Truth was, he had desperately underestimated how long it would take to mirror the French coastline and was already almost half a day behind where he thought they would be. Again he toyed with the choices; get on dry land and find uncertain transport or continue by sea and risk drowning them all over their nautical inadequacies.
Land. He needed land. He was too stressed, too fearful of the sea to work out the figures.
Another day by water and one hundred and fifty miles was their current plan. The alternative plan that he had chosen, not that he could’ve calculated this without a map and plenty of quiet time, was an overland journey of around five hundred miles to their next destination.
Five hundred miles with no guarantee of finding working vehicles. Five hundred miles of uncertain food supplies. Five hundred miles of scavenging for fuel.
Regardless of all the uncertainty, the terror of the water bore down on him just as he worried a rogue wave would at any time. He turned to Leah.
“GO BELOW, CAREFULLY! TELL EVERYONE WE’RE GOING TO FIND SOMEWHERE TO LAND,” he shouted to Leah over the unseasonably high winds. She nodded and nimbly shimmied down the tubular ladder. Her light weight and agile frame seemed to make her less susceptible to the debilitating forces of physics, it seemed.
Dan stayed with Neil and Mitch as they now headed due south, with waves catching them up from behind every twenty seconds and pushing them forward in sickening surges. They couldn’t tell because of the gathering dark and the stinging rain, but they were almost four miles out to sea and not a single person aboard wholly believed that they would make it to safety.
SECOND FIRST RANGER
Lexi didn’t feel much like the military faction leader of the group.
She felt like a fraud, in fact.
Her lessons to the new recruits on weapon drills and techniques were all half-remembered lessons passed on by Dan. She had sufficient skills herself, but she lacked the experience and ability to recognise talent in others and bring it out. She simply did not feel up to the task.
This apathy for her current role became evident in her manner towards the others who were half-heartedly receiving her instructions and in turn led to a pointless exercise where nobody learnt a damn thing.
Seeing that the group under her instruction had switched off, and failing to recognise that she was at fault, she sent them away testily after ensuring that they had all made safe their weapons. Angrily she cleared all of the pistols left on the makeshift bench of a downed tree, gathered up the rounds and weapons and walked back to the house. She dumped the armful of mixed weaponry carelessly in front of Rich sat at the table in Ops and walked out without saying a word.
She went to her room and paced alone. Realising that this was doing nothing for her mood, she paced back through the house and out of the back doors to cross the garden towards the gym. Cutting through the treeline she burst through the doors looking for Paul. One look at her face told him that she was very unhappy, although he mistook that look for anger when it would more easily have become tears. She paced again as she vented to him, laying out her fears and the obstacles facing them. How could she possibly fill Dan’s shoes? Why did Steve have to get hurt? Why couldn’t she just do her job, why did she have to be in charge?
All of these thoughts and more poured from her like lava until she finally cracked and the tears burst from her like a dam breaking. She cried in Paul’s arms, who unlike Dan knew how to listen and hug a woman instead of trying to fix every problem she has. They stayed like that for some time until she stood up, put her brave face back on, and told him they were going out.
Equally as unwilling to communicate, Rich sighed and picked up the first of the weapons which lay scattered on his neat work space. He began the long process of stripping and cleaning each component; whilst not strictly necessary it took up the next hour of his life with useful distraction.
He knew things were falling apart. He could see it from the moment Dan announced that he was leaving. The helicopter crash was what had affected him worst, however.
The brutality of it. The noise. The memories it brought back to him.
He hadn’t slept more than a few hours in the last five days; terrible images and sounds came to him when he did and it was best not to think about it too much.
A slow and surreptitious check of his surroundings reassured him that he was the only one in earshot, allowing him the peace and privacy to take a long and meaningful gulp from the bottle hidden in the desk drawer.
With a shaking hand he returned the cork, wiped his mouth, and remembered just how good it felt to have the fiery drink burning its way down his gullet and into his stomach where the fierce liquid radiated heat and numbness outwards to even the missing fingers of his right hand.
As he stood there bathing in the warm glow, Lexi walked back in, snatched up her weapons and went to leave. She paused, sniffed the air a couple of times, and walked out.
“Me and Paul are going out,” she said curtly. “Back by nightfall.”
Lexi relaxed slightly as she strode outside racking a round into the chamber of her rifle. She climbed behind the wheel of Dan’s Discovery – her Discovery now – and waited as Paul climbed in beside her and drove away hard up the long lane leading away from the house that used to be a happy place.
IMPERFECT LANDING
It had taken another thirty minutes to reach the coastline, by which time some of the passengers below deck were now openly certain of a watery death. Marie had done her best to calm the most nervous, but between her early stages of pregnancy and so many people being sick she too soon succumbed to the situation.
Henry, remarkably, was proving to be a worthy addition to the group, despite initially being a stowaway and almost being sent back. He went amongst the worried and the ill with water and words of reassurance. It seemed that the only useful members were now the two youngest as he and Leah made sure everyone was still with them. Even the ever stoic and indestructible Jack was looking deathly pale and muttering intensely with his eyes closed, running rosary beads between forefinger and thumb.
Henry tried to give a companionable nod and place a nonchalant hand on the shoulder of Leah, resulting in an equally casual wrist lock and removal of the unwanted appendage. Henry wordlessly got the point and retreated to rub his sore joints.
Above deck, even Dan had been bested by the weather and had vomited down the side of the boat. Luckily the driving rain had washed it away quickly. Through a break in the storm clouds Mitch shouted incoherently and pointed ahead and to their left; a break in the beach where a wide inlet flowed inland and signified safety from the elements. Slowly, the nose of the boat shifted to point directly at their new haven. A further ten minutes saw them throttling back so as not to approach too fast. Floating debris blocked their path as small fishing boats had been ruined by neglect and the elements, but parts of them were still anchored to the flat bottom of the bay. Little could be done to avoid hitting them as the shallow sea bed was littered with similar wreckage.
Terrible noises reverberated around the vessel as they bumped and screeched their way into calmer waters, each noise prompting shouts of panic and alarm as well as screams and tears of fear.
Leah was treated to one of her personal moments of slow-time reverie; glancing between the door of the cabin and Henry, she was certain that she would do the same as the woman in the film she saw about a shipwreck. There was no way was she sharing her bit of floating door with a boy.
Her feelings and senses surrounding mortality were simpler than most people’s, it seemed.
The sounds of contact with something other than the angry sea and their reduction in speed made Leah return topside. She found that they had made land and were creeping into a mess of a wide river with bits of boats everywhere. The water was infinitely more calm inside the bay and a glance behind her showed furious waves crashing against the coastline.
Dan had recovered sufficiently to offer her a mirthless welcome to France as she
climbed to the upper deck. They had entered the river mouth and turned right with the flow. Directly in front of them was a marina that seemed to be a graveyard for so many small boats. Being in the protected waters had preserved them slightly, but none had survived undamaged without human attention. Dan pointed them to keep right and follow the river as it looped a lazy arc to the left and passed under a road bridge. They covered another mile or so at slow speeds to avoid the now less common obstacles before they saw small piers on their right.
Dan guessed they were probably the more private moorings of the expensive houses; not massively dissimilar to their luxurious temporary home in Poole harbour. As Mitch guided Hope in towards the sturdy jetty Dan and Leah prepared to jump ashore and tie the boat steady. It took some difficulty and the engine had to be back-geared to prevent it overshooting the mooring, but eventually they were safe. This far inland the surface of the water merely moved instead of roiling violently as it did outside of the bay. Slowly, their passengers began to emerge from below decks and seek the psychological sanctuary of solid ground. Henry emerged rubbing his hand at a mark already showing red. He admitted to Dan that he tried to help by carrying Ash outside, and although weakened by his first journey by sea the dog had retained sufficient wherewithal to land a successful bite on him.
He cuffed the young lad around the ear for being foolish and told him to wash the bite thoroughly; he hadn’t broken the skin but Dan had seen how quickly dog bites became infections.
He carried the grey dog outside himself, resting him gently down on the wet ground and watching him regain his unsteady footing. Leaving the main of the group to recover under the watchful eyes of Adam, Neil and Mitch he nodded his head to Leah to indicate that they should secure the wider area.
Carbines up, knees bent and moving at an efficient crouch the two covered distance between buildings whilst maintaining a covering arc on the other. Hours they had spent drilling this, both for real and in practice. The only thing missing was the dog at his heel, although the dog could barely stand upright for now so they would have to do without him.
Windows were checked, signs of life were looked for and nothing was found. The immediate area was dominated by boat sheds and store rooms for fishing and sailing equipment, but after that came a wide road which opened out onto an intricate line of zig-zagged buildings, three and four storeys high. They appeared to be apartment blocks, with jutted windows and irregular angles protruding. In itself, the building was nothing special but the contrasting angles and colours mesmerised Dan briefly until he switched on again and bent to the sight of his carbine.
He had fitted a new sight before they left; the one where the zoom lens was optional and could be clicked aside revealing a red dot sight for close quarters work. Naturally, Leah had followed suit almost immediately and fitted the same hardware to her own camouflage-dappled gun.
Ten minutes of moving and checking streets showed no signs that anyone still inhabited this town, and resisting the temptation to explore the overgrown leafy residential roads led them back to the boatyard.
Adam had let them into a large single story building which appeared to have been some kind of office or centre for the marina. People were making themselves more comfortable and preparing for a night on solid ground. Water was being brewed, clothes were being changed and slowly the smell of vomit was becoming less prevalent as other smells competed for attention.
The smell of coffee cut through the mess of aromas to trigger something in Dan to remind him how acutely tired he felt. True to form, Henry appeared with two cups and made straight for them. Dan thanked him and accepted one. Leah grunted something vaguely approaching thanks and took the other before walking off. The red welt on the boy’s arm looked painful, but he did not complain.
Ash had recovered greatly and made a nervous and slightly wobbly run at him with his head down and his tail wagging. Dan dropped to one knee and slung his weapon behind his back as he fussed his huge dog like a baby, much to the amusement of those watching.
The fearless warrior. The terrifying dog. Both killers, but both obviously big softies who care a great deal for the other. It was as though one wasn’t truly complete without the other.
He sipped his drink and watched his little group again; he really had the cream of the crop with him, he marvelled. Not one person ever waited for instruction, nobody had to be told to get something or had to be asked for help. These seventeen people who had chosen to follow him for whatever their personal reasons were, all working well together.
Another fragrant note hit his nostrils, as unwelcome as it was to many who still suffered with acidic stomachs; food.
He wandered towards the smell and found Neil showing Pip his speciality.
“Whole tin of potatoes, whole tin of steak, and a whole tin of carrots,” he said flamboyantly in a lisping London accent, no doubt mimicking some celebrity chef who Dan probably wouldn’t have heard of.
“Bring it to the boil, whisk it up nice and fast and then crack in your eggs,” he finished as he cracked three eggs onto the spinning pot of brown liquid showing occasional flashes of orange.
“Mountaineering Spew,” announced Dan, simultaneously embarrassing and annoying Neil by ruining his punchline. “We made that on our very first night together,” he finished with a rueful smile.
How the world had changed so many times over since these two had first bumped into each other.
THE CHOICES WE MAKE…
As dark settled, so too did the group. The mood had picked up in the few hours since they had sought refuge on dry land, after the nausea and the fear had abated.
Ash was now fully alert and able to maintain his balance. His day of vomiting had made his insatiable hunger for other people’s food worse than ever; so much so that he had eaten an entire bowl of dog food and instantly gone to seek more sustenance from the helpless humans who looked at him with wide eyes as he stood staring at them. Slowly, carefully, most of them relented and gave him some of their food. Satisfied, he moved on to the next victim and the tension he left behind evaporated. Dan realised that he was terrorising the group with his personal version of mine-sweeping and ruined his entertainment by calling him to heel, effectively ending his tyrannical search for snacks.
He upset him further still as he took him outside for his turn to keep watch. Dan sat huddled inside a small shelter throughout the evening, interrupted only by the occasional cup of coffee being brought to him and with it small snippets of conversation.
Pip was scared that they wouldn’t make it after the weather closed in and Dan tried not to show that he had felt exactly the same. Others were worried about going back to sea too. He listened, but made no assurances.
Neil came to relieve him for the first half of the night with Mitch due to take over in the early hours; the two men usually worked it like that, as they both bizarrely functioned well on little sleep. Dan knew that would only work for a short amount of time before tiredness became physical exhaustion. He spoke with Neil and canvassed his thoughts on their options; chance it by road from here or try to get further east along the coastline to be closer to their intended target.
Neil was characteristically nonchalant about such matters; he was just happy to be along for the ride. This time, however, as much as he couldn’t face the thought of going back out to sea he knew what the right course of action was.
Dan gave up his shelter to the older man and walked stiffly back towards their temporary home as he stretched his muscles. He took a lap of the low building to smoke, ease his cramped muscles and exercise his dog a little before joining the others inside.
He was handed a hot drink as he walked in, thanked the person who offered it and scanned the room for Marie. He caught sight of her making the rounds and raising the morale of their band. He was mesmerised by the way she moved among their small group; placing a hand on a shoulder here, laughing at a comment there. He marvelled at the way she brought out the very best in everyone and shone a little lig
ht into whatever dark there was. He wasn’t so ignorant to realise that those who had followed weren’t there just for him; some had come because of her and he knew why. She was still as captivating to him as the first time he laid eyes on her.
As he reminisced about that first meeting, her eyes found his. A warm smile showed and he moved towards her. An embrace, the reassurance of physical contact, welcomed him back into the warm. They spoke briefly before Dan turned to the assembled party.
“Meeting time, people,” he said loudly, “everyone in.”
Mutters and mumbles emanated from the assembly. Small noises of excitement rose from them as everyone shuffled closer together to hear what he had to say before an eventual hush descended.
“I’m sure we’re all happy to be back on dry land after today,” he began, getting the nervous laughter he expected. “Truth is, nobody was expecting bad weather this late in summer and it wasn’t even that bad as far as things go, it’s just that none of us are really the sailing type!”
That was an understatement. He pressed on, eager to hear the collective views instead of forcing his will on everyone.
“We now face a choice,” he said, leaving the words to hang heavy.
“We can go back out to sea tomorrow and stick to our original plan, or we can try to go across country from here. Now I don’t expect anyone to decide without knowing the facts; you know me well enough by now. Leah?” The girl pushed herself away from the wall where she lounged like a resting predator and came to stand beside him. A glance upwards showed that she didn’t like the height difference, so she kicked over a small wooden box and stood on top to better be seen.
Hope: After It Happened Book 4 Page 7
