by Chris Ryan
What was needed was food to restore our strength. On a shelf above the table I found a rusting tin of corned beef and a bottle of what appeared to be Argentinian brandy, a quarter full. Both looked as though they had been there for months if not longer, but I was in no state to be choosy. I hacked the can open with the axe. The contents smelled good to me, and with luck the brandy would disinfect any bugs.
I put the opened tin on top of the stove to heat up. Tilting Concha's head back, I forced some of the brandy between her lips. She coughed and choked and opened her eyes. "Drink," I told her. The brandy would warm her stomach and get some life into her. She took a gulp and pushed the bottle away.
The tin of meat was warmed through. I scooped some out with my fingers and gave it to her. She eyed me suspiciously but accepted a mouthful. I took some myself. With brandy it wasn't too bad. We scraped out the tin between us and I started to feel better.
I poked around some more on the shelf and found a box of rusting tools. Among them was an old hacksaw blade. This was a stroke of luck.
I sat Concha down on the floor by the warming stove and put our linked hands on the bench. I fixed the blade into some pliers, gripped it tight, and set to work on the handcuff chain. I sawed in long steady strokes, trying to use the full length of the blade. It was difficult because the teeth kept slipping on the links at first, but after a while I got a groove started and it became a question of keeping at it.
The stove was getting hotter and I could feel warmth creeping slowly back into my limbs. After a while I broke off the sawing to put a couple of the drier-looking logs on to the fire. Concha's head was lolling stupidly. She was three-parts asleep. I took up the blade and returned to the sawing, running the makeshift saw back and forth like an automaton. I was beyond tiredness myself, functioning on my nerves, concentrating on the one task ahead of me.
Finally I cut through one side of the link, but the chain still held. I tried levering the link open with the pliers but couldn't get a proper grip. There was nothing for it but to set to work on the other side and cut through it completely.
It was discouraging but I stuck at it, stopping at intervals to build up the fire. I was about half-way through the second side of the link when the blade snapped.
Fuck, I thought, even though I had been expecting it. With the pliers I took up one of the pieces and continued using that for a while. It was much less efficient because the stroke was shorter and the saw teeth were getting blunt with the hardness of the steel.
In the end I threw the blade down and used the pliers to give a couple of hard twists of the chain. The link broke with a snap and the chain parted. We were free at last. The cuffs were still round our wrists, but we were no longer fettered.
The glow from the stove illuminated the bed. What I had taken to be a heap of blankets proved to be a heavy covering made up of several sheep fleeces sewn together into a single mat. The wool was inches deep and incredibly soft. I opened it out to air in the warmth of the stove, then set to work to strip the wet clothing off Concha. She made no protest as I undressed her, rubbing her down to get the blood flowing. When I had her completely naked I carried her over to the bed and wrapped her in the fleece. It was an enormous cover, and she curled up inside it like a baby.
I located the major's automatic and dried it off. There was an oil rag on the table, probably left when the owner last cleaned his own gun. I wiped the pistol over and checked the magazine. It was a Spanish Star, a copy of the Colt M1911A1, which had served the US armed services well for half a century and was only now being replaced by the Beretta Model 92. The magazine held seven rounds of the thick 230-grain slugs whose stopping power made so many serving soldiers consider it the best weapon of its class, capable of stopping a charging man dead in his tracks. Though a heavy gun with a violent kick, lacking in many of the safety features of more modern pistols, in the right hands it was unbeatable.
The hut was heating up nicely now, and our clothes were steaming on the bench where I had spread them out to catch the heat. I found some old newspaper and stuffed it in the boots to draw out the damp. The wind was still howling outside. With luck now it would keep up till dark, when we could creep out and try and find our way down to the railway and the RV. Four or five hours' rest in the warmth should restore our strength.
I was squatting on the floor with only an undershirt on. A draught was rushing in under the door, and it occurred to me that I would be a lot more comfortable on the bed. It was easily wide enough for two of us. Concha was as slight as a child, and there was enough of the sheepskin to cover both of us. I remembered something about hypothermia cases recovering faster when put in bed with someone. And animal heat made a good conductor.
"To hell with it," I said to myself. I had carried her all this way. The least she could do was let me get warm. I climbed on to the bed and pulled the fleece over the pair of us. Concha gave a sleepy moan and snuggled up to me, wrapping her arms around my body for warmth.
The moment my head touched the wool I was conscious of a desperate urge to sleep. I had not shut my eyes for thirty hours. I had been continually in action since leaving the submarine. First there had been the trip in the boat, then the trek overland to keep the rendezvous with Seb. Together with Josh I had penetrated the base and made my way out again. Then had come the forced march out to the assembly point, the battle with the marines, capture and escape. The woman and I had swum the river and trudged through the snow to get here. All without respite and on virtually no food.
The stove was banked high. The wood would last several hours. The blizzard was set to continue till nightfall at the least. The chances of anyone stumbling on us were just about nonexistent. But just in case I put the gun under the fleece where I could keep a hold of it.
Concha was sleeping soundly, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. The colour had returned to her face, and her skin had lost its icy chill. The food and liquor was putting energy back into her system and the warmth was reviving her. All she needed now was rest. We both did.
I knew I had to stay alert to keep watch, but my eyes kept closing. Each time they did I would jerk awake, but a few seconds later they would feel heavy again. I was terrified that if I did fall asleep I'd miss the rendezvous or dawn would arrive and the smoke from our fire would be visible.
I woke with a guilty start. It was fully dark outside. Shit! I wondered how long I'd been asleep. The stove was almost out. I slipped from the bed and threw in a couple more logs. Judging by the wood we had consumed I had slept for about four hours, which put the time at around five pm. The wind had dropped but I couldn't tell whether it was still snowing. I felt stiff and bruised from the various falls I had taken, but warm and much stronger. I climbed carefully back under the fleece, trying not to wake Concha. Her face was turned toward me, framed by a tumble of dark hair. In the half-light she looked oddly innocent, younger and more peaceful. I thought how near I had come to cutting her throat up on the hangar roof last night. I hadn't known it was her then.
Her eyes snapped open suddenly and narrowed as they took in the sight of me beside her. She pulled down the edge of the fleece with her now freed hand and a look of shock came over her as she realised we were both naked. "Get away from me." She squirmed across the bed.
"Calm down, can't you? Our clothes are drying by the fire. Of course I had to get into bed with you. Did you think I was going to freeze to death?"
"You took off my clothes?"
"No, I just whistled and they undressed themselves. What was I supposed to do? Let you catch pneumonia? Anyway," I added, "I owed you that much for saving my life back on the river."
She snorted. "That! I had no choice. We were chained together. I would have left you to drown otherwise!"
I felt suddenly angry. "Fuck you, girlie! You'd be lying dead out in the snow right now if I hadn't carried you to this place. Which makes the second time I've saved your skinny hide so a little gratitude on your part wouldn't be out of place."
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"And fuck you too, disgusting English soldier. I know why you brought me in here, took off my clothes. So you can rape me like that marine wanted. I know about English soldiers and how they raped our women during the war."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your soldiers came ashore secretly and forced Argentinian girls for their pleasure. Everyone knows this."
I shook my head in amazement. "You're crazy," I told her. "We never even set eyes on an Argentine female, let alone raped one. It's just propaganda and lies."
She was silent for a moment. "Tell me," she said suddenly. "That day on the ship when you discovered me. I was your enemy. Your countrymen had died because of me. Yet you came back to set me free when the bombs fell. Why?"
I had puzzled over that question many times myself. "You were just a child."
"Old enough to be the cause of many deaths."
"What happened to you after the ship went down? How did you get ashore?"
"I pulled my hood up and climbed aboard a boat. It was dark. When we reached the land I jumped out and ran ashore. Later I was captured and taken on board one of the aircraft carriers."
"And then?"
She shrugged. "Interrogations. Questions. How did I get on board the Northland? Was I alone? What frequency did I transmit on?" She smiled sadly. "I was a student at Imperial College in London. A man from the Argentine Naval Attache's office in Vauxhall Bridge Road gave me the transmitter and asked me to smuggle it on board the fleet at Portsmouth. I never meant to stay with the ship but there were men everywhere and I could not get back to the land before it sailed."
"And so you made a hiding place down in the hold in one of the trucks."
"Yes, several places."
"And after the bombing of the ship? You escaped in a boat?"
"They took me for a man, one of the sailors." She gave a short laugh. "When we reached the shore I jumped out and tried to make my way to the front line but some soldiers caught me next morning."
So Jenny's story was right, I thought. "And what happened after they had interrogated you? Did they send you back with the prisoners?"
She nodded. "They sent me in a ship to Rio de Janeiro. The fighting was still going on. I was an embarrassment; they wanted to be rid of me."
She wanted to know from me what I planned doing about the Globemasters on the airbase. "Will you try to warn the English in Port Stanley?"
"If I can," I told her. "They'll send up fighters to turn the planes back."
"And if the message does not get through?"
I looked at her. "Then a lot of men will get killed like last time."
She nodded sadly. "My brother and yours too. So many lives lost, and all for a few pieces of rock."
I stroked her dark hair gently. She didn't seem to object. Four hours' sleep had restored some of my strength and I was suddenly conscious of how very desirable she was, a strange mixture of beauty and passionate anger. Lying naked beside her under the warm fleece was a severe test of my self-restraint.
I let my fingers slide down on to the soft skin of her neck. She sighed drowsily and stretched her back, her hip touching mine. I caressed her shoulder, skating over the upper slope of her chest. Her eyes were closed, her lips apart.
"Are you married?" I asked after a minute.
"For five years, to the son of a family friend a businessman who was proud to own a war heroine for a wife. When I told him I was now a pacifist and that the thought of all the sailors I had killed filled me with disgust, he called me a traitor and divorced me. And you?"
I shook my head. "I saw what it did to my brother's wife and kids when he was killed. I couldn't put a family of mine through that."
"But it does not stop you being a soldier and killing other women's husbands!" she snapped, brushing my hand away.
Fuck her, I thought. It looked like my luck was out. She was a hard woman to figure one minute warm and sexy, the next all spit and fury. "Get yourself dressed," I ordered. "It's time we were moving out."
She rolled over on her front. "We are no longer chained together. You can go by yourself
I gave a grim laugh. "No way, lady."
"What are you planning now to kill more Argentinian soldiers? Isn't that what you are here for?"
"I'm here to stop a war, for fuck's sake. Now put your clothes on."
"No!" She twisted round suddenly, arched her shoulder and launched a straight-armed punch at my eye with all the strength in her wiry body behind it.
"Christ!" I yelled. That really stung. It was the first time in my life I'd been hit hard by a woman. "You bitch! I'll teach you how to behave!"
I grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her on to her front. She bucked and kicked, spitting at me like a wildcat and trying to bite my left hand. I ripped the fleece down, exposing her tail and gave her a smack on her taut backside that echoed round the hut like a gunshot. She shrieked and tried to kick me off the bed, but I flung my weight across her, pinning her down. She twisted under me like an eel, bringing up a knee into my groin, then she pulled herself away and drove both feet into my ribs with a strength that made me gasp.
I eased off, thinking maybe we had gone far enough, but she launched herself at me again in a flurry of kicks and scratching. It was like fighting with a wild animal; she was a whirlwind of teeth and heels and nails. She fought with a manic fury, stabbing at me with her elbows, slapping and biting. Somewhere along the line she had learned unarmed combat, because now she was attempting some vicious stabs to the eyes and windpipe. She whacked at me with the cuff on her wrist, using it as a weapon, and in my mind I was taken back aboard the Northland twenty years ago, the darkness of the truck. She was fighting now as she had fought then, gouging and punching accompanied by a stream of spits and curses in Spanish.
Finally I caught her hands, flung a leg over hers to block more kicking, and forced her back against the fleece. She gnawed at me with her sharp teeth till I managed to move my knee across her stomach and straddle her, holding her arms above her head. Even then she refused to give up and continued to struggle, snarling at me like a cornered dog. I gripped her left arm in mine. Her wrist was as slim as a child's; I could have snapped it like a stick.
"Enough!" I shouted.
She spat in my eye and arched her back, trying to throw me off. "I will not go with you! Vete so hito de lag ran puta."
With my free hand I slapped her a couple of times across the face, blows intended to bring her to her senses, and she spat at me again.
Her olive skin was shiny with sweat. Her pointed breasts rose and fell as her chest heaved, the dark nipples fiercely erect. Her eyes were blazing, her teeth bared at me in hate. "Go on then!" she spat. "Rape me! Isn't that what soldiers do to women? Or are you just a mari conT
And by God I was highly aroused at that moment. She was a woman, all passion and heat, and I was still heady from the brandy I'd drunk. I could feel all the coiled strength of her body struggling underneath me, resisting and challenging me in the same breath.
"I'll show you what I can do!" And I flung myself down, crushing her mouth under mine.
She gasped and I felt her teeth grip my bottom lip. I let go her hands to grab her tits and her nails clawed my shoulders. Her body writhed under me. My skin was burning. I saw the muscles of her arms clenching, the veins standing out blue against the sweat-slicked flesh, her breasts rising under my hands. I rubbed them fiercely and she shouted aloud in Spanish. She was biting at my shoulders and chest. I could feel her hipbones sawing at my lower body, her legs clamping round my waist, heels drumming on my back.
Next instant she straightened with a jerk and she was fighting me off again, kneeing and punching like a boy. Then I pushed her down and kissed her again, forcing my tongue between her lips. Her nails dug into my back like spurs.
The glow of the fire made her skin look burnished. I sucked at her nipples. Her breasts tasted of salt. Her stomach was hard and flat; her pelvis thrust up at me and there were rivulets of
sweat running between her legs. I scraped my hand down her back, feeling the muscles sliding over the bone. I pushed her legs apart and she clasped her hands behind my neck, pulling my head down. I kissed her on the mouth and with a cat-like squirm she was out from under me, laughing. I grabbed her again and we grappled, rolling among the wool. Her breasts swayed above me as she straddled my chest, taunting me. I could smell her hair and the heat of her body, and it was driving me wild.
We were beyond stopping now. I picked her up bodily and flung her down on her back, forcing her knees open. She clenched her teeth and pounded me with her fists. She cried out as I drove inside her, clawing at my back again, yanking at my hair. Again and again I plunged into her as she tightened her thighs around me. With each thrust I drove deeper and she gasped and dug her nails in, cursing me in Spanish. I could feel her hard pubis rising to meet me in spite of herself as her vagina clamped itself around my prick. She was shrieking and gasping and flinging herself about. Her body was plunging and thrusting with mine, sucking at me, drawing me deeper into her. Her legs were locked round me, her throat arched and she cried out in passion as I burst inside her like a volcano. Our bodies locked together and I felt the heat explode through me as her cries went on and on.
I rolled off her, and she turned away from me to lie facing the wall. I stroked her back softly, letting my fingertips glide over the satin-soft skin.
"Let me alone!" she snarled, shaking me off.
"Easy," I said, pulling her towards me, and in a flash she rounded on me again, sinking her teeth into the flesh of my arm, her fingers clawing. Hot tears dripped on my face as we wrestled in silence on the fleece.
I held her tight against me, not speaking, while she clawed and bit by the flickering light of the stove, hitting me with her fists, hating me and hating herself, It was all the same thing. When she subsided I turned her on to her back again and stretched myself out on top of her. She struggled and kicked, and as I entered her once more she clung to me with despairing strength, sobbing and gasping in her hunger while I moved inside, her till at last we were both exhausted.
