Where Men Once Walked

by Mark L Watson

  The bus floated onwards without faltering and the boy and the television didn’t resurface.

  The thunder cracked.

  “We need to keep moving, this bridge isn’t going to stand for much longer” the Dutchman said, “we need a boat and we need to get the hell out of here”

  “That guy was right” the kid replied, pushing the water backwards from his hair, “I reckon all the boats might be in use”

  They climbed down from the bridge to the water level and stood on the edge of the concrete above the torrent and held on to the side and, one by one, they stepped into the current and held on to each other and crossed the flooded road and reached the buildings together as one. They found an aluminium garage door which had pulled away from its hinges and was banging against the brickwork and they pulled it free and held it to the water and climbed onto it and pushed it out into the flow. It floated though it wouldn’t take the weight of all three men and so the American jumped from it and held on to the back of it like a swimming float as it bobbed on the water and crashed into walls and took down a roadsign and eventually thudded gently into a house at the end of the road. They pulled it to an area where the current wasn’t as strong and paddled it gently along the road. At the edge of town the land elevated and they climbed from their raft and discarded it and tipped the water from their boots and wrung what they could from their clothes.

  Power lines disappeared away into the haze to the south and below them the railway track was trenched into the earth and submerged entirely so that a canal of murky water had formed in a perfect line through the country. They followed it across swampy fields and over broken bridges where the water had drained away and past farm buildings which had been all but swept away in the currents and they looked in each for food or items of worth and found nothing at all other than a small knife.

  In the distance they saw the indistinct black shapes of rooftops sticking out from the hazy waterline and treetops like silhouetted islands on the horizon.

  The banks of the submerged traintrack stayed mostly elevated above the waterline and provided them a straight route to follow.

  At times when they had no choice but to cross through the water the men thought nothing at all of it for they were so utterly saturated that walking or swimming were much the same and they leaped into the pools of water and helped each other across and they laughed at the absurdity of it.

  The grey sky turned darker and darker and they knew that on the other side of the thick relentless blanket of cloud the daylight was fading and they knew that the open fields were no place to be caught after dark.

  They walked an hour further along the track until they saw to the south the dark outlined skyline of Pandoli and the flooded railway station ahead of them. They swam and paddled across the underwater farmland littered with debris of broken wood and bent metal and items once belonging to people who had been there which had drifted from windows and doors and broken walls and they joined up to where the road had once been and paddled their way to the nearest building.

  The water was halfway up the front door of the abandoned home and they were unable to push it open. The American managed to pull himself up onto the roof of the garage and call to the others.

  He laid onto his stomach and reached down and helped the Dutchman and the kid up to the roof and they went in through the windowless opening and into the darkened wet home.

  They stood up into a child’s bedroom with a small wooden cot and old toys, wet and brown, and a picture on the wall of a circus elephant. The house smelled of rot and sewage and the floor was boarded without carpet and the wood was rotting and giving way under foot and in only the dull light of the murky sky outside they were unable to tell quite how long the place had been abandoned.

  They stepped carefully out to the top of the stairs and could see the water, black and shimmering, on the ground floor.

  They took off their boots and tipped them upside down and undressed and hung their clothes on the dressers to dry what they would, and in their underwear the three of them sat. The American took out his wallet and tipped the wet notes onto the top of the wooden nightstand and carefully peeled each one apart from the next and laid them out in a line. He took the wet cigarette packet from his trousers and took each cigarette out individually and laid them out too, carefully with his thick fingers.

  After some time the Dutchman ventured downstairs into the water and paddled in his underwear to the kitchen. He searched the cupboards and found some mouldy bread and a bag of dried rice and two tins of black beans and one of chick peas and a can of shahi haleem. He took the tins and took an old iron pan from the shelf and three forks and a bottle of detergent from the sink and carried them back upstairs.

  “You fixin’ to cook that?” the American asked as he dropped it all onto the bedroom floor.

  “I’m fixin’ to try”

  He put on one of his boots and tied the laces and went to the top of the stairs and with the booted foot kicked in one go the wooden bannister from its fittings. It shattered apart and dropped down the stairs into the water.

  “Come out here and help, will you” he called.

  The kid appeared in the doorway of the room in his underwear.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Go and stand down there and stop this wood from falling in the water”

  The kid looked down the stairs and then at the Dutchman wearing only his underwear and a single boot. He stepped carefully down the old wooden stairs.

  “Further” the Dutchman said.

  The kid dropped down two more steps.

  “Further, or you’ll get hit”

  The kid looked backwards and stepped two more stairs down so that his feet were in the water.

  The Dutchman nodded and took another kick at the remaining wooden bannister. It split away from its base and crashed against the wall and toppled downwards into the kid.

  “Good” the Dutchman said, “bring it in here”

  He carried the wooden posts into the bedroom and dropped them on the floor.

  The American’s eyes widened.

  “You’re a damn moron if you think you’re gonna start a woodfire in here”

  The Dutchman ignored him.

  “Give me your lighter”

  “It’s up there” the American pointed to where the notes and the cigarettes were lined, “and it’s soaked through”

  The Dutchman broke up the wood and built a lattice of sticks and put the flat ones on the top so that the saucepan could sit on them. He stood and took the petrol lighter from the nightstand and sat back down with it.

  He took the chamber out from it and took out the fibre and unscrewed the cap and took out the wick. He held the wet fibre in the air and blew at it and dabbed it with his fingers until it had dried and soaked it with the cleaning detergent and carefully repacked it into the lighter. He rolled the wick in his fingers and blew on it also and then fed it back through the chamber and put the lighter back together.

  He flicked his thumb over the wheel and it sparked.

  He looked at the kid and smiled.

  “Get a book down from that shelf”

  The kid reached over and pulled an old book from the shelf on the wall and tossed it to the Dutchman who pulled out some pages and folded them and pushed them inside the wooden lattice and dripped some of the detergent onto the paper and the wood. He sparked the lighter over and over and he held it to the paper until a tiny flame caught and lit one of the pages and he tossed the lighter to the floor and carefully blew at the little blue flame, flicking the embers across the lattice until the rotten wood started to burn with it.

  He smiled again at the kid.

  When the wood was burning he tipped the contents of the tins into the saucepan and put it atop the fire and used the knife to stir the mixture. The thin black smoke from the fire started to fill the bedroom and the kid tried to waft it out of the windowless window but it billowed around the ceiling until eventually th
e food had heated. The Dutchman took the pan from the fire and squeezed some water from his clothes onto the flames to quench them and set the pan down on the wooden floor.

  They ate from the pan and the American lit a damp cigarette from the dying embers.

  They talked and fell asleep to the sound of the rain splashing into the waters outside and apart from that noise all else was still.

  “Oh sweet fucking Mary”

  The kid felt the heat before he opened his eyes and through his closed eyelids he saw the bright orange glow from within the old bedroom.

  He jumped to his feet and backed against the wall.

  The entire side wall of the room and the old wardrobe and the landing outside was ablaze. The American grabbed his boots and swept the notes and the cigarettes and the lighter from the nightstand into one of them and took up his clothes and clambered out of the window. He hung for a moment before letting himself drop into the water. The Dutchman and the kid followed with their clothes and boots in their arms and they each dropped from the window and landed with a splash in the filthy brown lagoon as the internal wall fell down in a burst of flames.

  The sun was coming up from beneath the horizon but it was still early and mostly dark and as they pulled on their soaking clothes and looked up at the fire the flames were licking the dim grey sky. The rain had slightly softened overnight but it was still dripping from the heavens and the reflection of the flames in the water danced and jumped as the rain hit. They paddled slowly away from the building and stood together in their underwear with their clothes and boots in their arms and the water at their waists.

  “How the hell did you manage to set fire to a flooded building?” the American cried.

  He looked at the Dutchman who said nothing and looked back at the building as the wet roof caved in on itself in an explosion of sparks.

  The kid laughed and the airmen laughed with him and they stood there and watched as the place crashed apart and fell down, hissing into the water.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Gulf of Khambhat

  They waded out along the submerged track, only identifiable by the tips of fenceposts which lined its route. It led into the open plains of floodwater to the rest of the town’s buildings beyond. The first building they came to was the biggest and grandest of the town by some margin with high white walls of stone and lines of gilded windows adorning its façade beneath a high tiled roof of red and black and, though it was run down and the whitewash was cracked and split and there were windowpanes missing, against the rural backdrop of the rest of the town it could have been a palace.

  As the road inclined, the water rose above their waists and they had to swim the final distance. At the south wall of the great building a green metal raft was chained to the black iron fire escape, itself bolted to the concrete. In what had been the front garden it was the only thing to see.

  The kid looked at the two airmen and they looked at each other and nobody said anything because nothing needed to be said.

  They kept close to the front wall of the building and shimmied along the stonework with their fingertips holding the cracks until they reached the corner of the building. The raft was of military issue but was basic and painted with black numbers which were almost scratched away and inside were three rows of metal benches and a safebox and two wooden oars.

  They looked up the fire escape to the top where the doorway opened inside. There was nobody there.

  The Dutchman hoisted himself out of the water, dripping, into the raft and flopped inside it with a thud and it rocked on its harness and they again looked up to the door.

  “Come on” he said quietly, stretching his arm out to the kid to pull him onboard.

  Once inside, the kid unlatched the wet rope from around the fire escape and it fell with a splash into the water. The American was holding the raft with one hand and the old fire escape with the other and as he pushed the raft slowly away from the side of the building the fire escape clanged loudly against the wall.

  He pulled himself into the raft and as he looked back he saw the man appear at the top of the stairs, shouting.

  “Go” he yelled and the kid and the Dutchman paddled with the oars as powerfully as they could and the raft started to glide away from the building.

  The American snatched the oar from the kid and took over his position and as the kid turned back he saw the men in the doorway and he saw the rifle level at them and then the loud rattle and crack and a shell slam into the water behind the raft with a pop. He threw himself down but the sides of the raft were shallow and they were nothing to hide behind and the airmen paddled faster.

  Another shot slammed into the metal raft with a loud clang and the men flinched and pushed yet harder against the filthy water. They had moved a few hundred yards from the walls of the great white building as the third shot rang out behind them and thumped into the American’s right shoulder.

  He buckled forward and his arms threw the oar out into the water ahead of the raft and he slid from his seat and clutched his shoulder and the blood started to seep through his fingers and drip down his wet back.

  The kid shuffled forward to him to help but the American spun round to him with his eyes fiery and wide.

  “Get the damn paddle” he snarled through his teeth as the floating oar appeared next to the raft. The kid reached out and grabbed it from the water and the two of them continued to frantically push the raft through the water.

  Another shot rang out and thundered into the side of the raft and another landed in the water behind them. The kid glanced round and the American was laying down and pulling his vest off over his head with his good arm. Another shell went into the water behind them and then another slightly further back as they began to move out of range of the rifleman’s scope. The Dutchman eased slightly to catch his breath and the kid yelled at him to keep going as they did not know what other raft or otherwise the men may have and if they would give chase. They pushed forward for a few minutes more until their arms burned and they couldn’t see the building any longer and they let the raft glide forward unaided.

  They had gone a mile out of town to the west and there was nothing around them there but the brown sea dotted with trees and floating debris. Rain crashed down everywhere and they had to shout to be heard.

  The Dutchman spun himself around to the American who was trying to pull his vest around the puncture wound in the back of his shoulder.

  “Give it here” he called to him, taking hold of the fabric, “don’t wrap that around it”

  “I gotta stop the bleeding” the American yelled.

  “Not with that shit, look at it. He took the wet vest away from him and tossed it down into the raft. He turned to the kid.

  “Keep us going, we need to find somewhere clean and dry”

  The kid nodded and turned forward and took both oars and looked about but for as far as he could see there was only the black water.

  The rain began to fall yet heavier.

  “Put your arm up”

  The American tried to lift his arm and howled in pain and gritted his teeth and breathed deeply and wheezed and let it drop again.

  “Put it up” the Dutchman shouted at him and the American stared at him with anger in his eyes. The Dutchman picked up the vest again and rolled it up and pushed the American over on to his good arm and lifted the wounded arm above his head and wrapped the vest around it at the elbow and tied it around the American’s head so that it held the arm upright.

  “Stay like this” he ordered.

  The American immediately started wriggling and the Dutchman slapped him open palmed across his chin and the American snapped to attention.

  “Stay like this” the Dutchman ordered again, pointing his finger into the American’s face.

  He sat slumped with the arm raised above him. He was red with blood from head to toe and it was mixing with the rainwater and filling the raft. .

  “Get us somewhere dry for the love of god” th
e Dutchman called to the kid.

  The kid started to reply but didn’t know what to say and focussed instead on pushing the raft towards a cluster of farm buildings at the horizon.

  The Dutchman sat on the other side of the raft and took up the other paddle and pushed it against the water and paddled so hard that the nose of the raft started to turn to the side and he had to keep correcting it.

  “Keep that fucking arm up” he called over his shoulder.

  “Oh shut up man” the American muttered. He had blood in his teeth.

  A few minutes later they reached the flooded farmhouse at such speed that the front of the metal raft crashed through the wooden slats of the wall. They pushed themselves free and navigated the raft around the side of the building to the window and the Dutchman stood and hoisted the American to his feet and the American roared in pain and pushed the Dutchman back.

  “I ain’t no cripple” he seethed and heaved himself up through the open window, dripping blood down the side of the building.

  The Dutchman followed and the kid tied off the raft and clambered up behind them.

  The inside of the building was far from clean but it was at the very least dry. The American slumped down on the wooden floor and the kid held his arm up above his head. The Dutchman looked around frantically for tools but there was little there and he disappeared down the wooden stairs into the open barn below and emerged a few moments later with an old workman’s jacket. He pulled the knife they had found the previous day from his boot and tossed it to the ground next to the bloodsoaked American.

  He shouted to the kid as he ran back over to them.

  “Find me some clean water and some soap”

  The kid jumped up and ran across the wooden floor and out of the door. The hallway led into the living area where a small family had once lived and it was dusty and an old painting hung on the wall at the end.