‘Sean,’ Jane said. ‘We’ve got to move now.’
‘Right, let’s go. Rose, grab a coat. We’ll take you and Bernard down towards Goose Green. You’ll be safer there.’
Jane began to protest, but I pointed to the body. ‘We can’t leave them here.’
‘I’m going nowhere.’ Bernard stood framed in the doorway.
‘Come on, Bernard, don’t be stupid. If you’re here when that Argentinian patrol comes back and finds two dead bodies they’ll kill you as well.’
‘If they come back,’ he said, ‘they’ll not catch me unawares a second time.’
‘These are trained soldiers, you can’t fight them off with a twelve-bore and a pitchfork. Think of your wife, if not yourself.’
‘Rose will go with you. I’m staying on my farm. Everything I’ve worked and sweated for is here. I’m not leaving it for those Argie bastards to steal or destroy.’
‘They’ll kill you if you stay here, you stubborn fuckwit.’
He folded his powerful arms across his chest. ‘I’m not leaving.’
‘Then you’re a fool.’
Rose had been looking from Bernard to me. ‘I – I can’t leave him here. I’ll stay with him.’
‘No.’ Bernard’s voice was as gruff as ever, but there was a tenderness in the look he gave her. He reached out to touch her hand. ‘Like he said’ – he jerked his head at me – ‘you’ll be safer with them.’
Still she hesitated, searching his face.
‘Sean, we’ve got to move,’ Jane said.
There was a moment’s silence, each of us frozen, staring at the others. Then Bernard spoke, his voice hard-edged, his face expressionless. ‘Go on, Rose, go now.’
She still did not move and he erupted in anger. ‘Go on. Get out. It’s what you want, isn’t it? Fuck off. I don’t want you here.’
She started to speak, then her eyes filled with tears and she turned and stumbled after Jane. As I made to follow them, Bernard’s hand clamped around my arm. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. Make sure you look after her.’
He shoved me outside. I glanced back and saw his look of utter desolation, then he slammed and bolted the door.
Rose still hesitated, but she did not resist as I took her arm and led her away. Jane started towards the Land Rover, but I caught her arm. ‘No, they’ll be watching the track.’
‘Which way then?’ she said. ‘The hills?’
‘No. We’ll cut down towards the coast.’ I checked my watch. ‘We’ve got two hours of darkness left, let’s make the most of it.’
I took Rose’s arm. ‘Stick by my side and do everything I do. Move when I move, stop when I stop, and don’t speak. If you want to attract my attention, squeeze my arm.’
After another glance back at the farmhouse, she gave an abrupt nod.
Chapter Twelve
We crossed the yard and moved out through the paddock. I covered the first few hundred yards fast, more worried about putting distance between ourselves and the farm than about concealment.
The farm was barely visible in the darkness behind us as we slowed our pace, moving on with more caution. Jane led the way and I covered her, working our way down the hillside in fifty-yard stages, keeping roughly parallel to the track down towards Goose Green.
We reached the neck of the isthmus half an hour before dawn and paused in the shelter of three scrubby wind-blasted pine trees, some farmer’s doomed attempt to raise a windbreak.
I rubbed my eyes wearily. ‘Do you have friends in Goose Green?’
Rose gave me a wary look. ‘There are people we know.’
‘Okay. Now we don’t know if there are more Argentinian forces there, so wait here until it’s full daylight, then walk across the fields to the settlement. Don’t go on the road in case it’s mined. Walk in the open and keep your hands on your head. That way, if there are enemy troops there, you won’t be shot.’
She heard me out in silence, but then shook her head. ‘I can’t stay here, Sean.’ Her voice was low but firm.
‘Well, you can’t come with us,’ Jane said. I knew she was speaking to me as much as to Rose. ‘We’re going to try and get back to base through enemy lines. We’re trained for this, you’re not. If we take you with us, you’ll get yourself killed and us with you.’
Rose’s voice was flat and unemotional; her eyes never left my face. ‘I can’t stay here. If you take me with you I can more than pull my weight. I’ve lived on this land all my life. I know where the ground is firm and where it’s boggy. I know where the streams and rivers run. I know where to walk and where to hide. I’ve been up on those hills in blizzards and white-outs more times than I can count, finding sheep and dragging them off the moor.’
Jane shot me another warning look, then pulled me a couple of yards away from Rose and began speaking in a fierce whisper. ‘This is madness, Sean. We’ve a job to do. We have to reach base somehow and get back into the air. Rose can only put us at risk.’ She read my expression and shook her head impatiently. ‘Even if we get her back to Mount Pleasant, you can’t just bring a civilian into a war zone.’
‘The whole of the Falklands is a war zone, Jane. There are two dead Argentinian soldiers in her farmhouse to prove it. Can you imagine what would happen if the rest of that patrol found her? They won’t even know we’ve been there. All they’ll know is that Rose has escaped and two of their mates are dead. They won’t be in any mood to ask questions if they find her again.’ I paused and gave her a gentle smile. ‘It’ll be all right, Jane. Trust me. When have I ever let you down?’
She stared back at me, unsmiling. ‘Just now.’
We both held the look for a moment, then I turned back to Rose. ‘Okay, let’s go.’ I glanced up at the sky to the east. ‘We need a lying-up place for the day, and we need to find it in the next hour at most.’
‘Let me think for a minute,’ Rose said.
I waited, avoiding Jane’s eye, until Rose nodded. ‘Okay, this way.’
‘I’ll lead,’ I said. ‘You stay on my heels and direct me. Jane will cover us.’
We moved away from the isthmus, heading almost due east into the slowly lightening sky. We walked through a flat, water-filled landscape, the sodden peat quaking gently beneath our feet. It was impossible to avoid leaving footprints.
Countless streams and creeks lay across our path and there was no option but to ford them. I had to grind my teeth to stop from crying out at the shock of the cold water as I plunged into a creek up to my waist. I put my arm around Rose to help her up the bank and felt her slight frame shivering with cold.
The light was growing stronger. We passed a few hundred yards from one isolated settlement and the dogs set up a chorus of barking as the wind carried the scent to them. I waved Jane forward alongside us. ‘We haven’t time to box around the place, let’s just keep moving. All right?’
She glanced at Rose, then back at me. ‘Why ask me? You’re the one making all the big decisions.’
‘Come on, Jane. We’re in this together.’
She nodded. ‘All three of us.’
As we began to move forward again, I saw movement ahead and slightly to our left, closer to the settlement. As I looked at it again, I recognised the building. I signalled to the others and crouched down, trying to make sense of the dark hooded shapes.
Rose followed my gaze. ‘It’s all right. They’re birds of prey. We call them turkey buzzards. There must be some carrion there.’
As we drew level I glanced across at them. Separate groups of birds with black bodies and blood-red heads were tearing at two huddled shapes on the ground. There was a feeling of dread in my stomach.
Before I could stop her, Rose was moving towards them. The buzzards hopped a few yards to one side, and formed a hungry half-circle, impatient to return to their feast.
‘Oh no.’ Rose reeled away. The two bodies were riddled with bullet holes. One, a man, lay face down, a shotgun still held in his hands. The other, a grey-haired woman, lay on her ba
ck. I stepped closer. The buzzards had pecked out her eyes, but I still recognised the face. It was Agnes Moore.
I held Rose for a moment, then released her. ‘We can’t do anything for them now. We must go on. It’s almost light.’
She wiped the tears from her eyes, then turned away. We crossed the track and moved over a sloping plain between two broad tarns. The water was as black as coal. The wind stirring its surface carried the sharp, salt tang of the sea.
I glanced again at the sky. ‘How much further?’
Rose pointed ahead, towards a low hill rising from the surface of the plain. ‘Just beyond that.’
When we rounded the shoulder of the hill, I saw that it sloped down to the edge of another large tarn. Its narrow, steeply sloping shingle beach was flanked by dunes covered in tussac grass. At intervals along the shore were a handful of conical structures, like small tepees. Boulders and shingle had been roughly piled in a circle, then capped with driftwood and clumps of tussac grass.
‘They’re hides,’ Rose said. ‘We use them for duck shooting.’
As she made to move forward, I grabbed her arm and pulled her to the ground. Jane dropped alongside us. ‘What’s up?’
I pointed across the tarn. It was separated from the open water of Choiseul Sound by another, broader ridge of shingle. Rising from it, partly concealed by the ridge, was a black, rounded shape.
‘What is it?’ Jane said. ‘A sub? A Zodiac?’
Rose eased herself up on to her elbows, her shoulder pressing into me as she leaned across to peer out from behind a clump of grass. ‘It’s a fin whale. It must have beached itself.’
I looked again. ‘Shit. I’m sorry. I should have recognised it. I saw it the other day.’
We crept out of our cover and moved down to the edge of the tarn. We walked along the shingle, leaving no track, then cut up to the entrance of the largest hide, in the middle of the beach. We crawled into it. There was barely room for the three of us to huddle inside. Through the chinks in the rough stonework I could look out over the landscape all around us, though the low hill partly obscured the view to the north.
I could feel Rose’s shoulder shaking and heard her teeth chattering. ‘You have to take your clothes off and wring as much water out of them as you can. Then put them back on. Jane and I will get on either side of you and we’ll share our body warmth. We can’t move again until nightfall.’
Rose gave me a doubtful look, but she stripped off her clothes and began wringing them out. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at her body. She was painfully thin, the line of her ribs showing as she stretched to pull her jersey over her head, and her breasts were as small as a girl’s. I took her clothes from her and squeezed a little more water from them, but they were still clammy and cold when she struggled back into them.
I slipped the rucksack off my shoulders and pulled out the silver foil blanket. I draped it over her and shared out some water and emergency rations: dried fruit, biscuits and chocolate. Then we huddled down together under the blanket.
‘I’ll take the first watch. You two try and get some sleep.’
Rose huddled into my armpit and slowly her shivers subsided. I heard her breathing grow slower and more even and looked down at her, studying her face. The dark semicircles were even more deeply etched beneath her eyes. She stirred and looked up at me, so close that I could see my face reflected in her dark pupils. I flushed and looked away, and after a moment she closed her eyes again and nestled down even closer to me.
Jane was slumped across her other shoulder, already snoring. I shook my head in disbelief. She could sleep on a clothes line in the middle of an air raid.
The grey dawn light strengthened and the shoreline came alive with birds. I could see the dark curve of the stranded whale’s back. Skuas and gulls fought each other for purchase on its hide, as they ripped and tore at it with their slashing beaks.
A flock of upland geese circled overhead and landed in a clatter of wings, honking mournfully to one another. An endless procession of penguins shuffled down the dunes and across the shingle, splashing out through the water of the tarn towards the Sound. They passed close enough to the hide for me to wrinkle my nose at their fishy stench.
My smile froze as I heard the sound of voices. It was low and indistinct, but seemed to be coming from just beyond the shingle bank on the far side of the tarn.
I eased my pistol out of my holster and fumbled for the spare clip, cursing myself for not having reloaded before. I reached over and was about to shake Rose and Jane awake when the murmuring voices broke off in a bark, like a smoker’s cough. A pair of sea lions waddled into view and belly flopped into the tarn.
I could feel tiredness dragging at me, but forced myself to stay alert. The time crawled by and I felt the cold sinking deep into my bones. Wind penetrated every gap in the walls of the hide and the air was as damp as fog. A sudden hailstorm dusted the ground with white, then was swept away on the wind. A patch of sunshine followed, turning the water to jade, then that too was gone as rain and sleet marched in from the west, stippling the water and painting it grey once more.
Careful not to disturb Rose, I craned my neck to peer out through a chink in the wall, just before the weather closed in around us. At first I saw nothing but a few grazing sheep, but then another movement caught my eye. I glimpsed a group of four figures moving slowly down the hillside. They were too far away to identify, but there was no mistaking the thin black silhouettes of the guns they carried at the ready.
As the squall passed, I saw them again. The lead scout in the patrol advanced a few yards, paused and dropped to one knee to study the ground, then advanced again. The other three followed him, their heads swivelling from side to side as they scanned the ground around them.
I felt sick. They were following the exact route that we had taken and there was no doubt in my mind that they were tracking the footprints we had left in the wet mud and peat.
A fresh squall blanked out the sight of them again. I leaned over to shake Jane by the shoulder. A strand of Rose’s hair brushed against my forehead and her breath was warm on my cheek.
Jane awoke silently, instantly alert. ‘What is it?’ she whispered, then read the danger in my expression. ‘Trouble?’
I nodded. ‘A patrol.’
Rose had woken too. Her eyes searched my face, then she pulled herself up and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring out across the tarn.
I sat in silence, thinking furiously. If the patrol had tracked us this far, they would certainly be able to follow our tracks the rest of the way to the tarn. We couldn’t stay where we were. If we did, we would inevitably be found. We had left no sign on the shingle, but the hides dotted along the shore were the only hiding places.
Our pistols would be as much use as popguns against four men carrying Armalites. After killing their two comrades, we could expect no mercy.
I raked the shoreline. Apart from the hides there was no cover, no shelter, not even a boulder to hide us. There was nothing, except…
I turned and peered through the chink in the back of the hide. The four figures were closer now, moving like ghosts as mist and rain drifted around them. I knew we had just one hope. If the Argentinians were following our tracks, they would shortly pass behind the low hill that had screened the hides from our sight as Rose had led us here at dawn.
If we moved, then, keeping the hill between us, we would have perhaps five minutes when we were out of their sight. It might just be long enough. It would have to be.
Never taking my eye from the crack in the wall of the hide, I told Jane and Rose my plan.
‘You’re crazy,’ Jane said.
‘Then tell me a better one.’
She fell silent.
‘Rose?’
Her voice was firm. ‘Better to try that than be caught by those bastards again.’
‘What about the birds?’ Jane said. ‘There are hundreds of them. They’ll take off and give us away.’
We jumped as hail rattled on the roof like gunfire and a squall shrieked through, blotting the soldiers from sight. It had passed within a minute, but the patrol had already disappeared from view behind the hillock.
‘Let’s go. Fast.’
We spilled from the hide and, crouching low to the ground, we ran down the shingle bank and began splashing through the freezing water of the tarn. We could not go round it; that would take too long and whichever side we went, it would bring us back into the soldiers’ line of sight.
The cold took my breath away. My feet slipped and slid on the pebbles and though the water was only thigh-deep, it dragged at my aching muscles like quicksand.
I could feel the seconds slipping by. The hairs on my neck were rising, anticipating the shouted challenge, the crack of a rifle and the savage impact of a round.
I glanced to left and right. Rose and Jane were no more than a yard behind me. I could hear Rose’s laboured breathing and saw her mouth hanging open as she forced herself through the water, but Jane betrayed no sign of the effort she was making. Her face was set and determined, her eyes fixed on the far shore of the tarn.
My own heart was pounding and my breathing was growing ragged by the time I at last felt the bottom sloping upwards. The water level dropped to my knees, then my calves, then I was splashing through the last few feet of shallows, crossing a narrow band of peat and sprinting over the shingle bank separating the tarn from the open water of the Sound.
All the way across I had been fighting the overwhelming urge to look behind me. Now as we crested the bank and began to race down the shingle towards the dead whale, I swung round, dropped to the ground and peered back. The squalls of rain and hail had passed and the watery sun was struggling to find a way through the racing clouds. For a moment I saw nothing moving in that whole desolate sweep of landscape. Then I caught a glimpse of sunlight on steel.
Exclusion Zone Page 23