Chapter 15

Carol set snares again that night. Grandad and he were up at dawn preparing the four rabbits they’d caught. We four littlies had rabbit liver for breakfast. And an egg each. Nina said she wished she’d thought to bring some bread with her, it would have rounded our breakfasts off nicely, but we didn’t know what bread was then. I thought she meant crispbread, but I knew our oldies didn’t want to use up our stocks of that too quickly, so I didn’t say anything.

The oldies had the last of the potatoes with their rabbit.

Laima hoped to find another village where people had had vegetable gardens that had gone wild. We hadn’t seen any since the night Carol found us. The trouble with the good road was that it didn’t go through the villages, it avoided them. And now the road was even better.

The new hose was quite tricky to fit. Granny ended up cutting a few millimetres off each end to get it in, and she wasn’t a hundred percent satisfied with it even then.

‘I’m pretty sure it’ll hold for the moment, but it’ll wear through eventually where it’s kinked. Depends partly how much movement there is between the radiator and the cylinder head. We’ll look out for a better one in Thessaloníki. We might even be able to get the right one there. This engine is probably used in other vehicles – just not here in the communist bloc – and the radiator might be in the same relative position in at least some of them.’

Nikolai and Carol decided between them that it would be better to carry the motorbike than for Carol to ride it. They eventually decided that the best place would be on top of the nesting box, roped onto the front of the animal trailer.

‘A bit of a nuisance when we want to get the eggs, but better than anywhere else.’

Because of the trouble fitting the hose, we were quite late setting off. In the end Suonjar had decided that she’d still rather be alone in the Bandvagn, and Granny came in her usual place in the tanker with Laima and me.

After just a few kilometres, the two halves of the road – that Granny had so firmly said were just the two halves of one road, one half for each direction – went their separate ways.

‘Are you sure this is the right way?’

‘Take a look at the map, Mikey!’

The road we were on joined up with the other road after a while. They just wiggled differently. Reality on the ground didn’t quite match the map, though. It showed our road as a minor road, and the other road as the main one. I told Granny.

‘I know. I looked earlier on. But it’s obvious what happened. They decided to upgrade the old road to be an extra half for the new one.’

The map didn’t show the tunnels, either. There were three of them, but they weren’t very long. We could see right through before we went into them, and they were clear.

The countryside changed a lot. Instead of dense woodland, it was much more open. Instead of flatness, there were hills – big hills, but nowhere near as big as the mountains we’d seen a few days earlier. There were trees, but far fewer of them, and they were smaller, with much less foliage. What leaves there were were small and pale, instead of lush and dark green. There was no undergrowth to speak of, and in many places there was just bare rock or gravel. Every now and then a flock of small birds would take to the air as we approached. Granny hoped she might see wild goats or ibex, but little birds and insects were the only animal life we saw. Granny tried to tell me what ibex were, but I didn’t really understand until later, when Grandad drew a picture for me.

We went through another patch of young, lush forest – perhaps not quite as lush as further north – and then more bare hills. We crossed a big river several times, on big bridges that were in pretty good condition. Then we were in a valley between huge, wooded hills again.

We stopped for lunch somewhere there, and Grandad, Dad and Lieđđi went fishing while Aunty Anna and Uncle Sid cooked. Nikolai and little Liz and I pulled up armfuls of weeds and fed the animals.

Granny and Carol checked the Bandvagn’s radiator hose, which seemed to be okay so far. Granny thought the engine was running a bit hot, but that it was probably just that it wasn’t designed to do a steady fifty kilometres an hour for hours on hard roads in hot weather. It hadn’t actually reached the temperature where the warning light came on.

Then Granny and Laima checked the radiation levels again, which were pretty near what she thought background ought to be.

All was right with the world.

Except that Granny Merly and Mum weren’t there. Suonjar spotted me crying again, and came and gave me a big cuddle. Gealbu hobbled over and held my hand too. I smiled at them through my tears. How can anyone be sad when they’ve got such good friends?

Like that.

The fishers hadn’t caught anything by the time lunch was ready. They’d seen lots of big fish, and Grandad made his favourite joke about the one that got away. Maybe they really had seen one as long as his outstretched arms, but it was funny how often they were exactly that big. The biggest one I can remember them ever actually catching was about as big as Grandad’s forearm. I’ve seen a few in rivers that might have been a bit bigger, but not as big as Grandad says.

Maybe he spends more time staring into rivers than I do. Maybe. Well, to be fair, he definitely does.

A tyre burst on the Unimog’s trailer shortly after we set off again. Suonjar was driving the Bandvagn just behind and saw it happen, but Uncle Jake driving the Unimog was unaware that his trailer was running on a flat tyre. Suonjar stopped, got out, and ran to tell Grandad in the truck behind what had happened. Grandad called Uncle Jake on the intercom and everyone stopped, but by that time the trailer had done a couple of kilometres on the flat tyre.

‘Lucky we got those spare tyres yesterday! I hope the wheel’s not too badly damaged.’

Uncle Sid and Nikolai had the trailer jacked up and the wheel off in no time. Getting the tyre changed took longer.

‘It’s a good job it’s a tubed tyre. That rim’s not too bad, but it wouldn’t make an airtight seal to a tyre.’

‘It wouldn’t have anyway, with all that rust.’

By the time the wheel was back on the trailer it was getting late, and we decided to stay the night where we were. It was handy for the river, and there was a reasonable place to put the chickens and goats out for a while.

It was a lovely warm evening, and we all sat on rocks by the river after supper, Dad and Lieđđi sort of fishing, but not really concentrating on their lines. The sun went down and the stars came out and there was no moon, but there was just enough starlight to make our way back to the trucks. We’d seen on the way down to the river that the ground wasn’t too rough.

Then in the south, the stars began to disappear, and we could see the tops of big clouds illuminated in the starlight.

‘We’d better get back to the trucks while it’s still light enough to see!’

Dad and Lieđđi packed up the fishing gear, and we all trooped back to the trucks. Granny and I were the last to climb into the trucks, holding hands and enjoying watching the stars and the clouds. The clouds were getting higher up the sky. Just before I climbed into the back of the truck, I noticed that, right down on the horizon, the underside of the clouds was glowing orange. I thought maybe it was a trick of the light, the light of the setting sun getting down there somehow. I pointed it out to Granny.

I couldn’t really see her face in the dark, but I heard her intake of breath.

‘Pete! Look south, down on the horizon!’

Grandad climbed back out of the truck.

‘Good God!’

It wasn’t the setting sun; the sun had set long before. Grandad said it was Sodium Vapour Lamps. Lots of them.

‘Well spotted, Mikey! We could so easily have missed that, and gone blundering down there all unprepared.’

I wondered what on Earth he was talking about.

‘Don’t light the lamp yet, Dot! Come out here everybody and look what Mikey’s seen!’

Everybody climbed out the trucks again. Most of us wondered what all the fuss was about, but Laima and Carol and Nina understood.

‘That must be just about where Thessaloníki is. Thank goodness Mikey saw it. Now what? I don’t see any point heading for Thessaloníki now.’

Laima was talking Russian with Carol and Nina. Then she turned to Granny.

‘I don’t suppose any of you know Greek? I doubt if we want to introduce ourselves anyway, do we? Carol was saying that if we want to take a look, rather than driving down with the whole convoy, maybe the best thing would be to take the motorbike down there. Just Carol and maybe you, Persie, unless there is anyone who knows any Greek. The motorbike wouldn’t be so noticeable, and much better for making a quick getaway.’

‘It makes quite a lot of noise, especially if we were making a quick getaway. And no, none of us know any Greek at all. Who’s to say they’re Greeks anyway? They could be Americans or Chinese for all we know. Or more likely still, Russians. Or Turks. Or a mixture. Could be anyone, really. We’ll never know unless we go and ask, and I don’t fancy doing that, personally.’

‘I wouldn’t mind taking a peek, but from a good distance. But it’s not like peering through binoculars at a probably-abandoned military base from the top of a hill overlooking it. We don’t even know how far their territory extends.’

‘That’s my feeling too, Pete. My guess is that they’re farming the lowlands between the foot of the hills and the sea. You can see the likely area in the atlas. But the scale’s too small to know where might be a good place to look down on it from, and it’s off the edge of any other maps we’ve got. They don’t show relief anyway.’

‘They’ve certainly got electricity aplenty.’

‘Most likely hydroelectricity, like Craiova.’

‘They can’t have anything like as much as Craiova has. Craiova has the Danube, and a huge head of water.’

‘No, probably not. But Craiova has a superabundance of power there. I don’t know what they use it for – much less why they thought they needed another big dam. I’m looking forward to asking Carol about that, but maybe now isn’t the time. Unless the population down at Thessaloníki is a lot more than Carol says there is at Craiova and Bucharest, they’d be well supplied with a fairly modest hydroelectric scheme. I don’t know anything about what Greece had before the cull, but it’s got the mountains so I bet it had a few schemes already.’

Carol whispered something to Laima, and they had a whispered conversation.

‘Carol wants to know what we’re going to do. I told him we don’t know yet, we’re still thinking about it. He feels very sure we don’t want them to know we exist, but he says we need to know how far their territory extends, and in which directions. Otherwise how will we know where we should head for?’

We all climbed into the back of one of the trucks and Dot lit the pressure lantern.

‘Well, we know their territory doesn’t extend this far. Nothing’s been up or down this road for ages. We could stay here a couple of nights and see if we can see lights anywhere other than in the Thessaloníki direction. Then we could head in any direction we’ve not seen lights. Mikey, go and get the atlas. You can put the cab light on, but don’t forget to turn it off again. We don’t want a flat battery in the morning!’

I went to get the atlas. The clouds had completely hidden the stars overhead. I could still see the orange glow in the sky to the south, but there were flashes of white light off to the south-east, too. I could hear the grown-ups talking in the back of the truck, but in a gap in the talk I could hear crashings and rumblings in the distance.

Going back with the atlas, I tripped over a stone I hadn’t noticed. I did my best to stop the atlas getting damaged, and ended up whacking my elbow on the ground. I yelped.

‘What’s the matter, Mikey?’

‘I tripped up. Couldn’t see properly. Didn’t drop the atlas, it’s all right. I’ve whacked my elbow a bit though.’

Suonjar came out to find me, carrying the pressure lantern.

‘I don’t know why you didn’t take this in the first place. They don’t need it in there. They’re just talking.’

‘I don’t carry that. I’m too little.’

‘One of us big people should have gone for the atlas then.’

‘Easy to be wise after the event.’

I was so proud to use one of Grandad’s expressions. Suonjar laughed. She knew it was one of Grandad’s, too.

‘How’s your elbow?’

‘It hurts, but I’ll survive.’

‘Take your top off and let’s have a look.’

There wasn’t any blood, and the bruise wasn’t showing yet.

‘Thank goodness for reindeer skins! You’ll be fine in no time.’

It was lucky I was wearing them. We were all beginning to feel hot in them during the day, and were wondering about changing into something cooler. Lieđđi and Suonjar wouldn’t let us.

‘Reindeer skins give you good protection from fire!’

‘Cotton doesn’t burn like nylon.’

‘No, but a thin layer of it wouldn’t give you much protection, either.’

Nobody wanted to argue with them.

Granny was pleased that I’d managed not to damage the atlas. She wanted to have a look at my elbow too, but Suonjar assured her it was okay.

‘Don’t make him take his top off again!’

Looking at the atlas, the grown-ups decided between them that we should skirt round Thessaloníki at a good distance. They hoped that maybe we could settle somewhere on the coast east of Thessaloníki.

‘There are a couple of towns out that way. Probably not such good places to raid as Thessaloníki would have been, but beggars can’t be choosers.’

We were near the bottom of a valley, and I suggested that if we moved the trucks to the top of the hill, we’d get a better view of any glow there might be in the sky in other directions.

Laima was telling Carol and Nina what was going on. She relayed a suggestion of Carol’s to the rest of us.

‘Carol wonders whether we should act on Mikey’s suggestion, and then stay camped at the top of the hill for a few days. He can explore the roads skirting Thessaloníki to the east on the motorbike. He wants to know if it’s possible to take one of the intercoms on the motorbike.’

‘No, the intercoms are built into the vehicles pretty thoroughly, and they run on twenty-four volts. But if we know where he’s going on the map, and we know when he’s expected back, we could come looking for him in the Unimog if he’s late. Actually, I’d like to go with him anyway.’

I said I’d love to go, too. Granny didn’t think that would be a good idea even if it was possible, which she didn’t think it would be, but Suonjar sided with me and got Laima to tell Carol what I’d said. Carol laughed and told Laima that I could ride on the petrol tank between his arms; he’d seen whole families on motorbikes around Craiova.

‘He’ll be useful, too. He’s an observant lad, and he won’t have to be concentrating on the road like Carol will. He’ll get a better view than Persie will from behind Carol.’

The rain hit us while we were talking. It absolutely bucketed down. Uncle Jake and Uncle Sid rolled down the canvas at the back of the truck, but not before we’d seen a flash that lit left me seeing afterimages for ages. The crash of thunder arrived only a second or so later.

We all spent the night together in the one truck, apart from Uncle Jake who slipped out to go and shut the back of the other truck so it didn’t get too wet inside, and didn’t come back. He shouted from the other truck to tell us that he was okay, and that he’d stay there, rather than get even wetter. It was pretty cosy with eighteen of us in one truck, and we couldn’t all lie down properly, but everybody slept somehow. I think. I certainly did, and everybody else said they did, but how much sleep they really got I’m not sure.

The next morning was bright and clear. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Carol and Granny and I had a crispbread and tinned fish breakfast before anyone had cooked anything, and loaded a good lunch of similar fare into the luggage box on the back of the motorbike. Grandad, Dad and Lieđđi had gone fishing as usual. Uncle Sid helped Carol fill the motorbike’s fuel tank, and we set off.

We headed north back up the road we’d come down for fifteen or twenty kilometres, then turned right onto a minor road. We were back on the Yugoslavia road atlas territory at that point, but we weren’t carrying either the road atlas or the big atlas. Granny had memorized the map as far as Sérrai, but didn’t expect to get that far. Carol didn’t want to go more than about a hundred and fifty kilometres before turning back.

‘The last thing we want to do is risk running out of fuel!’

He’d scared himself quite enough being too far away from Craiova to get back, long before they caught up with us.

I felt very important, because I could see much better than Granny could, and I kept telling her what I was seeing. Then she was telling me what she wanted Carol to do, and I was showing him in gestures. It all worked very well.

This road was in much worse condition than the main road, but the motorbike coped with bad roads a lot better than the trucks did. Carol weaved in and out around the potholes and all the little trees that were growing in the road. We could go straight over piles of mud and rocks that might have tipped the trucks over sideways, and would have had to be at least partially cleared.

Granny was heading for a place called Strumica, where she wanted to turn right again to head down the valley towards Petrich. There was another, shorter, route to the south of a ridge of mountains, but that involved going closer to Thessaloníki than she really wanted to be.

We never reached Strumica. We came over the top of the pass just a few kilometres before it, and the road disappeared into a huge lake. We stopped and all got off the bike. The whole valley ahead of us was flooded. We could see where our little valley joined the much bigger valley that the town was supposed to be in – but that much bigger valley was flooded, too.

‘Well! That’s that. We can’t go east. There’s only one possible explanation, and it explains why Thessaloníki has plenty of electricity. They must’ve built a dam across the Struma. It must be a huge one. It probably means they’re farming the Struma valley below the dam, as well as the Axiós valley near Thessaloniki. We’ll have to head west, that’s all there is for it. We’ll have a look at the atlas when we get back. I hope we’re not going to find ourselves blocked in every direction around here.’

We were back at the camp in time for lunch. They hadn’t even started to move the trucks to the top of the hill, but they had caught some beautiful big fish, and the goats and chickens looked to be having a good time.

Carol got Laima to say that he thought we could probably find a minor road south of the new lake, and cross the road between the dam and the populated area, if we wanted to go further east.

‘It’s not as far as going right across to the sea westwards, and it’s very unlikely anyone would see us, unless the populated area spreads right up to the dam. It was pure chance I happened to see you crossing our dam. We could at least go on the motorbike and spy out the land. Very unlikely to be spotted. And if we are spotted, it’s likely to be by one serf or a small group, who’ll prefer to say nothing rather than make trouble for themselves. There won’t be guards patrolling the borders or anything like that, it’s simply more trouble than it’s worth when you don’t believe there’s anyone out there to guard against.’

‘Tell him he’s generalizing from his own experience at Craiova. Things could be completely different here. For all we know they might have a security fence all round the whole of their territory, and armed patrols to keep people in, even if they don’t believe there’s anyone outside.’

Granny looked carefully at the atlas. She reckoned it was unlikely there were any passable roads in the mountains between the two marked in the atlas, having seen the condition of the one they’d been along. According to the atlas, the next road south ran along the foot of the mountains, where she thought it was very likely people were farming the land.

‘We’ll take a look westwards tomorrow. I wonder if we’ll be able to see anything tonight? There’s no sign of clouds yet. If there aren’t any tonight, we probably won’t be able to see the glow of the street lighting at all. It was really lucky you saw that last night, Mikey. But with luck, from up there we might even have a line-of-sight view of the lights themselves.’

She nodded in the direction of the top of the hill we were planning to camp on that night.

I say, ‘the top of the hill’, but we only took the trucks up to the highest point of the road. The hillside continued up on the right. A lot of it was bare rock, hard dry soil, and gravel, but there was some vegetation, and even a few small trees. Some of us walked up quite a long way just to see the view, but we didn’t get anywhere near the top. It just kept on going up and up.

We didn’t get any view to the west at all, but to the south and south-east we could see an incredibly long way. Even from up there, in daylight we couldn’t see anything anywhere to indicate the existence of continued human life, not even with the binoculars. We walked back down to the trucks long before dark.

The clouds had boiled up again in the late afternoon, and after dark we could see the glow of the streetlights on their undersides again, but we still didn’t have line of sight to the lights themselves. We could see the glow very clearly in the Thessaloníki direction, and I thought that maybe I could see a very faint glow further east, too. Granny and Laima couldn’t see it, but the twins thought they could.

Granny laughed. ‘You’ve got younger eyes than we have!’

I was used to the idea that the oldies couldn’t see detail, but I’d never before thought that they had any trouble with dim light. One lives and one learns, as Grandad says.

Or maybe I’d imagined that very faint glow in the south-east, and the twins were just being nice to me. I wasn’t sure I could see it any more, but I didn’t say anything. Granny was very happy to have confirmation of her theory, and I wasn’t going to disappoint her.

What she wasn’t sure about, and we couldn’t possibly determine, was whether the populated area extended to the west as well. Looking at the atlas, there didn’t seem to be any roads west without going almost down to Thessaloníki first, or a long way back into Yugoslavia. Everybody agreed that the latter was the only option.

It didn’t rain at all where we were that night, but we could see flashes and hear thunder in the distance in the east.

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