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Dawn
May 8, 2010 13:26:25 GMT
Post by edwin on May 8, 2010 13:26:25 GMT
Crouched in the reeds Jo tried to stop that rasping cough he always got in the Autumn. "Did they really need a duck or a goose for dinner?" he thought. There were some chickens left and they weren't laying or even the mussel banks were always there for the women to gather.
Back to the business in hand, the light was increasing as it moved towards sunrise and soon the birds would be coming in across the estuary. Hopefully some would be near enough for his gun with its uncertain gunpowder. "Surely", he thought, "there must be some way of purifying the saltpetre more and getting the ingredients to combine better, didn't the Old Ones wet it and grind it or something?".
At last the birds were coming and the first were splashing down on the water or coming to a stumbling halt on the mudflats. A few more and nearer, just a bit nearer.
Whoosh!, First one then another then all of them took off again. Jo's rage overcame his hunter's discipline and he leapt to his feet with a curse that strangled in his throat as he saw A huge, to his eyes, "white boat, no not a boat a thingummy, yes a ship".
It was nosing its way into the estuary, silently, under the power of that early morning sea breeze...
Edwin
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Dawn
May 15, 2010 19:00:26 GMT
Post by edwin on May 15, 2010 19:00:26 GMT
As jo's eyes got used to the scale and the existence of the ship he niticed that while it might once have been white it has streaks of rust and dirt running down the hull and was perhaps only forty feet long. But, there were people on board, real, new, people.
As he threw his gun into the pirogue, jumped and remembered that the lock was uncertain on a piece that was antique before the fall and that he should bind the waterproof cloth round it. But what the hell, in he jumped after the gun and paddled towards the ship.
"Hello, are you well, have you been ill, I am a friend, we need you and you need us", that old formula carried down from the first days of the Fall rang across the water.
On board the five figures saw him and waved and one put down a firearm as old as his.
"Stay on board" said Jo, "Until the People know", "Quarantine?" came the reply from a bearded man on the foredeck.
"Er, I think so, karan something anyway." "If you tie up to that bouy be careful, we never know how strong they are now, but don't anchor, chains all over the bottom.
Back to the slip, beached and running up the short street in record time, "A ship and folks, they look just like us, moored in the river."
Most of the twent three inhabitants spilled out onto the streets and went down to the slip or up onto the gardens of the two houses overlooking the river. A few waved but as they assembled they grew silent, wary of strangers and remembering that time when their settlement had nearly died from the attack of the Idiots, as their leaders had called them.
It was unfortunate that seven of the best hunters were up river a few miles away at the forest camp, getting wood and, hopefully, a deer or two.
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Dawn
Jun 4, 2010 7:16:19 GMT
Post by edwin on Jun 4, 2010 7:16:19 GMT
Welcoming home the hunting party that afternoon. They asked about the schooner they had cautiously passed, had anyone got off? Relieved to hear that they had not
They knew it was a schooner because of one of the yellowing pictures in the living room of one of the holidlets, as the waterfront houses were known.
Not knowing what was a proper karan time a delegation paddled out to the ship the next morning and invited the crew to join them. After some hesitation four of the crew gingerly climbed aboard the mix of craft and were brought to the village.
What wasn't seen was the anchor watch left aboard checking the priming on their firearms and bringing ammunition up on deck. Having asked it was OK to fish they were soon seen dropping fishing lines overboard something oddly reassuring in its normality.
Nobody could imagine how one could ever use up the bounty of the sea, unlike the land where passing, careless hunters could drive deer away from what De Durganites regarded as their hunting runs.
Quite rightly the next order of business was to offer visitors washing facilities and a cup of tea both of which were gratefully accepted, the tea with some surprise. Leaving their clothes and gear outside the shower while they washed was an appreciated sign of trust. Nobody of course would touch them but there was much squinting of eyes to see what the three men and a women were carrying.
After the niceties they were invited to sit on the terrace with the elders and to explain their business. Mouth-watering smells drifting across from where a special meal was being cooked served to enhance the speed of the communication.
Where had the strangers come from and what did they want?
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Dawn
Jun 15, 2010 9:45:00 GMT
Post by edwin on Jun 15, 2010 9:45:00 GMT
IT was rather ordinary the way that the Sea People had got together. One of their original number had been an avid fan of James Wharram and self-build Polynesian catamarans and living at sea, hence their name. The group of fleeing boats though that had left in convoy from Lymington that fateful day years ago was anything but homogenous.
In fact, one of their number had been a watcher of a long-dead and forgotten television programme called Battlestar Galactica and was forcefully reminded of its parade of disparate spaceship as he watched the raggle-taggle flock leave shelter of the land and start its long journey down-channel.
The voyage had been a nightmare as crews of boats who had thought themselves immune began to sicken and die leaving the boat to become a listless hulk unless the self-steering gear kept pace with the fleet until the others realised something was wrong.
Decisions about heaving to in order to strip the dead boat of food and fuel or even to tranship if it were better than one's own were agonising. Heaving the bodies overboard was done in the sort of numbness they had all acquired in the weeks before as they had tried to keep their lives and sanity together in the crowded and dying South of England.
Drifting vessels were a real hazard on that journey and if they had had an engineer aboard the fleet might all have opted for taking over one of the merchant men that towered over them. They didn't and lost the massive stores of t-shirts, electrical goods and toys in their containers none of which would have done them the slightest good in their new life of subsistence fishing and farming on the islands that their remnant eventually reached.
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Dawn
Feb 6, 2011 15:55:39 GMT
Post by edwin on Feb 6, 2011 15:55:39 GMT
The fleet, what was left of it, reached the Azores and made peace with the very few remaining islanders. Life had been easy but without point and in fact the younger ones as they grew up had taken up the old Azores whaling in those narrow -double-ended boats. using just hand harpoons and lances the new Azorians grew strong and agile, bringing home more whale meat than such a small population could eat.
Casualties from the hunt amongst so few had been almost more than the Islanders could bear and social pressure gradually insisted that the crew and especially the harpooner must have children before a real hunt was permitted to them.
Others had started trading, travelling the thousand or so miles to what had been Portugal or even Morocco with blubber, and whalemeat and citrus fruit. Coming back with dates and salvaged goods didn't seem much of an exchange but it was just good to keep contact with the rapidly forming tribes on the mainland. people too had been exchanged with some choosing the islands while others the mainlands and their respective mates.
Stories of Britain were still circulated and some had begun thinking of a return, legends of perpetual rain notwithstanding, in fact a land of plentiful water seemed very attractive on some of the parched islands in the group.
Caution suggested that the Isles of Scilly be settled first and time was pressing because they the means to build new ocean going boats and those they had were wearing. Another motive to strike North, the acquisition of a new boat.
From the Scillies this first tentative probe had been made and into the Helford where the feat was in preparation.
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Dawn
Feb 12, 2011 15:55:19 GMT
Post by edwin on Feb 12, 2011 15:55:19 GMT
One of the dwellers at Durgan, Helen, would be missing as she was a young girl undertaking what all youth did before becoming part of the decision circle.
Early on the settlers had realised that their growing children were getting restless as they grew up without the wider horizons that were denied them by the work and worry involved in survival. Rather than have them run away they were sent away to see for themselves what the world could offer.
So far only two had failed to return and both had sent word by the newly functioning if spasmodic postal service that they were well, had found friendship and romance and would be by to see all sometime.
Helen was on her Test Scout, as the kids called it, which would use her skills and try her for the ability to be alone. She had chosen to go wild on the water and to this end had built her own coracle. For however many days she felt like it Helen would cruise around the Fal river foraging and hunting for food.
Perhaps she might try finding something more substantial from the wreckage of pre-disaster Cornwall, at the least she would put into practice those skills and precautions she had been taught in how to get into, and out of, ruined building.
For now, she was happy with a snug camp in the woods above a creek of the Fal. Her hut was of hazel rods covered with leaf debris swept from the woodland floor and invisible at twenty yards. Supper of fish and seafood stew with foraged greens was bubbling on the fire that perhaps smoked a little too much.
Armed with the bow she had made herself, a knife and a hatchet she had found in a delapidated ironmongers, she felt able to deal, quietly, with any type of predator. They were a peaceful people at Durgan but not a pacific one. And, there was a certain amount of comfort to be gained from the flintlock pistol kept loaded and tucked into her belt under her deerskin tunic.
Like most coraclers and hunters she wore a kilt of skin as well with sealskin mocassins, handy for wading. Lying back on her sealskin cloak Helen looked at the brown leaved roof of her hut and sighed. Not exactly lonely or bored but the trip so far had been so easy and without hazard that she wondered how it could equip her for the longer journey, even into the savage wilderness that rumour had made of England.
Crackle! Something had trodden on the dry twigs deliberately scattered at a distance around her hut. Rolling forward Helen grabbed her weapons and kit and bounced up, running straight away from the hut into the thicker wood. A shout meant she had been seen and a tree-root brought her to the ground long enough for the Bogey man to catch her.
Reputed to be descended from those incapable of adjusting to the disaster but who had survived by eating and breeding with anything the Bogey men were not just a tale to frighten children but a rare but present hazard.
No thoughts of their origin flashed through Helen's mind as she hit the ground and felt her ankle grabbed but burned into her brain were the lessons pummelled into it since childhood "Wriggle, struggle, hit, bite, scratch never give in". As she was pulled backwards and turned on her back a kick in her stomach paralysed her for a moment as she gasped for breath.
Something looking like a Golem wearing a pre-Disaster Ghillie Suit bent over her and a fleck of spittle landed on her chest. Revulsion was as good as a plan and her hand felt by itself for her pistol.
Drawing and cocking in one movement. The bang seemed to explode the Bogey's chest as several small balls of lead tore through it and he dropped as he had planned on her but without his previous inclination.
Wriggling free Helen backed against a tree as she drew knife and scanned the wood which was quieting down again. Nobody in sight so, keeping the knife handy, the pistol was blown through and reloaded from the small powder horn and shot bag on her belt. Neatly and with a certain pride the pistol was charged with powder, shot and wad and the flint checked and eased down on the pan cover over fresh priming powder.
Now, with bow and arrow in hand was the time to slow the breathing and really listen to the wood. A wood pigeon called but there no panicked fluttering of wings to arouse the other forest sentinels and through the living silence came the lap of waves on shore.
Obviously she had to move but after getting her gear she scouted up and down before going out onto the foreshore with her coracle. the tide was making so up river then and onto an opposite bank to find a secure place to sleep for the night.
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Dawn
Feb 21, 2011 22:36:04 GMT
Post by edwin on Feb 21, 2011 22:36:04 GMT
Somebody had heard the shot, a small party of kayakers and canoeists who lived over at what had been Mylor and had come down river for the oysters and some larger fish.
As the sound rolled round the Bay they instinctively started to bunch but their own training told and the fan of small boats sped towards the shore. Their leader caught site of Helen's coracle as it drove towards the wooded shore upriver.
Well aware of movements on the waters around the Bay and having loose trading connections with Durgan Art sort of recognised the figure jumping from the coracle and runing it up the shore into the trees.
Still that shot had been fired at something and the party was well enough equipped to deal with trouble so the armada turned up the river to the side the sound of firing had come from. It didn't take long to find her camp and the body. What a neat shot was all the epitaph the Lost One got apart from nosed wrinkling at his(?) smell.
A loose scrape and the body was tumbled in after being searched by a gagging crew member. Now what was one of the Lost doing with a 30 centimetre blade in good order on a fine leather belt and a holster containing a percussion pistol?
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Dawn
Feb 22, 2011 10:28:33 GMT
Post by edwin on Feb 22, 2011 10:28:33 GMT
The boats of the Mylor people were mostly those still remaining from before the disaster, their plastic hulls seemed good for another 30 years and some were now experimenting with making their own although one of their surviving books had been about Greenland and an Eskimo family so users of the new skin boats tended to be called "Nanook", something they were actually rather proud of.
The Nanooks also tended to be those who strayed further from the little settlement by its creek and who lived more on what could be hunted and gathered rather than scrarched from the soil of their village smallhodings. Beer, bread and cheese kept them loyal though, no wild substitutes having been found except for mead from the wild honeycombs and birch sap wine.
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Dawn
Mar 9, 2011 22:40:37 GMT
Post by edwin on Mar 9, 2011 22:40:37 GMT
Back in Durgan the meeting cum feast was well away. Sea Bass, prawns, crab, new potatoes, samphire, nettles and sorrel, just for starters. Duck and venison were cooked in the pit cooker while tansy and honey puddings were boiled above. Fortunately the art of distillation had been maintained along with brewing and wine-making. Mead wasn't plentiful as honey had so many uses but a very palatable but thinner substitute was made from the washings of the honeycombs.
Sitting around the oblong square in the settlement serious talk went on after the first few draughts had gone down and the the first notch in the belt had been loosened.
Why had they come was a question it was felt imperative to ask and no longer impolie to do so.
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Dawn
Jul 30, 2011 7:38:01 GMT
Post by edwin on Jul 30, 2011 7:38:01 GMT
The why they had come was soon told, after a boat and contacts. But, a question hung in the air as whether thay intended to settles as well or even move from the Scilly Isles and even the Azores.
Plenty of room of course in empty Britain but not a massive amount of resources if the local population was to increase by much.
One of the decision Circle began to reminisce about her experience on her "gap year" with travelling as far as the old county of Hampshire, she believed it was, by an open dinghy camping on the shore or sleeping afloat as she went. The visitors were introduced to her pride, a child that was also a fruit of that expedition.
The Bulay river she ahd reached was home to a thriving semi-agricultural settlement and around the area there were even steam railways operating. The biggest challenge there was shortage of people, guaranteeing a welcome. What Jane forgot to add was that so short of people were they there that she only just managed to get away.
The visitors were told though of the hazards of the Bogey Men and of other nearer settlements and that on the whole people were generally more interested than aggressive.
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Dawn
Jul 31, 2011 9:15:45 GMT
Post by edwin on Jul 31, 2011 9:15:45 GMT
The next morning a gig arrived from Mylor with a deputation and news. The sighting of Helen was mentioned and her successful encounter with the Bogey Man but perhaps more importantly was the origins of his weaponry. Durgan denied that such fine pieces could have come from them, without disclosing just what they did have in their armouries.
So both groups had the problem that either there was a source of efficient, new, weapons and one that had established contacts with the Bogies and for what purpose. Or, a wealthy traveller or house had been raided, one that was in touch with a sophisticated manufactory.
It was agreed that one or more Bogies must be captured to see if any were newly equipped and to find out anything they could from the broken English they all seemed to speak.
During these discussions the Azorians returned from the yacht and were briefed on the situation.
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Dawn
Oct 4, 2011 21:33:46 GMT
Post by edwin on Oct 4, 2011 21:33:46 GMT
"Dammit!" Helen said to herself, "chased away by a Bogey what sort of Scout does that make me?"
Crossing back across the estuary in the early dawn Helen spotted where friendly canoes had been beached and the trail back to her shelter. Picking up the Bogey's back trail was less easy but disturbed leaf litter and the occasional imprint of the basic skin pampooties that these people wore made it possible. She had been worried by the evidence that he had spent some time looking at her in her camp before the attack.
Following the trail took extra time because once its line was established helen cast around to check it wasn't leading her into an ambush. Eventually she broke out onto what had been a road in the old days and there were the remains of what passed for a camp amongst the Bogies. Just a mess on the ground with tracks leading off into the woods on the far side of the road and wheeled tracks leading back down the road.
"Just one more day" Helen promised herself as she followed the wheel marks at a mile-eating jog. It was late afternoon when she caught the whiff of woodsmoke from a fire that was burning the damp wood that none of her people would use.
Going slowly and cautiously she went into the bordering wood and as she got closer wormed her way into the roots of a great hedge. Through the screen of brash there was a handcart and some people sitting round a fire.
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Dawn
Oct 7, 2011 8:13:45 GMT
Post by edwin on Oct 7, 2011 8:13:45 GMT
As her eyes focused on the group by the hand-cart she saw that they seemed not very different from her own people, certainly not like the walking debris shelters of the Bogies. Just the same mixture of rough spun cloth, leather and those fabrics from the old days that rarely wore out, flices or some such word they were called.
Just odd words could be caught but the accent was strange and the sense disturbing. it seems, after she pieced together their meaning, that the group had not enjoyed their meeting with the Bogies and some were doubtful about arming them even with only about five rounds each.
Night fell and still Helen lay there as they eat whatever had been in a pot hanging over the fire and drunk whatever had been in their flasks. It seemed that the hand-cart was the one thing they had she could do something about to disrupt whatever plans they had and disrupt them she would.
Quietly, quietly she reached through the stem screen and began gathering the dead long grass from the track and whatever else was caught up in it. Easing her way through the stems she pushed her grass bundle towards the cart, rolling it as she went to enlarge it.
The outline of a sentry made her and her heart stop for a moment but after a time when the seated figure had not moved she smiled at his sleepy incompetence and continued. When sufficient dry kindling was underneath the cart she considered and rejected her flint and steel as being too noisy. Why not use their own fire against them? The dry stuff was all around and had only been roughly cleared from the fire site.
A train of hay from fireplace to cart was soon laid and with a stick she pushed the final clump into the glowing embers. it caught and almost faster than the fire travelled Helen wriggle d back and then as the camp woke up to the glare beneath the cart and across the campsite she jumped clean through the hedge and moved away into the dark of the wood . Shouts and instructions seemed to split the air without any effective fire fighting but they were quelled when, with an almost apologetic "Wumpf" the cart exploded.
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Dawn
Nov 26, 2011 18:31:46 GMT
Post by edwin on Nov 26, 2011 18:31:46 GMT
Helen jumped almost as high as the remains of the cart spiralling into the sky then collecting herself she retreated into the wood. The two vicious arms that caught her weren't as strong as the smell but she was caught.
"Lubbery" mouthed the Bogey as me rubbed his filthy face over her hair and neck. A boot raking down his calf and stamping on the instep of his right foot made his grip relax enough for Helen to draw her knife, turn, and drive it into his side. Screaming he fell tangling her hair in his hands and bringing her to the ground at the grimy feet of two more, who were cross.
Ignoring the whimperings of their companion Helen was hauled to her feet and eyed appreciatively by then. "Yeth lubberly", "mine!", "sharesis!", "me firstest!".
The quarrel over her grew but was brought to an end by a shattering bang and a cloud of smoke through which one of them fell. The other started to run away but an arrow took him between the shoulder blades.
"Your gun" said Helen shakily, " is as rubbish as ever." "If you hadn't blown up that cart I would have some decent powder now" replied Joe.
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Dawn
Dec 8, 2011 11:47:29 GMT
Post by edwin on Dec 8, 2011 11:47:29 GMT
Pete, the bowman, ignored the exchange and made sure that both targets were dead before stripping them of anything useful, especially two ancient sheath knives and two holstered pistols along with their bags of shot, powder and caps.
Cries from devastated campsite brought the three of them cautiously back to where amid the ruins someone was twisting in agony from their burns, having been abandoned by her companions who had run off with makeshift packs after the explosion then the gunshot.
They tried to make her comfortable but nothing seemed to soothe the pain and nothing seemed to stop her steady cursing at her departed comrades.
Knowing that it was dangerous to stop where they were scattered loot was collected resulting in several more pistols and some bags of percussion caps to add to their loads along with a barely scorched long gun of antique make that Joe claimed as his, Pete preferring his bow and Helen delighting in several holstered pistols sagging on her waist.
Questioning the victim raised some very troublesome points that needed discussing urgently at home.
She couldn't travel so the group cut across country to the head of a creek which at high tide connected with their estuary and had an old old but still useable dinghy beached in it. Fortunately it had been raining heavily recently so that the boat was filled with freshish water that they rocked out of it taking away some of the slime and caked bird dropping while the hull was well camouflaged with accumulated weed that hid its once white fibreglass hull. Crude paddles and poles were easily made and the boat slid into the water.
The launch was speeded by the sounds of several people crashing through the woods above the creek. As Joe and Pete leant on the poles to push the boat down the creek dishevelled figures appeared on the shore and chased after them into the water. Both boat and pursuers were hampered by the sticky mud but as the stern of the boat was grabbed by the leaders Helen drew, aimed and fired four of her new pistols leaving two dead and two writhing around trying to get back to the shore through the rapidly rising water.
"They don't love you anymore" said Joe
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