The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  The man nodded and said: "Yes sir."

  Granger nodded to himself. "Do it now," he said quietly. Anderson did as he was told. "Okay, let's tek ‘im," Granger said. As they walked towards the figure he added: "Be vigilant."

  Three guns pointed down at the prone figure. "Secure him," Granger ordered. Heath handed his SA80 to Tony and went down on one knee. He had been given handcuffs after the briefing for this very purpose. At the time he never actually believed he'd get to use them; taking prisoners, here, in the so-called heart of England didn't seem real. He took Anderson's left wrist and guided it to the small of the man's back. He slipped the first bracelet on the man's wrist, noting fresh gouges on Anderson's tattooed inner forearm. "On your knees mate," Heath said quietly and Anderson complied. Heath snapped the other cuff in place and Anderson was secured.

  "Let's move out," Granger said and helped the cuffed soldier to his feet. Anderson began walking towards the RV while the others fell in behind him, barrels at forty-five.

  "What the fuck's going on, Corporal?" Heath asked. "Why are we taking our own into custody?"

  "I don't know much, Lee," Granger said. "I only know what I've heard bandied about as I'm sure you have. The big-wigs don't tell th' likes of me much."

  "I haven't heard a thing, Grange and, you know me, if there's a sniff of gossip, I'm your man."

  "That's because you're an old woman," Griffin said smartly. Heath pecked at Griffin’s backside with his left hand.

  "Ooohh, young man, do you want to fuck me?"

  "Fuck off!" Griffin shouted.

  "Stop fucking about, both of you," Granger said.

  "So what have you heard, Corpie?" Griffin asked seriously. The man in front walked with his head bowed.

  "I've heard that our men have been shooting at each other," Granger said. "According to some, there are a number of men lying dead in that quaint little town."

  "Then why are we wasting our time out here?" Griffin said.

  "Because the big-wigs are trying to work out why it's happening," Granger said. "It's not just our lot. Do you ever watch the news?"

  "Not if I can help it," Heath responded.

  "Other things have happened here recently. The crime rate- mainly violent crime- has gone through the roof," he continued. "Some think that it's chemical, a chemical that makes one man turn on t' other."

  "Beer, you mean?" Heath quipped. Granger smiled; he enjoyed Heath's sense of humour. The young Private also had something to say on most subjects.

  "Sounds like bullshit to me," Griffin remarked.

  "No, no, no. It can happen," Heath said excitedly. "All of those mind altering chemicals the CIA played around with in the sixties are still out there you know?"

  "Yeah, right," Griffin said sarcastically.

  "They are," Heath argued. They had reached the RV and stopped walking. "Stand there," Heath said to Anderson, indicating the back of the RV. He took out his cigarettes and offered them; Griffin automatically kept his gun on Anderson. "You see-" he continued expansively- "the yanks did experiments in Vietnam but they went all wrong. What they thought would turn Chad and Chuck into the ultimate soldiers turned them into savages and they turned on each other. They killed more of their own than the little men in pyjamas did. That's a fact."

  "Nothing unusual there, not for t' yanks," Granger commented, thinking back to Afghanistan. "Deaths by yank friendly fire killed more of us than the enemy did."

  "Yes, that's what they call it," Heath said as though he had somehow proved a point.

  "Bad soldiering' more like," Granger muttered but Heath was on a roll. Granger went inside the RV and contacted Field HQ.

  "You've all heard the stories about the GIs that went nuts and mowed down entire villages of innocent Vietnamese. Jungle fever, paranoia- some even said it was bad dope they were smoking- the point is we all know what brought it about: the same institution that kept an unwinnable war going year after year after year: the fucking men in black that run the world."

  "Oh shut the fuck up," Griffin said. "You're giving me a headache."

  Heath smiled and sucked on his cigarette. "Sounds to me like you've got the first signs of the killing drug in your system," he said and grinned at Griffin. "Sounds like you're going to turn into one of them."

  "Sounds like bullshit to me," Granger said, as he stepped out of the vehicle.

  Anderson, who had suffered this exchange with downcast eyes in sullen silence, said: "Hear, hear!"

  "Tell us then, mate," Heath said to Anderson. "Just what is going on down there? Eh? Give us the benefit of your experience, why don'tcha?"

  Anderson looked at the ground.

  "Shut it, Lee," Granger snapped. "We're taking him to HQ for debriefing. Let's go."

  "I need to take a piss," Heath informed them all.

  "Well hurry up for Christ's sake!" Granger said as Lee tramped off into the field again. Granger went back in to the RV to radio HQ. He wanted to know if they were to maintain a surveillance point. He dreaded telling Lee Heath that it was his watch now. It was a cold, dark and miserable duty. Worse still, Heath would have no-one to annoy.

  Heath sighed as the stream of urine caused hot steam to rise of the soil oblivious to the way in which Anderson opened his mouth at Griffin behind him.

  Griffin twitched spasmodically as though zapped with a powerful cattle prod. Anderson's mouth closed with a snap. Heath finished, shook off, zipped up and turned back to the RV. He shouldered his rifle and said to Griffin: "You have to admit there is more that goes on in this world than we'll ever get told about. Kennedy, the fake Moon landing-"

  Griffin raised his rifle and shot Heath in the forehead.

  In the RV, Granger jumped at the echoing report and, in the side mirror, saw Lee Heath lying on the ground. He also saw two sets of boots coming around to the side door. He wound up the bullet proof glass and locked the doors. As he climbed into the driver's seat and reached for the starter, Griffin arrived at the passenger side. The engine roared into life and Granger looked at Griffin's face; the young soldier's pupils were black and listless. His mouth hung open in a scream that Granger could not hear.

  He backed up with spinning wheels and looked at the two men lit up by the RV's headlights. They screamed at him in twin attitudes except for the fact that Anderson's hands were cuffed. Their mouths were cavernous holes in the artificial light.

  Granger grabbed the radio and called in using the correct ensign. The radio operator put him on to the Lieutenant.

  "Repeat, Granger, did you say shot Heath? Over."

  "Affirmative, sir," Granger said, watching the two men with unblinking eyes. "Private Griffin shot Private Heath. Over."

  "Was Griffin-" There was a break in the transmission. "Did Griffin spend time with the prisoner alone, Corporal? Over." Someone important was there with the Lieutenant. Granger could tell by his tone. He had been primed to ask this question.

  "For a matter of two minutes at t' most, sir. Over."

  Another pause. Then: "What are they doing now? Over."

  "They're standing in the road screaming at me," he said. "Over."

  This time the pause was longer. What had happened began to sink in to Granger. Experience of combat situations had long ago trained him to act first and think about what had occurred later. Those that went into shock died; it was that simple. You had to move, you had to react. He realized the seat he sat in was still warm and that the last person to sit there was Lee Heath. Good old, talk-the-hind-legs-off-a-donkey Lee Heath. Now he was dead, lying in a muddy field- in the Cotswold Hills for Heaven's sake, not in the Middle East- with the rain falling onto his open eyes. The Lieutenant spoke again.

  "Are you okay, Grange? Over."

  Granger blew hard. It was always the same for him; he could remain absolutely impassive until someone demonstrated the slightest hint of empathy. Then his wall began to crumble. He sniffed and blew hard again.

  "Aye," he replied. "Ah'm alive, any road. Over."

  "Co
rporal, I have orders from up top that you are to- er - resolve this situation immediately. Over." Lieutenant Ben Walker sounded awkward over the Bowman.

  "I don't understand, Ben. Can you make yourself clear? Over." Granger said but he thought he understood perfectly well what Walker had been ordered to tell him.

  "You're to take them down, Corporal," he said. "Take them down immediately. This is a situation that must be contained. Understood? Over."

  "Understood," he said. "Over and out."

  Granger looked at the young man that he had known for four months. He had listened to the young man's hopes and dreams, fears and prejudice. He knew about where the boy had been and where the man had wanted to go. He knew the story of how the teenage Griffin had lost his virginity and how he had met the girl that he was planning to marry. It was like that in the army; you got to know men and the children that they really were underneath.

  Granger revved the engine hoping that the two men would realize what was about to happen and run away. They didn't.

  With tears in his eyes, Granger slammed the RV into gear and stamped on the accelerator.

  *

  10

  Heaney rubbed his hands together and winced as Collins banged into the side of the well wall. This had occurred several times as the old man was lowered. He was unhurt though. Or, if he was, he hid it well. Heaney had called up to him that it was unsuitable down here for a man with a gunshot wound. Collins' response had been predictably Collins. The day I have to sit on the sidelines and watch you do all the hard work is the day I'll lie down and wait to die. Hard words to hear for a man that feared for his sons' lives. Hard and unsubtle. Collins was like that.

  Heaney reached up and guided Collins to his left.

  Collins handed the black bin liners to Heaney followed by his torch and then an extra piece of rope, no more than ten feet in length. He dropped off the rope and into the water, cursing at the instant chill that slammed into his body and sank into his flesh. It was one of Heaney's worries. Rumour had it that Collins had experienced heart problems a few years before. There had been a lengthy sabbatical and, upon return, the old bastard had definitely slowed down. They’d all noticed it but none had the heart to say anything.

  "Let's do it quickly," Collins said through chattering teeth. Heaney nodded. He finished putting the spare torch into the plastic bag and double knotted it. He guided Collins to the opening.

  "Can you feel it?" Heaney asked. Collins breath came in wheezes. He nodded.

  "Right. You hold this end of the rope and follow me under. The passage is about four metres long but if you get into trouble pull on the rope and I'll come back for you."

  "Right."

  "As soon as you feel yourself free of the tunnel, follow the rope carefully. I'll lead you onto a ladder."

  Collins frowned. "A ladder?"

  Heaney nodded. "Ready." Collins copied Heaney's breathing technique and they both went down. Collins waited for Heaney to get into the archway and then followed, holding the rope in his right hand.

  Heaney had been right. It was a short passageway. In only a few seconds the older policeman followed the rope upwards and his head cleared the water. Heaney bobbed in the water next to him. They were both breathing hard despite the shortness of their time under the water. It was the temperature. Collins remembered that Heaney had been in the water for over twenty minutes now and said: "You go first. Get up that ladder."

  'Okay. Can you feel the rungs?"

  "Hang on.” Collins patted the masonry. “Yes. There they are." Heaney climbed the ladder quickly. It felt good to get out of the water even if he was still freezing. He heard Collins behind him. Heaney scrabbled at the plastic bag with numb fingers and pulled out the torch. He searched in the dark for the power button. He found it. The moment of truth. He pressed the button and the darkness drew back.

  He aimed the torch upwards, along the length of the ladder. There was a man-sized hole in the wall six or seven rungs up.

  "That'll be the way into the tunnels," Heaney said. The two men climbed until they stood crouched in the dark entrance to a passage way that curved away immediately to the left. Heaney rubbed at his arms and legs trying to restore some feeling while Collins shone the torch into the cave they had left behind. The water below was a still ebony sheet. The walls were remarkably smooth as though worn down by years of sanding. He reached out and felt the wall.

  "What's this?" Collins asked himself. He shone the torch over the cave wall. Markings and drawings covered the walls. There was hardly a space that had been left untouched. There was a lifetime of etching or graffiti in this cave alone, Collins thought. On the wall opposite in letters six inches high words had been chiseled into the rock. Collins read them aloud:

  "Ex Deo nascimur, in Jesu mortimur, per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus," he intoned. The Latin reverberated around the cave with a resonance that turned into an oppressive boom that they both felt within.

  When the boom of the echo faded, Heaney said: "Something about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit?"

  "Yes," Collins said but much quieter now; he had frightened himself before. "It means, "From God we are born, in Jesus we die, by the Holy Spirit we live again."

  Collins moved the light slowly over the walls and the two men looked in awe at the thousands of Latin inscriptions and the bizarre imagery. There were a series of scratched depictions around the cave just above the water line, not unlike the composition of The Stations of the Cross Heaney thought. Collins paused over one that depicted a group of men being forced into a cave by a many headed monster, a serpent with a tangle of necks each with a human head at the end. Heaney shuddered.

  "This isn't right," he whispered, the resonance of the words increasing as they expanded in the chamber.

  "No, it isn't, John," Collins said. He turned the flashlight into the passageway. "Shall we?"

  *

  11

  The boy stirred.

  "Paul, can you hear me?" O'Brien said quietly. Amazingly, Maureen had fallen into a twitching doze on little Andy's bed and he did not want to disturb her. The woman was on the edge. Who wouldn't be? What had occurred in the boys' bedroom with its model fighter planes and comic books depicting muscle clad heroes in garish costumes was enough to drive anyone to the brink but the sounds from outside were worse. They had heard screams and manic laughter.

  To O'Brien, it seemed as though the madness inside Paul had spread onto the streets of Measton.

  A part of him felt that he should be out there in the community but God had put him here tonight and that was where he would stay. Truthfully, he was also afraid to leave.

  Paul opened his eyes and rapidly looked from left to right without moving his head. He screwed his eyes closed again and then the presence entered the room. Paul was gone; someone else lay in his bed. The voice was that of a man.

  "Ex Deo nascimur, in Jesu mortimur, per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus," the voice whispered. Then it was gone and Paul breathed easily again, his facial muscles returned to a relaxed peace.

  O'Brien sighed nervously and began to pray.

  *

  11

  Tom lit a cigarette. Hendricks chewed at his finger nails.

  "That's a filthy habit, you know," Tom said. Hendricks raised one finger at Tom.

  "I suppose they taught you that on the Care in the Community module at police training college," Tom said.

  Hendricks half-smiled. "That's right," he said. He looked into the well and consulted his watch. Collins and Heaney had gone through twenty minutes before.

  "What's your take on all of this?" Tom asked.

  Hendricks considered before answering.

  "Let me ask you a question first," Hendricks said. Tom nodded. "Do you believe in God?"

  "It depends what mood I'm in," Tom replied and flicked his cigarette into the wind.

  "That's not an answer, is it?" Hendricks said and looked away, offended.

  "It is an answer though, PC Hendricks," Tom sai
d. "Ask me on a normal day when I get up and go to work and come home and stick the TV on and watch the news and I'll say no, I don't believe in him." He smiled cynically at Hendricks in the dark. "But ask me when someone that I love is sick and I need to turn to someone for support- then I may answer differently."

  "A lot of people are like that," Hendricks said. "But do you believe in the word of God?"

  "The Bible? What do you mean? If you mean do I believe in the teachings of Christ, well yes, who wouldn't? Love thy neighbour is a good enough code for anyone. But I don't believe in it word for word and literally. It's all in metaphors. Literal belief is for the fundamentalists and look at what a bunch of fuck-ups they are."