidden, and then come out much later to find us all gone, would he have stayed at the boat, hoping someone would come and find him, or would he have made a dash along the canal hoping the soldiers wouldn’t be around? And he would be cold and wet, last night the temperature had been in the single digits.

How likely would it be that the soldiers hadn’t found him? I didn’t think they had followed us from Wendover; they had come down the sliproad from the M25, rather than along the towpath. I walked into the kitchen and switched on the computer, google maps showed the time to drive between Potters Bar and the canal as 11 minutes. That worked; it seemed probable that the soldiers had come from Potters Bar, which is why they had deposited the other kids there.

So they must have been alerted by someone. And the only person who knew we had left had been David. How had he got free? I thought back to the encounter in the kitchen; he had been very loud, it was quite probable that Irina had come over to check on me, she was nosy that way. And then they would have raised the alarm.

Would they have been able to track us using CCTV? I hadn’t seen any cameras along the towpath, but maybe there had been some, where we had crossed the road at Halton, or in Tring. Or maybe there were cameras under the motorway. Would they have been able to see Liam slip into a boat? The only way to find out would be to go back and check.

I debated taking Alex with me, but he was still sleeping. Google maps said it would take 37 minutes to cycle there if I went through the park in Watford. I could be there and back before the rest of the kids woke up. And at least I would know, remove some of the guilt I felt for not realising earlier that he might still be there.

I wrote a brief note explaining where I was going, then I packed up a rucksack with some food and water, a map of Watford and my usual bits and pieces. I grabbed my other bike, put a pair of spare trainers and a change of clothes in the paniers, and then cycled out of the driveway.

It was still dark with a faint lightening of the sky to the east. I was heading north but some of the streetlights were still on. There were two hilly bits and by the time I reached the park, the muscles that had just recovered from the excursion two days past were complaining again. The hills were much harder than riding alongside a flat canal and I ended up walking for a bit. Then I was into the park and coasting along. After about forty minutes I stopped and checked the map; I was probably less than ten minutes away.

I cycled on slowly, looking for escape routes and places to hide. There was a lock, and a stretch full of narrowboats, and then I came to a low bridge where the path split. I followed the upper path into a village; if we were chased, we could lose them here. I went back down to the towpath and took a deep breath. The sky was lightening, and the birds were kicking up a racket. I knew I was close. I rode flat out, aiming to get there as quickly as possible. I passed the lock I had run over to escape, I zoomed past and it was only when it was behind me that I realised there was a boat there, trapped behind the gates. I skidded to a stop and ran back. Then I stopped. I had no idea if this was the same boat. I looked up at the path ahead, then at my watch, if I had been seen I had about fifteen minutes before the soldiers arrived.

The boat was an attractive deep blue colour with decorative yellow borders. The front of the boat was trapped by the sides of the canal and the gate, with only a couple of inches of movement. The back of the boat was drifting unmoored, floating from side to side in the wider stretch of water. I walked up onto the lock gates and looked down. There didn’t seem to be an opening at the front of the boat, just a triangular wooden window and a canvas covering. I sat down on the edge of the lock gate and put my feet on the small triangle of deck. Hanging on to the rail behind me I leaned forward and knocked on the windows.