The Hawk Is Dead

11

Monday 20 November 2023

Queen Camilla, wishing that she had worn comfortably flat shoes today, shone the torch she’d been given at the lumps of gravel in front of her. Then she led the Private Secretary, with her shocked entourage stumbling raggedly behind. Brenda Warner, her dresser, was lugging two bags of The Queen’s clothes as if she was welded to them. Others were guided by their phone torches, as she followed the driver, who was some yards ahead and striding quickly, if a little unsteadily, on the uneven surface, through the cold, musty air. Every few moments, the driver raised his phone high, as if checking for a signal, then would turn and wave the royal party on, anxiously.

Urgently.

‘Please hurry, Your Majesty,’ he implored.

The Queen stumbled on as fast as she could, feeling it was a bit like walking on a pebble beach. There was an eerie silence, the only soundtrack being the echoes of mass footsteps, the crunch of the stones and the occasional murmured curse, as someone in the single-file line behind her stumbled. The curved walls and roof were a relentless grey, and Queen Camilla saw occasional tiny red dots — the eyes of rodents — ahead. She turned to check on Peregrine Greaves. He gave a bleak nod of reassurance and called out, more in hope than certainty, ‘Not far to go, Your Majesty.’

Then he tripped and fell flat on his face.

The Queen turned and, assisted by Jon Gilhall, got the Private Secretary back onto his feet.

‘Perry, are you all right?’ she asked. ‘If you’d prefer we can leave you here with someone, and send for a stretcher.’

‘I’m fine, thank you, Ma’am,’ he said, a tad huffily, as if he really, seriously, did not need to be asked that question, and briefly examined his hand, which was bleeding.

The Queen shone her torch past Greaves, checking on all the rest of her entourage. As soon as she was satisfied everyone was all right, she soldiered on. As she did so, the words Peregrine had said earlier about the terrible disaster in this railway tunnel came back to her. That the screams of the victims could still be heard on stormy nights.

She’d always had an open mind on the supernatural. Were the ghosts of these poor people still trapped inside? Were they around her and everyone in here now? She shuddered. God, they’d been walking for a good few minutes now, and that distant light only seemed a little closer than it had been when they’d started. She saw the bobbing torchlight of the driver, some way ahead. Watched him check his phone yet again and shake his head. As she walked, shadows jumped out of the dimly lit gloom. But were they shadows, or the spirits of the scalded-to-death victims?

She shuddered again and walked on. Strode on. She was determined to motivate all those of her entourage behind her. Why the train had been derailed — what had caused it — was a question for later. For now her one duty was to lead the royal party out of this godforsaken tunnel to daylight. To safety.

Her Equerry and Jon Gilhall were now striding alongside her. ‘Are you all right, Ma’am? Do you need to stop for a moment?’ Gilhall asked.

‘I’m fine, Jon, how is everyone else?’

‘I understand a couple of people are hobbling a bit with minor leg injuries from the accident, but everyone knows we need to get out of here. I’ve still got no phone signal.’

‘Incredible,’ she said. ‘With all the technology we have today and they can’t organize for people to get a bloody mobile phone signal in a railway tunnel? I need to call The King and let him know what is happening before he hears it from someone else. I must call him.’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Keep an eye on Sir Peregrine, will you. I’m worried he may have some concussion. Make sure he doesn’t fall over again.’

‘I will, Ma’am.’

Gilhall dropped back to join the Private Secretary, walking as close to him as he could, ready to catch him if he tripped again. But all the time keeping eyes on the person he was here to protect.

Something was worrying him deeply and had been ever since the disaster had happened. Trains did not derail themselves. They were derailed by something.

Someone.

As he walked, he constantly looked ahead and behind him, his right hand close to the holstered Glock pistol nestling inside his suit jacket. As part of his training to become a RaSP officer, he’d been through countless scenarios in which he’d had to both respond to threats, and later account for his responses. Derailment of the Royal Train in a tunnel had never been a part of that curriculum.

And it weighed heavily on him that in this ghastly railway tunnel, with no phone signal, and a potential threat out there, somewhere, his boss’s life might depend on him, and on him solely.

No past responsibility had ever weighed so heavily on him.