What manner of thing, indeed?
- 5 -
In the morning, he had the squad up early for a quick breakfast of coffee and hard biscuits then got everyone kitted up for a tramp into the hills. Over the coffee and a smoke, he told them what he’d found in the journal.
“Specimens? Samples? What are we into this time, Cap?” Wiggins said. “More mad scientist shite? For I can tell you now I had my lifetime share of that crap in Siberia. I thought this was supposed to be a cushy number?”
“So did we all, Wiggo,” Banks replied. “But you know what the colonel’s like. If we didn’t at least investigate yon cave up in the hills, we’d get a bollocking and you might well find yourself back in Siberia on our next shift. So buckle up, lads. We’re going for a walk and the sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll be back and heading for our lift home.”
Davies looked at his rucksack warily.
“How far do we need to lug this lot, Cap?”
“Ten miles by the looks of things. All of it upward.”
To a man the squad groaned, but Banks knew they were more than up to the task; they’d trained on worse terrain than this, in worse weather, and with heavier packs. It wasn’t going to be much fun. But it was going to be manageable.
This time out, he had each man also carry a rifle and spare magazines. He also had Hynd and Wiggins pack several blocks of C4 in their rucksacks while he took some detonators and a remote in his inner jacket pocket. It was extra weight but he’d rather have the weaponry and not need it than meet something unexpected and not have the firepower at hand. Besides, if anything needed ‘sanitizing,’ then C4 was usually the right tool for the job. A final inspection and, satisfied they had all they might need, he had Hynd lead the squad out, heading for the track at the rear of the tumbledown hut at the end of the row.
The wind had dropped to merely a light breeze, the sky an azure blue spotted with wispy strands of cloud and the fresh snow crackled crisply underfoot; it was as good a day for a walk as they were likely to get here at this time of year.
As they passed the ruined hut, Banks saw young Wilkins pause and cast a worried glance at the frozen skeletal remains underfoot.
“Whatever happened here, it was nearly sixty years ago, lad,” he said. “So don’t fash about it. We’re after information today, that’s all. Try to enjoy the walk.”
He followed the rest of them as they strode onto the track behind the hut and immediately began to climb.
*
The track wound in a long upward trail, climbing up the high walls at the farthest northeastern extent of the fjord. The path obviously predated the facility on the shore below, having been hacked into the cliff in some long distant past, possibly as a livestock trail given its width and the relative gentleness of the incline. Not that Banks was complaining, for it made for an easier climb than he had been expecting, although the amount of crisscrossing on the face of the cliff meant that it was going to be a longer distance than he’d bargained for.
At least the view was worth the effort, for they had an uninterrupted vista the full length of the fjord all the way to where it opened out to the hazy blue Atlantic at the horizon. The supply vessel was nowhere in sight, presumably still off visiting the rig, but Banks wasn’t worried about that; he had the sat phone if the captain needed to get in touch. It was even warming up now that the sun had begun to climb above the cliff overhead.
Banks refused to look up, knowing that would only dismay him at the heights yet to be scaled but settled into a rhythm, one foot after the other, loping along and letting the rucksack move with rather than against him. His attention drifted often back to thoughts of his overnight reading, trying to reach some kind of conclusion as to what end result the experiment might have been meant to reach. But he hadn’t got enough information; there were many pages still unread.
But I might not have to go through them if we get to the cave and clean up anything that’s been left behind.
It was thoughts of an early opportunity to head home that were foremost in his mind as he climbed.
*
They crested the cliff after an hour’s climb and Banks called a halt.
“Time for a breather. Smoke them if you’ve got them, lads.”
Wiggins and the two younger privates sat on a flat rock looking out over the fjord, while Hynd joined Banks in looking the other way. Banks pointed out a high, wooded valley two miles away to the northeast. The trial they’d been following headed off across a rocky plateau in that direction.
“If the map’s right, we go up through yon valley then follow a river up to a higher valley beyond. And that’s where we find our cave.”
“Samples and specimens, you said,” Hynd replied, passing Banks a cigarette.
Banks took the smoke and got it lit with his Zippo before replying.
“Aye. It sounds like they were trying to…infect, for want of a better word…a man with whatever it was they found in yon cave. To what purpose I’ve got no idea. Maybe there’s more explanation to come in the parts of the journal I haven’t read yet. But one thing I do know, I don’t think they liked the result very much.”
“You think the ruined hut and the bodies were the result of some kind of fuck up?”
“Aye. Whatever they were doing, they lost control of it then they had to bugger off fast.”
“Well, thank fuck it was seventy years ago and we don’t have to deal with it.”
“Aye. All we get to do is clean up the shite afterwards.”
At least I hope that’s all we have to do.
*
The plateau proved as flat and boring as it had looked to be from the clifftop; two miles of gently upward slope. There was little to see but fresh snow, rock, some hardy low to the ground shrubs, and the tips of tough grasses that were all that could hold on when the winter winds whipped across this exposed space. But the trail was clear enough, a dip in the snow that snaked away ahead of them, heading almost straight for the wooded valley to the northeast.
They stopped for another smoke at the edge of the plateau where the trail ahead wound up the wooded valley alongside a tumbling stream. A solitary white-tailed eagle took fright at their arrival and launched itself out of the highest tree, catching a thermal and soaring in wide circles overhead but apart from that, they were the only things moving in the landscape.
Aware that they had a way to go yet and a long way back at the end of it, Banks moved the squad out quickly, taking the lead now as the trail grew narrower and steeper as it went up by the side of a heavily wooded slope. The trees blocked much of the sun here and the colder air meant slippery conditions underfoot so the going was slower as they made sure to avoid turning their ankles on the rough, stony ground under the thin layer of snow. The stream tumbled in a series of small waterfalls that sent cold spray into the air that was bitterly cold on the lips and cheeks. Banks pulled down his goggles when it began to sting at his eyes.
He upped the pace, eager for sun, and was rewarded half an hour later when they climbed up out of the wooded valley onto the lip of an inland glacier that stretched away for several miles after taking a turn to the north. Halfway up this glacial valley, some three miles or more from their current position, there was a wall of ice shimmering brilliant blue in the sun and just below it in what looked to be a dry river bed was a circular collection of around a dozen domed huts. On the western hill above the settlement, Banks could just make out a darker hole high up on the valley slopes.
They had their first sight of their destination.
*
For the next two miles, they lost sight of the settlement above them as they ascended and descended through a series of dips and hollows in the terrain, the bottoms of which were icy cold where they lay in dark shadows sheltered from the sun. Banks was pleased to climb up out of the last one and look up a scree slope toward their goal. He was looking for smoke, hoping to see a fire or signs of life and maybe find someone they could quiz about the events of nea
rly seventy years ago, but now that they were closer, he saw the circle of domed huts was in a state of some ruin.
As they scrambled up the scree and got closer, the extent of the damage became apparent; half of the huts were roofless, looking as if they had been caved in by some tremendous force. Of the rest, two were blackened and burned-out shells. Banks steeled himself as they finally approached up a narrow trail through the scree. He realized he was expecting to see more bodies, more carnage like that they’d seen outside the hut on the fjord shore.
But from the outside, there was only the ruined huts and a deathly quiet; no bodies, neither human nor livestock—just an air of emptiness and long-unused dwellings.
“Another fucking mystery,” he muttered.
“Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World,” Wiggins said with a cackle until Hynd shut him up with a glance.
“Wiggo, take Davies and do a reccy of the site. See if there’s any clues as to what happened here. Sarge, Wilkins, you’re with me.”
“Where are we going, Cap?” Hynd asked.
Banks pointed up the slope to the dark cave mouth a hundred meters or more above them.
“We’re going for a wee climb.”
- 6 -
It was a stiff clamber up half-frozen rocks using a trail no more than a foot wide, with several precipitous drops at cornering points that had Banks making sure to keep his gaze ahead rather than behind. The higher they got, the colder they became, and Banks was glad he’d enforced the cold weather gear. He was also wishing he’d thought to leave his pack down at the settlement for it tugged hard at his shoulders with every step and the rough terrain meant he wasn’t able to slip into his earlier comfortable lope. The climb seemed endless and they were all breathing heavily, steam showing thickly at their mouths and nostrils by the time they reached the wider ledge in front of the cave entrance.
Only then did he turn and look back down on the settlement. The only movement was Wiggins and Davies far below, coming out of one of the huts that was still roofed. Nothing else stirred the whole length of the glacial valley apart from the lone eagle that now circled silently in a high thermal overhead as if keeping a wary eye on them. It screeched as if annoyed at being noticed. Banks looked west, retracing their route. Far off to the south and west, a thin line of sea could be seen shimmering on the horizon. There were no jet trails in the sky, no boats out in the ocean, and no sign of civilization at all, as if the squad had been dropped several hundred, if not thousand, years back in time.
Banks was still looking at the view when he heard Hynd’s Zippo clatter and click as the sergeant lit a smoke. Banks turned towards him and caught a whiff, not of tobacco but of something putrid. It was only a faint tang but he’d smelled death often enough to recognize it immediately.
“It’s coming from inside, Cap,” Wilkins said, the color having suddenly gone from his cheeks.
“Don’t worry yourself, lad. Nobody’s been here for years; if there’s anything dead in there, it’s long past being able to do us any harm.”
He’d spoken with more confidence than he felt as he switched on the light on the barrel of his rifle and headed into the cave.
*
The smell got worse fast and Banks tried to breathe shallowly as the cave narrowed, concentrating the odor further.
The cave walls were rough and unworked, leading him to believe this might be a natural formation worked into the stone by weathering, ice, and water over the years since the last ice age. But worked or not, it quickly became clear that someone had lived here; someone, or something. White, bleached bones lay strewn in alcoves. Some were obviously animal, large deer in the main, but others were all-too-clearly human.
Hynd came up behind Banks and knelt, focusing his light beam on a pile and pointed at several grooves along the length of a long, all-too-human thighbone.
“Teeth marks?”
“Looks like it, Sarge,” Banks replied. “But as I’ve said already, these are old, more than sixty, nearly seventy years if I had to hazard a guess. Whatever happened here, we’ve missed it.”
Hynd didn’t look convinced but followed at Banks’ back with young Wilkins bringing up the rear as they went in deeper, now in darkness, having left the light from the cave mouth behind.
After ten paces, the passageway opened out into a larger area. Banks expected to see a rudimentary hearth, maybe a bed, or at least some sign of habitation, but there was only an empty space, a rough stone floor, and rock walls. The chamber was approximately cubical with smooth walls in the main apart from the one directly opposite their entranceway that looked strangely rounded and ridged, furrowed and almost organic in texture. The hackles rose at the back of Banks’ neck and his guts roiled; it didn’t matter that his senses were telling him that there was no danger here—his battle-hardened hunches were telling him otherwise.
“Looks like we’ve come on a wild-goose chase,” he said, already backing away. “There’s nowt for us here. Let’s head back and see if Wiggo’s got anything.”
“Hold on, Cap,” Hynd said. “What the fuck is this?”
He held his light beam fixed on the ridged and furrowed section of the wall and stepped forward closer, targeting the beam on one particular spot. He pointed at the area, the light wavering slightly as if the sergeant’s hand was trembling.
“Tell me that’s not a fucking hand.”
Banks stepped up alongside the sergeant and added his own light to the area. He had to agree with the sergeant’s assessment. It looked like a hand, a heavily lined palm and five stubby fingers hewn in rock rather than flesh and more than twice the size of a normal man’s hand. And now that he’d seen it, he stepped back, moved the light slightly to one sight, and saw the rest of a wrist, arm, and shoulder.
“There’s more,” Wilkins said quietly from their back. “Come back here; once you see it, you can see the whole thing.”
The two men stepped back to Wilkins’ position and all three of them shone their beams on the far wall.
There were four distinct figures in the stone, crowded together as if they had all crawled up into the rock and fallen asleep in a huddle, and Banks couldn’t say whether they were carved by some crazed sculptor or were once living creatures, now somehow embedded in the rock. Three of them looked to be truly ancient, scarred and riven by time, cracked and run through with pencil-thick fault lines where pale moss and lichen clung precariously to life.
The fourth and by far the largest of the figures was different again. It was the one they’d seen the hand of and by contrast, it looked to have been put into the rock far more recently.
Banks saw a shinier patch of rock reflecting light back from his beam and stepped forward again for a closer look. A large part of the leg, from thigh to ankle, of one of the older figures had been chiseled away—up close, you could see the tool marks. He remembered his reading of the journal.
“Fucking specimens and samples,” he muttered.
“What’s that, Cap?” Hynd said.
Banks turned to the sergeant.
“This is where their troubles all started. They should have left well enough alone. Break out the C4, Sarge. We’ve got some sanitizing to do.”
*
They set charges both inside the main cavern and in the corridor that led to the outside then Banks had the three of them retreat almost a third of the way back down the slope, stopping under a slight overhang that should give them shelter from any falling debris.
“Fire in the hole,” he said and triggered the remote.
A muffled whump echoed around the glacial valley, followed quickly by a shower of fine gravel. Scree loosened, shifted, and ran away from just below them in a shotgun spatter, setting off a small avalanche that raised a cloud of gray dust and took more debris almost all the way to where Wiggins and Davies stood on the valley floor below. The eagle overhead screeched twice in a high-pitched yelp of concern. Finally, the dust settled and the glacier fell quiet.
“Should I hop back up
for a look, Cap?” Hynd asked. “Check that we got it all?”
Banks stood back as far as he dared on the ledge and looked up. All that he could see of the cave mouth was a pile of fresh rubble.
“Nah, fuck it. Job’s done. If anybody wants to come all the way up here to check on our workmanship, they’re welcome to it. Let’s see what Wiggo’s got to say, have a fag, and a cup of coffee, then double-time it back to the shore. We’ll use the rest of the C4 on the huts, finish off that whisky, then bugger off home sharpish. Yon supply boat should be waiting for us by the time we get back.”
They descended the narrow trail gingerly, aware that some of the ground underfoot may have been loosened by the blast and subsequent avalanche, and Banks was relieved when they all got safely to the valley floor without any sprained ankles. His relief was short-lived, for the look on Wiggins’ face when they walked over to the tumbled huts told him that something was amiss.
*
The thing that had Wiggins concerned was in the largest hut of the small settlement and one of the few not to be either caved in or ravaged by fire. Banks found the reason why it had been spared as soon as he ducked inside the domed building.
It was a circular structure some twenty feet in diameter and twelve feet high at the tallest point in the center; Banks guessed it must have been a communal meeting or eating place for the people who lived here. Deer and wolf hides lined the walls from floor all the way up to the hole at the apex where smoke from the huge hearth in the center would have escaped. It would have been a warm shelter against the ravages of winter in these highlands, and Banks imagined the small community gathered in shared warmth and companionship while storms raged at their door.
Operation Norway (S-Squad Book 7) Page 3
