The Yeoman: Crying Albion Series - Book 1 (9 page)

“Not a chance, the Inner Way and
those like them still indulge, it’s just a lot more secretive and behind closed
doors. They wear masks so even a video camera can’t prove who is who.”

“Was that when you chose to
rebel?”

“Yes, I gathered loyal officers
to me. From there we plotted and schemed like madmen on how to try and turn
around this precious island from their clutches. It took us half a year and all
kinds of maneuvering to set up the take-down of a government and the Inner Way.
Then, on the day I was supposed to be admitted into the Inner Way, the coup was
launched instead. What a time! It was like the fates and destinies crying out
for liberation. We killed many Inner Way types with our battles and executions,
but let me tell you, not one of them deserved a fair trial.”

“I’m not judging you Colonel and
I doubt many other Yeoman would, but did you not think to try and blow the
whistle and bring charges through the courts?”

“No-one would have believed us,
the judges would either have thrown it out of court or been part of the whole
racket.”

“I thought the coup was to take
down the corrupt government, but all this time there’s been a much darker force
at play?”

“Exactly. There were twenty of
us when it started, nineteen military men and that one civilian who helped show
me the true dark heart of the Inner Way. I wasn’t corrupted with the taint of
their child murdering ways but I think he was. Yet perhaps something awoke in
him, a force to redeem through our actions. Whatever the cause, he opened the
door and that’s how I escaped the Inner Way. They didn’t know any of this until
the day of the coup when we were smashing down doors up and down the land. The
element of surprise, the way of unpredictability. These are elements the Inner
Way cannot easily work out or fathom.”

Weyland
paused as he took in the gravity and secret history of the coup.

“This was the merchant banker
fellow? The one who got you out to begin your work?”

“Yes, he was a young half-
Kaslar
lad, born into a family steeped in such things. I
often came close to killing him when I learned the Inner Way’s true nature, I
feared that perhaps he was playing me somehow. I’m glad I stayed my hand. I
could have protected him better perhaps, but he always liked the cities and the
ladies too much to be among the towns and village folk. The Inner Way suspected
he was rogue though, he had done a lot of digging and revealed many of their
members to us.”

“What happened to him?”

“Inner Way contracted some of
their killers, they tracked him down, took out his bodyguard and mortally
wounded him in a savage fashion. By the time I got to him he was on his last
breath, cuts all over him, dying from blood loss. Before he died he asked that
we go easy on his folk if they needed a place to shelter.”

“Was this because his kin were a
part of the Inner Way and wealthy elite?”

“That and the fact we both knew there
was a good chance of a backlash against his brethren. So I swore they’d have a
place if they had no place else to go. It was the least I could do for him.”

“That’s bold sir, a few Yeoman
have a rough bone to pick on that I think. Many don’t trust them at the best of
times.”

“Don’t I know it, I had to make
a few compromises but the coup held firm. One of the biggest gripes was
infiltration, but with outside help a system was in place for detecting and
weeding out undesirables.”

“Don’t saboteurs, spies and the
like try it on though? I don’t just mean bad
Kaslar
folk but people of Albion stock who are working for the enemy.”

“Yes, but they get spotted and
shown the door. The ones that get through are small fry, deliberately watched
and followed discretely. That way the enemy thinks we are not totally
infallible.”

The old Colonel grinned with the
words and wound down his window to smoke another cigarette. He offered one to
Weyland
who took it readily. When it was half-used he
smiled in the afterglow memory of victory.

“The past is the past. I did
what I could, and avoided a civilian total war, which was my biggest fear
during those times. Anyway, that’s enough about me.”

Weyland
nodded, they’d almost reached the first outer-base of the Estates and he began
to slow down to about forty-miles-per-hour.

“If it’s about Ireland I’ve
already—”

“No, it’s about your past my
boy.”

Weyland
fell silent, knowing it was his turn to answer prying questions. He nodded
slowly.

“You left the Intelligence Corps
to join us during the war. Yeoman Riley was also formerly Intelligence Corps
was she not?”

“That’s correct Colonel. We
heard your plea and answered it, despite both our families disowning us.”

“There was a lot of disowning
all over back then. Now, there was a third though was there not? A person close
to you at that time. The one you couldn’t convince to join our struggle.”

Weyland
knew who he meant, he didn’t seek to ask how, when or who had been the source.
He nodded.

“Rebecca Templeton,”
Weyland
stated with a sigh. “It was a case of her honor to
her folk versus my sacred duty to mine. She would not even consider joining us,
try as I did. It was just as well really I think, our roads are separate ones,
destiny was having sport of us. She’s probably long gone elsewhere now,
probably made passage to
Kaslar
territories in
Levant. A fair few of them went there after the war.”

“Indeed, but I think the fates
have an unsurpassed humor when it comes to that one.”

“What do you mean?” he asked in
disbelief. Did the Colonel know of his secret pact, only days before he joined
the Yeomanry?

“Rebecca Templeton is part of a
counter-Yeomanry cell. Intelligence Corps have a few of them set up, but hers
is the main one. It was set up decades ago but we’ve just recently heard of it
surfacing against us. They first engaged us covertly during the Colonels War.”

“Who are they?”

“Special Occurrences Task Force.
SOTF, or
Soh-taff
as it’s pronounced. We are the
occurrence and they feel they’re special enough to take us on.”

“By the gods colonel! Eagle
branch didn’t even mention this to me.”

“You’ve been gone a long time
too, there’s been changes and SOTF are assigned to bring you in, dead or alive.
You’ve been targeted, any Yeoman operative or senior rank for that matter is of
course, but you’ve topped the list since
Heysham
,
putting me at second place. Well done for that,” he joked with black humor.

For
Weyland
the fact he was an enemy did not bother him the slightest, but that it was
her
that spearheaded the efforts sent
waves of shock through him. “Of all the people on the island! Is she at large
in Albion?” he exclaimed in disbelief.

“No, but we think it’s possible
they’ll be launching a strike against us. With all that’s been going on,
consider yourself promoted to Yeoman Raven, our highest operative rank.”

“I didn’t know about Raven rank
sir.”

“Few do, it’s our highest
operative rank, here,” the Colonel said, reaching into his combat jacket. He
fished out a pair of capsules in two separate containers “Knowing what you know
now, it would be wise to use them if the worst is to befall you.”

Seymour passed the first one to
Weyland
who took it. It was a white capsule pill inside a
small plastic case.

“This one will put you in a deep,
dreamlike coma for a couple of days. If captured by regular forces, the police
and suchlike I recommend using it. With a tracking beacon activated we’ll
scramble a rescue team.”

“I’ll stitch it into my
clothing,”
Weyland
said sharply as Seymour passed him
the second capsule this one being red.

“Is this a spare pill?”

“It’s cyanide, you know what it
does. If you have to use it don’t bite down it or there’s a risk you’ll have an
agonizing death. Swallow it down, death will come within about thirty seconds.”

“Surely the first pill will be
enough? With a rescue team on standby?”

“The first pill won’t do you
much good if you’re fighting Inner Way operatives, elite troops and SOTF. They
know some of our tricks. Intel suggests they can nullify the effects or at
least silence our tracking beacon. Your choice on using them, but it’s to be
considered.”

“They say suicide is the cowards
way out Colonel.”

“Better to take your own life
than suffer for their torture and vile ways. Being kept alive for days and days
for their pleasures is certainly something any man should seek being a coward
to avoid. Make no mistake you are one of their top targets now, not just from
SOTF. Along with myself and all the other Colonels, you’re a marked man.”

Weyland
took a deep drag of the cigarette, he rarely smoked, but heavy talk was made
easier by the effects of it.

“Well, I suppose it makes it
more real though somehow, like we’re facing the threat more than others.”

“That’s the spirit, we either
endure and see in victory or become broken by our fate.”

The final checkpoint to the
Estates loomed.

“Do you still want this final
mission? I can assign another in your place? You don’t have to accept it.”

“I never was tested that much
overseas sir, not compared to some of the others.”

“Don’t give me that Eric, I’ve
had high praise from your Eagle Commander and his report on you speaks
otherwise. This mission might not be London, but it is behind enemy lines.”

“I don’t want an empty promotion
Colonel.”

“And I don’t want a dead Raven
either, especially one who hesitates if he has a
Kaslar
girl from his past in his sights.”

“She chose that road and I’ll
not sway from mine, especially not now.”

“Good, we’ll brief you in-depth
at The Estates. Oh and Eric...”

“Our conversation… stays in this
Defender sir?”

The leader of the country
nodded. “That’s what I like to hear.”

They reached the final
checkpoint where
Weyland
slowed the Land Rover down
to a slow-crawl. As the double-sentry team saw their commander they both
saluted before one raised the armored barriers.

The Yeoman was now a raven but
instead of elation he only felt the grip of anxiety. He’d written off the pact
the three of them had made as youthful shenanigans. Yet his past had returned
to haunt him even as a mission loomed ahead.

Chapter
6

Retaliator

Natalie Neville
was a person given to progressive goals and causes. When the Northampton
Refugee Center had come into view she felt her heartbeat increase with the
excitement. She had been raised on a rich diet of Cultural Marxism espousing
the greatness of charity and generosity. A natural-born liberal Natalie was
easily swayed by her like-minded friends. They yearned to help the third-world
people. During college the notion of altruism manifested into full-blown
liberalism. After university she proudly entered into ranks of the Anti-Western
Alliance, or the AWA for short. A political faction of the hard Left-Wing. Even
Alfred Neville, her brother thought over-the-top. The interlude of the Colonels
Coup, instead of interrupting her had only engaged Natalie into being more
active. When the AWA had been disbanded she regularly attended the protest
marches. Then when the refugee hordes had begun to show up in France she found
her new direction. She and her band of friends became swept up into a new,
underground faction. The Unite Against Racism group were massive and radical proponents
of a multicultural society. They were not content with the former colony
subjects of the United Kingdom having a place on the island. The Jamaican,
Indian and Pakistani ethnicities that made up a majority chunk of non-Europeans
living on the island were just the beginning. They had notions of a globalist
island with as many people from non-European countries as humanly possible
receiving shelter and a new life. Africa and the war-torn Middle-East were the
new life-blood for the UAR. Nearly half of them were either mixed-race or self-critical
Britons. The rest, like Natalie Neville and her friend Gemma Waters were
idealists, driven to try and make the world a better place.

When several thousand of the New
Europeans were admitted and detained at Northampton it was a cause for
celebration. For the UAR the lack of attention the refugees admitted to the
country were receiving was a cause for action.

Alfred Neville, her brother, had
always been uneasy at his sister’s various travels and adventures. Something
felt more than wrong though with the Refugee Crisis. It did not escape his eye
that many of the so-called refugees fleeing various parts of Africa and the
Middle-East were not all they seemed. Many were not old, injured or with
children. Most were male, of fighting age and with a look about them. Like many
middle-class people outside of Yeoman territory, he had faith in the security
services sorting out the good from the bad. Neville only wished his sister to
be careful when she went off with her friend Gemma on the train to Northampton.

She did not return that night
and he assured himself that she’d probably gone to Gemma’s for the night. The
next morning there was still no word, her phone did not answer and he left
voice-messages, emails but still nothing. Then the house-phone rang, it was
from the hospital in Northampton. Over the phone they’d only told her she’d
been attacked, but once he arrived Neville learned the truth.

Natalie had been viciously
gang-raped and almost beaten to death by unknown assailants at the Northampton
camp. Her friend Gemma was in a similar condition.

When he’d arrived his sister was
conscious but almost catatonic. Her voice was weak and what seemed like bites
and marks covered what he could see of her neck, arms and hands. One side of
her face had a fresh bandage covering the gaping wound from the hard asphalt.

“No, no no…” she would say
faintly for a time. Her eyes had lost their spark, and she barely even
recognized him.

Her memories were infested with dark
faces peering down at her, strong arms holding her arms and legs. Her own
underwear was stuffed in her mouth preventing her screaming out. All the while
a thrusting body on top of her invaded her most private place. Dark and dirty
hands stroked, touched and scratched. Very noisy muttering, almost mantra-like
could be heard along with commenting in languages utterly alien to her. The
stink, sweat and odor was over-powering. Natalie could not see the rapists
properly, for her head was forced to the side by more than one brown hand. Her
cheek almost buried in the concrete almost had a pain that drowned out the
other more shameful ones. As soon as one man’s filthy urge was expended another
pressed down upon her to take his turn. Then came another and another for what
seemed like hours.

Earlier that day, she and her
friend Gemma had separated from the others and gone deeper into the camp, away
from the main gateway. A beady-eyed man who spoke a little English made his
presence known to Gemma who’d been handing out bundles of food and sweets from
a backpack. Natalie was just beginning to record an interview with the man
using her smart phone. Every now and again the man would glance out of the
corner of his eye. A crowd of young men had surrounded them. One snatched away
her phone. Natalie had asked for it back but they demanded money. Gemma, always
the louder, more butch one of the two, shouted and argued. She punched and
lashed out at the sneering thief but this only excited the crowd now closing
in. Hands began reaching and pulling and before either could think of escape
they were pulled to the floor. Natalie’s memory train reached a long circle and
once again it returned to the terrible incident. In front of her eyes she was
barely aware of her brother now with his head in his hands and the foreign
doctor.

 
“She’s in deep shock
Mr
Neville but her wounds will heal, they aren’t life-threatening now,” the
Pakistani doctor said blandly. As a short-staffed hospital he was one of only
two doctors and went over his list for the next patient to visit. He looked
once more at Neville. “She’ll come around eventually, but will need therapy and
care. Someone will be around shortly to talk with you about this.” Once he’d
finished speaking the bald slender man trotted off leaving the room.

Specialist police tried to
interview her later that day but she could provide no information. There were
no cameras at the camp he learned and over one thousand ‘visitors’ as the
refugees were euphemistically called. Some of Natalie’s UAR friends visited and
were both puzzled and shocked.

“This is terrible, I hope they
catch those responsible without coming down hard on the others,” said one who
had her hair dyed purple and wore a peace symbol around her neck.

“They probably didn’t understand
our culture though and misread her intentions,” said an apologist with tattoos
around her neck. “After all it’s our racist colonial history that’s brought
this about.”

Neville shook his head and
looked away from her.

“Don’t be angry
Alfy
,” said another, this one with the letters ‘SJW’ in
purple on a grubby gray t-shirt. “Natalie’s bravery and courage will inspire
the UAR. She’ll be empowered by it in the end.”

The words were like seeing a
heart self-inflicted with thorns and barbed wire. “Get out! All of you cretins
make me sick!” he snapped. A nurse came in and ushered the UAR women out of the
room. Shortly thereafter he was alone again.

“I vow to whatever god,
mechanism or force is out there that this will be avenged Natalie,” he hissed.
“It isn’t what our ancestors fought for to see our people like this!”

He stayed the whole day until
nightfall before leaving for home. That night he felt wave after wave of
sorrow, rage and heartache wash over him. It was like a surging stream, but one
that rushed back and forth.

Growing up he’d known a few
people from ethnic minorities, most were Asian, one or two were African. The
nearest newsagent shop had an Asian family living there and were onto their
third-generation. Although none were his friends, he did not consider them
foreigners, nor enemies either. His civic-nationalist view being that, while
their parents were foreign, their children were not. This, by his reasoning,
made them no longer foreigners. Somewhat different but no longer national
outsiders. The new wave of foreigners challenged all that, and Natalie’s
attackers only reinforced the illusion-breaking moment. A racial reality was
dawning within him.

It was like a vision struck him,
almost pushing aside his other thoughts and self-awareness. The images and
large-scope screamed in its intensity and clarity. He saw now the armies of
so-called refugees camped out in France were like a weaponless organism. Unlike
the invaders of old these were utterly foreign in both racial origin and
mindset. There were others like them throughout Europe but the largest
contingents seemed to prefer parts of Germany, Sweden and France. One of these
moved
en
-mass across the English Channel. Time seemed
to pass as he envisioned the population being intimidated then dominated and
breed into submission. He saw a quarter of native-born females being wives,
girlfriends and unwilling receivers of the dark hordes in a few summer seasons.
Some would raise families that were of their own blood but most would be mixed
and mingled, destined to their own lineage forever skewed. Like pages in a book
he saw the next three generations slowly morph into a brown people nearly as a
whole. The cities seemed to show the greatest signs of the change, but even the
countryside was not spared. Long columns of the foreign invaders set out keen
to take what was before them, aided and helped by others in authority. The numb
feeling in Neville was strong, yet even with it there was a sense of despair
and inevitability.

Before the vision began to fade
though a wall-like obstruction with fairer folk manning it seemed to be
discernible. On one side were the lost and confused, on the other, those that
were clear-headed and defiant. Yet he seemed far from them and wandering in
areas of hostility, a lone warrior at his side. They were like a constant in the
world of shifting change to resist the rotting decay. He saw the luckless ones
trapped in cities, so dependent on the welfare, yet so vulnerable to the
invaders as well. Seeing women claimed and seized upon made him think of Natalie.
She was one of the first of the ones to feel the touch of the new settlers but
would not be the last. The look of one strikingly attractive woman about to be
preyed upon by several invaders was almost too much for him to bear. By now
though his normal vision returned and the numb feeling faded to that of a cold
fire which seemed to replace his appalling sorrow.

Until that day of Natalie’s
horror and his vision Alfred Neville had, by almost every facet of his life, a productive
law-abiding citizen of Britain. He was a member of a wealthy gun club that he
paid into each month, had no criminal convictions or outstanding charges. His house
was fully-paid for and far from any trouble and ethnic minority folk. He drove
a top of the range BMW which was his pride and joy and had a more ordinary
second car as an everyday workhorse. In his job as an IT manager he was secure
and prosperous. He had reveled in being a single man, womanizing his way around
the dating sites and bars. The opulence and attraction of his materialistic
lifestyle now paled. The attack on his kin and the looming threat felt like a
great shadow was falling into his world. Alfred Neville had never been in a
fight, had no military training and was considered a typical meek middle-class Briton.
Yet in his target shooting hobby which he excelled at, he was incredibly
discrete. None of his neighbors would have guessed that he was a gun owner either
as he practiced vermin control and clay-pigeon shooting on nearby farmland.
Almost all of Neville’s life and views were beyond reproach, almost all that
was, apart from his illegal firearms collection.

Going to his gun cabinet he
removed the entire contents onto the living-room carpet. Carefully and
diligently he began packing two large sports bags. Into these went his rifles.
One was a large caliber .303 Lee Enfield with scope and the other was a much
smaller
rimfire
carbine. His Ruger 10/.22 had a
folding stock and was very light. Magazines for both weapons were next and
these two went into the bags.

Removing a few loose bricks from
his garage wall revealed a dark secret from the days before weapons were
restricted. Once, similar types were recognized as licensed section 1 firearms.
Now though they came with a prison sentence of 5 years minimum for those caught
by the police with them. His first illegal weapon was an unlicensed war-trophy,
a Walther P-38 pistol wrapped in oily rags. After he checked the ultra-reliant working
parts for function he reached in and removed a longer, heavier object from the
cavity. Unwrapping the rags revealed a zippered gun bag. Inside it was a seldom-used
AR-10 in 7.62mm. Unlike the Lee Enfield the AR-10 was semi-automatic and of a
much more deadly caliber than the Ruger. As an illegal import it too was under
the radar. Ammunition in two steel ammo boxes for both weapons was the last to
come out.

Neville mused on what was to
come. Part of him had been intending to cast both of the section 5 weapons in
the sea or a deep quarry. The other part speculated they’d be useful if there
was a total breakdown of society or foreign invasion. Now though they would be
put to a more personal, directed purpose.

As Neville
suspected, there were no arrests made at the Refugee Center, some enquiries
were made but with no way of knowing who was who it was a thankless task. Some
of the newcomers, thanks to their continental handlers, knew they could claim
it was ‘racism’ if they felt they were being victimized. To a man they had
destroyed their passports and identity papers. None of them claimed they could
speak English, nearly all claimed to be from Syria, the latest war-zone. The
delaying action wrangled on as they demanded translators. Had the inhabitants
been native-born Britons the police had options and powers to separate, bully
and cajole. As it was though the overworked police of Northampton were
powerless to do anything except keep the center contained.