Land of Fire Part 18

The suddenness with which the weather had worsened was alarming. The temperature was right down and we were burning up reserves of energy just trying to stay warm. It was so cold and dark. It was hard to believe it was the middle of the day. Concha was lagging behind; I had to tug her along like a dead weight. Then she started retching, a sign that her body was running low on sugar and starting to burn fat. She had reached the point that marathon runners call 'hitting the wall'.

At one point I stumbled on a tussock and fell. She flopped down next to me on the snowy ground, and I stooped to pick her up. "I'm so tired," she pleaded. "I need to rest." I was tempted we still had about a kilo metre to go. Maybe, I thought momentarily, if she had a short sleep she would get some of her strength back. But experience told me that she would never get up again if I let this happen. There is no warmth to be had outdoors. She would sink into a coma as the afternoon wore on, and die. With difficulty I got her up and we staggered on.

I was navigating by the wind on my face as long as we were walking into it, I a.s.sumed we were going south.

I reckoned we were covering half a kilo metre an hour at most. Probably we were not very far from the outskirts of the town, but it might have been a lifetime away as far as we were concerned. Ice was crunching under my boots and I could hardly feel my feet any more. The temperature was plunging. It was midday, and we were freezing to death out in the open. Combining the chill factor of a forty-mile-an-hour wind, no food and wet clothing, it was clear that neither of us would be able to endure much more. At this moment a prisoner of war camp seemed preferable.

I guess we had been walking about two hours when we hit the edge of the lake. I was half supporting Concha. She had had no sleep the previous night; she had been beaten and abused and forced to swim a freezing river. I was tired too, though I knew I could keep going all day if I had to. But she needed warmth and rest or I would be carrying a corpse by nightfall.

One option was to turn away from the lake, put the wind on my right side and try and make for the railway. It was possible we might find some sort of shelter nearer to the town, albeit with an increased risk of capture.

A while later on, while I was still supporting Concha, I crashed full-length into a pool. This was madness; we had to take shelter soon before one or other of us broke a leg then we would be truly finished. I rubbed Concha's hands and slapped her face in an attempt to get her blood circulating. "Come on, you stupid Argentine b.i.t.c.h! Are you going to let yourself be whipped by an Englishman?" I jeered.

"CabronV She pushed me away and tried to stagger on. She had guts all right but within a few more minutes she was buckling at the knees once more. I picked her up, but she went down again.

The wind whipped round us, cutting through our damp clothes like knives. The snow was blowing almost horizontally; walking ahead into it was agony. My eyes were continually blocked, the skin raw from sc.r.a.ping away the frozen crusts that acc.u.mulated on the exposed flesh of my face. Concha's hair clung to her face in frozen streamers. The sheer effort of lifting our feet though the snow and the clinging canopy of frozen gra.s.s was draining us of energy. Time and again I thought I'd stumbled on shelter, but always what looked like a hut at a few metres in the swirling snow proved to be a clump of gorse or the stump of a wind-blown tree.

I had been half hoping that the lake would be fringed with trees and undergrowth, perhaps with some huts used by fishermen. Instead we found ourselves plunging through vast reed beds and attempting to detour bogs. Visibility was down to a few metres. By now I was having to carry Concha for ten minutes at a time, supporting her across my shoulders in a fireman's lift. Even though she was slightly built she weighed twice as much as a bergen. When I put her down to rest and stretch my back she'd be falling asleep on her feet. Her mind was wandering, and I knew she was in the first stages of hypothermia.

The sh.o.r.e of the lake traced a line towards the east either that or the wind was veering westward, I had no way of telling. Still, instinct suggested that we were heading towards the railroad. We moved on, and I was stumbling along half-blinded by the snow when the ground in front of my feet suddenly fell away without warning. I found myself sliding down a slope into a wide ditch of some kind. I flung myself backward, clawing for purchase with my free hand. Concha hit the ground behind me and lay where she had fallen.

The gra.s.s on the bank was thickly overgrown. By twisting on to my front and clinging on to a tuft I managed to save us both from sliding down into the ditch. But the snow was several inches deep and the ground was frozen hard. Concha was sprawled next to me and any movement I made only succeeded in making her slide further down into the ditch. The ditch probably contained at least a metre of water and liquid mud. She would never survive another immersion, and if I couldn't get her out she was done for. If she died on me I'd have no choice but to try and rip her arm off to free myself.

I was clawing on to the gra.s.s for handholds, but now her weight was dragging at my left wrist and the steel edge of the cuff was cutting into the numbed flesh. In another minute she would tear my hand loose and we would both subside into the ditch.

I kicked with the toe caps of my boots, trying to make a foothold. If I could take some of my own weight, then I could lift Concha and push her back up the bank. I got both hands under Concha and by brute force heaved her up the bank, the handcuffs cutting agonisingly into my wrist as I did so. I moved sideways and, after some fumbling about, found a secure footing against a stone. Wiping snow from my face, I now saw that further along some rushes grew up the bank. Transferring my left foot to the stone, I hacked another hole with the toe of my other boot and shifted closer. Another step or two and the rushes would be within grasp.

Stretching up as far as I could reach, my numbed fingers encountered the stalks of the nearest reeds and I dragged myself back up. It was only a momentary respite. Already I could feel the roots being torn out under my weight. I jabbed my feet into the earth bank and s.n.a.t.c.hed another hold. Concha was leaning heavily against me. There were more reeds within my grasp now, and I found I could stand among the lower roots. Slowly I clawed my way up the slope, shoving Concha in front of me like a sack. It seemed to take for ever to reach the top, but at last I made the crest and squirmed over on to the flat again.

I felt shockingly weak. My feet were blocks of ice and the feeling had gone from my hands. My whole body was pleading for rest, but I knew that if I gave in I was finished. Either I got myself up now and carried on or we both lay down to die right here. Concha was too far gone to help me. She was a dead weight and I had to get her up if I was to save myself. I hunched myself on to all fours and dragged her into a sitting position against me. I let her flop on to my shoulder, and somehow staggered upright beneath her.

"f.u.c.k you!" I shouted at her. "f.u.c.k all you b.l.o.o.d.y Argies! f.u.c.k your sodding weather and your lousy country and your f.u.c.king Malvinas!" Rage was all that was keeping me going. Rage against the country and the mission that had gone wrong; above all rage against the useless, ungrateful lump I was shackled to.

I had no idea where I was headed now. I was past caring. All I could do was keep walking. Oddly, the handcuffs were a help for the first time; they kept Concha fixed over my shoulder and rested my left arm.

Together we staggered on into the blizzard.

How long we kept going I had no idea. It may have been a few minutes; it could have been as much as half an hour. I seemed to have left the lake behind, and now was following a path. The snow was blowing as thick as ever, and I was blundering along three-parts blind when something made me stop. We were in a fold in the ground, sheltered slightly from the worst of the wind. A stunted tree, bent almost double by the wind, loomed ahead. To one side, half hidden by drifting snow, was a shed of planks with a corrugated iron roof and a stove chimney sticking out of the side.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

I don't know how long I stood staring. I was so convinced it was a hallucination, I hardly dared believe my eyes. But it was real. It was shelter.

There was a padlock fixed to the door, which burst open under a heave of my shoulder. At that moment I could have broken through a steel hatch, such was my desperation. I lowered Concha off my shoulder and dragged her in after me like a sack. The relief to be out of the wind and snow was indescribable. I stood shaking, revelling in the blessed silence. There was no window, but a dim light filtered through a snow-covered plastic panel in the roof, enough to make out the interior. It was larger than I had realised. There was a fold-out table against one wall with a crude bench beside it. At the rear was a wide shelf with some sort of bedding on it. In the other corner stood a crude stove made out of an oil drum. The floor was made of heavy timbers that looked like wooden sleepers looted from the railway. The general construction was solid and workmanlike. I guessed it belonged to a hunter; a place where he could shelter overnight before getting up at dawn to shoot duck on the lake.

I propped Concha against the wall and started searching for firewood with my spare hand. Eventually I located a store beneath the bunk, together with a supply of kindling. Thank G.o.d I'd had the presence of mind to bring away the major's cigarette lighter. The only paper I could find was damp, but there was a bundle of string on a hook that would serve instead. I laid the fire carefully.

There was a hand-axe beside the stove and I split a couple of logs. Everything had to be done one-handed. I toyed with the idea of trying to chop through the chain of the handcuffs but I decided the axe was too small.

I applied the major's lighter and the fire took hold. I nursed it carefully, adding more kindling and split logs as it grew. The stove may have been primitive but it gave out a good heat and cast a cheerful, flickering glow inside the hut. The wind and snow would dissipate the smoke, so for the present we were safe enough.

Outside it was still light. The marines had taken my watch, but at a guess it was between one and two pm another couple of hours before dusk. And when night came the atrocious weather would continue to screen us from view. As the hut began to warm up I peeled off my soaked boots and set them to dry. I did the same for Concha. She was semi-conscious still, and her flesh was ice cold. I rubbed her hands and feet to aid the circulation.

What was needed was food to restore our strength. On a shelf above the table I found a rusting tin of corned beef and a bottle of what appeared to be Argentinian brandy, a quarter full. Both looked as though they had been there for months if not longer, but I was in no state to be choosy. I hacked the can open with the axe. The contents smelled good to me, and with luck the brandy would disinfect any bugs.

I put the opened tin on top of the stove to heat up. Tilting Concha's head back, I forced some of the brandy between her lips. She coughed and choked and opened her eyes. "Drink," I told her. The brandy would warm her stomach and get some life into her. She took a gulp and pushed the bottle away.

The tin of meat was warmed through. I scooped some out with my fingers and gave it to her. She eyed me suspiciously but accepted a mouthful. I took some myself. With brandy it wasn't too bad. We sc.r.a.ped out the tin between us and I started to feel better.

I poked around some more on the shelf and found a box of rusting tools. Among them was an old hacksaw blade. This was a stroke of luck.

I sat Concha down on the floor by the warming stove and put our linked hands on the bench. I fixed the blade into some pliers, gripped it tight, and set to work on the handcuff chain. I sawed in long steady strokes, trying to use the full length of the blade. It was difficult because the teeth kept slipping on the links at first, but after a while I got a groove started and it became a question of keeping at it.

The stove was getting hotter and I could feel warmth creeping slowly back into my limbs. After a while I broke off the sawing to put a couple of the drier-looking logs on to the fire. Concha's head was lolling stupidly. She was three-parts asleep. I took up the blade and returned to the sawing, running the makeshift saw back and forth like an automaton. I was beyond tiredness myself, functioning on my nerves, concentrating on the one task ahead of me.

Finally I cut through one side of the link, but the chain still held. I tried levering the link open with the pliers but couldn't get a proper grip. There was nothing for it but to set to work on the other side and cut through it completely.

It was discouraging but I stuck at it, stopping at intervals to build up the fire. I was about half-way through the second side of the link when the blade snapped.

f.u.c.k, I thought, even though I had been expecting it. With the pliers I took up one of the pieces and continued using that for a while. It was much less efficient because the stroke was shorter and the saw teeth were getting blunt with the hardness of the steel.

In the end I threw the blade down and used the pliers to give a couple of hard twists of the chain. The link broke with a snap and the chain parted. We were free at last. The cuffs were still round our wrists, but we were no longer fettered.

The glow from the stove illuminated the bed. What I had taken to be a heap of blankets proved to be a heavy covering made up of several sheep fleeces sewn together into a single mat. The wool was inches deep and incredibly soft. I opened it out to air in the warmth of the stove, then set to work to strip the wet clothing off Concha. She made no protest as I undressed her, rubbing her down to get the blood flowing. When I had her completely naked I carried her over to the bed and wrapped her in the fleece. It was an enormous cover, and she curled up inside it like a baby.

I located the major's automatic and dried it off. There was an oil rag on the table, probably left when the owner last cleaned his own gun. I wiped the pistol over and checked the magazine. It was a Spanish Star, a copy of the Colt M1911A1, which had served the US armed services well for half a century and was only now being replaced by the Beretta Model 92. The magazine held seven rounds of the thick 230-grain slugs whose stopping power made so many serving soldiers consider it the best weapon of its cla.s.s, capable of stopping a charging man dead in his tracks. Though a heavy gun with a violent kick, lacking in many of the safety features of more modern pistols, in the right hands it was unbeatable.

The hut was heating up nicely now, and our clothes were steaming on the bench where I had spread them out to catch the heat. I found some old newspaper and stuffed it in the boots to draw out the damp. The wind was still howling outside. With luck now it would keep up till dark, when we could creep out and try and find our way down to the railway and the RV. Four or five hours' rest in the warmth should restore our strength.

I was squatting on the floor with only an undershirt on. A draught was rushing in under the door, and it occurred to me that I would be a lot more comfortable on the bed. It was easily wide enough for two of us. Concha was as slight as a child, and there was enough of the sheepskin to cover both of us. I remembered something about hypothermia cases recovering faster when put in bed with someone. And animal heat made a good conductor.

"To h.e.l.l with it," I said to myself. I had carried her all this way. The least she could do was let me get warm. I climbed on to the bed and pulled the fleece over the pair of us. Concha gave a sleepy moan and snuggled up to me, wrapping her arms around my body for warmth.

The moment my head touched the wool I was conscious of a desperate urge to sleep. I had not shut my eyes for thirty hours. I had been continually in action since leaving the submarine. First there had been the trip in the boat, then the trek overland to keep the rendezvous with Seb. Together with Josh I had penetrated the base and made my way out again. Then had come the forced march out to the a.s.sembly point, the battle with the marines, capture and escape. The woman and I had swum the river and trudged through the snow to get here. All without respite and on virtually no food.

The stove was banked high. The wood would last several hours. The blizzard was set to continue till nightfall at the least. The chances of anyone stumbling on us were just about nonexistent. But just in case I put the gun under the fleece where I could keep a hold of it.

Concha was sleeping soundly, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. The colour had returned to her face, and her skin had lost its icy chill. The food and liquor was putting energy back into her system and the warmth was reviving her. All she needed now was rest. We both did.

I knew I had to stay alert to keep watch, but my eyes kept closing. Each time they did I would jerk awake, but a few seconds later they would feel heavy again. I was terrified that if I did fall asleep I'd miss the rendezvous or dawn would arrive and the smoke from our fire would be visible.

I woke with a guilty start. It was fully dark outside. s.h.i.t! I wondered how long I'd been asleep. The stove was almost out. I slipped from the bed and threw in a couple more logs. Judging by the wood we had consumed I had slept for about four hours, which put the time at around five pm. The wind had dropped but I couldn't tell whether it was still snowing. I felt stiff and bruised from the various falls I had taken, but warm and much stronger. I climbed carefully back under the fleece, trying not to wake Concha. Her face was turned toward me, framed by a tumble of dark hair. In the half-light she looked oddly innocent, younger and more peaceful. I thought how near I had come to cutting her throat up on the hangar roof last night. I hadn't known it was her then.

Her eyes snapped open suddenly and narrowed as they took in the sight of me beside her. She pulled down the edge of the fleece with her now freed hand and a look of shock came over her as she realised we were both naked. "Get away from me." She squirmed across the bed.

"Calm down, can't you? Our clothes are drying by the fire. Of course I had to get into bed with you. Did you think I was going to freeze to death?"

"You took off my clothes?"

"No, I just whistled and they undressed themselves. What was I supposed to do? Let you catch pneumonia? Anyway," I added, "I owed you that much for saving my life back on the river."

She snorted. "That! I had no choice. We were chained together. I would have left you to drown otherwise!"

I felt suddenly angry. "f.u.c.k you, girlie! You'd be lying dead out in the snow right now if I hadn't carried you to this place. Which makes the second time I've saved your skinny hide so a little grat.i.tude on your part wouldn't be out of place."

"And f.u.c.k you too, disgusting English soldier. I know why you brought me in here, took off my clothes. So you can rape me like that marine wanted. I know about English soldiers and how they raped our women during the war."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your soldiers came ash.o.r.e secretly and forced Argentinian girls for their pleasure. Everyone knows this."

I shook my head in amazement. "You're crazy," I told her. "We never even set eyes on an Argentine female, let alone raped one. It's just propaganda and lies."

She was silent for a moment. "Tell me," she said suddenly. "That day on the ship when you discovered me. I was your enemy. Your countrymen had died because of me. Yet you came back to set me free when the bombs fell. Why?"

I had puzzled over that question many times myself. "You were just a child."

"Old enough to be the cause of many deaths."

"What happened to you after the ship went down? How did you get ash.o.r.e?"

"I pulled my hood up and climbed aboard a boat. It was dark. When we reached the land I jumped out and ran ash.o.r.e. Later I was captured and taken on board one of the aircraft carriers."

"And then?"

She shrugged. "Interrogations. Questions. How did I get on board the Northland? Was I alone? What frequency did I transmit on?" She smiled sadly. "I was a student at Imperial College in London. A man from the Argentine Naval Attache's office in Vauxhall Bridge Road gave me the transmitter and asked me to smuggle it on board the fleet at Portsmouth. I never meant to stay with the ship but there were men everywhere and I could not get back to the land before it sailed."

"And so you made a hiding place down in the hold in one of the trucks."

"Yes, several places."

"And after the bombing of the ship? You escaped in a boat?"

"They took me for a man, one of the sailors." She gave a short laugh. "When we reached the sh.o.r.e I jumped out and tried to make my way to the front line but some soldiers caught me next morning."

So Jenny's story was right, I thought. "And what happened after they had interrogated you? Did they send you back with the prisoners?"

She nodded. "They sent me in a ship to Rio de Janeiro. The fighting was still going on. I was an embarra.s.sment; they wanted to be rid of me."

She wanted to know from me what I planned doing about the Globemasters on the airbase. "Will you try to warn the English in Port Stanley?"

"If I can," I told her. "They'll send up fighters to turn the planes back."

"And if the message does not get through?"

I looked at her. "Then a lot of men will get killed like last time."

She nodded sadly. "My brother and yours too. So many lives lost, and all for a few pieces of rock."

I stroked her dark hair gently. She didn't seem to object. Four hours' sleep had restored some of my strength and I was suddenly conscious of how very desirable she was, a strange mixture of beauty and pa.s.sionate anger. Lying naked beside her under the warm fleece was a severe test of my self-restraint.

I let my fingers slide down on to the soft skin of her neck. She sighed drowsily and stretched her back, her hip touching mine. I caressed her shoulder, skating over the upper slope of her chest. Her eyes were closed, her lips apart.

"Are you married?" I asked after a minute.

"For five years, to the son of a family friend a businessman who was proud to own a war heroine for a wife. When I told him I was now a pacifist and that the thought of all the sailors I had killed filled me with disgust, he called me a traitor and divorced me. And you?"

I shook my head. "I saw what it did to my brother's wife and kids when he was killed. I couldn't put a family of mine through that."

"But it does not stop you being a soldier and killing other women's husbands!" she snapped, brushing my hand away.

f.u.c.k her, I thought. It looked like my luck was out. She was a hard woman to figure one minute warm and s.e.xy, the next all spit and fury. "Get yourself dressed," I ordered. "It's time we were moving out."

She rolled over on her front. "We are no longer chained together. You can go by yourself I gave a grim laugh. "No way, lady."

"What are you planning now to kill more Argentinian soldiers? Isn't that what you are here for?"

"I'm here to stop a war, for f.u.c.k's sake. Now put your clothes on."

"No!" She twisted round suddenly, arched her shoulder and launched a straight-armed punch at my eye with all the strength in her wiry body behind it.

"Christ!" I yelled. That really stung. It was the first time in my life I'd been hit hard by a woman. "You b.i.t.c.h! I'll teach you how to behave!"

I grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her on to her front. She bucked and kicked, spitting at me like a wildcat and trying to bite my left hand. I ripped the fleece down, exposing her tail and gave her a smack on her taut backside that echoed round the hut like a gunshot. She shrieked and tried to kick me off the bed, but I flung my weight across her, pinning her down. She twisted under me like an eel, bringing up a knee into my groin, then she pulled herself away and drove both feet into my ribs with a strength that made me gasp.

I eased off, thinking maybe we had gone far enough, but she launched herself at me again in a flurry of kicks and scratching. It was like fighting with a wild animal; she was a whirlwind of teeth and heels and nails. She fought with a manic fury, stabbing at me with her elbows, slapping and biting. Somewhere along the line she had learned unarmed combat, because now she was attempting some vicious stabs to the eyes and windpipe. She whacked at me with the cuff on her wrist, using it as a weapon, and in my mind I was taken back aboard the Northland twenty years ago, the darkness of the truck. She was fighting now as she had fought then, gouging and punching accompanied by a stream of spits and curses in Spanish.

Finally I caught her hands, flung a leg over hers to block more kicking, and forced her back against the fleece. She gnawed at me with her sharp teeth till I managed to move my knee across her stomach and straddle her, holding her arms above her head. Even then she refused to give up and continued to struggle, snarling at me like a cornered dog. I gripped her left arm in mine. Her wrist was as slim as a child's; I could have snapped it like a stick.

"Enough!" I shouted.

She spat in my eye and arched her back, trying to throw me off. "I will not go with you! Vete so hito de lag ran puta."

With my free hand I slapped her a couple of times across the face, blows intended to bring her to her senses, and she spat at me again.

Her olive skin was shiny with sweat. Her pointed b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell as her chest heaved, the dark nipples fiercely erect. Her eyes were blazing, her teeth bared at me in hate. "Go on then!" she spat. "Rape me! Isn't that what soldiers do to women? Or are you just a mari conT And by G.o.d I was highly aroused at that moment. She was a woman, all pa.s.sion and heat, and I was still heady from the brandy I'd drunk. I could feel all the coiled strength of her body struggling underneath me, resisting and challenging me in the same breath.

"I'll show you what I can do!" And I flung myself down, crushing her mouth under mine.

She gasped and I felt her teeth grip my bottom lip. I let go her hands to grab her t.i.ts and her nails clawed my shoulders. Her body writhed under me. My skin was burning. I saw the muscles of her arms clenching, the veins standing out blue against the sweat-slicked flesh, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rising under my hands. I rubbed them fiercely and she shouted aloud in Spanish. She was biting at my shoulders and chest. I could feel her hipbones sawing at my lower body, her legs clamping round my waist, heels drumming on my back.

Next instant she straightened with a jerk and she was fighting me off again, kneeing and punching like a boy. Then I pushed her down and kissed her again, forcing my tongue between her lips. Her nails dug into my back like spurs.