Knife Edge (2004)

by Reeman, Douglas

  He looked at the stretch of level ground: a narrow road, maybe only a track leading from the whaling station. Sheltered by the other ridge, a few buildings and some pale shapes faintly outlined against the sea. For a moment he felt something like shock. Panic. This was the camp of the British Antarctic Survey Party, those hardy and dedicated souls who had done so much for the welfare and improvement of the islands, and who had been the first people to be suspicious of the Argentine ‘scrap metal merchants’.

  He tried again, the glasses moving very slowly. The pale shapes sharpened in the lenses. White, probably coated with frozen snow. He remembered reading about it somewhere. Inflatable life rafts had been brought to the Falklands, to South Georgia, to be tested in the worst possible conditions before being issued to those ships which were stationed here year round. They had proved useless, and they looked out of place in the B.A.S. camp. They would, however, be perfect camouflage for the target. Our reason for being here. The 105mm guns. If not, there was nothing else that fitted the intelligence analysis.

  “All set, sir.”

  It was time. If there were no guns, the main attack would go ahead, and they would have died for nothing. But if the guns were in position, they had no choice.

  He did not need to look to know it was Harwood. He groped for the rifle, and felt Harwood’s eyes on him. They would both remember this. Given the chance.

  Captain Forester and his men would be in position also. Explosives team, lookouts in line with the little white church. Hamlyn and Smiler Norris, perhaps thinking of Londonderry, and that other dawn by the river. All their faces . . .

  Only one could give the order.

  He stood up, and felt the life returning to his legs.

  “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

  Strange to be walking on flat ground after the hard slog from Tromsø Cove. Only another blurred memory now. It seemed bigger, longer, than it had appeared from the ridge, although Ross knew the distance to the very feet and yards. The silence was almost the worst part, just their boots and the scrape of frozen combat gear. They had reached a dip in the land, so that the nearest buildings looked half buried in slush, and the little church was marked only by its steeple, like a dark fin against the sea beyond.

  He looked quickly to his left, and saw the nearest marines stretched out in an uneven line. A trick of vision or nerves: they all seemed to be moving faster, driven on by the silence and the inevitable.

  Forester’s men would be moving too, in small groups, covering each other and ready to offer support. Always reliable, never needed telling twice, although initiative might be another matter.

  It was hard to imagine the size or scope of the eventual landing force, ships, launches, men and guns. South Georgia was the first step back. He looked to his right and saw Harwood lift his fist.

  Parsons would be out there somewhere, alone despite the numbers all around him. Glad or resentful that overall command was in another man’s hands? Impossible to tell.

  It was as if he had heard his voice. Seen his expression, or lack of it. She’s having a child. Not we.

  Ross felt the ground rising more unevenly. Slippery here. A few feet, but it felt as if they were climbing out of a valley.

  The crack of gunfire was sudden, impartial, as if it were somewhere else, distant. But the slap and thud of bullets was real and direct.

  He waved his arm but they were running again, zigzagging and gathering speed as the church took shape, and a square building which had been so far away was right here, beside the road.

  The sharper rattle of automatic fire ripped the morning. Forester’s men were on the flank, and Ross could hear the shots cracking through and against some of the rust-streaked buildings, and saw feathers of ice being torn from the road, back and forth with hardly a break. He heard some one yell a command and knew that the explosives team were ready, taking full advantage of covering fire. Another voice was shouting at somebody to keep down. Almost shrill in the bitter air: it was young May, in charge and up there with his team.

  Ross flung himself against a snow-covered hump. It could have been anything, but he heard bullets hitting it, to no avail.

  There was less firing now, and he saw two marines charge past, one calling to the other, then one of their rifles slid over a patch of ice and the leading marine skidded to a halt, turning back to stare at his companion, who had been flung on his back by the power of the shot. He called again, the words torn from his mouth, then blotted out by a retaliatory burst of automatic fire.

  There was nothing any one could do. So much blood, obscenely scarlet against the piled snow.

  Ross was on his feet, and across the road. The sky above King Edward Point was clear and empty, but without comfort for the running, stumbling figures. He tasted smoke, the smell of rapid-firing weapons, heard men shouting, to one another or at the unseen enemy.

  A figure suddenly appeared from a narrow gap between two buildings. Ross saw the gun jerk up and level, the face above it like a mask. Unreal.

  Some one else was kicking a broken door out of his way, as if nothing else mattered. It was Harwood.

  Ross yelled, “Dick! Get down!”

  The other figure swung round. Young, wild-eyed, wearing a uniform of some kind. Ross had no time to think or consider. Even the weapon in his hands seemed beyond his control.

  The other man shouted something, his mouth a black hole, his arms clawing at the air as the gun came alive.

  Harwood stood very still, looking down at the blood-soaked uniform, the eyes now tightly shut at the moment of impact.

  Then he walked past the corpse and gripped Ross’s shoulder.

  “Thanks. Near thing that time!”

  Ross dragged out a fresh magazine. “Not your turn yet!”

  He looked at the dead face. Perhaps he had been trying to surrender. Did he even know what he was doing in this place? And he thought of the dying marine, his friend arrested by the abrupt impartiality of death. Did he?

  There were two sharp explosions. The charges had been blown. He wanted to laugh. And I never even saw the guns we came to destroy!

  He saw Hamlyn and several of his men coming around the side of the building, weapons levelled and ready. One of the marines saw them standing by the corpse, and called, “’Ow much longer?” It did not seem to matter what they saw or did, so long as they kept together.

  Was it that simple?

  More shouts and sporadic firing, bullets whining in all directions, glass shattering, rust blowing like red sand from a nearby roof. He saw a marine turn and staring up at the nearest building, his semi-automatic rifle wavering as the first sunlight lanced over the water.

  Ross heard a shot and saw the marine stagger, pivoting round before he hit the road. But the picture was wrong, and the front of the building seemed to be falling away, no sound or explosion offering warning or explanation.

  Harwood was here, but, like the building, at the wrong angle. As if he was above him. It was madness. Not now. Not now. He wanted to call out, to tell some one . . . And then the pain came, and he heard a voice crying out. Somehow he knew it was his own.

  Then there was oblivion.

  Lieutenant Peter Hamlyn was standing on a collapsed boardwalk beside one of the buildings. It had been a store of some kind, and was now a wreck like everything else. He saw a white silhouette through the drifting smoke. Except for the church.

  He peered at his watch. It was badly scratched, but still functioning: his parents had given it to him when he had got his first pip, at his eventual commissioning.

  Three hours. Was that all it had taken?

  Smoke everywhere, and he could see the long muzzles of the guns they had come to the ends of the earth to destroy. They would never fire a shot in anger. He coughed, and took the cigarette from his mouth. Two bodies lay by the wall, covered by blankets and a strip of canvas. One was the marine who had been killed by a high-velocity bullet. A sniper, or a stray shot? They would never know.

&n
bsp; He heard the intermittent bang of gunfire and exhaled slowly: the main attack was under way. The frigates, probably close inshore now that the hidden guns had been rendered useless. A few armed marines were standing farther along the roadway. He saw the prisoners standing or squatting in groups, a few still carrying makeshift white flags of surrender. If they had put up a real fight and delayed the marines a little longer, their roles might have been reversed.

  Men fighting, falling wounded. Some dying, but not many. He relit the cigarette and looked at one of the covered corpses. He was good with names usually, and he could remember this young marine’s face without difficulty. But the name was gone. One of Colin Ash’s section. He had not known that he had saved Ross Blackwood’s life. The high-velocity bullet had punched right through him. His body had taken the full impact.

  He could remember Harwood’s face; he was unlikely to ever forget it, or his voice. A man who had seen and done as much as any of them, suddenly stricken.

  The bastards have done for the Major!

  No wonder. There had been blood everywhere. If Blackwood had been dead, those white flags would not have afforded their prisoners much protection.

  Some one said, “They’re comin’ now, sir.”

  Hamlyn straightened his back. He felt as if he had been on his feet for a month. He had not realized that there were others standing close by, part of it. Sharing it.

  They brought the stretcher out into the cold sunlight and propped it carefully on some empty ammunition boxes.

  Harwood was here too, strained and still on edge.

  Hamlyn said, “Is he O.K.?”

  Harwood looked at him, and the shadow of a smile crossed his face.

  “Didn’t know you smoked, sir. Fitness, an’ all that?”

  Hamlyn gazed down at Ross Blackwood’s face.

  “I didn’t.” He cleared his throat. “Don’t see what they get out of it!”

  He reached down to the stretcher, but withdrew the hand.

  “Is he really going to be O.K.?”

  Harwood nodded. Even that was an effort.

  “Bloody miracle. Opened the wound he got in Derry.” Their eyes met. “When he was with you. But for young Bishop gettin’ in the way, well, who can say?”

  Hamlyn glanced at the other bundle. Bishop. That was his name. The lads had often pulled his leg about it. He said in a quiet voice, “God, I’m so glad.”

  Ross Blackwood heard, or thought he heard, most of it. Like coming out of a fog. The pain was there, but held at bay. He was drugged and nauseated, but he could remember everything. Almost everything . . . He had even heard the gunfire. Now there was another sound, a coughing roar. Getting louder, nearer. His mind responded this time.

  “Helicopters?”

  Harwood leaned over him.

  “From the frigates, sir. One of their choppers is taking you out of this dump.”

  He was not just smiling now. The grin was filling his wind-burned face.

  Ross stared at the sky.

  “Leaving?” It sounded like a protest.

  “Yeah. You’ll be fine after a patch-up an’ a spot of leaf at ’ome!”

  Hamlyn saw a corporal running to signal the helicopter pilot, and shaded Ross’s eyes against the dust being churned up by the flashing blades.

  But Ross was looking at the Union flag, which had been hoisted on a makeshift mast where the defenders had displayed a huge white sheet. He murmured, “Good thinking. He’ll need to know the wind direction for a safe landing,” and smiled, beginning to drift on morphine. “In this dump.”

  The medics were running toward them now, through the slush and rust. Harwood said, “We did it for you, Major Blackwood.”

  Then, surprisingly, he stood back, and saluted.

  The helicopter was even noisier when it started to lift off.

  But Harwood was saying, “And for her!”

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  Epub ISBN: 9781407010304

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow in 2006

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  Copyright © Bolitho Maritime Productions

  Douglas Reeman has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2004 by William Heinemann

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  ISBN 9780099436294