The Wall

by John Lanchester

  After they had taken this quick look around four more pirates joined them and they began a more thorough search. Two of them stood guard over us in the middle of the rafts. They held their rifles pointed directly at us. I read their body language to mean that they thought they would find things; and that when that happened, people would often do something stupid. The other pirates went into every shelter, opened every box, searched every crevice and cranny. It took a long time and while they were doing it we had nothing to do but sit on the floor of the rafts. James started to whisper to me, but the nearest pirate hit him on the shoulder with the butt of his rifle, and the meaning was very clear, so after that we sat in silence. Physical discomfort did nothing to alleviate the fear. I found myself trying to work out not what the pirates would do, because that was obvious: they were going to take everything they wanted. The question I was thinking about instead was, what would they leave? What would we have to help us survive?

  The more I thought about it, the more obvious the answer became. The pirates would leave us with nothing. Why would they do anything else? They were people who killed on sight, just to make a point. The benefit to them of leaving us with enough water and food to sustain ourselves was exactly zero. As I was thinking that, two of them came past, carrying the two remaining boxes of supplies from our lifeboat. There was a dummy compartment in the boat with other boxes hidden behind it, which we had tacitly agreed not to tell the community about, not yet anyway. It was our insurance policy and also our guilty little secret. I had been starting to feel ashamed about that, but now it seemed an astute thing to have done. It could be the only food we had left. Enough for what remained of the community for two or three days. Longer, on starvation rations. A week, say. So, not enough. Not by any standards.

  I watched the pirates work, systematically stripping the rafts of everything they could carry. There would be rustling and a stifled cry, not from the pirates but from the community, when they came across something precious among people’s personal possessions – a jewelled flask, an empty silver picture frame, a ceremonial dagger. When people murmured or cried out, the guards raised their rifles and the community went quiet again. Once the pirates had taken the valuables, they took the food. All of it. They stacked the drying fish and birds onto two racks and four of them carried them over to their boat and then winched them up the side. There was a moment when I thought it was all going to tip over and be lost and I felt panic at the thought and then realised that was stupid because as far as we were concerned it was all lost anyway. After they had taken the food they took the water. There was enough of it that they called for help, and some of their crewmates who had been standing watching from the bow of their ship came over and joined them in the hard work of stealing our water. That went on for a long time: the catchments were heavy. The pirates cursed and sweated as they carried them across the raft and winched them onto their ship. Dark was beginning to fall by the time they had finished.

  When they had taken everything, the pirates came back, this time towards the community where we sat in the middle of the rafts, ten pirates this time, their guns raised, and they barged their way in among us and grabbed the three teenage girls. It happened fast and because it was hard to believe or understand it was also hard to react in time. Hughes, who was standing next to the tallest and oldest of them, stepped in front of them as they dragged her away, and was smashed to the ground by a pirate behind him. He hit Hughes on the back of his head with the stock of his gun. I think Hughes was unconscious before he hit the floor of the rafts. As the pirates pulled the girls away from the group Kellan and Mara ran after them and took hold of the girls, both of them shouting, ‘No, no,’ and the pirate nearest them stepped backwards and swung the rifle to the left, hitting Kellan in the head, and then to the right, hitting Mara too. Both of them fell to their knees. It took a second at most. The pirate then raised his gun and pointed at the rest of us, as if asking, who’s next? No one was next.

  They dragged the girls to the far end of the rafts, where their inflatable boat was waiting to take them the fifty or so metres to their ship. All three of the girls were screaming and fighting. The pirates who had been on the rafts started to get on the inflatable, pulling the girls with them; once again, it was so full it looked as if it might tip over. There was a lot of noise from the pirate ship, raised voices, voices in a new tone. I think they were celebrating; some of the voices from the ship sounded drunk, or on the way to drunk.

  ‘No no no no no,’ said Hifa. I looked at her and realised something: they would have taken her if they had realised she was a woman. But just like the first time I’d seen her, she was wrapped in multiple thick layers of clothing and had her cap pulled down and you could hardly see her face. They hadn’t seen her for who she was. Nausea, and I’m ashamed to say relief, hit me. I can’t remember what I said, but James stepped forwards, his hand inside his clothing, and for the first time during the attack, I remembered his grenade.

  ‘I have to stop them,’ he said.

  I could think of nothing that would stop the pirates except setting off the grenade, which would kill them and anyone near them, including the girls. Then I saw that was what he meant. I could tell Hifa had the same train of thought. We stood looking at each other. Kellan and Mara were hopping and skipping over the rafts towards the pirates, moving, as always, as if they had been born on the water. I remember that clearly: how elegant, even dainty, they were as they danced quickly over the rafts that last time. I remember how at ease they were here in their home on the water. They were calling out ‘stop’ and ‘wait’ and ‘please’. Their voices were frantic, beseeching. The first pirate onto our boat, who had dragged one of the girls away himself, was standing next to the inflatable, still holding her by the arm. He now turned and looked at us. For a second I thought, wait, he’s changing his mind. He handed the girl to another pirate, passed her over like a parcel, and then he took his gun down off his shoulder and pointed it at Kellan and Mara, who were running towards him and the inflatable and the ship.

  Kellan and Mara did not stop shouting and did not stop running and got to the last section of raft, the one closest to the pirates. Just as they set foot on it, the pirate shot them, Kellan first, then Mara, in the chest. It wasn’t like the Captain; they didn’t die instantly. Instead they fell and were lying twitching and thrashing and bleeding and coughing blood on the floor of the raft. Several of the pirates laughed and one of them did a little mime of how they had flailed and fallen. The shooter laughed at that, then he braced the rifle against his shoulder and took careful aim and and shot them in the head, first Mara, then Kellan. He turned with the gun still at his shoulder and looked over at the rest of us, sitting in the middle of the rafts. Again the look spoke: it was saying, any more? Nobody moved. The pirates got into the inflatable and crossed to their ship and half carried, half forced the girls up the ladder. There was more cheering and whooping.

  ‘I have to,’ said James. I think, looking back, he was wanting us to say something or do something that would either change his mind or give him a different idea. I didn’t know what to say. I was thinking: Hughes might know what to say or do. The Captain might know. Kellan or Mara might know. But Hughes was unconscious and the others were dead, and I didn’t know what to do. James reached inside his clothes and wriggled around under them and took out the grenade. I realised that the explosion would be unpredictable and dangerous for the rafts so I began moving people down towards the back of the community and told them to get into shelter where they could find it, and keep their heads down. I went over to Hughes. He was out cold but breathing regularly; the cut on his head was bleeding but it would clot and he was probably going to be OK. He was too heavy to drag away and in any case there was some cover from a nearby shelter so I put him in the recovery position and left him there. I would have covered him with a space blanket if the pirates hadn’t taken them all.

  James walked slowly across to the pirate ship. There was a gap between ou
r rafts and their vessel. They had taken the inflatable back but their ladder was still down. There was nobody standing guard or looking over at us. The pirates had clearly decided we were no threat to them. He lowered his legs over the side of the raft, then got into the water, holding the grenade in his left arm, above the water. He side-stroked over to the ship, got his right arm on the ladder and stayed there for a few moments. He was gathering his strength or making sure he was certain, or both. Then he started to climb.

  Everyone in the community who could move had gone to shelter. Five people apart from the two of us. Before the pirates came we had been fifteen strong. Most of them didn’t know exactly what was happening but they had done what Hifa and I told them to do.

  ‘We need to get to cover,’ I said to her. She nodded and we both crossed to our lifeboat. A gust of wind came and the rafts rocked and we stumbled into each other. That was how we got into the lifeboat, holding onto each other. We sat on the floor of the boat, the back of our heads against the side. For the first time since the pirates had come I was conscious of the movement of the sea, still unquiet after the storm.

  ‘How long?’ she said.

  ‘Not long. He’ll run towards them. The fuse time is five seconds, yes? He’ll probably climb up then prime it, pull the pin, then run at them. They’ll kill him as soon as they can but they probably aren’t carrying their guns any more, so …’

  ‘The girls might be at the other end of the ship. We’ll have a chance to rescue them. We wait for the bang then we go and see.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, knowing that was unlikely, and that even if we could make it work, the surviving pirates would kill us. But with James having done what he was about to do, we would have to do our part as well. Our odds were so bad without food and water that almost nothing we could do would make them worse. I started counting to ten, then realised there was no point, that it would happen when it happened. The silence – I mean apart from the noise of the wind and water and the creaking rafts – went on for longer than I had thought possible. Maybe James had given up and was coming back towards us. I felt a cowardly twinge of relief at the idea. That was when there was an explosion, a reverberating concussive pulse through the air. I felt my breath catch and could see the same look on Hifa’s face. A few seconds later, there was another, much bigger explosion. This was truly huge, a physical sensation more than a noise. It couldn’t be the grenade, it was a far bigger bang. I felt the whole structure of the community give a violent jolt, an energy that went through all the rafts and hit our lifeboat in the side. I started to put my head up but Hifa grabbed me and I knew she was in the right: if we’d had our heads above deck when the second bang happened we could easily have been killed. There could be more to come. I kept my head down and waited. I could hear things, but I wasn’t sure what: noises which were neither human nor aquatic, not the wind, not the sea. Tearing noises and hissing noises. I waited and waited and eventually said, ‘Yes?’ Hifa nodded. We both put our heads over the side of the lifeboat.

  The rafts had broken up and were on fire. Acrid smoke was pouring up from the tar-soaked ropes that had bound the community together. The pirate ship was on fire too, what was left of it, but the top half of the ship had disappeared. The grenade must have ignited a big supply of either fuel or ammunition or both. The first explosion was the grenade, the second was whatever the first one had set off. There could be no survivors on the ship and not many on the rafts either and the fire was coming towards our lifeboat. The section of raft nearest us had detached from the rest of the community. We were already five or ten metres away from the other rafts, which had broken into three big pieces. ‘Our’ raft, the one we were tied to, was on fire. The fire was getting closer. I could see no survivors on the other boats, but it was getting dark and in the fire and smoke I might not have been able to see them even if they had been there.

  I thought: Hughes. He would still be unconscious, still lying in the recovery position. If the fire hadn’t got to him yet. But there was nothing I could do – no way to help my shift twin. The rafts were already torn apart. If I tried to swim to them I would never make it back. There was no choice.

  ‘We have to cut loose,’ I said to Hifa, ‘or we’ll burn.’ She looked around and I could see her running the same calculations that I had. Then she nodded and began untying the set of ropes at the stern of the boat while I went to the bow and did the same. The toxic smoke stank and stung. We worked as fast as we could but the soaked, cold, thickly interwoven ropes were almost impossible to untie. It occurred to me that Kellan had tied them like that on purpose, to stop us making a secret getaway. As we struggled with the ropes we drifted further away from the flaming rafts, which we could now see only through the light of their own fire. I realised that the other rafts were anchored, whereas we weren’t. We would drift away and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I tried harder to undo the knots but my fingers were tired and numb and shaking with cold. I could see that Hifa was doing no better. The fire on our raft was coming closer and within minutes was going to be at our boat.

  Finally, with the bitter, reeking smoke from the fire stinging our eyes and choking our lungs, I worked my rope down to its last threads and was able to tear them apart. I threw the far end of the rope away and went to Hifa and helped her do the same thing. By now we were both frantic. We were starting to feel gusts of heat from the flames and the smoke was suffocating. We picked and tore the rope and, coughing and gasping, threw it over the side. I pushed at the side of the burning, sinking raft to get it away from us. Our lifeboat swung in the current as we moved away from it. The fire and smoke had blocked our view and I now looked for the other rafts. We might have turned around as we floated free, so they could now be behind us; I scanned the sea in all directions, then turned and did it again. I grew more desperate as I realised I couldn’t see them. We had drifted too far away. Night had fallen and we were alone on the sea.

  23

  That night we did nothing except hold each other and let the boat drift. Both of us had inhaled smoke and we both had racking coughs. We were too tired and distraught even to feel frightened. The Captain and Kellan and Mara all dead, James and the girls blown to pieces, the rafts broken up and on fire, the burning hulk of what was left of the pirate ship – they cycled through my mind, one image after the other. I kept thinking about Hughes and how we had left him unconscious. I slept for a little, woke to replay the previous day, then slept again.

  When I woke it was just starting to be light and Hifa was still sleeping. I had realised, during the hours of darkness, that there would be one moment to hope for, one moment of possible salvation, and it would come when the sun rose and we could look for the island. There was no way of knowing how far and fast we were drifting. We might be hardly moving. We might be moving at a walking pace, say three miles an hour, so that by daylight we could be more than twenty miles away. I just couldn’t tell. If we could see the island, we could row towards it and find what was left of the community. I didn’t think that everyone could have survived, but half of them might still be alive, and half of the rafts still workable, and with that we could try to start again. On this lifeboat we had some food and water, but the community, what was left of it, had none. Unless we weren’t the only ones with a secret cache that the pirates hadn’t found. But where we had once built up reserves of food and water, with luck we could do it again. Maybe. We’d just have to get through the first few days with the supplies we had on the lifeboat and hope we were lucky with fresh rainwater.

  A sign that day had fully broken was when a bar of light came over the side of the lifeboat and illuminated the edge of the awning. I lay where I was for a few minutes, putting off the moment when I would, one way or another, know.

  Hifa turned over in semi-sleep. That meant she would be waking up soon. For reasons I can’t explain, I wanted to face the facts of our situation for a little while on my own: I wanted to know first. I carefully got up and crawled out from beneath the a
wning. The day was calm and clear. I took a long slow scan of the horizon, then another, then a third one to be sure. There was a patch of cloud on one point of the horizon that could, just possibly, have been a bank of weather gathering over the island where we had sheltered. I stood and watched it for a few minutes, then looked away, and looked back, and there was no mistaking that the clouds were changing shape and dissipating. They had not gathered over the island. There was nothing else to be seen, at any point of the compass. We had drifted away from the island and the community and were now on the open sea.

  A few minutes later, Hifa joined me. By that point we had spent so much time together on the Wall and on the water that the first seven-eighths of any conversation were had in silence. She did the same tour of the horizon I had done, then looked at me. I nodded to say, yes, you’re right, I’ve looked too and there’s nothing there.

  ‘I’ll set up the water catchments and the lines, you do the inventory. Or the other way around,’ said Hifa. I could see in her face the same thoughts I’d been having, not of fear – there would be time for that later – but sadness and loss. The people who weren’t with us any more were still there in her eyes. No doubt she could see the same thing in me.

  ‘Inventory,’ I said.

  So that’s what I did. The secret compartment was under a false panel at the back of the boat. Even though I knew it was there, it still took me a moment to find, and I had a wild second of panic when I thought I’d been imagining the hidden cache – but no, it was just a very clever design, a fake plank fitting seamlessly with the real planks around it. Thank God, because otherwise the pirates would have found it, and we would have been as good as dead already. I opened the compartment and started sorting through what we had. The news was good. My rough calculation was four weeks’ food, more if we were very careful and didn’t do too much manual work. There was only about a week’s water, but my hunch was that with only two of us, given how much rain there was, we could probably make it to four weeks with water too. Lack of food kills you in three weeks, lack of water in three days. We would be OK for a little while.