Three Hours(93)

The moment in the draughty church at smokefall

Be remembered; involved with past and future.

Only through time time is conquered.

T. S. Eliot, ‘Burnt Norton’, Four Quartets (1936)





20.


12.15 p.m.


Around Rose people stand in silent paralysis; shocked into stillness. She is no longer thinking or feeling, numbed, so that she is aware only of the plastic smell of the inside of the vehicle, as if they should be driving somewhere, instead of this terrible inert uselessness.

Bronze Commander comes on screen, his ruddy face ashen.

‘We all face this, deal with this, later, we have no time now. No time. There are still children in the pottery room. We have young children in the pottery room. We move in now.’

A feed from a police UAV shows counterterrorism specialist firearms officers in their grey uniforms closing in through the woods on the pottery room, the black smoke from the burning theatre a quarter of a mile away hazing around them.

A second police UAV, close to the pottery room, shows Jamie Alton in the same position; converted semi-automatic pointed at the children, finger on the trigger. The UAV’s camera turns towards the pottery-room windows.

‘Stop moving!’ Bronze Commander tells the counterterrorism firearms officers.

Victor Deakin is inside the pottery room.

He’s looking out of the window, dressed in grey. He must have predicted that CTSFOs would be deployed; so even if he was spotted people would assume he was one of them. But he wasn’t spotted. He left Old School as soon as the children and teachers ran to the theatre, went through the woods and then used the cover of the bomb – the noise and flames and shock, everybody’s eyes turned towards the explosion – to get inside the pottery room.

Rose is explaining what he did to try to deflect her mind from what she’s seeing, but her body shakes violently with the horror of it. Because what chance do they have to save any of the children now? Two men with guns that fire fifty bullets in three seconds; what chance for the children and their brave, indefatigable teacher?

‘There’s something moving,’ Amaal says, looking at the feed from the first police UAV. ‘Look …’

Through the snow and black smoke from the burning theatre, trees in the woods seem to be moving.

‘Jesus, it’s kids with trees …’ Rose says.

‘How many?’ Thandie asks.

‘Fifty? More? Must be all of them. Must be.’

*

There’s a long line of them, students and teachers, and another line behind them, and Daphne feels tremendously, wonderfully proud of them all.

Whose idea was it? Daphne can’t remember. It feels like it was everyone’s idea, or at least when whoever it was suggested it everybody had grabbed hold of the idea and made it their own. They’d gone backstage and taken the saplings that were Birnam Wood. And then they’d left the theatre, holding their trees in front of them, walking through the snow to try to help the children in the pottery room. A minute later, a huge explosion behind them and they’d carried on walking, their ears ringing, the force of the blast rippling the trees; black smoke billowing around them, stinging their eyes and throats.

She tries to resist quoting from Shakespeare, that really wouldn’t be helpful right now, Daphne. The last thing Frank needs, walking next to her, is a dose of Shakespeare at this point. Luisa is the other side of him and next to her is Benny and then Zac, and on the line goes, child after child; Tobias at the back, headphones on, marching too. She thinks about it though, the soldiers marching at the end of Macbeth, camouflaged with branches, Birnam Wood marching to Dunsinane Hill: good triumphing over evil. And really, is there any better image of goodness and courage than kids carrying saplings against bullets?

*

Up until a few minutes ago the children in the pottery room hadn’t questioned Camille’s game of house because for seven-year-olds playing is totally natural, pretending interchangeable with reality.

But then a man with a gun came in.

He is sitting, lolling almost, on one of the tables, their roof, and underneath Camille can hear them crying and whimpering and she’s livid with an anger she’s never felt before, white-hot rage, that this man can frighten children who have just made clay cats, dogs and a guinea pig for a make-believe house. This rage burns everything else away, so that all she is left with is love for the children and that is all that matters.

She has asked him, begged him, to let the children go. He didn’t even look at her, let alone reply; as if he has nothing human at all inside him.

She looks out of the window to the man outside with the balaclava, his gun pointed at them. She’s done this so many times, hoping to see police running to their rescue, but even if they are coming it’s too late now.

Through the thick snow and smoke, she can see the flames from the theatre, far away.

The woods are moving through the snow and smoke. She blinks.

Trees are moving.

It can’t be. The gunman lolling on the table has noticed because he gets up and shouts something at the gunman in the balaclava.

*

Watching the feed from the police UAV, Rose and her team see Victor Deakin coming out of the pottery room and he must say something to Jamie Alton because Jamie Alton turns. For a moment both men, holding their guns, are turned away from the children in the pottery room and towards the woods, looking through the snow and smoke at the kids and teachers they think are dead. The armed counterterrorism officers fire, killing them both.