Exclusion Zone

by Exclusion Zone (retail) (epub)

  The four soldiers had split up and were rounding each side of the hillock. The leader of one group raised his hand and motioned the other two down towards the line of hides spread across the shore. Then he and the other soldier began to move forward as well, advancing slowly, their attention fixed on the hides.

  I eased myself up a fraction and peered across the belt of shingle we had just crossed. Three scuffed tracks marked our path over the peat at the edge of the tarn, our footprints glistening in the sunlight.

  I sank down out of sight and then hurried down the other side of the pebble mound towards the shore. Rose and Jane had already reached the beached carcass of the whale. A few skuas edged warily away from them along the beach and a couple of gulls took flight at their approach, circling lazily above them. The rest of the birds barely paused in their attacks on the whale’s tough hide.

  The three of us paused in the shadow of the whale, on the seaward side. I looked up at the creature towering over us. It was fifty, perhaps sixty feet long and around ten feet high. Its hide was brownish-grey, but so dark that it had appeared black from a distance, A paler, greyish white chevron extended from behind its head down along its flanks and a bony ridge ran along its spine, culminating in the sharp blade of its dorsal fin. Long parallel grooves stretched from its chin halfway along the underside of its massive body.

  The hide was marked with scars and striations. Many were old, left by past battles or the scraping of rocks and icebergs against its flanks, but the attacks of the skuas and gulls on its bloated corpse had added fresh wounds.

  In places the hide hung in tatters like peeling wallpaper in a derelict house. Where it was ripped and torn, the grey-white blubber was exposed and thin streaks of oil trickled down the flanks, coating the pebbles on the beach.

  The sickly sweet stench of decay filled my nostrils as I stepped closer. I glanced from Jane to Rose. ‘All right?’

  Rose nodded. Jane just said, ‘Hurry.’ She moved round and back up the beach to keep watch from behind the ridge of shingle.

  I pulled out my survival knife and took a deep breath. ‘Not there,’ Rose said. ‘You’ll be trying to cut your way through the rib cage. They’re built just like us. You need to cut into the stomach.’

  I moved a few feet towards the tail. The skuas and gulls rearranged themselves around me and then returned to their feast. I took a firm grip on the knife handle, then stooped down and reached in where the whale’s distended belly met the shingle. I began to cut at the hide.

  Despite the cold, I was soon pouring with sweat. The hide was as tough and unyielding as tyre rubber. As I hacked and cut at it, oil oozed from the blubber beneath the skin, coating the blade and handle of the knife, and making it harder and harder for me to maintain my grip. Several times the knife caught in the leathery hide, twisted out of my hand and fell to the shingle. With painful slowness, I widened the cut running parallel to the ground.

  ‘Not so straight,’ Rose said. ‘Make it rougher, more natural looking.’

  I nodded, unable to spare the breath to speak. She looked at me for a moment, then slipped away out of my sight, returning a few seconds later, holding Jane’s knife. She knelt down alongside me, shoulder to shoulder, and began hacking at the hide.

  The stench was overpowering, a hideous cocktail of fish oil and rotting flesh. Every breath I took made me want to gag. Rose appeared less disturbed by it, methodically hacking at the hide, extending her end of the jagged cut along the line of the shingle.

  I knew that time was running out and worked feverishly, straining my ears for any warning sound from Jane. I shook the sweat from my eyes and slashed at the hide in a frenzy. At last we had a ragged gash just over a yard across. We laid down our knives for a moment and tugged and heaved at the flap, exposing the layer of putrefying blubber.

  As I began to hack through it, thick yellow whale oil oozed from the cut, like blood trickling from a wound. Then I heard Jane’s voice, low but insistent. ‘They’re coming round the side of the tarn. We haven’t got long.’

  We threw ourselves back into our work, ripping at the blubber with our knives and then tearing at it with our bare hands. Lumps of it spattered onto the pebbles. The layer was four inches deep and as thick and glutinous as lard. I could see dark brown whale meat appearing beneath. The stench was stronger now and even the gusting wind did little to dissipate it.

  I heard the soft clatter of pebbles as Jane slid round the side of the whale and came hurrying towards us.

  ‘Quick.’

  I grabbed the knife again and slashed viciously right and left at the whale. Shreds of meat flew past my face as I kept up the frenzied attack. I dug into the flesh with all my strength, felt it give a little, resist, then there was a rending sound like ripping cloth and my blade plunged hilt-deep into the whale’s stomach.

  There was the hiss of escaping gas and I retched but forced myself to drag the knife sideways, extending the cut. There was another outrush of gas, a momentary silence and then a slippery, slimy avalanche of entrails cascaded onto the shingle.

  I hesitated for no more than a second, then began pushing my way in through the rip in the whale’s side. The entrails oozed around me like a cold, clammy tide. Whale oil and blubber like mucus clogged my hair, ears, eyes and mouth. I coughed and choked, fighting down a wave of panic. Then I was through, dragging myself into a dim black hole.

  I worked my way around in the confined space, slashing through a tangled mass of guts with my knife. I could see only the faintest glow of light from the rip in the whale’s side and that was extinguished as I felt a hand on my arm and Rose began to haul herself inside. She clawed at her face, trying to free her mouth and nostrils of the filth, then I heard her gag and vomit.

  Jane came last. Her struggle to get through the hole set a tide of fluids and entrails swirling around us and slapping against the stomach wall. I pulled Rose by the arm and we began to wriggle sideways and back, away from the opening, forcing ourselves feet first, deeper into the chest cavity.

  With my other hand, I grabbed Jane’s ankle and tugged on it. She understood at once, for I heard the slow movements as she also worked her way back, away from the opening.

  I felt the hardness of a rib beneath me, as solid as a tree branch, then a rougher surface. I braced myself against the whale’s collapsed lung and pushed myself a little further back until I felt the weight of some unseen organ – perhaps the whale’s heart – pressing down on me. I could move no further.

  Rose was jammed into the same restricted space, close enough for me to feel her heartbeat. Jane lay on the other side of me, a little further forward.

  The stench was strong enough to suffocate us. Each breath tasted thick and viscous. I wondered how long we could survive on the small amount of air that was seeping in through the gash in the whale’s side.

  I stuck the knife upright near my right hand, then pulled out my pistol and did my best to wipe the oil and filth from it. I had no idea if it would fire or if the barrel was blocked, but if I had to use it, I would.

  I tried to ignore the stench and the feel of the slime surrounding us, focusing my mind only on the lozenge of grey half-light in front of me. Almost at once the light increased a fraction, then dimmed again.

  I held my breath and felt my heart rate start to climb. There was a squawk as the skuas and gulls fought over the new selection of entrails spread out before them.

  The muffled sound of the seabirds’ strident wranglings masked any other noise. There was no way of knowing if the patrol was within inches of us or had already passed by.

  Adrenalin kept the cold at bay for a while, but I could feel it slowly seeping back into my bones, and Rose’s shoulder trembled against my side. I reached down, squeezed her hand and felt a faint pressure in return.

  The seabirds fell silent. Straining my ears, I heard the rhythmic crunch of booted feet moving over the shingle. Then it stopped. We lay motionless in the darkness, waiting.

  There was no prior
warning, no movement, just a sudden eruption of noise as a volley of gunfire ripped through the area around the gash in the whale’s side. Bullets smashed through the carcass showering us with gobbets of torn flesh and blubber.

  The shooting stopped as abruptly as it had begun. I felt the wild beating of Rose’s heart against my arm. Then the gunfire began again. I heard the line of fire move away from us, raking the whale down towards its tail. Then it returned, marching past the gash in its stomach, advancing towards where we lay.

  I closed my eyes, steeling myself for the first impact. I thought of my brother and his death on the dark hillside looking down towards this bleak cove.

  Like him, I would die here, far from my home, but no one would ever know what had happened to me. There would be no funeral, no memorial. My rotting corpse would simply merge with the putrefying flesh of the whale. My bones would be picked clean by the scavenging birds, stirred and scattered by the wind with the dusty rattle of dead leaves, before being swept away by a winter storm. The icy Antarctic current would carry them off into the depths, where they would lie in the dark, freezing pit of the ocean floor.

  I threw my arm around Rose and pulled her closer, half-shielding her body with my own, and stretched a despairing arm towards Jane as more rounds stitched a jagged line along the whale’s chest.

  I tried to drag myself away from the gunfire, deeper into the whale’s body, but I was caught, pinned between the blade and the whale’s rock-hard sternum. I braced myself, flinching at each shot.

  A round passed so close to my head that I felt the hot wind of its passage. Another ripped through the pack on my back, jerking me sideways. A third smashed through a whale rib, and splinters of bone needled my thigh. A fourth smashed into my heel. The shock sent the breath whistling from my lungs.

  I froze, waiting for the waves of pain to engulf me. The gunfire moved on towards the head, grinding through bone and the baleen of the whale’s mouth like a chainsaw through a felled oak.

  Then there was silence again. I felt a dull ache from my foot, but not the searing pain I had expected. I reached behind me, straining to touch my foot, but terrified of what I might discover. My probing fingers worked down my boot. The leather stopped abruptly, shredded by the round which had carried away my boot-heel. I winced as I touched torn flesh, but the bone felt intact.

  The silence grew. Then as the ringing in my ears from the gunfire began to dull, I heard another noise, faint at first but growing louder. I strained to make sense of it, a dull rasp like a butcher cutting meat.

  The silence that followed was broken by a few muffled words of Spanish. Rose’s breathing was fast and shallow, but I knew she had not been hurt. The bullets would have had to have passed through my body first.

  I moved my head a fraction to look towards Jane. The barely discernible outline of her head in the darkness was suddenly thrown into sharp relief. Frozen in the brief flare of light, I saw a dark shape, small and rounded, tumbling through the opening into the whale’s stomach.

  Reacting even before my brain had processed what I had seen, I put my hand on the back of Rose’s head and forced her down into the entrails, then flattened myself into the same vile mess.

  There was a second’s silence, then a blast so loud that the sound reverberated through every nerve end. Shrapnel from the grenade screamed over me and I felt the spattering of flesh across my back.

  I pulled my face out of the muck and relaxed the pressure on Rose. She came up, gasping for air. Jane lay to one side, utterly motionless. I watched her with mounting terror, my eyes flickering from her to the dim glow from the gash in the whale’s side, as I waited for the blaze of light that would signal another grenade.

  I could hear nothing but the ringing of my ears from the explosion. I lowered my head and waited for whatever came next.

  Rose’s shivering brought me back to my senses. I had no idea how much time had passed. I could hear her ragged breathing and my hand was still clasped in hers.

  I raised my head again. Jane lay in the same position, unmoving. I strained every sense. There was no sound or movement from outside the whale. I lay there, counting slowly to a thousand in my head.

  Still hearing and seeing nothing, I released Rose’s hand and stretched out towards Jane, a fraction of an inch at a time. My fingers closed around her calf, through the ripped leg of her flying suit. Her flesh felt as cold as a corpse.

  I think it was only then that I realised what she meant to me. I choked back a sob, took a deep breath, then moved my hand up towards the knee, searching for a pulse. As I did so, I felt a faint movement.

  Jane slowly raised her head and looked towards me. I almost wept with relief. I stared longingly at the grey oval of her face, then lowered my head onto my arm, my hand still resting on her leg, while my other arm cradled Rose’s shoulders.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I opened my eyes again the light had faded almost to black. For a moment I was only conscious of the terrible cold.

  I found Rose’s ear with my mouth and whispered, ‘Are you all right?’

  I had to strain to hear her reply. ‘I’m very cold, that’s all. I need to rest some more.’

  ‘No.’ I felt her stir at the urgency in my voice. ‘We must get out, get the blood moving. It’s the only thing that’ll keep us alive.’

  I reached out in the darkness towards Jane. ‘Jane? Were you hit? Are you injured?’

  There was a long pause, then I heard her voice, slow and slurred. ‘No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.’

  More scared by their deadly lethargy than the chance that the Argentinians might still be lying in wait, I began to drag myself forward. The flesh of the whale resisted at first, then began to give up its cold embrace. I squirmed forward a few inches, reached back and tugged at Rose’s arm, my fingers stiff and clumsy. Half-urging, half-dragging her, I got her to move towards me.

  I pushed and pulled at Jane too, ignoring her sleepy request for ‘Just a little while longer.’ Minutes had dragged by before we had moved the few feet back down into the whale’s stomach. It must have been night-time and moonless, for I could see not the faintest trace of light. I searched with my fingers for the opening, groping my way along the stomach wall. The opening had to be there somewhere. I did not have the strength to cut through that hide again.

  I stopped and sat motionless. Then I felt the faintest breath of cold air on my cheek. I turned my face towards it and reached out with both hands. My fingers sank once more into the bloated flesh. I tried again, a little lower, and this time I felt it give. I pushed harder and the cold air felt stronger on my face.

  Keeping my left hand on the opening, scared of losing it again, I reached back and helped the other two up to where I was lying. ‘I’ll go first, but you must follow me straight away. Keep one hand on my ankle and I’ll lead you out. Don’t make me crawl back in here again to find you.’

  I began to worm my way forward, heaving at the dead weight of the whale’s flesh with my head and shoulders, and struggling through the mass of blubber and entrails, inch by inch.

  Already exhausted, I lay still for a few seconds, my chest heaving, then pushed forward again. My flailing right hand touched nothing but air. I hauled myself forward, half out of the gash. I wiped the slime from my nostrils and drew in a lungful of air. It was the sweetest smelling breath I had ever taken.

  I glanced around me. There was no sound but the waves breaking on the shore and no sign of movement. Had the enemy been waiting, I would already have been dead. I rolled onto my side, using my hips to force the opening a little wider, and called softly to the others.

  There was an agonising pause, then Rose’s head appeared. I pulled her by the arm while Jane pushed from behind. They both slithered out and all three of us lay in a heap on the beach for a few minutes, resting and filling our lungs.

  Then I eased myself up, crouching in the shelter of the whale as I scanned the surrounding land and searched the skyline for movement. The
faint glow of the stars hardly penetrated the overcast, but I could see no sign of immediate danger.

  I straightened up and beckoned to the others. ‘Get up, move around and get the circulation going. Rub your arms and legs as hard as you can.’

  I rubbed at my own body for a few minutes, my hands slipping on the whale oil, then took a few uncertain steps, my legs cramping with the effort. I began to walk down to the shore, where the breaking waves showed as a faint white line in the darkness.

  I limped heavily on my shattered boot and the pebbles on the beach ground into my exposed heel, sending waves of pain up my leg. I sat down and peered at my heel. In the faint starlight I could see a livid tear running straight across the flesh, but there were no broken bones.

  I limped down the beach, squatted at the waterline and began rinsing my face and hands in the freezing seawater. I had to stifle a shout of pain as salt water burned into the gash on my heel.

  Rose and Jane walked unsteadily down the shingle behind me. ‘Don’t wash too much of the oil and blubber off,’ Jane said. ‘It’ll help to stop us getting any colder.’

  There was a biting wind, but we were all reluctant to go back near the whale. Instead we huddled together on the shingle. I reached for the rucksack, but the round that had gone through it had torn ragged holes in the side and back and ripped the ration packs to shreds.

  I threw them aside. There was no point in delaying. We moved back up the shingle, past the whale and onto the ridge. The flood plain lay unbroken to our east, and I could see the sheen of numerous stretches of open water. To the north was the dark shadow of L’Antioja Ridge which led directly to Mount Pleasant.

  The three of us put our heads together. ‘I think we have to risk the tacbe,’ Jane said. ‘If they still have a chopper, they could have us out of here in ten minutes.’

  ‘And if they don’t, we’ll have told the Argentinians exactly where we are.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s the risk.’