The Galloway Slaves

See also Galloway Camps
Chapter 10
‘Just came up in the car tonight… oh,’ Johnny stopped when he saw that besides his father and Knifer there were quite a few other people in the barn too. His eyes travelled over them, and he saw that they were a collection of women, children and old men. They looked ragged and dejected, with wild, almost animalistic eyes. He felt suddenly tense as they eyed him, as if they were wondering what he might taste like. ‘What’s going on dad?’
~
From what he gathered from their talk these were not the only slaves that had been dumped on the farmers in the Ken valley.
~
As the two men walked towards the front gate he went on. ‘But I’d advise you to keep them in the barn. Don’t let them run around. Definitely don’t let them in the house and lock all your windows and doors. From what I’ve heard some of them are pretty wild. Were probably pretty wild even before all this. Turkmens, Russians, Uzbeks, that’s what they are saying. All muddled in together. We’ve heard reports of them getting up to all sorts of mischief.’
~
Over the next few days, in twos three and fours, the slaves were taken away by the fencibles. The fencibles were a militia of local farmers armed with shotguns and hunting rifles who had pretty much taken it upon themselves to guard and patrol the bits of Galloway that had been left after the Splintering. Gareth talked to some of the younger ones that he knew from school, digging for information.
As each parcel of slaves was dispatched, Maude made sure they each had a bundle of food and warm clothes with them, gifts that the slaves had been pathetically grateful for.
‘It’s fucking awful,’ said Gareth Frost when the last of them had gone. ‘We defy the muta up here, but people have a different feeling towards the army. Bunch of cowards. So, they are keeping the slaves in a camp up near Mossdale just in case the army come back for them. Can you believe it? At least people can get in to feed them. There must be three or four hundred at least. And that’s just here. Down at Drumrash I heard there are hundreds more, and the same again at Lauriston. The army just dumped a bunch at every village they stopped at. Apparently, some of them escaped and are hiding out at Clatteringshaws.’
‘In winter?’ asked Johnny. ‘They’ll freeze to death.’
‘I bet they are at the old visitor’s centre,’ postulated Maude. ‘It’s been closed since the reditus.’
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