The meanest Flood

food reappeared on the board with one bite taken out of it, small teeth marks clearly visible on the cheese.
    Sam shifted the candle, pushed it away from him and illuminated the boy sitting cross-legged opposite him, his cheeks bulging and a wide grin on his face. ‘D’you speak English?’ Sam asked.
    ‘No,’ the boy replied. ‘Inglaterra restaurante?’
    Sam smiled. He thought the boy might have made a joke. ‘Your brother and sister,’ he said. ‘You want to give them something to eat?’
    ‘Alé, Michael Owen .’
    ‘Liverpool,’ Sam said. ‘Is that your team?’
    The boy nodded. He reached for the bread again and took another bite. He smiled. ‘Favorite,’ he said around the food in his mouth.
    There was a footfall and Rachid the Iraqi sat on the edge of one of the cartons. ‘It’s got bad now,’ he said. ‘The hunger.’
    Sam cut him some bread and sausage and cheese. Rachid took the bread and refused the sausage and cheese. He pointed at a pear and Sam handed it over and offered an orange.
    ‘My friend Omed has been sick,’ Rachid said. ‘But now he needs to eat and drink. I will take this for him and return for my own hunger? I can take the bottle?’
    Sam gave him the opened bottle. ‘Bring it back,’ he said. ‘These kids are gonna need some as well.’
    The Bolivian boy’s brother and sister came eventually, and later still his mother and father. Between them they cleaned Sam out of everything, a latter-day Jesus feeding the faithful with metaphoric loaves and fishes.
     
    They landed in Immingham, stiff from lack of exercise and anxious they would be discovered and taken away by the police. When the truck began to move and then again waited in line the occupants of the container held their breath. Sam had turned his torch off but he had a mental image of his fellow travellers sitting to attention, their ears cocked for any telltale sounds, the children covering their mouths with their hands in case unintentional utterance escaped them.
    The truck stopped and started again several times but eventually it hit open road. Must have been running alongside the river for a while before crossing the Humber bridge and taking off in a north-easterly direction. Half an hour later it slowed and took a turning, twisting route for another fifteen minutes.
    They came to a stop and listened to the sound of the driver’s door reverberating through the container. Then there was silence. The bastard’s gone into a truck stop, Sam thought. He imagined the guy tucking into a bacon sandwich, animal fat mixing with the motor oil and sweat on his face.
    But the rod mechanisms that locked the rear entrance to the container began to move. The back door was slowly lifted and daylight flooded in. The children and some of the adults cried out as the light hit their eyes. Sam kept his closed.
    The trucker pulled down the aluminium ladder and banged one of the rungs with a large wrench. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we haven’t got all day. Everybody out.’
    The people inside got to their feet, putting their belongings together, but they weren’t fast enough for him. He shinned up the ladder and grabbed hold of the arms of Rachid and Omed. ‘Move it. Let’s go.’ He pushed them towards the entrance and turned his attention to the Bolivian children. The youngest one screamed as he lifted her off her feet, arched her back and shouted for her mother in Spanish.
    Sam was on his feet and pulling the guy by the shoulder. ‘Put the kid down,’ he said.
    ‘I want you all out now,’ the trucker said, striding towards the entrance with the child under his arm.
    Sam grabbed him by what was left of his hair. ‘Put the kid down,’ he said.
    The guy dropped the small girl and turned towards Sam. He swung the large metal wrench at Sam’s head. He saw it coming from the moment the idea occurred to the guy and easily blocked it. He took the man’s wrist and twisted until the wrench fell to the floor. Rachid, who had come back to help, picked up the wrench and slammed it into the trucker’s spine. The trucker went down on his knees and closed his eyes, looked like he was praying for help but there was no one around who loved him enough to get involved.
    The occupants of the container slowly filed past the man and climbed down the ladder. They looked around them at England’s green and pleasant land, a view distorted by a fine rain and a sky the colour and texture of purple mould. Sam searched for his chariot of