The Dark Horizon, page 24
And so, that freezing Tuesday night, the opposing sides arrayed their forces and laid their plans.
The familiar maxim of softly softly had served the law well before. It would, Flood decreed, be employed again.
On Wednesday morning, just after six o’clock, a mass of police once again assembled on Plymouth Hoe. Lines of vans, officers pulling on riot gear, just as it had been at the start of work on Resurgam.
This time, Flood deigned a rousing oration unnecessary. Cakes, as Mrs Flood sometimes said, could be over-iced. He checked all was well and then departed to Charles Cross to take up his position in the warmth of the Control Room.
Most of the legions of the law again waited well out of sight from Resurgam. A small detachment of smiling, polite and pleasant officers took up station along the access road.
By seven, the protesters started to arrive, wrapped up in coats, scarves and hats, a baffle to the icy breath of this winter’s morning. They formed in their allocated positions, behind the barriers along the access road, and positioned their placards and banners.
Seb was there, Esme to one side, Mac the other, both with arms of support around the young man. Even in the darkness and occasional swirl of snow, it was obvious his face was filled with loss.
A young man had aged overnight. Once charming, warm and engaging, his conversation had become a monologue.
‘I can’t believe she’s gone,’ he repeated. ‘And for that bastard Resurgam monstrosity.’
June was there too, Maggie alongside as ever. Both hugged Seb and tried to find soothing words that could never hope to ease his suffering.
Esther was further along the road, surrounded by a group of the professional protesters. Only Simian was missing. The I fought the law stance singled him out as the sole member of this familiar cast to remain in custody.
From the entrance to the Resurgam site Phil Rees and Tommy Ross watched, both dressed in the fluorescent jackets and ill-fitting caps of low authority. Rees would sometimes shake his head at the demonstration gathering before them, contempt further hardening his face.
But despite the numbers of people and the passion of their motives, all began calmly. Police officers walked up and down, exchanging brief greetings with anyone who would respond. Some of the demonstrators just stood, others waved their banners, some hugged themselves or stamped their feet to keep warm. Seb held his placard the highest, arm as outstretched as it could possibly be, as if waving aloft a beacon. On the thin wooden board was painted For Alice.
At quarter past seven, the first carful of workers arrived. Now the police officers stopped their patrols, watched the saloon’s slow progress. A blinking indicator, wheels churning slush, a careful turn onto the access road.
From the crowd on either side rose a chorus of booing. A couple of half-hearted shouts of abuse followed. But the car continued its passage undaunted, trundled onwards and reached half way along the road.
Placards lifted and waved in the darkness. All eyes followed the car, streetlights shining from its windscreen, the hint of pale faces within.
The police were poised, ready, waiting. In his Control Room, with a steaming cup of coffee untouched, Flood watched. The officers parked up around the corner clustered by their radios, set to climb into their vans and speed off.
And the car reached Resurgam and disappeared inside.
In the eastern sky appeared a hint of the dawn’s light. Protesters looked to each other, chatted a little, pulled coats tighter, hats lower. Police officers resumed their winding patrols through the crowd.
And now another car turns along the access road. And there’s a shout, and movement.
It’s Seb. He’s young and quick and he’s fuelled by the feelings filling his heart. He’s past the police before they can react. He’s into the road. Without a hint of hesitation he’s thrown himself down, is lying in the dirt and grime, slush and snow. He’s in front of the car, forcing it to stop.
And now he shouts, with a voice so loud it could have carried across the city. ‘For Alice!’
Mac’s with him. Sullen Mac, taciturn Mac, the originator of the very idea for this blockade, and now he finds the courage to carry it through. He’s on his back, that long leather coat planted firmly in the filth of the road. And for once, the rebel looks strangely contented.
Esme’s with him, also serene in the incontestable morality of what these three young friends are doing. Together they lay in a line in front of the car.
They don’t say it. But they don’t need to. Everyone knows who is laying, invisible, beside them.
A semi-second’s stillness hovers, encompasses, lingers. Just time for the briefest of considerations, a thought and a decision. And it’s made as one, in every mind that lines this road.
People are pouring over the barriers, flooding into the street. The first ones lie alongside Seb and join arms. And more follow, many more, in a tumbling rush.
Before the police can act there’s a mass, a solid block of humanity. And some of the professionals are fumbling in the thickness of their coats and handing out objects.
Watching his monitors, Flood cranes forwards. Whatever they are, these things, there are lots, being passed quickly through the crowd.
And being used. Snapped around wrists. Linking people, limb to limb.
They’re handcuffs. Plastic, lightweight, but robust.
Now there are scores of people in the road, some reaching so far across the tarmac as to lock themselves to the barriers and lampposts.
From Resurgam emerges a Landrover. Rees is at the wheel, his face like a hammer. He drives up to the dam of bodies, moving slowly, until the wheels are almost upon a woman. He revs the engine and inches forward a little further, so part of her body is under the bonnet.
She begins screaming, twisting, trying to get away. But she can’t, she’s locked to those all around. They’re shouting, yelling, begging for the Landrover to stop.
But it edges forwards again. The man at the wheel is smiling; one single expression of genuine pleasure amidst the melee. And a sergeant runs over, hammers on the glass and shouts at Rees to back off in the kind of language the young man understands.
The protesters are starting to sing. An old song, but here and today undeniably appropriate.
We shall not be moved,
We shall not be moved...
And indeed, for many hours, they were not.
Flood’s mantra changed that day. Softly softly was out, Tomorrow will be different was in.
Work on Resurgam eventually resumed just in time for it to end for the day. It was almost four o’clock when the final demonstrators were cleared from the road. Freezing they may have been, covered in filth too, but they were buoyed by their success.
Seb was one of the last to be hauled up. Surrounded by journalists and cameras, the centre of all attention, he shouted repeatedly, ‘For Alice, it was all for Alice.’
Despite the near-darkness, the cold and grime, Seb burned with righteousness. ‘Never forget her… we’ll never forget,’ he called to the news crews who followed his path to the police van.
In the chaotic aftermath of the protest, with the police busy processing all the dozens to be arrested, no one noticed that Esther and a group of the professionals were not amongst them.
Thursday, as Flood had promised, would indeed be different. But not quite in the way he had envisaged.
As the protesters began to arrive at Resurgam, in the darkness just after seven, they found themselves outnumbered. All along the access road were police officers.
The barriers which once were a polite waist height had grown to well above the level of the average pair of eyes. The wire was thicker too, and the line of fencing was held together with strong metal clamps.
A group of police vans had parked a little further along the road, their back doors deliberately open. On display was a range of tools which would have made a start on breaching the Berlin Wall. No matter how a mass of demonstrators might attempt to link themselves together, today the bonds would be no match for the waiting blades.
It was a little warmer this morning, perhaps minus two rather than four. It must be that, the cops said to each other, which is prompting the grins amongst the demonstrators.
It was five minutes later that the first workers’ car turned along the access road and the ritual booing began. Placards waved, but the slow passage passed peacefully. So it was with the second car.
The response to the third was very different. A voice shouted ‘Now!’ and a group of perhaps fifteen men and women began running towards the entrance to Resurgam. Within an instant, a mass of police were in pursuit, more coagulating ahead.
The officers formed a line to face the charge. More cops were converging from other directions, holding onto helmets as they ran, panting in the cold. The rebels were outflanked and greatly outnumbered.
As they reached the police line the runners slowed. From behind, and to each side, other cops were approaching, encircling the little group.
Their leader, a young man with a beard befitting a disciple of Marx, said cheerily, ‘Morning.’
‘Morning,’ grunted a sergeant, with all due suspicion.
‘We fancied a little jog. To ward off the cold, like.’
‘Did you now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, how about making our day and jogging back again?’
The opposing sides eyed each other. Cops scrutinising the little knot of men and women, searching the outlines of their clothes for handcuffs, missiles, anything that might mean more disorder. But the expressions they received in reply weren’t angry. They were amused, perhaps even mocking.
‘Sure,’ the young man said. ‘I reckon that’s long enough.’
In the pack of officers there were a couple of puzzled looks. It was only when a radio squawked that an answer to the unspoken question came.
‘Resurgam compound, now – bloody quick!’
With a bow to literary history, the three men agreed that when arrested they would give their names as Jay, Harris and George.
Last night, after some quiet hunting of the foreshore, they had found that which they sought. It was rickety, precariously so, but this would be only a short voyage.
Come the morning, at six o’clock precisely they met, retrieved the vessel from where it had been hidden and climbed carefully aboard. In the small and silent rowing boat they paddled gently through the darkness until they made landfall on the one remaining corner of the city beach. And there they waited.
Harris alone had a mobile phone. When its screen lit with a text message – Now! - they slipped through the site and headed for their target.
This small detachment of the professionals had been chosen for their stealth and stamina, but also one other talent. In neat formation they hopped down into a ditch, bent double, creeping through the crumping, frosty snow. And at last, they rounded a digger and came upon a patch of open ground.
It was perhaps fifty metres across and well lit. On the far side stood their destination. And in their path, a couple of security guards sharing a sneaky cigarette.
‘We can’t wait,’ Jay, the youngest of the three, whispered. ‘The second message’ll come through any minute.’
‘We’ve only got once chance at this,’ George replied, picking at his teeth. ‘They won’t be able to keep the cops occupied for long.’
‘Esther said it’d be ok if two of us made it,’ Harris added. ‘That’d be enough.’
‘I’ll give them some entertainment then,’ Jay decided. He took off a rucksack and handed it over. ‘You’d better take this.’
Harris strapped the carrier over his own and he and George put on gloves. The three joined hands in a brief farewell and Jay was away, sprinting across the open space, heading for the rising steel beams of the infant skyscraper.
‘Hey!’ one of the guards shouted, and they both set off in pursuit. ‘Stop!’
Not a chance, not a hope. He led them a fine dance, zig-zagging into the hollowness of the growing structure, weaving through stanchion and pole.
George and Harris began their own running, towards the focus of their plan, standing tall in the dark sky. As they reached the metal trellis, both looked up to the red, winking jewel so high above, and began climbing.
Resurgam grew not at all that Thursday. The modern day three men in a boat achieved their mischievous aims. And as happens comically often, the law came to the aid of the lawless.
Harris and George made it to the highest reaches of the crane. And there they posed a beautiful dilemma for the police and Ellen Dance.
‘We don’t have time to mess about. We’re up against a deadline,’ Dance reminded Flood, again and again, before the fragile temper of the Deputy Chief Constable yielded. ‘And your bloody skyscraper will never get built if we’ve got dead protesters decorating its foundations.’
The Health and Safety automatons were called. They sucked in air through teeth and pored over checklists, before issuing the inevitable list of decrees for the eradication of risk.
In fairness, on this occasion they had a point. The agitators had thought hard and planned well.
In their rucksacks George and Harris carried a range of sizeable stones. At the sight of any approach, missiles would be hurled. Work could not begin again until the pair were removed. And that may only happen when suitable contingencies had been put in place in case they should fall.
Most of the day passed in setting up safety netting around the crane. The operation was painfully slow, as the workers had to be protected from the occasional flying stone. The light was starting to ebb when a cherry picker was brought in and both George and Harris dislodged.
At the access road, the demonstrators delighted in a day of baiting the police and goading the workers. It was only as afternoon became evening that the authorities secured a form of revenge.
To keep them entertained, the demonstrators built a large snowman at the end of the access road. Stones made up a mouth and eyes and an old hat was angled upon his head. Phil Rees stewed his loathing until the artwork of ice was finished, before climbing into his jeep and gleefully ploughing through it.
On Friday the battleground changed, and how.
Overnight, under cover of darkness, reinforcements were brought in. Facing her self-imposed deadline of opening Resurgam by Christmas, Ellen Dance hired just about every contractor, worker and piece of machinery she could find. Together they set about making the site impregnable.
Maritime specialists worked the seaward side, installing jetties, fencing and wire to resist any further incursions. Teams of builders deployed along the landward front, set up rows of dazzling lights and began their work. At seven o’clock, when the first protesters arrived, The Wall was already beginning to grow.
Flood too had been far from idle. A blow to The Tank’s pride was more painful than if it had been delivered to his substantial body. Lining the approach road to Resurgam were not just ranks of cops, but horses too, and police dogs. The fencing had been reinforced again, the gates to the site fortified, and even more officers deployed.
The protesters assembled and found nowhere to go. They were channelled, corralled and kettled. They would be allowed to make their point from two pens, one on each side of the road. The demonstrations could be vocal and visual, legal and legitimate, but nothing more.
Seb, Mac and Esme were there, despite a conditional discharge all round and a ticking off from a Magistrate. ‘I admire your ideals and respect your views,’ the woman lectured. ‘Even I was young once. But you went too far. It must not happen again.’
‘It’ll never stop me coming back,’ Seb told his friends, this dark Friday morning. ‘Just ‘coz she’s gone, doesn’t stop me loving her. I’m gonna be here every day.’
‘I’m with you,’ Esme replied, a hand on his shoulder. ‘For Alice.’
‘For Alice,’ Mac grunted.
‘And for PC Steve too,’ Esme added. ‘Another of the victims of Resurgam.’
June gave them one of her motherly smiles, as proud as could be. ‘And they say today’s young people don’t care about the world.’ She hugged the three in turn and ruffled Seb’s mop of hair.
Workers arriving suffered the ritual booing, but it was less spirited today. It was hard to show real feeling from within the confines of a cage, the demonstrators agreed.
Across the road, in the opposite pen, Esther was surrounded by a group of the professionals. Despite the limited space the respect was such that no one got too close, like a delegation of subjects before a monarch.
‘We reckon it’s time to get going,’ a chirpy young man said. ‘We’ve done our bit. They’re fortifying the place. We’ll get nowhere now.’
‘And work’s gonna begin soon on that big rail thing in the midlands,’ a woman added. ‘We should get up there, start digging in.’
‘No.’ Esther’s answer was unquestionable. ‘We stay.’
‘But…’
‘We stay.’
A sullen muttering broke out in the fringes of the group. She’s feeling guilty about that Alice... she ain’t thinking straight.
‘But being here is pointless…’ one began.
‘No!’ Esther snapped, her diminutive frame filled with passion. ‘No more do we give up and walk away. No more compromise, no more desecration, no more damned monstrosities like Resurgam. There’s always a way to fight. And we will fight. We’ll fight, and fight, and fight some more. We’ll never stop fighting. We’ve given up too many times. But not here, not now, not this time. This time we stand and we force them to take notice.’
Her voice fell, but it no longer needed to be so overawing. Because all around her were listening, as they always did.
‘We’ve lost too many people to give up,’ Esther continued. ‘We’ve all lost friends, those who were precious to us, in the name of their gods - progress and growth and development. As if bricks and glass and steel and money were more important than our people and our planet. Yeah, ok, if you want the truth, I do feel guilty about Alice. I never stop thinking about how she died alongside me. But she was here willingly. She was one of us. And if we walk away now, we betray the memories of those who’ve fallen and we abandon the future – and that was the very thing they stood with us to protect.’
