Whether the thing would actually work no one knew. Neither could anyone say whether the ketch would perform as predicted. It might easily overturn or sink. The watertight glands and hatchways were to be sealed with washers and pressure-joints of fat-soaked goatskin, which might or might not be adequate in practice. They had worked in fresh water, during prolonged tests at the bottom of one of the wells, but when Thaine had asked to try them in the more realistic conditions of the sea, the Father had refused. Thaine had suggested using the cover of one fishing party to set the test-rigs and another to retrieve them, but still the Father had refused. No sea trials of any description were to be undertaken. They were too risky: if the satellite picked up anything remotely suspicious the whole project would be threatened.
It was dangerous enough that each component of the ketch had to be carried down to Star Cove. The larger and more obviously suspicious assemblies would be taken down there during fog, during the day; at night, moving figures on the cliffs might show up on the infrared. Smaller pieces would be taken down at random times and at long intervals, under cover of thick cloud and at dawn or dusk, in a strict order worked out jointly by Appleton and Thaine. Some components were already there, and the building-moulds in the cave had been in position since early November.
The final assembly process had been minutely planned. Thaine would be virtually living in the cave during the fortnight before the launch.
“Mr Thaine,” Routledge said.
Thaine approached.
“This hatch doubler. Part number 34.5.”
“What about it?”
“It’s down as five mil ply on the numerical list and as larch on the cutting-list.”
“How many off?”
“Two.”
“Assembly 34. That’d be the for’ard bulkhead.”
“Yes. The plan says ply.”
“That’s right. Change the cutting-list, please, Mr Routledge. It’s just a clerical error. No sweat.”
Ojukwu, taking long, curling shavings from a plank of larch on the other side of the workshop, briefly interrupted himself and glanced this way, showing the whites of his eyes, before returning to his jack-plane.
When, a little later, Thaine went to the bungalow, Ojukwu came and looked over Routledge’s shoulder. He pulled one of the plans from the heap. It depicted the electrical system.
Routledge looked round. Since receiving his note, Ojukwu’s manner had become even more withdrawn, not just towards him, but towards everybody. He did not know whom to suspect: but it seemed that the affair with Carter had stopped. Carter had moved out of Ojukwu’s and into a single occupancy house on the far side of the precinct.
“Pretty picture,” Ojukwu said. “Think we’ll ever get it together?”
“You’d know that better than me.”
“Any detectors on board?”
“There’s no point. If we’re caught, we’re caught.”
“What d’you mean, ‘we’?” Betteridge said. “You ain’t got priority, have you, Mr Routledge?”
“No, I haven’t got priority. But I might be going. Any of us might.”
“Pigs might fly,” Ojukwu said, moving away.
Routledge made no comment.
So far, a hundred and thirty-nine men had put their names forward for the lottery. The probability that any one man would win a place was about 0.058. Fewer than six chances in a hundred – of what? Going back to England?
Not England. Mexico, Brazil, Peru, perhaps: from Shannon Airport an escaper could, with forged papers, make his way across the Atlantic.
Routledge had assumed that the ketch would head for Devon or Cornwall. That was the obvious place to go: but in this, as in many of his assumptions about Franks and the Village, he had been wrong. Instead of embarking on the straightforward forty-kilometre crossing to the British coast, the ketch would make a voyage over eight times as long, across St George’s Channel to the Tuskar Rock at the south-eastern corner of Ireland. It would follow the coast of Counties Wexford, Waterford, and Cork, keeping out of sight of land until, after dusk, the lighthouse on the Old Head of Kinsale signalled the approach to Courtmacsherry Bay. Once in Ireland, Franks would give each man money and the opportunity to choose his own destination.
Not England; Routledge would never go back there, much as he wanted to see Christopher again. Maybe later, when he was older, Routledge would be able to get some word through, send him a ticket.
It was fantasy, all fantasy, a way of passing the time. In the first place he would never win a berth on the ketch. In the second place, even if it could be launched, the ketch would never survive in mid ocean. It would hit a rock, spring a leak, be run down by a tanker. Or Godwin had been deluding himself and everybody else with his estimation of the Magic Circle. In his mind Routledge saw the ketch caught in the searchlights of the helicopter, heard the words “Turn back!” blared through the tannoy. Soon another helicopter would arrive, and a hydrofoil with even brighter searchlights. Probably the ketch would be sunk there and then.
On the other hand, Routledge told himself, why shouldn’t it all work as planned? Franks could scarcely have found anyone better than Randal Thaine to build him a boat. Routledge thought of the astonishment he had felt when first he had loosed off a bolt from Martinson’s crossbow. Compared with some of the other gadgets Thaine had made, the crossbows were nothing. Routledge thought of the sawbench, the windmill, all the machinery in the metalwork shop. And Godwin: he wasn’t exactly a cretin, either. From bits of junk he had actually made a functioning sonar.
Yes. It might all work. It really might.
And then again it might not. And even if it did, Routledge wouldn’t win a place, so what did it matter anyway?
In his heart of hearts he knew he would nevermore set eyes on his family, his son, his mother, his sisters, even his wife, his soon-to-be ex-wife.
Bleakly he brushed them all aside and gave his full attention to his work. “Assembly 78, cockpit trim,” he breathed. “Angled beam, part number 78.1. Four off.” He scanned the working cutting-list. “Arbor-vitae. Arbor-vitae. There it is.”
“Talking to yourself again, Mr Routledge?” Betteridge said lightly.
“It beats talking to you lot,” Routledge said, equally lightly, forcing himself to smile.
He caught Ojukwu’s eye.
Ojukwu was not smiling back.
3
Appleton he knew. The other one, the one carrying the oil drum, he didn’t think he did. They were making their way out to the end of Azion Point, at the tip of the Village peninsula, overlooking the Mare and Foal, fifteen hundred metres from Obie’s vantage place on the brow of Pulpit Head.
The wind, coming in freezing buffets from the south-west, straight at him, made it impossible to hold or even get a steady image. His eyes were streaming; he was so cold that he could no longer keep still. If only he had some proper leather gloves, with fingers, not these old holey socks he was using as mittens. They both had leather gloves, those two Village bastards, and warm coats, and scarves, and, he was sure, long woolly underwear too.
The weather was showing no sign of improving. The snow dusting the bracken had been there since New Year’s Eve, and now it was the middle of January. Sert never usually got this cold. Palm trees had once grown in the hotel grounds.
Obie hated the winter. He hated everything about it, the darkness, the cold, the lack of food. In Peto’s time it had been bad enough, but now Obie lacked even the smallest privilege and had to take his chances along with the rest. He had not eaten anything substantial since the day before yesterday, when he and Martinson had shared a pot of rabbit stew.
Life would get better in the spring. Not just because the seabirds came back then, but because Martinson was going to scrag Nackett, who, unfortunately for him, was too stupid to have twigged Martinson as a threat. He should have killed Martinson last summer when he had been laid up with his broken leg. The leg was better now. Martinson was almost as strong as ever.
; He had not told Obie all his plans, that much Obie knew. They involved Wayne Pope, and possibly one or two others in the brain gang. Martinson had also been working, slowly and insidiously, on Nackett’s people. He had already got to Bubbles; maybe to Craddock as well.
So far, Obie’s part in the master plan had consisted mainly of spending long hours out here on the cliffs with the binoculars, observing the comings and goings of the villagers. Without a wristwatch, without a pencil or paper, it had been hard at first to establish any pattern, but in the past two weeks one had begun to emerge.
The border patrols, in which Martinson was greatly interested, now operated in daylight as well as after dark. Each patrol group comprised six men, divided into two parties which each covered half of the border, the centre point being marked by a red rock. In addition, the two gates were manned by three men apiece, giving a total of twelve guards on duty at any one time. Shifts lasted eight hours. A minimum of four crossbows was deployed continuously, one with every group of three men.
Obie had amassed a lot of other information about the Village, usually watching either from here on Pulpit Head or from the cliffs at Vanston Cove, on the other side of the Village peninsula. On a few occasions he had gone over the border, but mostly he had left that to Martinson. He knew many of the villagers by name, as many more by sight only. He was figuring out who did what, who worked in the fields and who worked in the compound.
Like everyone outside, Obie envied and resented the men in the Village, and not just because they had appropriated the helicopter. They were warm, well fed, secure. For them the nightmare was not so bad.
In clear weather, from the eastern coast, you could see the mainland as plain as you like. With the binocs you could even see houses and sometimes the flash of sun on a windscreen.
Obie had never received a letter here. Not one. His girlfriend had probably shacked up with someone else long ago, probably had a kid, two kids, three. He didn’t care about her. He only cared about his mum. He would never know when she died. Still less would he be able to go to her funeral or put flowers on her stone. She might already be dead.
“That’s enough,” he breathed. “No more of that.”
If he went on with it the emptiness and despair would get too bad to handle. He would end up jumping off the cliff. A number of blokes had done that. Especially if they weren’t already gay and couldn’t stomach the prospect of turning queer. Especially when they learned what the rest of the alternative to the Village was like.
He couldn’t blame them, had considered it himself. The first time he had submitted to Peto he had felt his flesh crawl. Anything he could do, anything, to help Martinson get that Franks bastard, would be for Obie the sweetest imaginable labour of love.
Appleton and the other one had reached the end of the Point. They stopped walking. Obie altered the focus by a fraction and blinked, trying to sharpen his eyesight. He saw the other one setting the oil drum down. Appleton glanced up, almost guiltily, at the sky, and quickly pulled something from inside his coat – a stick, was it?
Obie had to look away and wipe his eyes. When he looked back, Appleton was holding or steadying the top of the oil drum. The other man was kneeling on the ground, his head cocked. He seemed to be using the top of the drum like a gunsight, squinting south-eastwards out to sea. Obie got a better view of his face. With a beard it was difficult to be sure, but the general build seemed familiar. A moment later the man stood up and hurriedly took something from his pocket. One hand drew away from the other with a rapid, smooth movement, and he bent over the drum. A tape measure? Was he measuring something?
What in hell’s name were they doing? First the daytime patrols. Then the activity in Star Cove. Now this. Were the three connected?
Again the wind forced Obie to put the binoculars down and wipe his eyes. Afterwards it took him a moment to find the two men once more. The other one was again carrying the oil drum. He and Appleton were walking back the way they had come. They followed the path to the chapel and then, going behind the Warrens, were lost to view.
Allowing the binoculars to range over the rest of the Village headland, Obie tried to fit this new observation into the vestigial framework of what he had already seen. Something extraordinary and suspicious was going on. The previous week, in the misty pre-dawn gloom, he had watched two villagers carrying what had appeared to be a heavy wooden door down the cliff path to Star Cove. They had disappeared under an overhang of rock. So much time had elapsed before their re-emergence that Obie had thought he had missed them coming out.
There was a cave down there, quite a big one, as Obie recalled.
Patrols in daytime as well as at night.
Peculiar measurements on the cliff.
Appleton.
Obie suddenly remembered the name of the man with the oil drum. Jenkins, that was it: the new meat that he, Jez and Martinson had found last summer in Perdew Wood. Jenkins was educated. Talked posh. Just like Appleton. Martinson would be interested in this. He had asked Obie to keep a special watch for Jenkins.
On the way back to Old Town, Obie turned what he had seen over and over in his mind. The business with the oil drum had intrigued him. Especially Appleton’s guilty, involuntary, skyward glance. And what had Jenkins been peering at, away to the south-east?
What, Obie asked himself, lay to the south-east of Azion Point? Apart from salt water, nothing but the lightship!
The lightship. They were planning something nasty for the lightship!
Like hijacking the helicopter, this was a recurring fantasy among everyone on the island. Never mind the radar: just get a bunch of hard geezers together, swim out to one of the lightships, storm it, hold the crew hostage. Make them weigh anchor and sail to the mainland, to France, anywhere.
There were three good reasons why it had never been attempted. First, each ship was several kilometres offshore, and to get there you had to negotiate the reefs. An even better reason was the fact – made clearly known to the pioneering prisoners who had come over on the boat – that the men on the lightships, like the helicopter crews, were armed with riot gas and machine guns. Finally, no one knew for sure whether the lightships had engines. They might have been merely towed into place. Certainly they never went anywhere, never altered their positions. Just before the onset of really heavy weather the helicopter usually came to evacuate the crews.
Even so, planning an attack on a lightship had been a favourite topic of conversation in Peto’s council. No one outside the Village had the balls to try it. But Franks. Franks was another matter!
That explained Star Cove. They weren’t going to swim. They were building a boat, perhaps a raft. That’s how they’d do it. A raft. And they were building it under cover because of the Eye.
In his excitement, Obie nearly failed to think this through; he remembered himself just in time.
Martinson returned at noon. He had nothing of interest to report. “You?”
“Not much,” Obie said. “I seen that Jenkins. The one what ligged your crossbow.”
“Where was he?” Martinson said, with sudden relish.
“In the fields.”
“Doing what?”
“Diggin’ parsnips, far as I could make out. You’re goin’ to get him back, ain’t you, Jim?”
“No one pulls holes in my roof. No one steals my stuff. No one makes me look a herbert in front of the whole town. Specially no jumped-up little pratt-faced stonk-fodder faggot like that.”
“That’s just what I thought.” Obie sat down on Martinson’s sofa and with a hopeful eye scanned the vacant larder shelves. “Got any scoff?”
∗ ∗ ∗
“Eight two seven,” Routledge said, stretching Thaine’s steel tape between the two outer pins of the protractor.
“Eight two seven,” Appleton said, writing the number down.
They, together with a guard party consisting of Myers, Bourne, and Wilson, had come to the end of Beacon Point to take the second fix on the southern
lightship. For this they were using a protractor of Routledge’s design, made of two laths of plywood, hinged at one end like a pair of dividers. A wire nail ran vertically through the hinge. Another wire nail, precisely fifty centimetres from the inner or hinge nail, had been driven through the end of each limb. The inner and left-hand outer nail had been lined up with the lightship, the inner and right-hand outer nail with the tip of Azion Point, some four kilometres west. A fortnight ago Routledge and Appleton had taken a similar reading from Azion Point, with Beacon Point as the reference, giving a value of 291 millimetres.
The map of Sert in the bungalow did not show the position of the lightships. However, it did have a scale. Provided with these two readings, Routledge would be able to pinpoint the position of the southern lightship. The fixes on the northern lightship had been taken earlier: its position would be determined in the same way, hence establishing the distance between the two lightships.
Godwin had estimated the Magic Circle as effective to a range of no more than five kilometres from the island coast. Allowing as much margin for error as possible, this meant the ketch could not be allowed to surface any nearer than seven kilometres out.
Once round the Village headland, the course of the ketch would be due west. The course would be plotted by compass: but without a log the helmsman would have no way of measuring the distance covered. What was needed was a rangefinder, quick and foolproof in use and guaranteed accurate.
The Penal Colony Page 24