The Bridge by Jane Higgins Page A

why is his Breken so bad?
    They watched me climb. One of the men stood up, but the others just kept on smoking and talking. I was hoping one of them would come down towards me, so I wouldn’t have to deal with the pack, but they waited until I’d almost arrived, then the one on his feet motioned me over.
    I was still wearing what I’d hauled on in the dark on Tuesday night: sweatshirt, jeans, and boots, all stinking of smoke, thick with dust, and ragged from the rubble of smashed-up buildings I’d crawled through looking for food. Dried blood too – Lou’s blood, and Dr Williams’. The Breken man, on the other hand, looked clean and deadly. He was a southerner – dark, and head to foot in dark clothes, with the assault rifle slung on his shoulder like it was part of him, a cherished part at that.He was years older than the others and looked like he knew how to be in charge. He said, ‘Where are you going? And where’s the car you were in?’
    I looked out east across Morstone Flats, mainly so I didn’t have to look at any of them, and nodded towards the sea. ‘They sent me to ask – how far is it safe to go? Can we get to the sea?’
    He was watching me, narrow and suspicious. ‘How old are you?’
    Not a direction the conversation was supposed to take. The others stopped talking to watch. ‘Seventeen.’
    ‘Why aren’t you in a squad?’
    What the hell was a squad? Assorted answers sprang to mind: no squad would have me; my mother wouldn’t let me; I’m on leave from one. I settled for the shrug. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t happy with that.
    ‘What’s your bridge?’
    Worse and worse. I said, ‘St Clare,’ hoping I’d get the same reaction as at the first roadblock.
    But he raised an eyebrow. ‘St Clare? That so? Why do you sound like you’re fresh out of the Gilgate sewers then?’ The rest of them laughed.
    That would be because Mace, who I talked this barbaric bloody language with, came from the Breken township at Gilgate, which I couldn’t exactly say, so I pulled out the shrug again. He said, ‘Which is it, then?
    ‘Gilgate,’ I said.
    ‘Thought so. You should be in a squad –’
    A crack of rifle-fire sent everyone diving. My interrogator moved so fast I didn’t see how he did it – I had barely hit the ground and he was sending off a barrage of shots and yelling instructions to his band. Two of them ran towards the houses under his covering fire. The other one, a woman, lay on the street in a spreading pool of blood.
    I took off.
    Down the street, round the corner, fast, with the gunfire close and loud. I skidded to a halt by the beetle and swung inside, yelling at Dash to
get moving – get moving now!
    It was empty.
    The beetle was empty.
    They weren’t in it, they weren’t under it. They were nowhere. I stared up the street. Maybe they’d heard the gunfire and run for cover. Maybe Jono had convinced them to leave me behind.
    The firefight in Moldam Road stopped as suddenly as it had started. Up ahead I saw a figure in an army uniform running across the street. If that was the sniper, the Breken would be close on his heels. I watched for a while, but none of them appeared, so I headed after him, shaky with relief. We’d found the army at last.

CHAPTER 11
    They were down an alleyway among overflowing bins of stinking rubbish – Dash, Fyffe and Jono, and two soldiers. One of the men swung his gun up at me and I skidded to a halt, but Fyffe called out, ‘No! No! He’s ours!’ She came running and grabbed my arms.
    ‘They took him! They took Sol!’
    I was looking over her head at the others and saying, ‘Where’s Sol?’ when I realized what she’d said. It punched the breath out of me and everything went slow and distant: the soldier kicking through the rubbish; the other one pacing at the far end of the alleyway, gun at the ready; Dash sitting propped up against a wall, pale as sin and Jono next to her with his head on his knees.
    I looked down at Fyffe’s dirty,