by Chris Ryan
When he came to the tank, he appeared not even to notice it. Instead he leaned against the green metal of the huge armoured vehicle, facing back towards the woods, his eyes darting around as he continued to look at all the concrete huts. Ben hid behind a huge tree trunk and took his binoculars out of his rucksack, then surreptitiously looked through them to watch Joseph. 'He seems a bit calmer now,' he told Annie, observing that the old man seemed to be breathing deeply in a way that suggested he was trying to take control of himself. He put the binoculars down. 'I wonder what that tank's doing there in the middle of nowhere.'
Annie took the binoculars and studied the vehicle. 'Chieftain Mark Ten,' she said. 'Combat weight fifty-five tons, crew four, maximum speed forty-eight kilometres an hour. Armed with a hundred-and-twenty-millimetre tank gun with laser range finder, rate of fire eight rounds per minute. These Chieftains were in use until the early nineties when they were replaced by the Challenger.' She sounded, Ben thought, like a walking encyclopaedia.
'Blimey, Annie,' he said. 'Is there anything about this sort of stuff that you don't know?'
Annie gave him a winsome little smile. 'Not really,' she replied, fluttering her eyelashes girlishly at him.
Ben smiled. 'So, this Chieftain Mark ten. What exactly is it doing in the middle of a bunch of falling-down huts?'
'Ah,' Annie said, clearly enjoying showing off her knowledge, 'I thought you might ask that. It's a target, I should think.'
'A target? What do you mean?'
Annie put the binoculars back up to her eyes and looked through them towards Joseph and the tank as she spoke. 'I told you, this place is designed as target practice for aircraft. They take machinery like that Chieftain that's gone out of service, decommission them, strip them down and let people take pot shots at them.'
'Why go to all that trouble?' Ben asked. 'I mean, if it's not a real tank, it might as well be anything, mightn't it?'
Annie lowered the binoculars. 'Not really,' she said. 'I reckon that's a moving target.'
Ben was puzzled. 'I thought you said it was decommissioned.'
'I did. What they do is, they install a guidance mechanism that allows the tank to be moved remotely. Then, when there's a training exercise, they can operate the tank from a point of safety.'
'A remote control tank?'
'Something like that.'
'Cool.' Ben grinned.
Annie rolled her eyes. 'It's a serious—' she started to say.
But she was interrupted.
In the background, seemingly from nowhere, they heard a noise. It was a low drone, quiet at first but rapidly becoming louder. Ben and Annie looked at each other; then they looked at Joseph, all alone by the tank, oblivious to the danger that was fast approaching.
'Is that what I think it is?' Ben asked.
Annie, her face suddenly very serious, nodded.
'We have to get him away from there!' Ben said, louder now to make himself heard over the noise. 'If anyone sees him—'
But before Annie could reply, a fighter jet zoomed overhead. It seemed to be flying incredibly low — not much higher than the trees in which they were hiding — and the roar of the engines was like a thunderclap, resounding through the sky like some booming, airborne drum. It seemed to make the ground shake and sent a shock of sound waves through Ben and Annie, who both instinctively threw their hands over their ears, Annie dropping the binoculars as she did so.
As quickly as the plane had arrived, it was gone; but the noise was still there, the approaching drone that told them there would be more where that had come from.
His hands still over his ears, Ben looked at Joseph. The old man's reaction had been quite different from theirs. He stood defiantly among the huts, shaking his fist up to the sky and shouting something that Ben could not hear because of the approaching noise.
With a sense of sudden panic, Ben remembered the sign they had seen at the boundary fence:
DANGER. LOW-FLYING AIRCRAFT. LIVE AMMUNITION TRAINING. KEEP OUT.
He looked at Annie. 'It's just a fly-over, right? These things aren't going to have any live ammo?' he shouted.
The look Annie returned did not fill him with confidence, but he didn't have time to question her further, because at that moment another plane thundered over. It was slightly higher this time, and further to Ben's right.
Neither of them saw the bomb being dropped — it was too small and too fast for that — but they certainly saw the explosion. One of the concrete huts on the outskirts of the little village exploded noisily into a cloud of dust and debris. Joseph's head turned swiftly to see the devastation, and as though it had injected a sudden clarity into his mind, he started to run in the opposite direction.
He didn't get far, however. A third aircraft sped over to Ben's left, dropping another bomb. This one failed to hit a target, instead blowing a massive crater in the earth, the tremors of which threw the old man heavily to the ground.
'We've got to help him!' Ben shouted, but Annie was already running in Joseph's direction, oblivious to the danger overhead. Ben followed.
And as soon as they were out from under the safety of the trees, the sky seemed to be full of rocketing aircraft, and the air thick with weaponry. Four bombs exploded before Ben and Annie managed to reach Joseph; as each one hit the ground, the earth seemed to shake and it was all they could do to keep their balance. 'Call this a training exercise!' Ben yelled at Annie.
'Don't try and tell me I didn't warn you, Ben,' Annie screamed back. 'These guys don't practise bombing people with basketballs, you know.'
Joseph was still on the ground when they reached him, frozen in wide-eyed terror at the noise and the danger around him.
'Joseph!' Ben shouted. 'We've got to get out of here. Do you understand?'
Joseph stared back at him, not even a shred of recognition in his face.
'Joseph!'
Ben repeated. 'We're in danger! Get to your feet!'
But all the old man could do was stare, ashen-faced and terrified, from Ben to the planes.
Ben turned to Annie. 'Come on,' he instructed. 'We've got to get him to his feet. Help me.'
Annie nodded purposefully, then stepped to one side of the old man and grabbed him under his arm. Ben took the other. Before they could heave him up, however, a nearby hut exploded. They all hit the ground and started choking as they breathed in the sudden cloud of dust that billowed around them. There was a brief moment of respite, of relative quiet, but it was soon replaced by the ominous crescendo of another fighter jet. Ben and Annie knew they couldn't stick around to let their eyes and their lungs clear. They had to get back to the safety of the trees, so they heaved Joseph to his feet and started urging him away. The area was fast resembling a war zone…
Ben's ears were numb now from the constant boom of the planes' engines overhead, his throat burning from the dust. There seemed to be no let-up as the target practice continued. The trees were about thirty metres away, on the other side of the dirt track. Stumbling, they edged closer.
Twenty-five metres.
Twenty metres.
Annie started to cough, the dust in her lungs clearly getting to her. She faltered and stumbled.
'We're nearly there!' Ben shouted. 'We can't stop now. One of those bombs could get us at any time.'
Annie's face screwed up into a grimace of pure concentration. She nodded forcefully, then carried on heaving Joseph towards the woods.
They would have made it if he hadn't started to struggle.
It wasn't clear to Ben what had got the old man so agitated, but something had. As the aircraft continued to fly over, his arms started to flail and, taken by surprise by his sudden show of strength, Ben and Annie lost their grip on him. Joseph ran, but not towards the woods. Instead he seemed to be heading towards one of the huts, not far from the road. It seemed older than most, more weathered and stained but still whole.
'Joseph!' Ben screamed, holding his arms over his head as if that would be any protection f
rom the flying chunks of debris. 'Not that way! We have to get to the trees! To the trees, Joseph!'
But if Joseph heard, he wasn't listening.
'He's going to get us all killed,' Annie shouted.
Ben knew she could be right. He looked sharply towards the woods — they were close enough for him and Annie to get there safely and quickly. Maybe they should just make a run for it: if Joseph wanted to stand in the middle of a live ammo exercise, that was his lookout. But then he looked back towards the old man. He was staring at the hut, oblivious to the chaos around him. He wasn't in any kind of position to help himself. Ben took a deep breath. 'You go,' he told his cousin. 'Get to the woods. I'm going after Joseph.'
Annie stood for a moment, her gaze alternating between the woods, Ben and the old man. 'You can't manage him by yourself,' she said. 'I'm coming with you.'
Ben saw the determination on her face and didn't even bother to argue.
'But, Ben…' Annie added breathlessly.
'What?'
'As soon as we've got him to safety, we're getting out of Spadeadam, OK?'
'Too right,' Ben agreed fervently.
Together they sprinted towards the old man.
They started running just as another plane screamed overhead, unloading its ammunition onto a rough patch of ground nearby. As the bomb fell, so did Annie. She screamed as she hit the ground. 'You all right?' Ben bellowed.
'Yeah,' she replied through gritted teeth, allowing Ben to pull her back up to her feet; but he noticed that as they continued to run towards Joseph she was limping a little.
By the time they got to the hut, Joseph was standing in front of the door. Even amid the panic, Ben could see an enigmatic smile on the old man's face as he stepped forward and opened the rickety metal door.
'We can't go inside the hut, Joseph.' Ben was so out of breath that it almost hurt to speak. 'The planes are aiming for them — it's too dangerous. You've got to come with us — it'll be safer in the trees, they're not a target.'
He stepped forward to seize the old man's arm, but Joseph brushed him off with unexpected vigour, opened the door and stepped inside.
Ben looked at Annie, who glanced over her shoulder longingly at the safety of the trees. 'We can't…' she started to say, but her voice trailed off. They both realized that if they wanted to help Joseph, they would have to get him out of that hut, at least while the training exercise was going on.
'Ready?' he asked.
Annie closed her eyes. 'This was meant to be a quiet weekend bird-watching,' she muttered to herself before looking directly at her cousin. 'Ready,' she responded.
They stepped inside.
It was dark in the hut, but the open door gave them enough light to be able to see inside. It gave the impression of being a disused office, with a rickety old tin table against one wall, and a rusting filing cabinet against the other. As another plane flew overhead, Ben found himself wondering how long it had been since anyone had used this place. Many years, he decided. 'Come on, Joseph,' he heard Annie saying urgently. 'We've got to get out of here.'
Joseph was standing in the middle of the room, looking around him with a sense of wonder, as though he were taking in the glories of some royal palace. 'This is it,' he whispered to himself. 'This is it.'
Quickly, he stepped towards the filing cabinet, and before Ben or Annie could say or do anything, he pushed it sharply. The empty cabinet clattered noisily onto one side.
The ringing metal seemed to echo against the concrete walls of the hut. And as the sound settled down, Ben found himself aware of something else.
It was silent outside.
He heard Annie breathe out heavily with relief. 'Thank heavens for that,' she said. 'It sounds like they've finished.'
But Ben didn't reply, because now there was something else to attract his attention — the same thing that Joseph was staring at, his face serious and any glimmer of madness in his eyes now gone. He took his cousin gently by the arm and pointed at the area of floor where the filing cabinet had been. 'Look,' he said.
Annie looked and saw what had grabbed their attention. A square piece of wood with a small hole for a handle and hinges along the opposite side.
'A trap door,' Ben whispered, and Joseph nodded his agreement.
Chapter Nine
'What is it, Joseph?'
Ben asked the question carefully, quietly. He was afraid to shatter the sudden calm that seemed to have descended upon the old man.
Joseph turned to look at him. His face was dirty, and Ben noticed a small cut on his left cheek, which bled slightly into his wiry grey stubble. 'What did you say your name was?' he demanded hoarsely.
Ben moistened his dry, dusty lips with his tongue. 'Ben,' he replied. 'Ben Tracey. And this is my cousin, Annie. You gave us a bit of a fright out there, you know.' The bombs might have stopped, but Ben still felt as though he needed to tiptoe around him.
Joseph inclined his head. 'Frights aren't always a bad thing, young man,' he whispered.
Ben's eyes narrowed. He seemed almost like a different person now, calmer, more focused, somehow less, well, crazy.
'But you're right,' he continued. 'It was dangerous and I apologize for my behaviour. Sometimes I am not the master of my actions.' His eyes flickered back towards the trap door, and he stepped tentatively towards it. 'You are the bird-watcher, yes?'
'Sort of. It's more Annie, really…' His voice trailed off.
'There used to be a great many birds here when I was a young man. And other wildlife too. I used to walk out and watch them. When I first came here there would be huge fields of roe deer. And there were butterflies too, like you never saw. Fragile and colourful.'
Ben and Annie listened to him in edgy silence. There was something fragile about him too.
'The world of nature can be cruel, but not as cruel as the world of men,' the old man said. 'And I meant what I said, about Spadeadam. This is not a place for you to be wandering around. You should leave now.'
'He's right, Ben,' Annie piped up. 'Come on, we had an agreement. Let's get out of here.'
Ben nodded. He felt suddenly exhausted after everything that had just happened, and not in the mood to argue. 'Are you going to come with us, Joseph?' he asked.
Joseph shook his head. 'They'll come for me soon enough,' he said obscurely.
'Come for you? Who'll come for you?'
Joseph's head seemed to shake of its own accord, and for a moment Ben thought he saw a hint of the old craziness in his eyes. 'It's not important. But there are things I have to do before then. Things I have to see.'
'And this is one of them, right?'
The old man stared directly at Ben. His piercing green eyes seemed an alarming contrast to the crimson of the blood on his cheek. 'Right,' he said.
And then, as if they were no longer in the room, Joseph bent down and tried to lift up the trap door. It was heavy — too heavy for the old man — and the wooden square slipped from his hands, sending an echoing bang around the concrete walls.
Ben and Annie exchanged a long look as Joseph tried again, without success.
Ben sighed. He wanted to get out of there, but he couldn't bear to see the old man struggling. 'Here,' he said. 'I'll help you.'
Joseph turned round. 'You should leave,' he repeated, but he didn't decline the offer of help as Ben stepped forward. Together they heaved the trap door up onto its edge, then stepped back.
A musty, damp smell wafted up from the cellar below. It was the smell of darkness, disuse and age. A flight of steps, chipped and dusty, descended into the gloom — Ben could not see the bottom, nor indeed more than a couple of metres down, and he had the impression that nobody had opened up this cellar for a very, very long time.
As if in a trance, Joseph took a step down.
'Wait!' Ben said, and the old man looked sharply at him. 'You can't go down there in the pitch-dark.' He pulled his rucksack from his back, rummaged around and took out his torch. 'Here,' he said, handing it to Jos
eph.
The old man nodded gratefully; then, shining the torch downwards into the darkness, he descended.
Ben watched him disappear. He seemed so confident, considering the fact that minutes ago he had appeared to be barely on the edges of sanity. What was down there? What was he so sure he was going to find? Why was he prepared to take such risks to locate this place? Half of Ben wanted to follow him, to find out what was going on; the other half just wanted to get out of there.
'Ben!' Annie's voice disturbed his thoughts. 'Ben, we can't stay here.' But then her voice changed. 'Ben — what's that noise?'
He blinked. Sure enough, the familiar drone had started up in the distance.
It was getting louder.
And louder.
'Ben!' Annie screamed. 'They're back!' And as she spoke, their ears filled with thunder, followed by the most spectacular crash they had yet heard. The walls of the hut seemed to shake — it was obvious that a bomb had just landed very near to them. And as though they had come out of nowhere, the air outside seemed suddenly to be filled yet again with the roar of jet engines.
Ben and Annie spun round to the open door in unison, just as it rattled on its hinges and debris flew into the hut. 'We can't go out there!' Annie shouted, and Ben knew she was right. But if one of those bombs hit the hut, it would be the end.
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the trap door. 'Come on!' he shouted. 'Down here!'
Hurriedly they started descending the steps.
As soon as they were below the level of the floor, Ben became aware of a chill. He shuddered. Below them he could see the torch, its beam moving around whatever was down there like a firefly, and faintly illuminating the figure of the strange old man holding it. The smell was even stronger down here, and in addition to the musty aroma of age there was something else. Something foul, as if things had been living and dying down here. What it was, Ben didn't even want to think. Under ordinary circumstances that smell would have made him turn round without a moment's thought. But this was not an ordinary situation. Planes were still flying overhead, and they could be victim to one of their devastating bombs any second. Whether they were safer down here, he couldn't say; but it surely couldn't be more dangerous.