Snow! The Series [Books 1-4]

by Clifford, Ryan

  He packed up his rucksack, transferring food and other useful items from Jane’s pack. He then returned to where Jane lay and said his final goodbyes. He was now more than ever determined to reach his goal.

  His next task was to climb the ten feet up to the window above the stairs. What he really required was a ladder. He dumped his kit on the landing and started a methodical search. It didn’t take long. There was a storeroom at the bottom of the stairs and leaning against the wall was an extendable steel ladder. He carried it up the stairs, extended it to the desired length, and jammed it between the balustrade and the wall underneath the exit hole. Grabbing his skis and poles, he warily ascended the ladder and thrust them out into the snow. Returning to his knapsack, he did the same and followed it out as quickly as he could.

  ‘If only we’d had this ladder yesterday,’ he considered miserably.

  He shucked on his haversack, clipped on his skis, took a bearing from the compass – and discovered frustratingly that both Sat Nav and GPS had flat batteries – so it would be dead-reckoning navigation from here on in. What else could go wrong! He stashed the Sat Navs in his haversack and set off towards the coast. He had calculated that the coast was about six kilometres, or four miles, in a straight line which would take him over North Sea Camp, the prison in which Jeffrey Archer spent some time. He wondered what had happened to the prisoners. Probably still there he thought – poor devils. Talk about a life sentence!

  The weather was still appalling. The wind was at least thirty miles per hour and the snow fell in great wafts. It was hard going, but Brady was driven and ninety minutes later he encountered a slope heading away from him. Visibility was poor, but he guessed that this was the approximate region of the coastline. There was nothing else to do but continue eastwards. It would be the only way to discover if the sea was frozen or not. He skied easily down the slope and after about twenty minutes it levelled out and he heard what he had prayed for.

  The crashing of water onto the land.

  The sea. At last!

  He continued tentatively, as crashing through the snow and ice was not a preferred option. Within two hundred metres, he reached where the snow met the sea.

  It wasn’t good news.

  Huge ice floes littered the North Sea, which blended into the landward snow. He wasn’t sure whether he was over the land or not – if not he was standing on solid ice covered with snow. He would have to be very, very careful. Any weakness would send him plunging into the icy water and then he would be finished. More than a minute or two in that freezing brine and it would all finally be over.

  He looked up and down the coast and estimated a visibility of around two hundred metres. He decided to head south, for no particular reason other than he knew that ‘The Wash’ was in that direction. He followed the route along the newly formed shoreline until he reached the corner of the newly formed Wash. The ice here appeared to be solid, so Brady thought that he'd try it for size and walked carefully onto the smooth surface. He stomped his foot, gently at first, and then as hard as he could.

  It was rock-hard.

  Taking another bearing, he calculated the direction to take over the ice – but first of all he needed something hot to drink. Shaking off his rucksack, he extracted his small tent and erected it with some difficulty, as the wind did its best to foil him. Nevertheless, inside twenty minutes he was sitting inside, on the ice, heating up a hot drink of chicken OXO. Whilst sipping the invigorating brew, he considered his main problem. He definitely required a boat of some kind – but where to find one? His only option was to scout down the coast on the off chance that a small boat of some description had survived.

  He rested in the tent for about an hour, chomping on a Mars bar and some energy sweets. He also decided to dump anything from his rucksack he didn’t need, and filtered out any items he now considered superfluous – like spare clothing, the GAZ heater, the Sat Navs and batteries. The tent could be abandoned.

  As he crawled out of the tent, he was relieved to note that the wind had dropped somewhat. He scanned the horizon, and to his astonishment, he saw what looked like a figure standing by the shoreline about two hundred metres distant. He snatched his shotgun from the tent and removed it from the leather case it lived in. He was taking no chances this close to the finishing line.

  Brady picked up his rucksack and set off towards the figure and at about a hundred metres he realised, to his supreme relief, that it wasn’t a person. As he got closer, the shape appeared to be some sort of box. It was covered in snow and partially buried but not too deeply. He reached the object and realised what it was.

  A boat! He couldn’t believe his luck.

  It was a small rowing boat, about twelve feet in length and had been tipped onto its stern. Brady went round to the front of the boat and jumped back in fright. A man sat in the lee of the small craft, frozen and very dead. He drew near the man and poked him, checking that he was, indeed, not still living. He wasn’t. Brady considered that the man had had the same idea, but the weather had finally overtaken him. Poor chap – ‘but every cloud’….. he thought, cynically.

  He gently moved the rigid man from his death pose and lay him in the snow about ten metres from the shore. He'd soon be covered. Brady then turned his attention to the boat. It had rowlocks and two oars stood planted in the snow. It was small enough to be a rowing boat from a tourist boating lake.

  ‘Perfect,’ he thought. ‘Now, if I can only dig it out?’

  He returned to the tent and fetched the snow shovel he'd constructed in Boston. Back at the boat, he assembled the shovel and started to dig out the small craft. The snow shovel made life much easier and in no time at all, the boat was ready to topple. Brady made sure that it fell onto its hull – he did not want to have to manhandle it onto its back – and as it settled onto the snow, he admired his handiwork.

  However, looking out to sea, he soon realised that he had another problem. Like Hardy Kruger in ‘The One That Got Away’, he would have to drag the boat over the ice before he could launch it. He just hoped it would be a shorter journey than the escaping German flier endured all those years ago in Canada. So, he raced back to the tent and gathered up the remainder of his kit, including the tent. He didn’t know if he would have to spend another night on land, and if so, the tent would be essential. Brady bundled the kit into the boat, not forgetting the oars, his rucksack and ski poles. He then took the length of nylon climbing rope from his haversack, fed one end through the rowlocks and fashioned a harness, so that he could pull and manhandle the boat over the surface of the ice.

  In a short while, he was ready to go, and as it was only 1.30pm, Brady guessed that he'd surely reach the edge of the ice before dark. He could camp out for one final night, before setting off in the morning.

  He donned the harness, took a bearing of due east, and heaved.

  Nothing happened.

  He heaved again.

  Again, nothing.

  ‘Jesus H. Christ!’ he cried, ‘what’s bloody holding it now!?’

  He unstrapped the harness and walked around the boat and realised that it had already frozen into the snow. He grabbed one side of the craft, and rocked it back and forth until it freed itself. Then quickly, before it re-froze, he returned to the front and heaved again.

  This time, the bloody boat moved – only inches – but it moved. He was on his way. He pulled again and the boat moved a bit further. He continued in this vein, straining with all of his remaining energy until he reached the edge of the ice. Brady stomped on the surface to check if it was secure, and only then did he gently pull the boat onto the semi-floating ice. Naturally, the boat leant to one side, but even so, Brady was able to move it across the ice with some ease. It was flat and friction was minimal. He made much better progress and his spirits were lifting by the minute.

  He was really speeding along. He took rests about every ten minutes and after an hour, he spotted what he had been praying for.

  About fifty metres a
head he could see the waves of the North Sea lapping over the edge of the ice. He quickly looked down at his feet, and noticed for the first time that he was trudging along in an inch of water. He stopped pulling immediately and stood still. He was deeply concerned that the ice may be too thin. He did not want to launch the boat today, as it would soon be dark. Carefully, he turned around and walked back the way he came until his feet were on dry land. It was only fifty or so metres and Brady was grateful – it would teach him not to go so fast in future.

  Brady was elated and setting up camp seemed to take no time at all. He was soon in his tent, which he erected in the lee of the boat. He also attached the boat firmly to his midriff – if it slid off in the night, he was damn well going with it – water or no water!

  He treated himself to a slap up feed – eating far too much, but he expected to be aboard a rescue ship within twenty four hours, so he could afford to be liberal with his supplies.

  Tomorrow would be critical.

  He would need all of his strength – and more.

  .

  Day 14

  Saturday 28 December

  The Wash, Lincolnshire – 9:00am

  The night passed slowly.

  Very slowly indeed. In fact, it was the longest night of his life, and as soon as the very first flickers of light dawned, Brady was up, striking camp and reloading the gear into the boat. This time he remembered to shake the boat loose – after shovelling out most of the overnight snowfall.

  He was planning to head for the Dutch island of Texel, about two hundred miles east of his present position. He had a compass and map and travelling at five miles per hour, he reckoned that three or four days rowing would get him there, if he wasn’t picked up first by a patrolling ship. There were bound to be vessels out there trying to access a UK port. He hoped!

  He cast an eye over the distant icy shore and realised that it had moved a bit further away. He decided to push the boat instead of pulling it, as he did not want to plunge into the water ahead of it. It was probable that the ice would get very thin and he may drop through and that would make it very difficult to get back into the boat – if not impossible. From the rear he could push it into the water and then leap aboard at the last second. That was the plan, anyway!

  Brady checked the ground around the small rowing boat to ensure that he hadn’t left anything behind, took a deep breath and gave it a push towards the sea. Once free from its overnight berth, it moved fairly easily, but even so, it was gruelling work. The hundred metres or so took Brady about twenty minutes and as he reached the shoreline, the ice started to thin and crack, and water lapped around his feet. All of a sudden, the bow of the boat was in the water. It almost took Brady by surprise, but he recovered his wits just in time and quickly sprang over the side and into the boat just as it settled into the water.

  He was finally on his way.

  The water was relatively calm, the wind was blowing offshore and the snow was lighter here. He positioned the oars through the rowlocks, moved to the middle of the boat and started to row. After about five minutes he was out of sight of the shore and was completely surrounded by the salty water of the Wash. He stopped rowing and took a bearing from the compass. It would be extremely difficult to navigate out here with no visual references. There was a very good chance that he would end up going round in circles. However, he had no other option but to continue. So he lay the compass on the bench seat in front of him and tried his best to keep the east/west line parallel to the fore and aft axis of the boat. It would keep him fairly honest and it was the best plan in the circumstances.

  He got himself into a good rhythm. Rowing for twenty minutes and then resting for ten minutes. He had forgotten how difficult and exhausting rowing was. There was definitely a skill involved and it took him several hours to master the art. His right arm pulled better than his left – and so he was indeed prone to go round in circles. Therefore, he had to monitor the compass frequently and carefully to avoid steering off track.

  Brady rowed all through the morning, stopping for an hour at midday for a spot of lunch. The sea was not too rough, but certainly not calm. Every now and then, the boat bumped into a small piece of sea ice, but it would gently career off the side and continue its own journey round the Wash – or perhaps the North Sea if Brady’s navigation was accurate.

  As night fell, Brady decided to stop rowing and rest up for the long night ahead. After preparing and drinking two vegetable Cup-a-Soups, he climbed into his sleeping bag, lay in the bottom of the boat, and tried to sleep. He was very tired – a combination of a sleepless night and nearly eight hours rowing had drained his energy. Consequently, it wasn’t long before he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep and the boat started to drift, unsupervised, into the snowy night.

  Day 15

  Sunday 29 December

  The North Sea

  Brady awoke when the boat careered into something hard, and jolted him from his slumbers. He sat up and looked around. Clearly, he had absolutely no idea where he was and was furiously trying to work out what the boat had collided with.

  It was the shore. But what shore? It couldn’t be Belgium or Holland – he hadn’t been in the boat long enough, which meant that it must be England – but where? The trouble was that he had no way of finding out. Of course, he could haul the boat out of the water – if indeed he had the strength to do so – and then trek inland until he found a landmark. But since everything was covered in snow that was unlikely in the extreme.

  Oh, how he wished he had one of the Sat Navs!

  But he didn’t and his only option was to row back out into the sea and keep heading east. First of all he needed to refuel his personal energy supply, so he lit the GAZ burner and prepared some breakfast – standard fare of soup, Mars bar and biscuits. He was quite cold, his pocket thermometer showed minus nine degrees C. and it was blowing a gale now, so wind-chill was an additional factor. He decided to light the GAZ heater and let it project heat from the bottom of the boat where he set it up. At least some warmth reached his face and the rowing action would help to fight off the icy chill.

  Brady began rowing again, into what he hoped was the North Sea, at around 10.15am. The going was much more challenging. There was a good four foot swell, and white caps slapped against and over the side of the boat. This meant that he had to stop rowing every ten minutes or so, in order to bale out the water slurping around the bottom of the boat. It was one of these waves that eventually swamped the heater and rendered it completely inoperative. Brady cast it over the side in a fit of pique and immediately regretted it as it had a GAZ canister still affixed.

  He soon realised that he was fighting a losing battle and conceded that he should let the small craft drift, whilst he kept it as dry as possible. The sea was tossing it around like a small cork, but it kept afloat – much to Brady’s amazement – and the longer it did, the more confident in its seaworthiness he became. So, he continued to bale water from the bottom of the boat with his mug, whilst he let the currents take the boat where they would. He was a slave to the whims of the sea.

  Brady and the boat bobbed along for several hours, and even though he was a reasonably good sailor, he was feeling seasick and vomited over the side with increasing monotony. This caused him to become dehydrated and his stocks of fresh water were drying up fast. He realised that he must re-hydrate each time he was sick and wished he still had some snow in the bottom of the boat. Some snow was settling but it was a tricky job to keep it away from the splashing seawater and it would be unwise to start drinking salt water. He had plenty of GAZ but keeping the flame alight was becoming increasingly problematic. The wind whipped and curled into the depths of the boat and the flame was repeatedly extinguished. It was frustrating and Brady was becoming increasingly angry. It took an age to heat up a small cup of melted snow, and the finished product was only ever tepid. He was freezing cold and desperately craved a hot drink. He shrieked at the wind and snow to cease – please, just for a few minu
tes – but his entreaties fell on deaf ears. Poseidon was an irate God today and in no mood for compromise.

  This continued for hours on end until darkness overtook the small rowing boat. Brady eventually gave up the struggle, wrapped himself in the sleeping bag and grasping a packet of oatcakes for nourishment fell asleep – although in reality it was more like unconsciousness.

  Although he did not know it, Brady was a mere four miles off Cromer in Norfolk, and was indeed drifting round in circles. The chances of reaching Holland were non-existent. There were actually many boats patrolling the North Sea, albeit in atrocious conditions, including several Royal Navy vessels looking for a way into a home port. The Navy had been recalled from its stations around the world and were lying in ports far to the south of the bad weather, mainly in France and Spain. Every day missions were launched to investigate the options for making a landing, or setting up a rescue operation. However, up until now they had little success. The snow precluded any chance of mounting an attempt to land.