Limbo 56 - Mike Morris (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📗

with his fist. “We have to talk to the General. In his own way, I think he’s honest and straightforward.”

“Except for being totally insane,” Shadrach muttered.

“Yes, this is true,” Arthur sighed. “They’re all hallucinating, deluded. It’s a kind of collective madness. We have to try to get through to them before they tear our Limbo apart.” He thought for a while. “I think I can stop them signing my workers up, at least until they put me on trial.” He stood up. “Shadrach, I want you to come with me to see the General.”

“Shadrach hesitated. “I don’t like the military,” he said, but he took his filthy cloth cap out of his overall pocket and jammed it on his head.

They had covered a few yards in the rain when Shadrach stopped. “This way,” he told Arthur. His room was close to the foundry, in a small dirty brick house with a shed in front. “Wait.” Shadrach said, fishing out a large old-fashioned key. From the shed, he pulled out two awkward-looking metal things with big wheels and moving parts.

“What are”… Arthur began. Then. “They’re bicycles!” He shook his head. “How could I forget bicycles, Shadrach? For a minute they looked so strange, but they’re just ordinary bicycles.”

Shadrach handed one to Arthur. “Hope you remember how to ride a bike,” he said.

Arthur got on the bike. “Why don’t we have more of these,” he said. “We could rig something up in the foundry and build them from scrap metal.”

“You’re the Governor,” Shadrach said. “You’ve had four years, why didn’t you do something.”

“You know,” Arthur told him. “When I got here, everyone walked, and I assumed that was the way it was meant to be, because that’s the way it always has been.”

“Yeah,” Shadrach said somberly. “That’s the way it’s always been done.”

They rolled, exhilarated, through the rain and arrived at the army camp in good time. It was well defended, with a stout perimeter fence and a guardhouse, manned by a young corporal with a deep dent in his forehead. They wheeled up to the guardhouse, and the soldier raised his rifle. Shadrach marched up to him. “Governor Mossop to see General Scott,” he said crisply.

The corporal almost saluted, caught himself and cranked a field telephone. He spoke softly while they tried to look unconcerned. “The General will see you,” he said, “but I have to search you for weapons.”
He eyed them. “I don’t think you have any weapons,” he said. “You’re not allowed weapons here, are you?” He stared at Arthur’s side. “I’ll have to confiscate the knife,” he said.

“Good luck,” Arthur told him. “It just keeps coming back.”

“How is it corporal, that you see a knife which no-one else seems to notice.” Shadrach said. He looked at the young man. “You know that you’re dead, don’t you,” he said carefully.

The young man smiled tiredly. “No, I’m not dead,” he said. “Probably everyone else here is dead, including you two.” He stared into space. “I’m still alive out there somewhere, in a coma maybe.” He looked at them and smiled again. “But I’m sure I’ll be dead soon. I can feel death creeping up.” He straightened. “You two had better get moving. The General hasn’t been very patient since his – crossing over.”

“Poor sod,” Arthur said as they threaded their way through grey pup tents and mutilated soldiers. “That corporal must feel pretty lonely right now. Or trapped in some awful nightmare,” he added.

The General was sitting outside his tent, at a rickety table. He frowned at Arthur and stared hard at Shadrach. “I’m busy,” he said, indicating some papers.

“This won’t take long,” Arthur told him. “This man with me is the head foreman at the foundry, and he can verify what I have to say.”

The General leaned back and regarded Arthur sourly. “I have said before,” he told the Governor, “That, if you have any issues, you can take them up with one of my colonels.”

“We want to talk to you about the visit we received from one of your platoons this morning,” Shadrach said abruptly. “As I understand it, you are the senior officer and you are responsible for the actions of your men.” He turned to Arthur. “This man was appointed Governor six years ago, and as such he is the ultimate authority here. Martial law has not been declared, you are not currently in a war zone.” Shadrach glared at the General. “Am I correct, General?” Startled, General Scott half rose then sank back onto the rickety chair, looking first at Shadrach, then Arthur. “Do you want to elaborate, Governor,” Shadrach said.

Arthur shook his head. “For the purposes of this meeting,” he told the General, “Shadrach is my acting deputy. He has been here for far longer than I have, and will explain our position better than I can.

“First, General,” Shadrach said. “Your men forced their way into the foundry and disrupted our work. They acted like an occupation army, not a friendly force, ready to defend us. The Governor here was threatened with having to face a military tribuneral.” Shadrach had lost his dour demeanor. He stood ramrod straight and spoke in precise tones. “Furthermore,” he accused, “in contravention of all rules of military behavior, several of our workers were taken hostage at gunpoint.”

General Scott was visibly shaken. “Your Governor stated that the foundry was engaged in war work,” he said defensively. “We saw no evidence of weapons being manufactured.”

“If,” Shadrach interrupted him, “we were manufacturing gas-masks, field latrines and boots, would you still insist that we are not involved in war-work? There are no weapons in that list.” He breathed deeply. “Did your lieutenant report on the items that we do manufacture, and their possible usage?”

“He, he said that there were some metal cones, some circular metal objects, and some three-pronged spears,” the General said.

“Did he hazard a guess as to their possible use,” Shadrach demanded and the General shook his head. “Well General,” Shadrach said, “I also don’t know what these objects are used for, and I doubt that even the Governor knows. It’s better that way, since what we don’t know we can’t inadvertently leak that information to the enemy.” He paused. “But I think you will agree, General, that just because fully built tanks don’t roll off the production line, it does not mean that we’re not involved in war work.” Shadrach looked at the Governor. “Would you agree, sir, to allow the General to petition our Government out there,” he waved vaguely towards the sky, “to furnish some details regarding the classified ordinance that we manufacture here.”

“We had better continue this inside my tent,” the General said nervously, obviously shaken by the reference to a higher power. He was staring intently at Shadrach. “I’m sure I’ve seen you before, a long time ago. Are you a military man?”

“I’m an ironworker,” Shadrach said.

Later, in Arthur’s small office at the foundry, the thin man and the giant relaxed. “You got them off our backs,” Arthur said. “You amaze me.”

“They still believe that they’re alive,” Shadrach said. “I didn’t want to push him too far on that subject in case we lost our advantage.”

“I feel such a fool,” Arthur told the big man. “I could never have stood up to him like that.”

“Not your fault,” Shadrach said. “He’s a military man. You are a worker, with dirty hands and a worker’s accents. You could be the Angel Gabriel himself, and to General Scott you would still just be a civilian.”

“But you,” Arthur began.

“I’ve had some experience of the military,” Shadrach said. “I convinced the General that I was one of his class, his type of man.”

Arthur was busy in the foundry for the next few days. It proved more difficult than he anticipated, producing the occasional cycle. His handful of specialist molders sweated over the design of a simple machine. Stocks of semi-hidden ball bearings were unearthed and put to work. Rubber was smuggled in. It was easy to churn out bike parts; there was soon a bin full of them. The problem that occupied much of Arthur’s time was how to connect the parts into a practical bike. Finally, he had one fixed-wheel, brakeless machine. He attached a basket to the handlebars and used the bike to move his belongings to a slightly larger room. Like everyone else, he left his nondescript furniture for the next tenant.

While he was busy, the army of occupation had spread tentacles further into his domain. He finally took some time off on the weekend, and went to the local pub. Immediately he noticed that the usual atmosphere of apathetic gloom had changed dramatically. The place was full of soldiers. Groups of them huddled around the tables and the bar, glaring angrily at equally angry groups of citizens. Sadie the barmaid was scratching herself angrily as one of the soldiers berated her. Arthur saw that it was no other than the hoarse-voiced sergeant. Luckily, he and his men were unarmed.

“Do you have a problem with soldiers,” he demanded. “This stuff is piss,” and he banged his glass on the bar. Stale beer dripped onto Sadie’s apron. “Piss, I tell you,” the sergeant croaked. “I gave you good money for that,” and he waved a handful of scrip at her.

Sadie was not exactly popular. She had been hired to lower the standards of the pub to an acceptable Limbo level, in which she had succeeded admirably, being dirty, lazy, and loud mouthed, not to mention exceptionally ugly. However, she was one of their own, and Arthur’s citizens had obviously been listening to this for a while. “Leave her alone,” a man called to the sergeant, “the beer is supposed to taste like piss. This is Limbo.”

“I keep hearing all this malarkey,” the sergeant growled. “Do you think we’re crazy?”

“Yes, obviously,” the man said. He was big like the sergeant, and they stood, face to red face by the bar.

The sergeant raised a bottle, but Arthur was suddenly standing next to him. “Where did you get that scrip,” he demanded. The question was obviously unexpected, and the sergeant gaped at him.

“They been trading,” his opponent said. “Chocolate and beef jerky and tools and lots of other stuff.” He sniffed. “Food tastes like cardboard, though.”

The sergeant uttered a strangled roar, but Arthur grabbed him. “All the food tastes like cardboard here, and all the beer tastes like vinegar. We’re all dead, and this is Limbo.” The sergeant stepped back. The fight suddenly went out of him. It was obvious that he was unwilling to listen to this talk of Limbo.

“What sort of a place is this?” he asked. “You don’t take French money,” he pulled a wad of French francs from his pocket, “You don’t take British money,” he waved blue and orange notes in the air. “You keep talking about death. Don’t you think we’ve seen enough death,” he croaked.

“Take your men over to that table in the corner,” Arthur said quietly. “Finish your beer.” There were ten of them, and he walked behind the bar and poured ten shots of tasteless whisky. Setting them carefully on a tray, he walked over and served them. “On the house,” he said. “Finish you drinks and leave.”

“Are you all right,” he asked Sadie. She nodded. “Bastards,” she said.

“They started coming in yesterday,” the man at the bar told him. “They got upset