The Killing Ship

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘Maybe,’ hedged Berrister. ‘We’re going to look. Coming?’

  Graham emerged fully clothed. His hair was matted and his ginger beard was more straggly than usual. There were dark rings under his eyes, and he looked pale and unhealthy. He also smelled of whisky, and Berrister was not entirely sure that he was sober.

  It did not take them long to don warm clothes and begin their ascent, although Berrister, ever safety conscious, was the only one who thought to grab a knapsack containing their emergency supplies. It was a dishevelled, gasping group that reached the top of the escarpment to gaze down at the ship.

  She was a curious vessel, red with rust, and with an odd collection of winches and hauling tackle on the afterdeck. Berrister had never seen anything quite like it. He was about to suggest that she was a fishing trawler, when he happened to glance behind him, back down at the camp. Two figures were moving about in it, setting it on fire.

  THREE

  For a minute, all Berrister could do was gape at the blazing tents so far below. There was a Zodiac on the beach nearby – he could only surmise that it had arrived while they were climbing the ridge. Then came a distant crack. One of the men was pointing at Sarah’s tent. A split second later, there was another bang as the second man did the same to his own.

  ‘They’re shooting,’ breathed Joshi in horror. ‘They think we’re inside, still asleep, because it’s only six in the morning. They want to kill us!’

  ‘Oh, God!’ gulped Graham, gazing accusingly at Berrister. ‘You should have listened yesterday. I told you I heard gunfire. Those men killed Dan and Freddy, and now they’re coming for us.’

  ‘Down! Get down!’ Berrister hissed. ‘Behind the rocks. Quick!’

  Once out of sight, Sarah wriggled forward on her stomach to look down and see what was happening. She gave a stifled cry.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Lisa fearfully.

  ‘They’re burning the cook tent now. No! This can’t be happening!’

  Lisa clutched Joshi’s hand and turned a terrified gaze on Berrister. ‘What’s going on? I don’t understand.’

  Berrister was looking in the other direction, at the ship, which had swung around on its anchor to display the side that had been hitherto invisible.

  ‘Christ!’ he breathed, appalled. ‘Look what’s tied to its side.’

  The others peered over the edge. The vessel was listing slightly, pulled over by the ropes and chains that stretched from it to the whale that was tethered there. The water around it was stained red with blood.

  ‘But that’s illegal,’ blurted Joshi, shocked.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ countered Lisa. ‘The Japanese have permits to catch whales down here. It must be one of theirs.’

  ‘They do – to kill minke whales,’ said Berrister. ‘But that’s not a minke. It’s a blue – one of the pod I saw with Freddy the other day.’

  ‘It can’t be,’ argued Mortimer. ‘Blues are seriously protected beasties. No Japanese whaler is going to take one of those.’

  ‘Who says it’s Japanese?’ asked Berrister. ‘It’s got no identifying flags that I can see. And that most definitely is a blue whale.’

  Graham, who had not taken his eyes off the camp, gave a yelp of alarm. ‘They’re coming! They’re climbing up the scarp.’

  He was right. Finding the camp abandoned, the two men were beginning to walk towards them. Even from a distance, they could see the pair of them carried guns.

  ‘Obviously, they don’t want witnesses to their illegal whaling,’ whispered Joshi. ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘We’re trapped,’ gulped Lisa. ‘Men with guns on one side, and their ship on the other. What’re we going to do?’

  ‘Roll rocks at them,’ determined Berrister. ‘Or start a sand-slide.’

  ‘Why bother?’ asked Graham wretchedly. ‘These guys mean business – even if we beat these two, others will come. Then what?’

  ‘We’ll face that when – if – it happens,’ said Berrister firmly. ‘Come on. And keep your heads down.’

  He crawled to the edge of the scarp. The two men were already halfway up it, and he could see their weapons quite clearly – ugly things, larger than revolvers but smaller than rifles. He supposed they were semi-automatics. He began to push the soft sand in front of him, easing it down the slope. His first attempt caused quite a slide, taking small stones with it, but it veered off to one side. The others joined him, heaving and shoving for all they were worth.

  It was not as easy as he had hoped. Their avalanches followed the tracks of the gullies that had been carved by rain, which allowed the gunmen to stay out of their way with ease. They were now three-quarters of the way up, and he could see their faces – dark featured, perhaps Mediterranean, although it was difficult to tell.

  In desperation, Joshi clambered to his feet and threw stones at them. It was a mistake. One man pointed his gun at him and sent off a rapid spray of bullets. Joshi toppled forward, and began sliding down the slope.

  Sarah screamed, and started to dive after him, but Mortimer hauled her back. The gunmen scrambled towards the slithering student, while Graham began frantically heaving a barrage of stones over the edge.

  ‘Stop!’ Berrister yelled in alarm. ‘You’ll hit Joshi.’

  ‘It’s too late for him,’ Graham shouted back. ‘Now help me!’

  At that point, Joshi managed to arrest his wild tumble, and Berrister saw the student’s terrified face looking up at him in mute appeal. The man in the lead had reached him, and was preparing to shoot him in the head. Then Berrister saw the flare they had brought with them. He snatched it up, took aim and fired.

  Early morning was Yablokov’s favourite time of day. He had expected twenty-four-hour daylight so far south, but autumn had arrived. It was quite dark between ten and four, after which came dawn. The light had a beautiful silvery-gold quality that he had never seen before. He stood on the bridge-wing and savoured it.

  The storm had not been as severe as he had anticipated, and by five o’clock the wind had dropped sufficiently to let them be about their work. Nikos, the chief engineer, came to stand next to him.

  ‘This is a bad business,’ he said, trying to light one of his foul cigarettes.

  ‘The whale?’ asked Yablokov, looking to where the huge carcass bobbed as the crew struggled to tether it more closely to the ship. Garik, who had boasted of his experience with the Arctic whaling fleet, was directing the operation from the deck, Hasim at his side. The whole business was a shambles, and Yablokov was sure it had been luck, rather than skill, that had given Garik a successful hit on his first attempt with the harpoon.

  ‘No, not the whale,’ said Nikos shortly. ‘The scientists.’

  Yablokov nodded agreement. ‘Hasim told me that Livingston Island is uninhabited – that the bases here would be closed by now.’

  ‘They are, but he forgot to mention that some of the field camps might still be running. We can’t let them see us, Evgeny – illegal whaling carries a prison sentence.’

  Yablokov knew it. When he had been invited to sail south, and heavily veiled hints suggested that Lena wouldn’t be fishing for shrimp, he had looked up Southern Ocean whales on Wikipedia. The whole region was an official whale sanctuary, and the penalties for hunting were severe. But Lena would only take a couple, and he could not see it would do any harm. And he had a family to think of – cod in the Arctic was so badly overfished that it was only a matter of time before the industry went under. He had to take precautions, and if killing whales meant food on the table, then so be it.

  Of course, his kids would starve for sure if Lena were caught and he was arrested, especially given that the animal they had caught was a blue whale. He was angry as well as worried. Hasim’s men had taken the Zodiac specifically to make sure the area was deserted, so Lena could work unseen, yet he had known something was wrong as soon as he had seen the inflatable lumbering back to the ship. He had demanded an explanation from Hasim, who had denied anything was amiss. Yablok
ov knew he was lying, so he had asked the captain, but Garik had simply raised his glass in a sloppy salute and drank a toast to the riches he said would soon be theirs.

  The door opened and Hasim stepped outside to join them. Nikos tucked his unsmoked cigarette behind his ear and left without a word.

  ‘You told us there’d be no one here,’ Yablokov said accusingly, watching Hasim don a woollen cap. ‘Now what? They’re bound to see us.’

  ‘You worry too much,’ said Hasim. ‘Just trust me.’

  Yablokov almost laughed. Trust him? Yeah, right! ‘We’ll spend the next ten years in prison if—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if they see us or not,’ interrupted Hasim. ‘Because I have a plan.’

  ‘What plan?’ demanded Yablokov.

  There was a slight pause before Hasim answered.

  The flare shot from Berrister’s hand and by some miracle caught the gunman square in the chest. Surprise, rather than force, made the man lose his balance. He tumbled backward, and he and flare intertwined as they bounced down the slope together. His scream continued for a long time after he was lost from sight.

  Berrister’s hands shook. Until that moment, the deaths of Wells and Freddy had seemed remote, and he had not given up hope that they would appear, alive and well. Seeing men shooting into their tents and setting the camp alight brought home the fact that their colleagues were dead, and that they themselves might soon follow.

  ‘Andrew!’ hissed Sarah. The urgency in her voice pulled him from his shocked immobility. ‘Get the other one.’

  The second man had almost reached Joshi. Berrister fumbled the spare cartridge into the flare and took aim, but the success of the first shot had been a fluke. The next went so wide that his target did not so much as flinch. And that was it: they had only brought two flares, and the rest were in a box at the camp. Lisa’s wail of dismay told the gunman that his quarry were now out of ammunition, so he began to climb again, ignoring Joshi to deal with the bigger threat first.

  Berrister hurled a rock at him, then ducked as a frenzy of bullets clattered so close that he fancied he felt the wind of them passing above his head. The man continued his relentless advance, while Berrister tried frantically to think of something else to do, but his mind was numb with shock and fear. All he could do was watch the man climb ever closer.

  But the would-be killer had reckoned without Joshi. The student began pelting him with stones from behind, his terrified sobs audible from the crest. When the man spun around to shoot him, Mortimer shoved a large slab of basalt down the slope. It bounced once, and then caught the man on the back of his legs – they went from underneath him and gravity did the rest. With a yell of shock, he went the way of his accomplice, clawing and grabbing at the slope in a desperate attempt to slow his descent.

  Berrister scrambled towards Joshi. ‘Are you hit?’

  He pulled the student this way and that, looking for blood.

  ‘I just slipped,’ replied Joshi sheepishly. ‘I’m not hit.’

  The second man had dropped his gun before he had fallen, so Berrister snatched it up. It felt cold, unfamiliar and heavy in his hands.

  ‘Andrew!’ yelled Sarah. ‘Look!’

  Berrister whipped round and saw a second boat landing on the beach, bringing another four armed men. He slung the weapon over his shoulder by its strap, and clambered back up the slope to the others, Joshi at his heels. The newcomers were already running across the beach, heading for the ridge.

  ‘We need to move,’ said Sarah shakily. ‘Farther along the crest – towards the glacier.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Lisa in a small voice. ‘It’s only delaying the inevitable, and we can’t run forever.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ snapped Sarah. ‘We’re not sitting here, waiting for them to kill us. We’re going to outwit them. We’ve got a gun and we know this place – they don’t. Now pull yourself together.’

  ‘I know what we can do,’ said Graham suddenly. ‘Follow me.’

  Without waiting to explain, he turned and began to jog along the crest, impressively sure-footed on the uneven terrain. Joshi and Sarah followed, so Berrister hauled Lisa to her feet and pulled her after him. Behind them, Mortimer brought up the rear, huffing and blowing like a steam engine.

  The scarp ran north for several hundred metres before it met the glacier. It changed as it snaked towards the ice, from a scree slope to a rocky ledge, with almost sheer drops on either side. One false step, and there would be no need to worry about being shot. As if to prove it, Lisa lost her footing, saving herself only by grabbing Berrister’s leg. For one agonising moment, he thought they were both doomed, but Mortimer dragged her up before she could pitch down, taking Berrister with her. Gasping and shaking in terror, she straddled the ledge on all fours.

  ‘They’re gaining on us,’ yelled Mortimer, urgently. ‘Come on!’

  ‘I can’t—’ she began.

  She was interrupted by three sharp snaps, and a puff of dust rose close to her foot. It galvanised her into motion, and she set off at a speed that left the other two standing.

  By the time they reached the glacier, Graham had kicked footholds in it and the others had followed him up a short cliff to the smooth white dome beyond. Berrister wondered what the Scot was thinking, because they would be even more exposed there than on the scarp. He gave Lisa a shove to urge her upwards, and waited for Mortimer, who was trailing behind. The glaciologist’s face was red from effort, strands of lank brown hair poking wetly from under his hat. He glanced behind him. The men had reached the crest, and were making better time along it than their quarry had done.

  ‘Go on without me,’ gasped Mortimer, swiping sweat from his eyes. ‘Maybe I can hold them off for a while – give you a bit longer to escape.’

  ‘Don’t talk, just move!’ Berrister suddenly remembered the gun. If he and Mortimer were sitting ducks, then so were their attackers. He pointed the weapon and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

  ‘The safety catch,’ rasped Mortimer. ‘You’ve got to take off the safety catch.’

  Berrister looked helplessly at the weapon and its unfamiliar components, so Mortimer snatched it from him, and let off a burst that forced their pursuers to throw themselves flat on the ground.

  ‘That should slow them down,’ he muttered.

  Berrister began to climb the ice, aware of Mortimer wheezing behind him. It was not far up the little cliff to where the glacier flattened into a much gentler slope, and Graham and the others had already travelled some distance across it. Berrister ran to catch up with them, hoping Mortimer was following. Two sharp shots rang out, and he whipped around in alarm. There was no sign of Mortimer. He was about to go back when the glaciologist appeared on the dome and began to trot towards him, white-faced.

  ‘And then there were three,’ he muttered.

  Berrister pulled him along, acutely aware of the crevasses that would be hidden beneath the snow – great cracks in the ice created when it moved over the rocks below. At the edge, most were shallow, but further in, they were very deep – some too deep to measure. He and the others had no choice but to chance it, but their pursuers did. Maybe they’d decide it wasn’t worth the risk, and would give up. A glance behind him killed any such hope.

  ‘Can you shoot them, too?’ he asked Mortimer.

  The glaciologist shook his head. ‘Too far for me. Waste of ammo.’

  In the distance, he heard Graham shout a warning – Joshi was forging recklessly ahead. The student had only gone a few metres when he gave a scream of terror and disappeared from sight.

  Berrister felt his heart thud painfully, and cursed himself for agreeing to venture onto the glacier in the first place – if there was a way to die that terrified him above all others, it was by falling down a crevasse. He stumbled to where Graham was kneeling next to a dark hole, the others standing indecisively around him.

  ‘Keep moving,’ he ordered. ‘Or they’ll pick us off.’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Graham
tersely. ‘This part of the glacier’s riddled with fissures – but that’s why I brought us here. It’s how we’ll escape.’

  ‘You mean we go down there?’ whispered Berrister, appalled. ‘But it might be hundreds of metres deep.’

  ‘It’s not,’ said Graham. ‘Not on this bit of the ice.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Mortimer, suddenly hopeful. ‘It’s fairly thin here. We might be able to hide down there – but only as long as those bastards don’t see where we’re going.’

  Graham nodded quickly, before snatching the gun from him and taking careful aim. There was a sharp snap, and one man jumped convulsively before crumpling. The other two hurled themselves flat. They stayed down: clearly their enthusiasm for the chase had waned once their prey had acquired the wherewithal to fight back.

  Graham slung the weapon over his shoulder. ‘Now follow me. Hurry!’

  Berrister faltered when he saw where the Scot intended to take them. Joshi’s crevasse was a jagged, turquoise-blue gash in the snow, deadly and uninviting. Sarah needed no more urging, though: she dropped to her knees, skittered over the edge and was gone. Lisa was quick to follow and then only Berrister and Mortimer were left. Berrister knelt and peered downwards. Joshi stood at the bottom with Graham and Sarah, while Lisa slid towards them. It was not deep – perhaps four metres – and a ceiling of snow made it more tunnel than crevasse. The bottom looked solid, but appearances could be deceptive – it might be a wafer-thin crust that would disintegrate when he stood on it, sending him crashing to his death.

  ‘They’ll see us,’ he objected. ‘Then we really will be sitting ducks.’

  ‘Not if we ease further along it,’ argued Mortimer. ‘Now, hurry up, for God’s sake, or they’ll guess what we’re about.’

  ‘I’m not doing it,’ said Berrister, standing abruptly. ‘I’ll run on ahead, lead them away from you.’

  ‘But that’s suicide.’

  ‘So is this. I’d rather take my chances up here.’

  Mortimer moved fast. Berrister felt a sharp shove, and then was tumbling downwards. The light turned from white to violet and he landed with a jolt that drove the breath from his body.