by Chris Ryan
‘We had to run,’ Sami said. ‘A long way. Maybe ten miles, without stopping. Then we had to hide in the forest. The ones they found were sent home.’
‘Where did you hide?’
‘There was a ruined hut. Just a pile of bricks. I clambered in under the bricks.’
‘Didn’t that hurt?’
Sami gave a small smile. ‘I’m used to it,’ he said.
‘Why?’
Sami gave him a helpless gesture that said, I can’t tell you.
Max noticed that the pitter-patter of sleet on the metal roof had stopped. Everything was quiet. Then, somewhere outside, a whistle blew.
‘That’s dinner,’ Sami said. He looked like he was going to invite Max to go with him, but was too shy to do it.
‘Shall we go?’ Max asked. ‘I could do with something to eat.’
Sami smiled and nodded. Together they left the hut.
Just because the sleet had stopped, it didn’t mean the weather had improved. The sleet had turned to snow. A blizzard swirled all around them, so thick that the house was a mere outline. Already there was a thin covering of snow on the ground. Max and Sami hurried through it. By the time they reached the house, snow had settled on their hair and clothes. Sami was laughing. His dark, serious eyes twinkled. ‘Where I’m from,’ he said, ‘we never see snow!’ He touched the white powder on his clothes like it was magic dust.
‘You know what I’m thinking?’ Max said.
‘What?’
‘That whatever they have lined up for us tomorrow, the snow isn’t going to help.’
‘Oh well.’ Sami smiled. ‘At least it will be fun!’
Max followed him across the hallway to a large room at the back of the house. There was a school-dinner smell and the sound of voices and clinking cutlery. Inside the room, about twenty cadets were sitting at two long tables. At the far end was a line of hot plates. A woman stood behind them, ready to serve.
‘That’s Martha,’ Sami said. ‘She’s the matron. She’s supposed to look after us.’ He gave Max an open, honest look. ‘I am extremely scared of her,’ he said.
Martha was perhaps sixty years old. She looked severe. She had tanned skin and lines around her eyes and lips. Her wavy hair had blonde highlights and was scraped back in a tight bun, with a couple of tendrils hanging over her forehead. She had her arms crossed and was holding a ladle. It occurred to Max that if she wanted to use it as a weapon, she probably could.
Max and Sami walked up to her in silence. She was standing guard over a cauldron of brown stew. She looked at Max. ‘You the new one?’ She had a Scottish accent.
Max nodded. Martha looked unimpressed. Wordlessly, she ladled out two bowls of stew and handed them to him and Sami. ‘Eat,’ she said.
They took their food and walked to the end of one of the long tables. They sat opposite each other. On Max’s left was a girl his own age. She had pale skin and blue eyes. Her brown hair was thick, shiny and straight, but dishevelled. She had a double cartilage piercing in her left ear and was very firmly focused on the plate of food in front of her. She didn’t even seem to notice Max’s arrival.
Max started to eat. The food was bland but hot. He had only swallowed a couple of mouthfuls when the girl next to him spoke.
‘I’m Abby,’ she said. Her accent was Northern Irish and very strong.
‘Hi,’ Max said. ‘I’m –’
‘You going to eat that?’
Max looked down at his bowl of food. ‘Er, yeah …’
Abby looked across the table at Sami. ‘You going to eat that?’ she asked.
Sami cradled his food protectively.
‘Ah, jeez,’ Abby said. ‘A girl could starve around here. It’s worse than being in prison.’
‘How would you know about prison?’ Max said.
Abby’s eyes tightened slightly. ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Max.’
‘Well, if you change your mind about that food, Max, you give me a holler.’
She fell silent and sat watching, hawk-like, as they continued to eat their stew. Max ate a bit more quickly. He had the impression she might grab the bowl from him if he didn’t hold on to it.
He was halfway through his meal when he saw Lukas. The American boy held his bowl of stew and stood between the two long tables. He caught Max’s eye, then turned his back on him and went to sit by himself at the other table.
‘Whoa!’ Abby said. ‘Awks or what? I guess you really are going to finish that, aren’t you?’
‘I really am,’ said Max.
She stood up. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ she said. She took her dirty bowl and left.
‘She tried to have my breakfast too,’ Sami said. He frowned. ‘I almost gave it to her. It was something called … porridge? I didn’t like it much.’
When they had finished their meal they deposited their dirty plates on a trolley by the hotplates and headed out of the dining room. It was only as they were crossing the hallway that Max remembered something. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said to Sami. He walked up to the line of old photographs he had noticed when Woody first brought him in here, and found the one that had caught his eye: the young soldier sitting by a small fire in the jungle. The soldier looked as if he was staring right at Max. For Max, it was like looking in the mirror. The short brown hair parted on the right. The thick eyebrows and strong jawline. He found himself holding his breath as he stared.
Sami looked from Max to the picture and back again. ‘Is that you?’ he said.
‘Course not,’ Max replied. ‘It was taken years ago, wasn’t it?’
‘Looks like you.’
‘Yeah, well …’ Max turned away from the picture. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
Outside, the snow was even heavier. It had settled as deep as their ankles and the Nissen huts were covered. Max pulled up the collar of his camo jacket and marched through the snow. He was suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. It had been a long day.
He was only halfway to the huts when he felt it: a snowball on the side of his head. He looked round to see Sami, bright-eyed and grinning. Max quickly bent down, made a snowball and hurled it at his new friend. It missed by a couple of inches. Sami hooted with glee again, and did a funny little dance that made Max laugh.
‘I love snow!’ Sami shouted to nobody in particular. He raised his arms up into the air. ‘I LOVE SNOW!’
6
White-Out
‘I hate snow,’ Sami muttered under his breath.
It was 05:30 next day. The remaining recruits – twenty-five of them – were in a straight line on the parade ground. The snow was half a metre thick. The temperature was sub-zero. A biting wind felt like it was freezing Max’s bones.
It had been a long, cold night. The Nissen huts were unheated. Max and the others had slept in their clothes underneath their blankets. Even then, their teeth had chattered all night. Hector had woken them at 05:00. with a short, sharp instruction: ‘Up. Now!’ It was still dark when they trudged through the snow to the house, where they had been given a bowl of porridge and a cup of tea.
And now here they were, standing in the half-light of dawn. Max was colder than he’d ever been. The snow swirled around as thickly as last night, settling on their shoulders and heads. Lukas was on Max’s left, chewing gum as always and doing everything he could to ignore Max. He seemed hyped and kept running on the spot to stay warm. Sami was on Max’s right, complaining about the snow. Max wondered if his new friend was even listening to Hector.
‘Your objective is this,’ Hector shouted above the wind as he marched along the line of recruits. ‘You are to imagine that there is a hidden weapons cache up in the mountains.’ He pointed to his right, at the slope that formed one steep side of the valley. It had looked unforgiving in the sleet. In the snow it looked impassable. ‘The cache’s position is indicated on a map, which I will give you. You will leave at two-minute intervals and try to locate it. Your objective is marked by a red flag
. You will find a fingerprint sensor next to it. When you reach it, scan your fingerprint so we know you have arrived and how long it has taken you. If you do it in the allotted time, you will make it through to day three. If not, you won’t. A helicopter will arrive to bring you back down once everyone has checked in at the cache. In the meantime, you’ll have to find shelter. You’ll each have an emergency distress beacon. If you get lost, or you can’t take it any more, activate the beacon by pressing the button. It will send a GPS signal that will allow us to find you. But if you do that, you’re out. Any questions?’
Silence. Max glanced along the line of shivering recruits. Nobody looked like they were going to ask a question. He put his hand up. ‘How long do we have?’
Hector refused to catch his eye. ‘We don’t tell you. Do it as quickly as possible. You’ll either pass or fail. Any other questions?’
‘When’s lunch?’
Max looked to his right along the line and saw that it was Abby who’d asked the question. Hector simply scowled at her. He turned to Woody and Angel, who were standing opposite the recruits. Woody was carrying a pile of maps and compasses in clear protective pouches. Angel had the cigar-shaped distress beacons on lanyards. They walked to the left-hand end of the line and gave a map, compass and beacon to the boy standing there. Hector looked at his watch. ‘Go!’ he barked.
The first recruit looked bewildered. He looked round at the others, as though expecting some sort of help. But no help came. So he looked instead up at the mountainside that Hector had indicated. He consulted his map, looked up at the mountain for a second time, and then started to run through the snow. He became a grey ghost through the blizzard, then disappeared.
There was a murmur from the line of recruits. Hector was looking at his watch. When two minutes passed, he shouted, ‘Next!’ Woody and Angel handed out map, compass and beacon, and the second recruit, a girl, hurried off after the first.
Lukas was tenth in line, Max eleventh, Sami twelfth. Once the third recruit had left, Max and Sami started to follow Lukas’s lead, jumping up and down to keep warm in the biting cold. Max’s hands and feet were already numb. He kept looking at the mountain slope. It was barely visible through the blizzard. How cold would it be up there? He felt a pang of anxiety just thinking about it. And then he thought, I don’t have to do it. I can walk away now. Go back to my old life.
But what kind of life was that? He had no home. No friends.
He caught Hector looking at him. As soon as their eyes met, Hector looked away and shouted, ‘Next!’ Max continued to jog on the spot, determined that he was going to pass this selection.
Twenty minutes after the first recruit had left, it was Lukas’s turn. As he waited for Woody and Angel to hand over his map, compass and beacon, he turned to Max. He spat his gum out into the snow and curled a fresh piece into his mouth. ‘Don’t go following me,’ he whispered. It was the first thing he’d said to Max since before dinner the previous night. He had a fiery glint in his eyes. Max could tell he was desperate to succeed.
‘I’ll be following the map,’ Max said.
Lukas scowled at him. Hector shouted, ‘Next!’ A moment later, map in hand, Lukas had sprinted into the blizzard and disappeared.
Max turned to Sami. His new friend was shivering. Max wondered how he would manage in this cold. ‘You’ve got to keep moving,’ Max said. ‘That’ll keep you warm. If you start to get confused, or sleepy, or your movements are slow, that’s hypothermia. If that happens, you have to use the beacon.’
Sami gave him a distressed look.
‘But I’m sure that won’t happen,’ Max added quickly. ‘You’ll be fine.’ Privately, though, Max didn’t think he would be. Sami would be going home tonight, wherever home was.
‘Next!’
Woody thrust a map and compass into Max’s hands and winked at him. Angel hung the lanyard round his neck. Quickly, Max examined the map. A black cross marked their current position. He knew that because the pattern of the contour lines on the map showed that it was in a valley with steep slopes on either side. At the top of the slope was a red flag. That had to be the cache. Max looked at the scale marking on the map and estimated the distance. Three kilometres, uphill. This was going to be tough.
He ran, following the prints left by the recruits who had gone before. There was no sign of any of them up ahead, the visibility was so poor. Looking back after a minute, he couldn’t even see Hector, Sami and the others at the starting point.
He stopped for a moment. It was absolutely silent. He looked at the trail of footprints in the snow. They all went off in the same direction. North-west, according to his compass. But as he looked at the map again, he wasn’t sure that was the best route. If he was reading it correctly, the path the others were taking followed a ridge to the vicinity of the cache. In this weather, that ridge would be very exposed. Snow could be drifting in the wind, making the route dangerous and inaccessible. And Max felt he’d had enough of dangerous ridges for the time being.
There was another, more sheltered route that would take Max to the south-west – but it was longer than the obvious path. Maybe even half as long again. Should he risk it? Was he crazy? He knew that Hector would jump at any chance to fail him …
His gut told him it was the right decision. He headed south-west, through fresh snow. Within twenty seconds, the path the others had followed was out of sight. Max was on his own.
It was a white-out. He couldn’t even see the mountain slope up ahead. He checked his compass every ten paces to ensure he was following the correct bearing. After a few minutes, the gradient started to increase. His body temperature rose a little from the extra exertion. He powered through the snow, trying not to worry about his decision. He’d made it now. He had rolled the dice.
Time had little meaning. Max could only focus on the climb. It would have been tough even without the snow. The thick powder on the ground made each step a struggle. His legs hurt and his lungs burned after just twenty minutes. He stopped to look at the map. His route took him up a steep-sided gulley, clearly marked on the map.
He began to panic. He should have stayed with the others. There was safety – and success – in numbers.
It was too late to think like that. The way he saw it, he had only two options: to find the gulley he needed to decide whether to continue on the same trajectory, or change direction and head west.
He consulted his compass and headed west.
The higher he climbed, the deeper the snow got. The blizzard showed no sign of abating. Max stopped regularly to check his direction and to look at his surroundings. But the visibility was so poor that, really, he could be anywhere.
He tried to gauge how high he had climbed. Maybe one hundred and fifty metres? He checked the map again. The cache was at three hundred and sixty-five metres. He wasn’t even halfway there.
He pushed on. The temperature was dropping, the snow becoming icier and more slippery. Several times he stumbled and fell. Half an hour passed. An hour. Maybe longer. He tripped. His left ankle twisted and he called out in pain. His voice echoed. He hoped nobody had heard.
He winced. He wasn’t sure he could get up. All the energy seemed to have drained from his body. He was tired. Sleepy, almost. He wondered if he should just lie down for a while. Get some kip. Carry on when he had more energy …
No! A voice rang in his head. What had he told Sami? If you start to get confused, or sleepy, or your movements are slow, that’s hypothermia. If that happens, you have to use the beacon.
He shook himself awake. The beacon was there, hanging round his neck. All he had to do was press the button and someone would come to rescue him. Slowly his hands crept towards it.
Then they stopped. He pictured Hector standing over him with an ‘I told you so’ look on his face.
Max grimaced at the thought. He would have to be in a far worse position for that to happen. He pushed himself painfully to his feet.
He blinked heavily. Something had ju
st occurred to him. When he had fallen and shouted out, his voice had echoed.
But what had it echoed against?
He shouted out again. ‘Hello! Hello!’
His voice returned to him a fraction of a second later. The echo seemed to come from his right. He staggered in that direction. Suddenly, through the blizzard, a high vertical wall of rock came into view.
Max grinned. All his sluggishness had fallen away. He checked the map again and pinpointed the two walls of rock that marked his ascent. He was on the right track.
He headed uphill. The cold air was sharp against his face, but he had renewed energy as he battled through the blizzard. Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes. The steep slope levelled off. Max stood to catch his breath. He had been so intent on climbing that he hadn’t realised that it wasn’t snowing so hard up here. As he looked around, he could see swirls of cloud. His surroundings appeared for a few seconds, then disappeared again, enshrouded in mist. It cleared again – and Max saw that he was not alone.
The ridge line that he expected the others would be following was about fifty metres to his right. There was nobody on it. Max reckoned he’d made the right call: that route was too slow. But between him and the ridge line, cutting up through another snow-filled gulley, was a figure striding up the hill. Max only glimpsed the figure for a few seconds but he was certain that he recognised the form and the gait.
It was Lukas. He stopped and looked directly at Max. Then the mist swirled between them again. They were hidden from each other.
Max had never thought of himself as competitive. That had changed. He felt a powerful urge to beat Lukas. He checked his map and took a moment to orientate himself properly. He estimated that the cache was 250 metres north-west of his position. Although he and Lukas were approaching it from different angles, they had a similar distance to travel. It would all come down to speed.
Max surged forward. His ankle hurt and he tripped a couple of times as he pushed himself through the snow, and he cursed under his breath. But he kept moving. The mist cleared again and he caught sight of Lukas. His opponent was no faster than him, but he was certainly no slower. They were neck and neck.